Helene Pascal-Thomas is the author of The Price of Silence, her new memoir that has been featured in the Daily Mail and Press Association. Available to buy online and in all good bookshops in paperback and ebook.
Helene is a teacher, counsellor, author and campaigner for the protection of children around the world. Her campaign, The Promise, is detailed on her website: https://www.helenepascal-thomas.co.uk/.
Brought up with her sister in a small provincial town in post-war France, Helene returned to Bordeaux where she was born to study Literature and Journalism at University. After working as a journalist in Paris, she came to live in London, married a talented artist and started a long career as a teacher, later re-training as a counsellor. She has one daughter and two grand-children.
“Bringing up my daughter was the great joy in my life, as I re-invented motherhood and could at last watch the blossoming of a joyful child. My attempts to find love and build a family with a man, however, were unsuccessful and caused me great distress. I wrote a lot during this time and found great pleasure in friends, gardening, art, the theatre, films and my love of cats.”
Making sense of her own life – and that of her sister – became vital to Helene, as traumatic events took place in early childhood that were cloaked in silence and complicity, and further warped by lies, forcing them both to live abroad to get away from our parents.
Restlessly retracing her steps seemed an uphill task, but finally discovering, understanding and accepting the terrible truth was a necessary outcome that allowed Helene to heal. It took her the best part of twenty years to write her second book, The Price of Silence, painful as it was, since it tells her story. It finds its conclusion in her proposal to reset society from the point of view of the child: THE PROMISE: https://www.helenepascal-thomas.co.uk/the-promise/
What I would say to my younger self…
Know that feeling alone in the world is the beginning of your awareness of your story: you have begun to make your way through what feels like chaos: Seek the comfort of your friends and their kindness.
Know that reading about people’s lives and writing about your own feelings is the key to forming the intelligence that will lead to your truth. However long the journey, your strength, unknown to you, will take you there.
However great your need, do not rush into what easy love is offered as you are still in the infancy of your growth. Trust in life’s process which is about overcoming and never stop searching and fighting, as you will eventually grow and thrive.