As an adult and a survivor I know now that child sexual abuse is often not about the sex itself but about control or dominance, or some other sick mind game. Back then, I couldn't have expressed it like this - but I did start to understand that it wasn't enough just for my abusers to get their sexual gratification: they had to hurt me mentally and physically as well.

It was that thing about hope again - it is always more cruel to raise hope and then dash it than never to have raised it at all.

• whatever a woman's good intentions - bad and manipulative men would always find a way to get what they wanted. And in her experience what they wanted usually revolved around sex and money.

Every addict - whatever their drug of choice - will tell you they've fallen off the wagon at least once during their recovery period. Sometimes they - we - fall off more than once and it takes a great deal of willpower to climb back on again, a great deal of willpower or a catastrophic reminder of why we had to stop in the first place.