Saturday was one of those beautiful crisp sunny days in Glasgow and we took the dogs for a long walk in our local county Park. Along the way I noticed the first signs of spring coming with all the beautiful colours of the spring flowers emerging. It made me think that recovery from trauma and spring have a lot of similarities. When I look back at my own journey of healing from trauma (I was gang raped at thirteen) I can see that I did anything to numb out and not feel. I shut myself down and placed myself in […]
Read More#10YearChallenge
I’m sure you’ve seen this challenge all over Social Media at the moment. You know the one where people are sharing what they looked like 10 years ago compared to now. Well, it had me thinking how different I was then to how I am now. You see, ten years ago I hadn’t “come out” yet publicly about being raped because I was still so concerned about what other people would think. I wrongly assumed that people would see me how I saw myself for years. That I was damaged goods, worthless and contaminated. I was still consumed […]
Read More#WhyIDidntReport
I will always stand with survivors The biggest fear for me when I first shared my story of rape was whether I would be believed. But why would I make it up?! There are so many reasons why people who have experienced rape/sexual assault keep quiet and unless you’ve ever been in that situation I realise it may be hard to understand why. The very nature of the trauma makes your mind shut it out, pretend it hasn’t happened and numb out any feelings. The shame and guilt for me were huge too, thinking incorrectly that I had […]
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