When I told my mum recently that the reason I had been so rebellious when I was a teenager was that I craved attention, she replied, "Who are you kidding? You were born rebellious!"
Perhaps I was. The first time I remember getting into trouble at school was when I was about seven. I went around telling all the kids that God didn't exist and when they defiantly replied, "Well, how were you born then?" I nonchalantly said, "My mum and dad had sex." I felt happy with my new-found knowledge but, apparently, the other seven-year-olds were not so comfortable that mummy and daddy had sex and that maybe there wasn't a God or even a Santa Claus after all. The teachers were even less impressed and excluded me from religious education classes. I was more than happy with that, as I got to write stories while the other kids learned how not to be a sinner.
My mother, by the way, happens to be the notorious Lynne Franks, otherwise known as "PR guru Lynne Franks". If you still can't quite picture her, the mention of Ab Fab should jog your memory. By the time I was born, mum had a successful PR business and dad was doing well as a fashion designer. I guess you could say that they were the ultimate young, trendy London couple of the 80s, with their home in Clapham, two kids and shitzu dog.
Mum became a practising Buddhist when I was about two, and initiated me into the faith by letting a man bang a scroll on my head while chanting Buddhist sutras. It all seemed pretty normal to me, but I got an inkling that being a Buddhist and having a room at home to pray in was not something my peers were used to - especially when they came over to my house and stared in awe at mum chanting and hitting her bell.
My childhood was unconventional in other ways. There was a constant stream of celebrities through the house. I remember, aged 11, fleecing Adrian Edmondson at poker. And when I was about 12, my mum called me downstairs to see Neneh Cherry smiling up at me. Mum used to drag me along to fashion shows, but when I (briefly) expressed an interest in becoming a model, she tried to put me off the idea, saying that it was "soul-destroying" and that most models lived off coffee, fags and amphetamines.
Then there were the New Age workshops. The first was when I was about 13: the whole family went to the Cascade mountains near Seattle to take part in a two-week Native American Vision Quest with Denise Linn (world famous New Age workshop leader). We did everything from sweat lodges and making drums to finding out who we had been in past lives. I loved it. On my return, I tried to teach my girlfriends my new-found enlightenment through meditation; they thought it was all a bit odd.
Meanwhile, I was struggling at school. The mixture of hating authority and reading too many Malory Towers books meant I was often labelled a problem child, and handed detentions, suspensions and eventually expulsions. When I was about 14, my parents separated, which I found particularly painful. This pushed me into being even wilder and, as they were no longer a united front, I seemed to get away with it. At a loss, they decided it would be best if I went to a boarding school that handed out random drug tests and where a closer eye could be kept on me.
Unfortunately, though, as a result of one those random drug tests I got kicked out of there after a year. I remember the journey home in the taxi after a dramatic and tearful departure from my peers. After agonising about my future, my mood lifted. I was free: I was going home, back to London, where I could stay up late, call my mates when I wanted, and once again have a life outside school. It wasn't so bad after all.
When I arrived home, my mum was pretty level-headed about the whole thing. I think she realised that school and I didn't go together; as she had left school herself at 16, she realised that it was probably best that I did the same and started to try and find a job. I was delighted. The following week, I found work at one of the first internet service providers, in its customer services department.
Unfortunately, it wasn't all as easy as I had imagined. I was having to be responsible for my life. I found it difficult. I promised myself that, even though I wasn't choosing to take the conventional path, I would treat life as my own university, reading books, doing courses, travelling and trying out different jobs. So, after six months, I left the internet job and embarked on a series of further "career options". To list a few: journalism, publicity for a magazine, PA, hostessing in a Soho nightclub, cold calling...You might say I was a bit lost. After spending a year in Australia dealing with the aftermath of a second abortion and drinking too much, I decided to come home and get my act together. My first abortion was four years earlier (when I was 16). I found out the day I broke up with my boyfriend and had to go through it pretty much on my own.
Then, just as I turned 20 and a fortnight after getting back from Australia, I met a lovely man. My life radically changed: I stopped spending every night getting drunk and gradually started liking myself. I decided to study psychosynthesis psychotherapy and train to work with young people with behavioural problems. And I threw in a massage course for good measure. Four years later, we are still together.
Mum was happy that I was in this new relationship, but was slightly sceptical about me starting therapy. She seemed worried that I would start blaming her for everything. I didn't blame her, but I did experience feelings of hurt and anger about the fact that she hadn't been around much when I was a child.
In the course of this, I found a letter I had written to myself when I was 13, which said, "When I am older, I am going to be a child psychologist and an author." Everything started slotting into place: I wanted to help teenagers with all the stuff I'd been through - abortions, drug abuse, parental divorce and being in trouble at school. Being a teenager is one of the most challenging times of our lives and yet we are given so little support and insight into what we are going through. The decisions we make at this age lay the foundations for the kind of people we will be.
It can be difficult for mothers and daughters to communicate around this time; my mother and I certainly had our fair share of fights. Nowadays, though, these are kept to a minimum. We are more like sisters - going dancing, sharing the same friends and getting up to mischief together. Only, this time round, I'm not getting told off for it.
· To order a copy of Sisters Unlimited by Jessica Howie, for £10.99 plus p&p (rrp £12.99), call the Guardian book service on 0870 066 7979. Published by Vermilion. For information on Sisters Unlimited workshops call 020-8450 2996 or see www.sistersunlimited.com
