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Content note: This piece discusses suicidal ideation and trauma. If you’re struggling, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Resources are at the end.
I’d worked through the front line during COVID, wards, diabetes clinics, and mental health services. Thirty-hour weeks, raising three children, advocacy work on the side, a mortgage, a routine that worked. No medication. No therapy. No “management plans.”
I exhibited all the familiar traits, including constant energy, rapid processing, big emotions, and the usual executive-function challenges, but I’d built systems that worked for me. Hyperfocus helped me manage multiple critically unwell patients in acute medicine, keep the children organised, and continually take in new information while noticing details others missed. My ability to process information quickly meant I performed at my best in emergencies, where a calmness always settled over me, and my emotional intensity helped patients feel genuinely seen. ADHD wasn’t a weakness; it was often the thing that set me apart.
It didn’t just add stress. It felt like my brain had been rewired overnight. The mechanisms that sustained me for decades suddenly stopped working, and I had no idea why.
My brain had always processed quickly, scanned constantly, thrived on stimulation. But introduce PTSD into that system, and it accelerated into something I didn’t recognise.
My productive energy turned into agitation, and I couldn’t settle. My hyperfocus became locked onto legal papers and perceived threats, rather than the work I loved. My rapid thinking spiralled into intrusive loops I couldn’t escape. The emotional depth that made me a good nurse now overwhelmed me.
I wasn’t overreacting. My brain was in neurological overload, and I felt utterly destabilised by it.
I’d built a toolkit over 34 years, honing my structure, movement, and ability to thrive in high-pressure environments, where empathy guided me. It had served me well.
Trauma dismantled all of it.
Leaving the house felt unsafe. My routines collapsed under flashbacks that came from nowhere. My hyperfocus became a prison, locking me onto court documents and risk assessments. The empathy that once guided me now overwhelmed my nervous system, leaving me unable to function.
I kept thinking: Why can’t I just cope like I always have?
But this wasn’t about resilience. My brain was prioritising survival at any cost. And my three children were watching me disappear in real time. They didn’t understand why. How could they, when the system couldn’t either?
They watched me lose the ability to live, to take them out, to walk into a shop, to function, even to eat without vomiting. They slowly had to learn what PTSD meant and why I was no longer the person I once was. They saw me retreat, pull down walls, teach myself DIY, and avoid driving the routes we used to sing along. They learned why I needed to stop suddenly, why certain songs grounded me while others didn’t, why I would drop to my knees to stop myself from fainting, why I constantly looked over my shoulder, and why I withdrew from family and friends. I needed the house, them, and work; anything more overwhelmed me.
The worry they tried to hide, the questions they didn’t know how to ask, I saw all of it, and I felt powerless to stop what they were witnessing.
The psychological fallout wasn’t the only battle to be fought. The systems around me made everything worse.
In family court, my ADHD, the same neurotype I’d successfully lived with for 34 years, was suddenly reframed as evidence that I was “violent and aggressive because she has ADHD.”
That allegation came from someone with a lengthy criminal history. Yet his behaviour was never questioned. Never scrutinised.
I wasn’t given the chance to respond. My neurodiversity became their weapon. His history became invisible.
At the same time, I lost four stone in seven weeks. I was vomiting constantly, barely eating, and my body was in physiological shock. I could see myself disappearing. Clothes hanging off me. The faces of my children when they looked at me, the worry they tried to hide, the questions they didn’t know how to ask. But instead of recognising trauma, I was told, “It’s mediation stress.”
I had to prove otherwise, while being retraumatised in real time.
ADHD didn’t harm me; it never had in 34 years, and it wasn’t about to start now. What harmed me was bias, ignorance, and procedural failures that couldn’t tell the difference between a neurotype and a threat.
And the emotional cost was devastating.
I finally found a name for what I was experiencing: DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
He denied. He attacked my credibility. He recast himself as the victim — and me as the risk.
And instead of identifying the pattern, the agencies reinforced it. I watched it happen in real time — and felt utterly powerless to stop it.
Over and over, I was told: “Focus on your mental health.”
But at that stage, I didn’t have a mental health history. I had ADHD — and a system that couldn’t tell the difference between neurodiversity and pathology.
The cruel irony? It was the retraumatisation — the system’s response to me — that created the PTSD I now live with.
That distinction matters to me.
When the overload became too much, my life narrowed in ways I’d never experienced.
Messages went unread. Noise became physically intolerable. Engaging with anyone felt unsafe.
From the outside, I know it looked like I was withdrawing. Avoiding. Giving up.
But inside, it felt like my brain had thrown a circuit breaker to prevent complete collapse. I wasn’t checking out, I was trying to survive.
I had to learn to recognise the early signals, because by the time I hit shutdown, it was too late: my thoughts became too loud, sensory overload creeping in, and I avoided my phone and people, experiencing irritability that felt foreign to me, fatigue, and headaches, along with a desperate urge to disappear and decompress.
I learned: respond early, or collapse entirely.
