**Diary Entry – 10th June**
She wouldn’t stop. “Oliver, let me in! I’m your mother! You *have* to give me the money, or they won’t take me back!” Her voice was shrill, relentless. “You owe me this!”
I leaned against the door, eyes shut. No. I wouldn’t open it. My entire childhood had been branded by that label—*different*, *wrong*. I walked to my bedroom, flopped onto the bed, and blasted music through my headphones.
My earliest memories are hazy. There was a birthday once—my fifth, maybe. A remote-controlled car, a cake, nursery friends. Dad was still around then.
Then those people from the *fellowship* moved in, and the celebrations stopped.
Mum fell under their influence fast. Dad left, signed the divorce papers, and agreed to pay child support. But that money never clothed or fed me. To me, the fellowship was always like an octopus—harmless-looking until its tentacles had you trapped.
No more birthdays after that. Not for ten years. The fellowship didn’t believe in them.
There were *special days*, though—times when we’d eat something nice. The rest of the time, Mum and I knocked on doors, preaching. She sold our flat with the fellowship’s lawyers. I was left with nothing—just a name on some rundown council house register in a distant village.
The money? Gone. To the *community*.
School was worse. We lived in shared rooms with other women and their kids, dressed in charity hand-me-downs, preaching endlessly. I was bullied, fought back, and got punished twice—once by the kids, once by the fellowship, for torn clothes and “lazy preaching.”
By sixteen, I’d had enough. I ran—a thousand miles to London. College, odd jobs, university. Now I’m a software engineer, my own flat.
But the fear caught up. They found me. *She* found me.
A week ago, she ambushed me after work. “Oliver! I’ve waited *hours*!”
“Why?”
“I’m your *mother*! Can’t I visit?”
I bought her a meal. Sat on a bench in Hyde Park. “Left the fellowship, then?”
“Not… entirely. They said I wasn’t useful anymore. So I came to you.”
I sighed. “Where are you staying?”
“Nowhere. The stairs’ll do.”
Stupidly, I let her in. For days, I almost believed she’d changed. She cooked, asked about my life. I talked—too much.
Then the money vanished. My savings, a project bonus—gone. She swanned back with her *friends*, grinning.
“Oliver, darling! Your money’s done *such* good! You should be *proud*! Come back to us—be *saved*!”
“That was *my* life’s work, Mum. Return it, or I’ll report theft.”
Her smile turned icy. “Who’d believe *you*?”
I threw them out. Changed the locks. Listened to her screams fade.
The next morning, she was outside with two men. “Look at him! My own son, leaving me *homeless*!”
I walked past. She followed. “Make the *donation*, Oliver. Or we’ll ruin you.”
I threatened the police. They left.
Then work called me in. My boss frowned. “Oliver… we’ve had *calls*. Clients refusing to work with you. Take a break—find another job.”
I quit.
The calls started then. “Like the *demo*? We can do worse.”
Leaflets appeared overnight—lies, my face plastered on them. A neighbour sneered, “Never took you for *that* sort.”
Another call: “Pay, or we’ll destroy you.”
I booked a flight to Edinburgh. The flat can wait.
I’m tired. But I won’t be their victim again.
**Lesson:** Some chains aren’t physical. The hardest ones to break are the ones you *let* them put on you.
