“I’ve written a list,” my mother said as our session began in her therapist’s San Francisco office. “It’s called ‘the 40 most unforgivable things I’ve ever done to my daughters.’”

Fog flowed above the skylights as she fidgeted in her seat, twirling her blue chiffon scarf. I cringed. I hated the idea of therapy, but Mom loved it. She’d convinced me to go, even though I protested, telling her, “I don’t need any apologies.”

At 30, I was still frozen in fright as if I were 7 years old and hiding under my bed because I feared my next beating.

I sat opposite my mom while she smoothed her light powder pink matching skirt and jacket so no wrinkles would show, as if that would somehow help in ironing out our own.

My parents, who were Russian Jewish second cousins, met at a bar mitzvah and married at 19. Mom was 20 when I was born. She got addicted to speed trying to lose the baby weight and used barbiturates to sleep. When I was 7, my parents divorced. My father moved to Mexico while my mom, sister and I remained in New York City.

Mom had been seeing her psychoanalyst weekly for decades to process her pain of having been an abuser for the first 13 years of my life. Focused only on becoming a college professor and starting my own family, I’d spent those same decades pretending I wasn’t damaged in any way. Denial protected me and I had never seen a mental health specialist.

Twenty years after she got sober, she set up this time to formally ask for forgiveness. Until then, we’d often gotten together and had perfectly pleasant times by never talking about the past.

My lower back ached as I settled into the stiff beige leather chair, wishing I wasn’t there.

“Today’s session is for your mom,” the therapist, Terry, said. “She wants to tell you how sorry she is about the abuse that took place when you were young. She’s been plagued with guilt.”

I looked over at my 50-year-old mother, whose hazel green eyes I had inherited along with her petite frame and dimples. I also have the same thick wavy brown hair, and perhaps the propensity to fidget, since I couldn’t stop nervously twisting a strand as she spoke that day. In every other way, though, I felt nothing like her.

“The fact that your mom is about to apologise for specific acts of violence and neglect in no way excuses her past behaviour,” Terry said.

I sat motionless and muted, staring at Mom. I knew what she was going to say and I didn’t want to hear it.

“When Leslie was 5, I repeatedly closed her in the garbage room and told her I didn’t want her anymore,” Mom read aloud. “Each time she tried to come out, I slammed the door shut and told her she was being thrown away.”

I quivered as if she were still locking me in that rubbish room in our swanky Manhattan apartment building. I shrank back to being tiny and helpless.

Mom continued, “I know I can’t undo the past. I feel so much pain, I don’t want to die without saying how sorry I am for everything on my list.”

She read aloud from her categorised maltreatments, among them: strangling me, pulling my sisters and I around the apartment by our hair, hitting us at midnight when her speed kicked in, forcing us to clean at 2 a.m., telling us repeatedly she wished we were dead and had never had been born, regretting the drug dealers she brought home, and holding primal scream groups at the house where we had to hear adults yell obscenities several nights a week.

Mom made it only partially through her list before I could barely stand it. My mouth was ajar and my breathing jagged, as if gasping for air in a room that had been lit on fire.

Ribbons of red streaked across the skyline as the sun set. The session ended with an eerie silence. Still pulled by a primal force to please her, I finally spoke.

“Mom, I forgive you.”

I had not gotten over any of it —I’d just gotten good at saying I had. Mom’s description of each act she regretted reminded me of everything I tried to ignore. It was both re-traumatising and validating to hear her voice these truths in the presence of her analyst. Though I remembered it all, hearing her recount the details woke me up to my deep and unprocessed pain.

Mom’s face went pale and her limbs went limp. Perspiration surrounded her hairline as she tilted her head down and said softly, “I can’t believe how mercilessly I hurt my own babies.”

A late lunch at the Thai restaurant directly below her therapist’s office had always been the plan, but after the session I had no appetite. The scent of lemongrass and garlic wafted around the room, but did nothing to return me to my senses.

Mom must have known. Before I scanned the menu, she said, “I don’t know how you can sit near me after hearing all that. You must think I’m a monster. How can you even stand to look at me?”

