Outside Looking In

As the reader on the outside, looking in, you are taken on a very personal and painful journey through the eyes of the author; Audrey Clark, as a seven-year-old child helpless at the hands of a tyrannical father, is systematically abused.

“They say when you experience a traumatic experience your mind blocks it out for your protection and to a degree that’s true, but it didn’t quite block it out enough for me when one afternoon aged just seven that protection theory was put to the test.”

Forced to keep it a secret, she learns to suppress her emotions until they spill over into her day-to-day life, resulting in anger and outbursts against those she loves most. She loses her daughter and the man that she loved.

“At that point in my life I believed I was nothing more than a liability to those I loved. I had got used to bottling everything up. It was easier than alarming people.”

She pushes away anyone who tries to get close. Her whirligig of emotions results in many a love lost. Despite the trauma, a career in entertainment and a difficult friendship with a celebrity follows. That friendship takes many twists and turns, but none more so than when she discovers he is dying, which takes her close to the edge of death.

“How many of us say there is a book within us? I not only had a book in me, I had a number of painful, emotional ghosts I needed to exorcise. The process of penning a book was a cathartic one for me, but was also a way of opening the door to others to enable them to speak out. Writing this book has given me a sense of calm that I didn’t have before. I want Outside Looking In to give a voice to others and to enable readers to be brave enough to speak out. It’s okay to tell another person what happened to you, no matter what your age. As soon as you begin to disclose, your load begins to lighten,” says Audrey Clark, who hopes her book will help people who have faced similar life experiences.