Why Didn’t My Mum Want Me?
The Question That Drove Me From a Burning Hotel Room to Becoming a Psychologist
By Kyle Walker
MSc Forensic Psychology, GMBPsS
Why didn't my mum want me?
That question has haunted me for as long as I can remember. Not because anyone hid the truth from me, but because I've always known exactly what happened in that hotel room when I was two years old. I've always known that my biological mother, Tracy Eden, took me to a hotel room, left me alone whilst she went to a festival and took hallucinogenic drugs, then returned and set the room on fire with me inside it. And left.
I've always known that my father, Mark, was murdered by his ex-girlfriend when she couldn't accept his rejection. I've always known that I was born addicted to amphetamines because Tracy couldn't stop using drugs even whilst I was growing inside her.
But knowing what happened and understanding why it happened are two very different things. And that gap, that devastating question "What was wrong with me that my own mum didn't want to keep me alive?", became the driving force behind everything that followed.
This isn't a story about overcoming trauma through positive thinking or finding closure through forgiveness. This is the story of how that question led me to dedicate my entire life to understanding the human mind, and why that makes me uniquely qualified to help others transform their deepest psychological wounds.
Chapter 1: The Weight of Always Knowing
Most people discover difficult truths about their childhood gradually, with the protective buffer of adult understanding. I didn't have that luxury. I always knew. From my earliest memories, I understood that my biological mother had chosen drugs over my life, had chosen to set a room on fire with me inside rather than care for me.
There was no gentle revelation, no protective story that was slowly corrected as I got older. Just the stark reality that my own mother, the person who was supposed to protect me above all else, had tried to kill me.
At school, the other children called me "the second-hand kid." They somehow sensed I was different, that I carried something broken inside me. And I believed them, because it confirmed what I already suspected: there was something fundamentally wrong with me. If there wasn't, why would my own mum have wanted me dead?
Teachers reinforced this message daily. When I acted out, which I did, constantly, they would say I'd never amount to anything. Some called me "scum" to my face. I remember that word clearly: scum. It felt like the truth about who I was.
I thought I was broken. I thought something essential was missing in me, something that made other children worth keeping alive whilst I wasn't.
Chapter 2: The Love That Saved My Life
But then there were my mum and dad, my real parents, the ones who adopted me. They saved my life in every way possible. Not just from the immediate physical danger, but from the psychological destruction that question "Why didn't she want me?" was creating inside my developing mind.
My brother Paul had already been adopted from the same foster family when social services called my parents. They explained there was another child, me, who they were struggling to place, but who had bonded well with their existing son. Would they consider taking another child?
They said yes. That simple word changed everything.
My mum and dad never hid my history from me, but they also never let it define my worth. They showed me, through consistent love and care, that the question wasn't "What's wrong with Kyle?" but "What was wrong with Tracy?"
Still, the question remained. It lived inside me, driving everything I did, every choice I made. I needed to understand: Why would a mother choose to kill her own child? What creates that level of psychological dysfunction? And most importantly, was I destined to carry whatever darkness had consumed her?
Chapter 3: The Search for Understanding Begins
The question "Why didn't she want me?" became the engine of my intellectual development.
Before I ever stepped foot in a university, before I knew what psychology even was, I was reading everything I could find about human behaviour, about what makes people do the things they do.
I wasn't reading to become educated, I was reading to survive. To understand whether I carried the same psychological time bomb that had destroyed my biological mother's capacity to love her own child.
Years later, when I experienced what could be called either a psychological crisis or spiritual awakening, the question became even more urgent. I needed to understand not just Tracy's mind, but my own.
I immersed myself in psychology, philosophy, ancient wisdom. I studied Socrates, Plato, modern psychologists—anyone who had tried to understand the human mind and why people make the choices they do. Every book I read, every concept I learned, was really about answering that same question:
Why didn't my mum want me?
And more terrifyingly: Am I like her?
Chapter 4: The Character Built to Protect Me
But before understanding came, there was violence.
The knowing, that constant awareness that my own mother had tried to kill me, didn't just create sadness. It created rage. A seething, volcanic hostility that I turned on anyone who tried to get close to me. Even when people approached with love, I met them with violence. Especially when they approached with love, because love felt like the most dangerous lie of all.
I became muscular, tattooed, hostile, violent, tough. I created exactly the kind of person who could survive in a world where even mothers were demons.
I got in trouble with the law repeatedly. I ruined relationships. I pushed away anyone who tried to care about me. For 27 years, this character kept me alive but also nearly destroyed me.
Until the day I tried to kill myself.
And then something happened, something like a spiritual awakening. Overnight, I could suddenly see the character I'd built as separate from me. I realised he wasn’t me, he was a protector born from trauma.
For the first time in my life, I had choice.
This awakening began my journey into understanding identity construction, psychological survival mechanisms, and how the self can be consciously rebuilt.
Chapter 5: Forgiving the Protector
One of the hardest things I ever had to do was forgive myself, but I eventually realised I was actually forgiving the character who saved me.
He had been violent, hostile, destructive, but he had also protected me in the only way he knew how. He had loved me fiercely in his own way. He had sworn no one would ever hurt that little boy in the hotel room again.
So I thanked him. I honoured him. And then I told him he could rest.
This insight, understanding our protective characters, honouring them, and then consciously evolving beyond them—became central to my work. Everyone has these parts. Healing begins not with destroying them, but understanding them.
Chapter 6: When Imposter Syndrome Meets Academic Excellence
That voice, "You're scum. You'll never amount to anything.", followed me into academia.
Even as I earned my BSc, even as I became the only student in my cohort to receive the Graduate Excellence Award, even as I completed my MSc, the voice said:
"You don't belong here."
"They'll find out."
"You're fooling everyone."
But I learned that this voice isn't weakness, it is fuel. It pushes me to understand deeper, work harder, and never take psychological insight for granted.
My MSc thesis, my PhD work, everything ties back to the original question:
Why didn't my mum want me?
And how does early mistreatment shape adult behaviour?
Chapter 7: Meeting the Demons
When I eventually met Tracy, I expected answers. Instead, I found dysfunction, addiction, chaos, the same destructive patterns unchanged decades later.
She was my blood. My genetics. And she was living proof of the demons in my family line.
In that moment, I understood my responsibility:
Break the cycle.
For my son.
For every generation that comes after me.
The question changed from “Why didn’t she want me?” to:
“How do I make sure my son never asks that question about me?”
Chapter 8: The Expert Who's Lived the Question
Today, I am a psychologist with a BSc, MSc, membership in the British Psychological Society, and a PhD underway.
But more importantly, I am someone who rebuilt himself from the ashes of that hotel room.
I work with individuals and organisations on:
emotional intelligence
metacognition
decision-making
leadership and team psychology
character construction
cognitive biases
collective intelligence
These aren’t academic abstractions, I rebuilt these systems inside myself.
That is why my approach works.
Because I’ve lived the material everyone else only studies.
The Question That Drives Me Forward
The imposter voice still appears, but now I understand it. I understand how identity forms, how trauma shapes perception, and how to rebuild the self from the ground up.
Every day, I transform the question "Why didn't my mum want me?" into:
"How can I help others understand their worth isn't determined by how they were treated?"
The little boy in the hotel room deserved better. He was worth saving.
So are you.
Kyle Walker
MSc Forensic Psychology, GMBPsS
Founder, E.P.I.C. Psychology
Real Experience | Real Psychology | Real Change.
