In this essay I examine abuse narratives and their impact on narrating my life. The essay is set in the USA, mostly in Los Angeles, of the early 2000s. I focus on the time when I travelled with my then manager in search for music business contacts and the following year promoting my first album, Poverina (2007). The music business itself, as well as the city, evoked disassociation from reality, from places and events. Simultaneously, I describe the impact of a lack of language around abuse and the pre-emptive liberalism of consumer-focused culture in which I, a young songwriter, became an impossible object. The essay examines narrative transformation over time. Considering tellability, interpretation, as well as the unforeseen unfolding of life.