Author(s): Sandie Jessamine

Queensland History

In 1974, fifteen-year-old Sandie escaped from the infamous girls home, Kamballa, formerly known as Parramatta Girls Home. On the outside she soon discovered that police and justice are not the same. Forty years later, during a heartbreaking family crisis, Sandie experienced a dissociative mental breakdown inside a men's protection prison where she worked as a teacher. She was helpless while other unknown parts of her personality took over. Finding herself unemployed, Sandie embarked on the difficult quest to find healing by reclaiming the other selves buried deep within her. Girls who were still trapped in the horrors of her troubled and abusive childhood. As part of her recovery Sandie visited the derelict buildings that had once been Kamballa. Those buildings were the gateway between herself and childhood. To find the lost girls within her and bring them home, she knew had to cross that threshold and let them finally tell their stories. The voices of a troubled child, a rebel teenager, and a hellion on wheels join forces in a raw, gritty and ultimately compelling memoir that shines a light on the complexities of mental illness, the injustices and horror of juvenile incarceration and, above all, the determination and strength of character to overcome them both. It is unforgettable.