I tried again to casually dismiss her anxiety.

“Oh, of course I can look at you and have lunch with you because I love you,” I said. “That was all so long ago. We can move on now.”

There were multicoloured Christmas lights and twinkling mini-Buddhas surrounding our booth, but I felt anything but festive. As a child who was abused, I always craved my mother’s love and professed my own for her often in hopes of getting more. Over the years that followed, I learned my behavior was typical for kids who went through what I did.

The menu blurred as I blinked back tears. I knew I was lying to myself and I wasn’t ready to move on. I still harboured unresolved resentment and anger toward my mom. Faking feelings was my jam, though, so I blurted out, “What great flavors!” after my first bite of pad Thai, even though I didn’t taste anything except bitterness.

Though I was upset, I realised that Mom’s bravery to say how sorry she was for each of her specific offences enabled me to understand that I would need to begin my own therapy at some point, but I wasn’t ready yet. My fierce focus on forgetting my past continued for years.

No one close to me could understand why I still had a relationship with my mom after the abuse ended.

Therapy, which I finally did begin 10 years after that session, and Buddhism helped to create loving emotional connections for us. We began practicing Buddhism when I was in the seventh grade. My mother had planned to kill herself, but instead tried an ancient meditation chant, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, based on Mahayana Buddhist teachings. She dared me to try it with her for 100 days as one last attempt at happiness. I tried it, initially to prove her wrong, but as we chanted day after day, I felt hope and noticed mom becoming kinder.

Within that year, she stopped using drugs and hitting us. This motivated me to stay connected to her. The Sanskrit word myo means to revive. Through the visceral vibration of chanting with her daily, I started sensing maternal love from Mom. Her actions to transform our destiny started with our shared spiritual journey when I was a teenager, enabling me to enjoy time with her even though the trauma of the unspeakable things she did was still locked in my cells. Before I finished that school year, she began seeing her therapist.

I was 32 when I received her formal apology. It became a positive pivot in our relationship, but I still couldn’t entirely move forward. Eight years later, I became so sick, I ended up on the floor in a faetal position unable to walk my kids to school. I was diagnosed with severe, chronic, ulcerative colitis — an autoimmune disease.

A Reiki practitioner I started seeing at the time asked me, “Did you ever experience any trauma?” I laughed nervously and said, “My mom used to smack, hit, and yell at me most days for over a decade, but that was so long ago, that can’t be why I’m sick.”

She looked at me and said, “That’s exactly why you’re sick.”

That’s when I finally started therapy and began to understand why it had been so life-changing for my mom.

Our braided spiritual journey and her atonement initiated the reconciliation of our family, but I had a lot of work to do if I truly wanted to heal. While we never had a second therapeutic hour together, I continued the work Mom set in motion on my own.

My mother passed away from diabetes 10 years after I began processing my terrifying childhood. She was only 69.

I find comfort in having been able to experience joy with her during her lifetime, which is something I once never thought would be possible.

On her deathbed, she looked up at me and said, “How can you truly love me?”

Unlike the lie I’d told in the Thai restaurant years earlier, this time I meant it when I told her, “Mom, I do love you. You can let go and go to your next life. I will be OK.”

After her death, I found nine of her diaries while clearing out her office. She recounted the abusive years in each journal. I learned she was consumed by self-hatred for her entire life — that’s why she thought suicide was her only way out when I was in middle school.

I also found the original atonement list in one of her notebooks. It spanned 10 pages. I discovered that her therapist had encouraged her to create that formal session to make amends.

Reading her words line by line, I was overwhelmed not only by her regret for hurting me, but also by how she desperately wanted my happiness.

Mom halted generational trauma in its tracks by changing her behavior, which led to my ability to break the cycle. She continues to propel my healing even after her death. My daughters marvel at the transformation from one generation to another, and on more than one occasion, they have told me they’re proud of me for changing our family patterns.

