NAAVoices was not created from certainty, but from lived experience and professional insight. As I migrate earlier work from the original platform, this post has been reviewed and approved for transfer. It remains true to its original context, with only minor clarity edits where needed. Some moments do not require rewriting to remain honest.

I left this morning — left a place that will always hold a piece of my heart.

This family welcomed Matthew and me with open arms. They showed us genuine warmth and kindness despite barely knowing us, and the past two days were, in a word, pure bliss. Last night Matthew walked almost two and a half miles each way — including a steep hill on the return. His determination was something I’ll never forget. I found myself prouder of him than I’ve been of anything in a long time. I can only hope the world treats him with the kindness he deserves.

Driving away this morning, tears streaming down my face, I felt the familiar weight crash back down. The thought of going home. Of facing tomorrow. Of hearing words that will confirm what I already fear. For the first time in a very long time, I found myself wishing for something — anything — to ease the pain I carry inside.

What’s Coming Tomorrow

A lot has happened. I’ll share it all gradually, but right now I need to focus on what’s directly ahead.

Tomorrow, the Police Professional Standards Department are coming to question me about one officer’s conduct.

When he first encountered me, his colleagues had already done their level best to destroy my life. The trauma I live with daily — the kind that rewires you, hardens you — was already firmly in place by then. I wasn’t seen as a victim when he arrived. At least, that’s not how it felt from where I was standing.

The hell I’d been through in the months before had changed me. It forced me to handle things alone, to rely only on myself. I didn’t extend to him the automatic respect usually given to authority figures — previous experiences had taught me exactly why not. But his approach was different. Gradually, my respect for him grew. In time, it became something that felt like friendship.

Now I’m questioning everything about our interactions. Wondering whether my perception was distorted — yet again — by everything I’d already been through.

Caught Between Two Impossible Things

Right now I’m sitting with anxiety so intense it makes me feel physically sick.

I’m caught between two things that feel impossible to reconcile: protecting him, and protecting my own self-worth and dignity. I know, deep down, that my wellbeing wouldn’t be a consideration if the roles were reversed. So the question that keeps circling is: how do I put my own needs first when, in their eyes, I am nothing?

Sometimes life feels impossibly hard. It tests me — not just through circumstances, but through how people treat me. No matter what I do, or how hard I try, it never feels like enough. I always end up managing the aftermath. I’m never the main concern. There’s this unspoken assumption that I can handle whatever gets thrown at me.

When you become small in other people’s eyes, being overlooked stops feeling like an injustice and starts feeling like a reflex you learn to live with. Protecting yourself becomes instinct.

What I struggle with most is this: when I care about someone, I protect them. I try to make things easier. And it is heartbreaking — truly heartbreaking — when the people you’ve given everything to keep showing you, again and again, how little you mean to them.

It is a very specific kind of grief. The grief of becoming insignificant to people who were never insignificant to you.

More to come. Slowly. When I’m ready.

This blog is part of an ongoing series sharing lived experience of trauma, injustice, and survival. If anything here resonates with you, you are not alone.