Bent Not Broken

Lauren had a turbulent childhood and adolescence. In some ways it is a horrific story: her parents' marriage break-up, sexual abuse as a child in Australia, her mother's drug addiction and eventual suicide, a rebellious adolescence in Wellington, running away, stowing away, being raped by three men, and on to prostitution, depression, suicide attempts and drug use on her own account. After a number of dead end jobs, Lauren worked as a striper and then became a prostitute. She returned to high school as an adult student and eventually undertook medical studies and qualified as a general practitioner. Medical training is renowned as being rigourous and difficult. Lauren made it with not only her difficult past to reconcile, but also the problems of a single mother with a child with learning difficulties.