I continue practicing the Buddhism my mother and I began when I was 13. I still go to therapy to process my painful past. But now, instead of only her wrath, I feel my mother’s courage to transform her life and repent. Remembering the words she said to me so long ago helps me heal as I continue to hear her apology in my head. I forgive her again and again. She showed me how darkness can turn into light. What greater love is there than that?

Leslie Mancillas is a writing professor in California working on her memoir about surviving childhood abuse, My Bipolar Mom Almost Killed Me: How A 100-Day Bet Saved Us. Follow her on Instagram @lesliemancillas.author. You can learn more about her at www.lesliemancillas.com.

This piece was previously published on HuffPost and is being shared again now as part of HuffPost Personal’s “Best Of” series.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.

• Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
• Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
• CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
• The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
• Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org.

Every year, on the first Monday in May, the world’s most famous people gather under one roof, dressed in their finest, for the Met Gala.

This means that on the first Tuesday in May, those of us here in the UK spend our mornings scrolling through social media, judging the A-list guests’ red carpet looks (usually while still in our pyjamas).

Well, folks, that fateful day is almost upon us.

So, to prepare for this year’s event – co-chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams, with the dress code “costume art” (in honour of the Met’s upcoming exhibit Fashion Is Art) – we’ve rounded up some of the best, most glamorous or, indeed, most outrageous looks in Met Gala history.

Expect repeat appearances from Met Gala staples like Rihanna, Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Kardashian, Madonna and Doja Cat (many of whom we’re expecting big things from at Monday’s gathering.

Reform UK has been slammed after it revealed a new policy to put migrant detention facilities in constituencies and councils not controlled by its own representatives.

Days out from the local elections in England, and devolved elections in Wales and Scotland, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf declared that a Reform government would “deport all illegal migrants in Britain”.

While waiting to be deported, the migrants would be housed in detention centres for a “couple of weeks”.

Yusuf claimed: “A Reform government will not put any migrant detention facilities in any constituency with a Reform MP.

“Nor will we put them where Reform controls the council.

“And of the remaining areas, we will prioritise Green controlled parliamentary constituencies and Green controlled councils to locate the detention centres.”

Yusuf said this meant if Reform representatives were voted in, they would “guarantee you won’t have a detention centre near you” – but, “if you vote Green, there’s a good chance you will.”

Reform called this “an important exercise in democratic consent”.

The senior Reform figure added: “Given Zack Polanski openly advocates for open borders, we look forward to their warm embrace of this policy.”

Deputy Green leader Mothin Ali said: “Reform keep making abhorrent announcements to distract voters from they fact they want to privatise the NHS.”

A Green Party source told HuffPost UK: “The shine is coming off Nigel Farage, his own voters are starting to see him for the establishment stooge he is.”

Green leader Zack Polanski wrote on X: “Reform took a £5m donation and they’re trying to distract you.”

Reform’s announcement comes after party leader Nigel Farage was heavily criticised for pulling out the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg last minute.

The party claimed Farage was campaigning in his constituency in Clacton.

However, his critics suggested he was evading scrutiny after the Guardian reported that he had received a £5 million donation from a crypto billionaire shortly before he decided to run to be an MP in 2024.

The Conservatives also criticised the new migrant policy, as leader Kemi Badenoch retweeted a post from former cabinet minister Simon Clarke which called the policy an “appalling waste of public money”.

Clarke noted that these detention centres would likely be set up in other areas where the public have not voted for Reform – including Conservative seats.

He said: “Zia is proposing the siting of detention centres expressly as a form of political punishment for people and places that don’t vote Reform – not just Green, but presumably Conservative, Liberal and Labour too. (And what about Reform voters in those constituencies?)

“It would almost certainly be deemed an abuse of ministerial power for political purposes, and as such would likely be stuck down in court before ever being implemented, wasting millions for the taxpayer without detaining anyone.

“If it were to go ahead, it would still represent an appalling waste of public money as these sites might well not be in any way suitable for the proposed centres, or near the other infrastructure required.

