Tom Hanks' eldest daughter denounces childhood abuse at the hands of her mother.

BarcelonaTom Hanks' eldest daughter, Elizabeth Anne Hanks, has lived a life away from the spotlight, but the publication of her memoirs, The 10. A memoir of family and the open road, has brought her to the forefront of the American media. The writer, who has worked for magazines such as Vanity Fair and is currently 42 years old, recounts a tortuous childhood marked by her parents' divorce and the mental health problems of her mother, who had custody of both her and her older brother, Colin Hanks.

Elizabeth and Colin Hanks are the children of actor Tom Hanks and his first wife, Susan Dillingham, who used the stage name Samantha Lewes early in her career. The couple met in the 1970s when they were both drama students at Sacramento State University in California. After five years of marriage, Hanks and Dillingham divorced in 1987, and she was granted primary custody of their children. The star of Forrest Gump She spent weekends and agreed-upon summer vacations with her children.

Although they maintained contact with their father, Elizabeth and Colin Hanks lived a childhood full of instability because of their mother, according to Elizabeth Hanks. Among other things, she explains that she decided to move the family from Los Angeles to Sacramento without notifying the children's father. "My father came to pick us up from school one day and we weren't there. It turns out we hadn't been to school in two weeks and he had to track us down," the writer recounts. Elizabeth Hanks says that from the ages of 5 to 14 were years "full of confusion, violence and deprivation," but also of love, which she felt for her mother despite everything.

"The yard at home was littered with dog feces and the house smelled of smoke. The refrigerator was often empty or full of expired food. Mom spent more and more time in her big bed studying the Bible in depth. One night the emotional violence escalated to physical violence, and later I moved to Los Angeles. When living together proved untenable, the custody agreement was modified and both Elizabeth Hanks and her brother moved in with their famous father, who was then married to Rita Wilson, with whom she had two more children.

"My father was traumatized by his childhood and his family's divorce, and by a revolving door of stepfathers and brothers," Elizabeth Hanks explains in an interview with the magazine People"The love between my parents was like two wounded children trying to climb out of a hole together," she says. She says that for a long time she was afraid to tell her father that the situation with her mother was so bad.

The writer says that the only memory she has of her parents together are the photographs from her and her brother's high school graduation. In fact, a year before graduating from high school, Susan Dillingham called her children to explain that she was dying of lung cancer. The actress died in 2002, at the age of 49, and Elizabeth Hanks sought to overcome her grief by trying to understand why her mother was the way she was by analyzing her diary and writing the book she is now publishing. Hanks explains that if the diary accounts are true, Dillingham grew up in an extremely violent environment. She adds that she is convinced she had undiagnosed mental health issues, such as bipolar disorder. The writer explained that her father supported her in writing the memoir. "He's taught me to tell the truth and move forward," she says.