I'd say I'm getting there. A couple of things in my life make me happy and make the struggle easier.

I feel as if I've had three lives already. I turn 30 this year and I had my daughter at 16. The maternal urge wasn't there right away, and I missed out on a few years because my life was changing - I wasn't a girl any more, I was playing catch-up and I saw how judgmental people were around me. There were no support groups back then, so I was quite lonely.

What makes me most unhappy these days is fighting with my daughter. I love her to bits, but I get paranoid that because I had her young, I didn't do things properly.

Since my teens I've been slowly building up a life. I knew my partner for three years before we got together. We'd talk about books at work. He was reading one about Che Guevara - a good sign - and we were both feeling deflated about the opposite sex. It might be a weird basis for friendship, but it worked - I realised I needed him in my life in some way. I would never introduce someone to my daughter if it wasn't serious, and so she didn't meet him for years.

Happiness is not a constant thing. Specific situations that make you happy create a good memory that you can call on again and again. People who try hard to make life constantly happy just end up failing. You can't live that way. It's contentment that's important. That's what I've found.