Perhaps the saddest part??

It was what happened after the abuse.

Those first days were like nothing I had ever experienced. A crushing feeling. I couldn’t properly see. I couldn’t properly move.

All I remember is darkness.

I probably should have been in hospital. I had to text my mum to help me to the toilet because I couldn’t get up on my own.

The nightmares. So intense. So vivid. Waking up sweating, heart racing. Every night for months. At times they were more disturbing than the actual experiences.

I spent a lot of time in my room. Music was the only thing I had. I started writing some of my experiences down. Nobody had given me therapy, support or trauma treatment.

About two months later we went on a family trip to Wales. I was in so much pain. My dad threw something at me playfully and I flinched and the pain that shot through my body was unreal.

I couldn’t work, so I applied for benefits. They assessed me.

Despite being in that much pain and barely functioning, I scored zero.

I kept going to the doctors. Again and again.

They said vertigo.
They said anxiety.
They said we don’t know.

Nothing is wrong with you.

I started trying to rebuild what I could do.

Driving first. Five minutes. Then maybe ten. Then twenty.

About ten months after I’d left, one of my first proper trips that required more travel and walking was Brighton with my best friend.

One night someone bumped into me and my whole body reacted like I’d been punched. I still don’t know if it actually happened or not, but it really felt like it did and I had so much pain in my stomach.

I said to Mike, “I think I’ve just been punched.”

I was so determined not to let any of this define me. I just wanted to build a life for myself.

But everything I had ever known was physical. Working with animals. Being active. Being on my feet.

That was my world.

So I had to completely rethink what I could do.

That’s how I ended up looking at things like marketing and office work. I could see a career path, a ladder, something to work towards.

But I was doing all of it without any real support, and my body was fighting me every step of the way.

To be honest, for years my body was in a state I still struggle to describe.

If I lifted anything, even a bottle of water to drink, my whole head would shake.

Every step felt like my whole body and leg were falling through the floor. I had to walk with my legs wide, every muscle tensed, scrunching my toes into the ground just to grip the floor.

Walking like a bloody crab, feeling so dizzy and disorientated. It was hard work.

I started an apprenticeship around six months after I left. Walking was still so difficult. Everything was. But I could drive for longer stretches now.

Where I worked there were beautiful walks through fields and forest across the road. I started sectioning them into areas.

Area one today.
Maybe next week I’ll try area two.

Sometimes I would walk too far and I’d have to hang over a fence to take my weight and wait until I had the energy to move again.

I remember leaning there one day, just unable to move, thinking about rollercoasters. I’m not overly fussed about them. It was just a very random symbol of everything I couldn’t do.

I didn’t know if this was my life forever, and that was the loneliest time. I never spoke to anyone about it.

Eventually I just thought, well, it might be, so you’ve got to make the most of it. And honestly, I believed I’d done this to myself.

The drugs.
The drinking.
This is your fault.
So just crack on.

The nightmares were still there too, years later. They had become so normal.

At about 24 my partner told me I’d been screaming in my sleep saying “get the f**k off me.”

I had no idea.

She would just say, “You’ve done it again.”

My question is, were those prolonged difficulties necessary?

Did I really have to walk like a crab for so long?

With proper treatment I would have had specialists building me up step by step, explaining what was happening so I wasn’t blaming myself and pushing past my limits every day.

It would still have been hard. It would still have taken time, but maybe it would have given me a way to access life without so much distress a lot sooner.

Instead, what came next nearly broke me in a completely different way.

I heard the river and wanted to go but was too steep for a long time I remember finally being about walk down this to the river It wasn’t easy but I was so proud I took a photo of the path!