“What’s worse is that he is doing all this to provoke outrage and draw attention to Reform a few days out from the local elections.

“Reform know what they are doing.

“But this goes beyond a pre-election stunt. It’s declared as a major policy commitment, and should be treated as such.”

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

It’s my first day of training at Disney World Orlando, and I am learning how to be Pooh, a big yellow bear who is constantly reminded by guests that he’s not wearing pants. I’ve almost perfected the walk, but these boxy feet are giving me shin splints.

Soon I’ve successfully mastered talking, signing and acting like every character in my height range. If I can prove myself as a fur performer, they’ll upgrade me to a face character, transitioning me from cartoon animal costumes to talking human icons. I have my fingers crossed, because it’s autumn, and despite the cool breeze coming in through my mouth, sticky sweat is pouring out of everywhere else. It’s so hot that the pregnant Donald Duck standing across from me just passed out, and I am not far behind. Welcome to the most magical place on Earth!

Though I grew up on Disney films, I never imagined myself working for the Mouse. When I was 7, my grandmother made me chop my hair into a bowl cut before she would take me to Disney World. I spent the entire day crying and now I can’t clearly recall a single thing that happened while we were there.

When I was 13, my grandparents enrolled me in vocal lessons with a woman I would later consider a second mother. During our 12 years together, her daughter became a professional singer and started working at Disney as a stage performer before moving on to Broadway and producing her own albums. When it was suggested that I follow in her footsteps, I leapt at the opportunity to move away from home.

A few weeks after my 20th birthday, I sat in an audition hall alongside hundreds of other hopefuls. I was so nervous that I bombed my performance, but I was encouraged to apply as a face character and to return for stage roles when I was ready. I came back eager for a second chance and spent the day getting measured, learning parade dances, showcasing my miming abilities, and delivering the film lines of characters I resembled. While my dance skills weren’t remarkable, I did land the roles of Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Fawn, a fairy from the beloved Tinker Bell franchise, thereby securing myself a ticket to unforgettable experiences.

I quickly discover that at Disney World, pixie dust is real, except some Tinkerbells take it up the nose instead of sprinkling it on little kids, and one of the guys who plays Prince Charming is rumoured to be on a quest to sleep with a girl from every continent. Thanks to Epcot, he’s more than halfway there. I doubt Walt ever envisioned his creation turning into a buffet for brash men. Meanwhile, the Princess dressing room is abuzz with a rumour that a guy who plays one of the park’s most infamous pirates is giving out golden showers without consent on his days off. I also heard that an employee got fired for getting caught in the bathroom with Mickey’s glove. I shudder to think of how many thousands of germ-ridden hands touched it before it got up close and personal with her mini mouse.

During my first few months working at Disney, I thrive on fast-food meals, a fake celebrity status and late-night outings. I’m staying in a bougie townhouse just outside of Celebration, Florida (a suburb of Orlando that was originally created by the Walt Disney Company), with two other employees for $350 a month each. I move through several parks each week, so the break rooms are always filled with new faces. For now, my closest friends are the photographers and cast assistants who accompany me.

When winter arrives, I finally step into the role of a face character. I discover how to apply fake lashes, glitter and custom wigs. I’m told that my head is two inches smaller than average, that I need Mellow Yellow to cover my hickey, and that tanning is no longer an option. The Cinderella beside me is reprimanded for gaining weight and Ariel is with management to discuss ageing out.

On my first day as Belle, I feel like a yellow cake topper trapped in a 40-pound ballgown that, despite being laundered hundreds of times, still smells like musk. As the doors to the Princess Room open, my fellow castmates and I are greeted with literal “oohs” and “ahhs.” I wasn’t prepared to do a thousand squats today, nor was I ready for the oblivious mother who plops her baby onto my lap despite the full diaper leaking brown sludge from the sides, who then insists on taking photo after photo. And I am certainly not ready for the father who leans in and asks if I’m into bestiality.

