It was a warm summer day, and I had nothing better to do than to stare out of the window. My mother came from behind me and said, "Go ahead; Jump out of the window. If you believe in yourself enough, you can fly." I was only five years old, but at that moment I realized that there was something seriously wrong with my mother. If it hadn't have been for the railing on the side of the window, and my twin sister Nora entering the room at precisely the right moment, I might have died that day. From that day forward, my sister became my protector, and it became a hazard to live with my mother.

The window incident was just a start. There were so many ways that my childhood and my mother were forever changed. My parents were divorced, and since my sister and I...