From quite early on, I had this idea of compartmentalized identities — ‘this is how you are when you are with your mum, and this is how you are when you are with your dad’ — so it seemed like I could never absolutely be myself. And the image of myself as compromised and inconsistent made me want to withdraw from the world even further. I had a sense of formulating a paper-mache version of myself to send out in the world, while I sat controlling it remotely from some smug suburban barracks.