Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a What Next podcast. Hello and welcome to Being Human. Being human is the truly universal experience. It's what we all have in common. And yet we all experience it differently. We all have individual ways of living, of thinking, of being. In this series, I attempt to get inside the heads and understand the human experience of a number of well-known people.
Our guest in this episode is Professor Catriona O'Sullivan. Catriona's story is well known. Her book Poor, her memoir, has been a bestseller for over two and a half years. It's been translated into seven languages and adapted for the stage. It's a story of addiction and abuse that leads in some mad way to academia and advocacy.
Catriona has told her story in order to shine a light on how childhood poverty stacks the odds against future success in relationships, in education and in health. Catriona believes that talent is equally distributed across the social classes but opportunity is not.
Professor Catriona O'Sullivan is hugely impressive in so many ways and it was a real education and privilege to talk to her at length about so many things. In the conversation you're about to hear, Catriona speaks about her life through the lens of her qualification in psychology. She explains trauma and its connection to addiction.
She also talks about the importance of connection, human connection, and the danger of meritocracy. She kindly allowed us into her home for the chat, which happened in December of 2025. And I do hope that you get as much from this conversation as I did.
so being human there you go have you ever considered that before katrina um what it is to be human yeah yeah especially when i make mistakes i always think i'm just a human at the end of the day i'm not a robot so i do i do actually contemplate being a human irregularly and was that part of the reason you did psychology I think I did psychology.
So I was lucky that I had an introduction to psychology course. And what I learned in that was psychology was about asking questions. So I didn't think that psychology was going to give me the answer to who I was or who they were, my parents particularly. But I liked that it was like really heady and questioning.
So that introduction gave me the idea, oh, this is a science and it's going to give me like a good, really, I can ask loads of questions. So that's why I did psychology.
Right. Well, I'm going to ask loads of questions of you. It's good that you like to be in your head. I do. So this is going to be a little bit chronological at the start anyway, and then we might go anywhere. So what's your first memory?
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Chapter 2: What is the story behind Catriona O'Sullivan's book 'Poor'?
I remember my granny and granddad from Ireland coming to visit. So I lived in Coventry and there was always a panic in the house when they were coming to visit because my dad was trying to hide his addiction. But I actually remember them being here and they brought me a dress. And so I remember being in the back garden with this Czech dress that they bought.
And my brothers, they brought them two tracksuits. And I just remember playing in my dress. We had a swing kind of out the back. of our back garden. And I just have this memory of being dressed really lovely. And my brothers, they had like a blue stripe, white stripe tracksuit and a red, white stripe tracksuit. And that's kind of like my earliest memory of myself. So it was a happy memory.
It was happy, yeah. I think it was happy that particular time
And what age were you?
About three. I'd say about three or four. I can tell my age from where we lived because I know we moved a lot. But I was about three.
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Chapter 3: How does childhood poverty impact future success?
And yeah, just have this memory of getting the dress, playing in the garden and my brothers in their blue and red tracksuits and being like, oh my God, my brothers look great. Because we never had new stuff. So I think that made it really kind of exciting. Yeah.
And don't they know now, the people who know that the first three years are the important years, that if there's damage done in those three years, that it can affect you for the rest of your life?
Yeah, but also you can change for your whole life. So that's what I teach, Ray, in psychology. So like sometimes when we tell people that as psychologists, it can make people feel really deflated. So if you're adopted or there's trauma or there's illness or loss like in my childhood or you're ill as a child, it's like, oh, that's it now. That's it.
so it is changeable and all the research now shows us like yeah how we feel about ourselves how valuable we feel is formed pretty much in that first couple of years but it can change like how we how we see ourselves can change for our whole lives so it's important that we say that because it's not deterministic it's it impacts massively and they're really critical period that first three years first year really is the really critical period but up
you can change and grow forever. Like it's never, it's never over.
Right. So if you suffer a trauma and it affects you negatively, at some stage in your life, then you're saying that you can reverse that.
The thing that most predicts the impact of a trauma is what happens after it. So you can experience a really significant trauma, Ray, as a child or as an adult. And if you are loved, treated, supported and helped to integrate that experience quite quickly after it happens, then the consequence of that in your life is going to be quite small. That's what research shows us.
What do you mean by that, though?
