'I often felt alone!' Sophie Dahl shares childhood snap of herself and reflects on growing up with 'mental health and addiction issues' in her household

By Ellie Phillips For Mailonline

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Her mother Tessa - the daughter of late author Roald Dahl - has had a lifelong struggle with psychiatric issues.

And on Monday, Sophie Dahl, 44, took to Instagram where she shared a childhood snap of herself and reflected on growing up with 'mental health and addiction issues' in her household.

The model - who is married to singer Jamie Cullum - admitted that, at the time, she often felt alone but now she's older, is aware that many other families have had the same experience. 

Throwback: On Monday, Sophie Dahl, 44, took to Instagram to share a childhood snap of herself and reflected on growing up with 'mental health and addiction issues' in her household

Throwback: On Monday, Sophie Dahl, 44, took to Instagram to share a childhood snap of herself and reflected on growing up with 'mental health and addiction issues' in her household

Sophie penned: 'I grew up in a household in which there was both mental health and addiction issues. I'm not alone in this, but when I was younger, I often felt I was.

'It makes my heart sing that today there is a non for profit school- based therapeutic service, @_place2be , serving young people and school communities across the UK, listening to children and helping them to develop inner resources.

'We know now what a difference early intervention makes. I've seen the impact of @place2be's extraordinary work first hand, and I'm proud to be their ambassador, supporting #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek.

'To find out more go to @_place2be or childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk.' 

Awareness: The model admitted that, at the time, she often felt alone but now she's older, is aware that many other families have had the same experience

Awareness: The model admitted that, at the time, she often felt alone but now she's older, is aware that many other families have had the same experience

Family: Sophie's mother Tessa, 64, has had a lifelong struggle with psychiatric issues (Pictured together in 2001)

Family: Sophie's mother Tessa, 64, has had a lifelong struggle with psychiatric issues (Pictured together in 2001)

Back in 2014, Sophie discussed her mother Tessa Dahl's addiction and mental health problems, telling Red: 'My relationship with my mum is loving but complicated because of her issues.

'It's not something I talk about much, but anyone who has grown up with a parent who is an addict will know how difficult it is.'   

Tessa left school at 15 and embarked on some wild years of partying and affairs with actors David Hemmings and Peter Sellers. 

When she was 19, she had daughter Sophie by actor Julian Holloway, but they split soon after. 

Candid: 'I grew up in a household in which there was both mental health and addiction issues. I'm not alone in this, but when I was younger, I often felt I was' penned Sophie (Pictured aged 17 with her mum Tessa in 1994)

Candid: 'I grew up in a household in which there was both mental health and addiction issues. I'm not alone in this, but when I was younger, I often felt I was' penned Sophie (Pictured aged 17 with her mum Tessa in 1994)

There followed a long manic period, with more parties and spending sprees. She moved house 17 times, lived on an ashram in India and wrote a well-received novel, Working For Love, published in 1988. 

She married twice, to businessman James Kelly, by whom she had Clover and Luke, and then to Australian Patrick Donovan. They separated when she was three months pregnant with son Ned.

In 1990, her famous author father Roald died - the day after telling Tessa for the first time that he loved her - and it was then she began to 'self-medicate' with drugs and booze.

She left her four children - Sophie, Clover, Luke and Ned - to be largely raised by nanny Maureen Noble. Indeed, her youngest son barely saw his mother during his early years and Tessa has previously admitted: 'I have been a lousy mother.'   

In 1997, after being declared bankrupt, Tessa was addicted to Valium, cocaine and alcohol. 

She attempted suicide, but instead fell into a coma that left her paralysed and in a wheelchair for two years. Sophie was 20 at the time.

Since 2005, Tessa has lived in the U.S. At first, in Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts where she kept a huge menagerie of parrots, pigs and rescue cats and dogs.

In 2011 she moved to Lincoln, Connecticut, to be within striking distance of the renowned McLean Psychiatric Hospital, made famous in the film Girl, Interrupted. 

Flirting with Catholicism at the time, she enrolled in a nearby enclosed order of Benedictine nuns at the Abbey of Regina Laudis — until the Abbess took exception to some attendant publicity.

Diagnosed belatedly with bipolar disorder, in an interview in 2012, Tessa said: 'I have a team [at McLean]... 

'I have been going three times a week to see an addiction psychiatrist, a top psychiatrist, a psychopharmacologist, a social worker and I do dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) to help me communicate with modified emotions.'

Family: Tessa left her four children - Sophie, Clover, Luke and Ned - to be largely raised by nanny Maureen Noble (Pictured with Luke, Clover and Sophie in 1989)

Family: Tessa left her four children - Sophie, Clover, Luke and Ned - to be largely raised by nanny Maureen Noble (Pictured with Luke, Clover and Sophie in 1989)

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