OUR LIFE stories sit inside our bodies, and they can take up a lot of room.
At just 18, Oceane Campbell tried to end her life. Her double memoir The Silence Between Us, co-written with her mother Cécile Barral, weaves together their diaries at the time; all the shock, the grief, the fear.
"It was really important for me, I saw a therapist for a while, I had great friends and a loving relationship but I was still holding onto a lot of that trauma and shame inside me," Ms Campbell said.
"Discovering my diaries and writing them out again was a way of processing that trauma outside of my body in a way I had never thought possible.
"It was incredibly healing and insightful, I learned so much about myself and my mum. I realised how heavy the load had been even though I had buried it deep."
It's raw and intense from both sides of what was a fractured mother-daughter relationship, and one that the pair will share at this weekend's Newcastle Writers Festival.
The book itself traverses old diary entries, hospital records and psychiatric reports, deepened by Ms Barral's account of her fierce attempts to care for her daughter.
The process of writing it down had its own impact on their relationship, Ms Campbell said, opening a door to a new sense of empathy altogether.
"Being able to put myself in my mother's shoes was really liberating," she said.
"I knew she was devastated at the time and scared, I knew she loved me, but reading the diaries she had never intended for me to see I learned she also had anger, fear, frustration and disappointment.
"These are complex emotions we would never have otherwise shared ... it wasn't censored in case it was too horrible or too big, it really opened up that honesty between us."
The story delves into the inter-generational trauma that put a strain on the relationship, the campus sexual assault that drove Ms Campbell to near-tragedy and the difficulties both faced navigating the legal and mental health systems.
"By publishing, I realised I still had a lot of shame and stigma around suicide and being a victim of sexual assault. There were all these things I still carried around," she said.
"I hope this helps to start a conversation and reduce or take away the stigma and shame around these topics.
"My mum talks about it beautifully, she uses the french word 'remembrement' - it's about putting small parcels of land together to make farms more sustainable, and putting this story together was like taking this shattered self and putting the pieces back together.
"It sums it up so well from both of our perspectives; how writing has not only helped put us back together individually, but our relationship as well."
Becoming a mother herself was a confronting experience, Ms Campbell said, as she reflected on her childhood and how it shaped the way she is.
For a long time she didn't want to be a parent, because she was so scared that parts of history would repeat themselves.
"In many ways it has made me think about what I didn't want to be like as a parent, with no disrespect to my mum - she loved us and would have done anything in her power but she didn't have the resources or strength," she said.
"It is a confronting experience to parent when you have had a difficult childhood, but it's incredibly rewarding. Being a parent is such a joy and it's very life-affirming.
"I really felt anxious at times in the lead up to publishing, but I know it has been so powerful and worth every moment of vulnerability."
Oceane Campbell is Newcastle's Woman of the Year, a proud and passionate midwife and a first-time author.
Both her and her mother will speak at Newcastle Writers Festival on Saturday from 10am to 11am at Newcastle City Hall's Mulubinba Room, hosted by Magdalena Ball.
Tickets are free, for more information visit the festival website.
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