So what happens with trauma, like the definition of trauma, so I think it's a really important conversation to have, is like what is trauma? Because we just throw the words around. Oh, my God, I failed on exams. Trauma.
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Chapter 4: What is the connection between trauma and addiction?
That was mine. And being inflicted on you by the people who are supposed to love you. So in my case, I had trauma, but I also had attachment issues and I also had relationship difficulties. And so mine is like big T trauma.
Chapter 5: Why is human connection important in overcoming trauma?
You know, it's not like a one off incident. So the consequence of big T trauma within the first three years of your life generally are.
Because being neglected can be a trauma.
Yeah, it is. It is. No food, no love. Yeah, that's trauma for sure.
Chapter 6: What role does meritocracy play in social inequality?
We come back to trauma again, just to keep it a little bit chronological. When do you think your childhood ended?
Oh, I don't know if it started.
Right.
I don't know if I ever really had what a child deserves to have when they're born. You know, my mum and dad were already beginning into their road of addiction. I was wanted initially. And I think that makes a difference to where I am today. But I was wanted. You know, the story is my dad arrived half drunk into the labour ward after I was born, spun me around. It's a girl. It's a girl.
And my nanny was so happy that there was a girl, too, because there was two boys ahead of me. So I was wanted, like even from the records that I got from social services. You know, that first year of my life, my parents were in addiction. There was crime happening. So I don't I don't think I ever really had a childhood, I think.
But I know that there was a period when I experienced abuse and I, you know, I don't want anyone to be triggered listening. But there was a connection that I had to my siblings and there was a hope that I had about what life was going to be despite what was happening in my home that was taken from me when I first experienced abuse as a child. That was the end.
And that was at the age of seven. So up until the age of seven, it was probably a little bit naive, as you would be up to the age of seven, that the world was going to come right. Your world was going to come right. And then this abuse happened in your own home, under your parents' roof, and that shattered any hope you had.
I think it transformed me. It didn't even just take hope. It actually, it's like a girl existed before that, like who had freedom. Like I imagine childhood as being like freedom in your body, Ray, you know, running, biking. Now I was robbing and running and biking and, You know, doing things that you shouldn't probably be doing as a child.
But there was still like a naivety to it and a freedom to it, even though doing things that other children weren't doing and you shouldn't do. So like I'd still be robbing from the shop, you know, like so there was end of childhood if you think about it as being this really innocent place. But I think the freedom that comes with childhood like.
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Chapter 7: How does Catriona define trauma and its effects?
I think we need the basic things. But if you're connected, I personally think that's the most important thing is to feel valued.
Connected is attachment. And, you know, a lot of people who probably don't know a lot about it are talking about attachment theory now. And what sort of attachment did you have as a child? And from what we've heard from you already is that there was zero attachment.
Well, that's the thing. So I think I had a good attachment to my dad for the first year. I think that when people say to me, what is it in you? I had a really good relationship with my dad for the first year. Like I was his favourite. So I think there was some instinct of value put in me through that relationship.
When I turned one, like, my dad had his first prison sentence when I was, like, 18 months or something old. My brother came along. My brother was born. And then my dad went to prison. But I had this, like... I think I had this good early experience of him when he wasn't really bad. So, like, when they began injecting... So, they were smoking heroin, taking all different drugs.
There was all party lifestyle going on. But, like, it really... At age two, like, literally, the addiction went right into the ground. So, I...
I don't know though So how do You're just guessing that I'm guessing yeah Oh yeah But I'm guessing from the stories Of my family Like we all hear the stories And also my nanny Loved me a lot And Because I was the girl So there was a lot And I know as well So my This is terrible But my brothers used to get hit My dad hit them Like he was He had a little bat And he was really Like if you're naughty You have to But he never hit me And my mum never Hit me either So like there was All these different things That Katrina had So like when I'm trying to fathom
How did I end up here? And they end up there. There's a piece of me, my dad really wanted me. And so maybe I had a bit of a connection to him that my brothers didn't have. And then I also think my nanny being there. And then also like science shows us that when you're beautiful.
Yeah.
But like, I'm not joking. But like vivacious girls, girls that are, kids that are warm, have a warm character, are outgoing and are beautiful. You had a warm temperament as a child. And people warmed to me. So the world warmed to me, Ray. And so there was a lot of things, the buffering in my childhood.
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