The Underground is a network of tunnels that serves as a shortcut to anywhere in the park. Performers use it prevent guests from seeing duplicate characters roaming the parks, which would most certainly destroy the illusion that the company is working so hard to keep intact. Because of the sour-smelling sewage running through the pipes overhead, I’m forced to play a perennial game of “dodge the drips”. Disney also offers a cafeteria with various chain restaurants, an onsite gas station, firehouse and medical clinic.

To help preserve the magic of Disney, it is said no one has ever been declared dead on park property, but I’ve heard several people have been decapitated. Tell me how that one works. It’s difficult to know what’s real and what’s not in a world of make believe but I’ve heard plenty more gruesome things have happened in the park. I was told a Tigger was literally run over during a parade and someone else claimed that a Lion King monkey snapped his neck attempting a forward roll in rehearsal. There’s a rumour that Space Mountain has claimed more than its fair share of riders. I don’t know if that’s true, but Splash Mountain was once shut down because a guest thought it would be a good idea to hop out of his boat in the middle of the ride. Long story short: the logs kept moving and the unsuspecting man was crushed as he tried to cross the human-made river.

By spring, I’ve been moved to the sunrise shift. This means that I’m part of the backstage tours, a chance for guests who have paid an obscene amount of money to become disenchanted. They pass by my dressing room, and I’ve never felt more like a zoo animal. No one asks me questions — maybe they’ve been told not to interact with us — and instead I hear:

“I had no idea she looked like that in real life.”

“Take a picture of those shoes. Oh, right, no cameras allowed. Sorry.”

“Wow, how much do you think those dresses cost to make?”

“Someone needs some coffee.”

For the next year and a half, the luster continues to fade. I wake up, drag myself out of bed, park in the cast lot, ride the bus behind the gates, run down the tunnel, clock in late, get another warning, grab my costume, do my makeup, walk to my assigned area, listen to hype music while awaiting start time, then walk onto set feeling like a baddie.

Smile. Squat down for kids. Pictures. Squat. Squat. Squat. Smile. See 200 guests per set. Clear the room. Sigh as all smiles flatline. Walk off set. Change into break-room attire. Watch Disney films on the couch. Eat Subway. Nap. Fix makeup. Redress. Repeat four times, with each interval lasting 45 to 85 minutes.

I am allowed to go into the parks during my breaks to watch parades, get ice cream, ride coasters, or shop the gift stores, but I never feel the desire to abandon my bubble, not even when auditions for Disney Tokyo and Paris are announced. This is a job, after all. When work is done, I leave, pick up hibachi, and look forward to being home in my pyjamas.

Still, I make lifelong friends, and we take Disney cruises together, and dance our way through confetti and vodka in Florida clubs where our glitter-covered faces seem right at home.

One day at the end of my second year, I’m playing Fawn, a rough-and-tumble tomboy fairy who can talk to animals. I climb plastic trees that overlook painted sunsets until I reach popcorn ceilings, which seem to stare back at me and say, “Grow up.” But here, in Neverland, I don’t have to.

We have a meet-and-greet with a Make-A-Wish child within the first hour. After being dressed up by Fairy Godmothers, she’s wheeled in, and we surround her with gentle coos. They shut off the timer hidden in the upper right-hand corner of the room. It usually serves as a strict guest counter to make sure we hit our numbers. For now, however, it’s dark.

We take our time asking her questions about her interests and dreams. We compliment her sparkling shoes and the Mickey ears perched atop her radiation scars until it’s time to say goodbye. She’s on her way to the real Neverland, so we huddle together as our wings tremble with the emotions we’ve been holding back.

We typically meet with over 1,000 people per day. We are not told to hug children for as long as they want because we have a line to get through and quotas to meet. So we cherish moments like this, when time slows down and we are reminded of why we are here. It is our duty and honor to bring magic into the lives of both children and adults.

Some days, it is easy to shrug off or make light of this mission. On other days, an encounter with someone like this little girl settles like wet concrete in my gut and I have a hard time recovering from how unfair life feels. Unfortunately, I have to get back to work, and our customers don’t want to see a devastated fairy.

