Coleen says

YOU have to sit down with them and be honest about how you feel. It’s not an easy thing to do but putting it off is only going to make it harder the closer it gets to taking your exams.

Tell them you’re very proud of what they do for a living but it doesn’t excite you and you don’t think it will make you happy.

The bottom line is, they’ll be forking out a lot of money to help fund something you’re not interested in studying. If showbiz is in your soul, I don’t think anything will change your mind.

You could offer a compromise – that you’ll try drama for a couple of years and see how it goes.

If you decide it’s not for you after all, then you can go back to studying medicine – you have plenty of time.

I READ the letter from a woman having problems with her emotionally abusive mum (Dear Coleen, March 30).

It struck me that her mum could have narcissistic personality disorder. Your reader might want to look up The Echo Society (who specialise in narcissistic abuse recovery) and there are many good books for ACONs (adult children of narcissists).

This is a largely hidden problem, which is only just being talked about (even in America).

I know how abusive, devious and manipulative pathological narcissists can be, as opposed to people who are just a bit selfish.