Author Anna Kahill on how Not the Perfect Victim was ‘a book that was never meant to happen . . .’
I never set out to write a memoir. In fact, I spent years avoiding the truth of my own story. I didn’t consider myself a writer, certainly not an author. But in the slow, painful work of healing, words found me, and eventually, I began to find myself through them.
Not the Perfect Victim was a book that was never meant to happen—just like sexualised violence should never happen. I didn’t wake up one day and decide, today is the day I’ll be raped, just like I didn’t wake up and think, today is the day I’ll write a book. Shit happens. But good things happen too.
Unlike rape, writing is something I’ve chosen. It has been a form of therapy: cathartic, messy, necessary. Putting words and expressions on a page— words I couldn’t say or still struggle to say out loud—has had a profound impact on my healing. The kind of impact that creates movement, not destruction. Unlike rape, which left a lasting traumatic imprint.
My childhood had its own set of challenges, ones I’m only just beginning to understand through the lens of my late autism diagnosis. But the real breaking point came after my mum’s short and brutal illness. She died of pancreatic cancer, and her death was the final straw. The masks I had worn for decades, crafted so carefully to fit into a world that never really fit me, started to crumble. I had nothing left. I couldn’t hold it together anymore. The only thing keeping me alive was the quiet, stubborn love I had for my small child, just four years old at the time. That cold, broken hallelujah of motherhood. That was it. That was my reason.
I sat in front of my therapist for the first time in September 2021, with no idea where it would lead. I thought I was there to deal with grief, the complex grief of losing my mother. But the space that therapy created held far more than just grief. My PTSD symptoms were recognised early on, which opened the door to other conversations—conversations that stretched far beyond my mother’s death. And before I knew it, I had spoken about that night. Yes, that night: the one that changed everything, and one of the most pivotal points of my life.
Over the weeks and months that followed, I began to say the word: rape. It had happened when I was just 19, in my first year of university studying pharmacy. Naming it was the beginning. That’s when the real story began to unfold.
Therapy prompted the unravelling, but the real work happened between sessions. I would reflect for hours, dig deep, go quiet, and then suddenly find myself pulled toward my laptop. I started writing down scraps—thoughts, memories, buried things that had clawed their way to the surface. Words poured out of me. Dark, tangled, honest words. I didn’t write for structure. I wrote to survive.
I’m a mother and a wife, and sometimes I’d be halfway through a normal task, such as loading the dishwasher, when a memory would ambush me. I’d drop what I was doing and run to the laptop, needing to get it out before it slipped away. Sometimes I’d bring what I had written to therapy. Other times, I’d forget all about it.
Writing a Book
One day, I randomly read a piece of my writing aloud to my husband while he was—irritatingly—rearranging the dishwasher. He stopped. He really listened. When I finished, he said something like, “That sounds like it could be part of a book.” I shrugged it off. He’s not a native English speaker, and I figured anything I wrote probably sounds decent to him.
But then, sometime later, I read another extract aloud to my sister and her husband, both native English speakers. My brother-in-law looked up and asked, “What book is that from?” That was the first moment I considered the possibility: maybe I was already writing a book.
That evening, I sat down and looked through everything I had written. There it was: a book, sitting in messy, scattered chapters across random folders, unsaved drafts, recovered files, and cluttered desktops. But it was real. Disjointed, yes. But mine.
So I started pulling the pieces together, weaving them into one document. And the rest, as they say, is history. The book that was never supposed to be written had taken shape. I didn’t choose the story that shaped me, but now I choose to tell it. And while I still struggle to believe I’m actually the author of a book, I can now acknowledge that I am the author of my life.
Writing this book wasn’t just an act of remembering. It was an act of reclaiming. For anyone reading this who feels silenced by shame, trauma, or fear: your story matters. Whether or not it becomes a book, putting it into words can be a beginning.
(c) Anna Kahill
If you’d like to follow the journey of Not the Perfect Victim, you can find me on Instagram at @nottheperfectvictim or visit www.nottheperfectvictim.com.
About Not the Perfect Victim by Anna Kahill:
A Memoir of Surviving Sexual Violence, a Late Autism Diagnosis, and the Fight for Justice.
What if everything you believed about survival was wrong? In this unflinching memoir, a neurodivergent mother confronts the silence that followed rape, the misdiagnoses that masked trauma, and the justice system built to ignore her. From Northern Ireland to the Swiss Alps, she pieces together a life shattered by others and reclaims her truth, one brutal, beautiful step at a time.
From a small city in Northern Ireland to the streets of Italy and the Swiss Alps, Not the Perfect Victim follows Anna Kahill’s powerful journey through trauma, silence, and healing. After surviving rape in early adulthood, Anna lived for years with undiagnosed complex PTSD, mistaken for anxiety and personal failings.
When her mother’s cancer diagnosis pushed her to seek help, it triggered a series of life-changing revelations: reporting the rape, confronting a failing justice system, and discovering she is autistic. This memoir is a raw and honest story of survival, truth, and reclaiming power.Told with unflinching honesty, this trauma memoir brings readers inside the therapy room to witness collapse, resilience, and the quiet revolutions that shape healing.
Order your copy online here.
And see here for more Writing.ie articles on writing memoir.