I can’t see any way to rise up the ranks at Disney World unless I moved into management, which I don’t want to do. Every day I feel more trapped beneath the wigs and pinned down by the costumes. The feeling that I’m suffocating behind the grinning masks is more constant. My panic attacks become too frequent and difficult to control, but I don’t want to take the anxiety medication I’m offered. I realise it’s time for me to move on.

On my last day, Peter Pan is a special guest in our Pixie Hollow. No one knows that Peter is my favourite representation of dreams, imagination and eternal possibilities. As the room closes and the secret set walls open to return us to human life, I pause because I realise what these last few steps mean. As if it has all suddenly become real, Peter reaches out his hand to me.

“All it takes is faith and trust,” he says, as we skip out one last time. I almost believe him.

Disney’s economy has rarely suffered because there will always be people who seek safety in nostalgia. Visitors can interact with — or even become — the characters they admire, remember what it feels like to believe in happy endings, and live vicariously through the joy of their children.

I worked at Disney for three years, and I didn’t learn a thing about myself. Disney is like high school. It solidified my identity through cliques, but did not expand it. Being a character is not all it’s cracked up to be, and making magic is not the same as experiencing it.

These days, I see Disney as a glittering pink castle placed atop a stagnant Florida marsh. You can dress it up all you want, but at the end of the day, it’s still hot, crowded and overrated. The fantasy only works when it’s carefully maintained, and someone always has to be backstage or sweating inside a costume to hold the illusion together.

If you are headed there tomorrow, go. Let yourself believe in magic. Take pictures, cry at the fireworks, hold your child’s hand a little longer than you normally might. Don’t listen to me — I never loved Disney to begin with, so I couldn’t fall out of love with it when I left.

I still enjoy watching my husband, who is new to the “wonderful world of Disney,” explore the parks. I still find myself talking like Belle when I’m on a professional call, and Fawn will always be a part of me. I watch most of the Disney films, because, as intended, they bring me comfort and inspiration.

Knowing what I know now has not ruined Disney for me. I see it as I always did: a theme park designed for entertainment and escapism. I am disappointed that I didn’t find anything magical while I worked there, but I guess that’s the point: There is no real magic behind the curtain, only what we create in front of it.

Michalla Brianna is an author, CEO/founder of Barrie Patch Books & The Healing Arts LLC, as well as an executive producer, podcast host, clinical counsellor, and expressive arts therapist. She holds five university degrees in creative writing and psychology. This essay is part of a memoir told in vignettes.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.

Our day-to-day lives are full of small, automatic habits ― little behaviours we rarely question and tend to assume everyone does the same way. From how we load the dishwasher to which sock we put on first, these routines become so ingrained that they feel almost universal.

But on closer inspection, those assumptions start to fall apart. Even something as mundane as how you stand in the shower turns out to vary more than you might expect. Some people face the spray head-on, letting the water hit their face and chest first. Others instinctively turn away, preferring to let the water run down their back. And many people shift positions throughout, without giving it a second thought.

“Most people are not intentionally choosing a direction and instead default to whatever feels most natural in their specific shower setup,” dermatologist Dr. Brendan Camp told HuffPost. “The position of the showerhead, water pressure and whether they are washing hair versus body all influence orientation. Many patients also develop a consistent stance over time based on habit and comfort rather than conscious decision-making.”

He added that bathroom size, shower system and routine can shape someone’s default direction as well. Sensory preferences like temperature sensitivity and comfort make a difference too.

“Habit and muscle memory ultimately drive consistency over time,” said Dr. Jenna Queller, a dermatologist and founder of DermWorks.

But is it better for cleanliness or overall skin and hair health to face one direction over another? We asked Camp, Queller and other dermatologists to weigh in.

“From a hygiene standpoint, facing toward or away from the water does not significantly impact how clean you get as long as you are properly washing and rinsing all areas,” said Dr. Dara Spearman, founder of Radiant Dermatology Associates. “Cleanliness depends much more on technique, including adequate lathering and complete rinsing, than on body orientation.”