Just about everybody has lived an adolescence full of skeletons in the closet, and some closets are better off left closed. Not Ellen R.B. Smith’s closet though. She’s put it all in a book called “Memoirs of a Suburban Troublemaker,” based on her years growing up in Reston. The story bounces from her turbulent times to the advent of the Reston community which opened with an individualistic flair too.

Throw in her parents divorce, smoking at a young age, shoplifting, getting arrested and other important events, and she spills all, but hopes to inspire women to stand up for themselves, she said in an interview with Jean T.

Grace on an internet show called “Publish Your Purpose.” In that interview she added that she may have slipped through the cracks with the Fairfax County Public School system. “The book is my whole life,” she said, “writing it down was cathartic,” she added.

In her tell-all style, there are fights with siblings, fights with parents, and a mood of lashing out at people in general in her past. Drugs and a suicide attempt were part of her life too but not all is in the book, she admitted. Her mother interjected, so there were a few rewrites over 18 months. “There was a lot I did not include in the book,” she said, “a lot of darkness,” she said.

Reston was a big influence and she met Reston’s founder Robert E. Simon at one point and he made a big impression on her. In fact, the book started out to be more about Reston but evolved as time went on. The media influenced her too, and listening to Sinead O'Connor “was huge,” she said. This was when she ripped up the picture of the Pope. 

The forward to the book was written by Ellen's mother Kitty Bernard. "Nothing prepared me for her antics and behavior from the age of 13, and sometimes even now," it reads. “There was the divorce which impacted the two in different ways as it does in many families. "Regardless of our different opinions, I believe that Ellen has written a compelling memoir with very real insights into the dangers of high school bullying and the consequences of bad decision-making." Signed Kitty Bernard, Ellen’s Mom

Smith moved out of Reston but her mother still lives there. Smith now lives in Fairfax Station and worked for Amazon before taking time off to write the book.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline; visit https://988lifeline.org/