This wasn’t a weakness. It was my brain trying to protect itself.
April 17th, 2024.
That’s the day my three children almost lost me.
I had planned it in silence, convinced that my pain was too much to share, that my children deserved better than a mother who couldn’t hold herself together under the weight of a system that kept failing us. No one knew. No one saw the signs because I’d become an expert at hiding them. I gave away everything of value, belongings, keepsakes, pieces of myself that meant something. I disguised it as decluttering, but it was actually a form of generosity. No one questioned it because I made it look intentional.
What pulled me back wasn’t strength or sudden clarity. It was someone telling me that in their 38‑year career, they had never met anyone who had done what I had to protect my children, even in the circumstances I was facing. Hearing that forced me to see the reality of what I’d already survived. I booked an urgent GP appointment that day and asked for help. For a few months, I found a small space to begin processing the abuse.
My youngest, an old soul even before turning four, seemed to sense everything. At the strangest moments, when the outside world was being shielded, and my mind felt tortured, she would say something that reminded me why I had fought so hard to keep them safe.
I used to believe that suicide was selfish, and I still understand why people feel that way when they’re the ones left behind. But living inside a mind with no respite, in a world that no longer makes sense, carrying pain no one else can see, can push a person to a place where they feel they can’t survive anymore.
That level of mental pain affects every part of the body and feels endless. People in that state don’t need judgment.
They need reminders of who they are, what they’ve survived, and that they matter. And we all need to check in on the friends who suddenly withdraw, give away belongings, or seem “lighter” in a way that doesn’t match their reality.
I’ve never written about this in such detail before. For a long time, I couldn’t even think about it. I had been threatened with suicide as a form of control for so many years, but I’m not that person anymore. Something shifted. I lost the fear that had ruled me. I let go of a phobia I’d carried for more than twenty years. I became a different person.
When you’re facing someone who has harmed you and your children, and the people meant to protect you don’t, it demands a strength you never knew you had.
I realised that my silence and everything I had been forced to endure could become my children’s future if I didn’t break the cycle.
The system’s failure to protect me couldn’t become my failure to protect them from further harm or from the grief that would follow.
After that, survival became minute‑by‑minute. Getting out of bed. Making breakfast for three children who needed me.
Going to work was the only thing that gave me some living, because it was there that I didn’t have to be the victim, tortured by the life she was being forced to live; I could be the nurse protecting others from feeling the pain.
So I was putting one foot in front of the other, not because I felt strong, but because I had passed the point of survival; I was merely existing.
My children lost part of their mum over the past two years.
But things are better now. Not perfect, I still have hard days, days when the circuit breaker threatens to flip, but I have language for it now. I have strategies that work for an injured brain, not just a neurodivergent one. And my children are getting a mum back who understands that vulnerability isn’t weakness, that asking for help is a sign of strength, and that healing is possible.
They got a different version of me: a stronger one.
Silence almost cost me everything. It nearly took me from my children. I thank the stars not through death, but through a system that couldn’t see the injury for what it was, and through my belief that I had to carry it alone.
Living with this meant redesigning everything:
Lower sensory environments. Adjusting to being triggered, Clear boundaries. Simplified routines I could actually maintain. Structured pauses before I hit the breaking point. Learning trauma-informed self-regulation. Knowing when to escalate to support.
It’s disciplined. Pragmatic. Protective.
And it’s kept me functioning, for myself, and for my three children who needed me to survive.
For a long time, I genuinely feared admitting I was suffering to close my eyes at night, that the reliving and symptoms had become so severe, the problem was me. My worry was that I would be viewed differently if others knew I had ptsd, whether it was friends, family, or my colleagues.
Then I attended a lecture on neuroimaging.
They showed scans side-by-side, PTSD compared to traumatic brain injury. Disrupted pathways. Altered regulation systems. Structural stress patterns.
What I’d been experiencing wasn’t weakness. It wasn’t instability. It was a neurological injury.
And in that moment, something clicked: This isn’t my fault. My brain is functioning exactly as a brain with an injury would.
I felt anger. Relief. Grief for the years I’d spent apologising. But mostly — validation.
Understanding the neuroscience gave me language. It gave me dignity. It gave me the confidence to return to work.
Returning to work after a two-month absence, the longest of my career, was awful. My desk, once a safe space, now held the imprint of police visits and ongoing abuse. Very few people knew what I’d been living through, and I walked back into the surgery carrying all of it, unseen.
I wasn’t meant to be seeing patients that day, but in reception I bumped into one of my regulars trying to book an urgent appointment. I offered to see them the next day.
That night, I spiralled. I worried that everything I’d endured had taken something vital from me. If every system meant to protect my children and me had failed, would it have changed me? Had it damaged the part of me that cared for others? I stayed up late with my neuroscience module, printing brain-scan images and staring at the affected areas, desperate to know whether my compassion, my ability to connect, was still intact.
The next day proved it was.
The patient had been struggling with her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, so I sat with her and her family and explained the neuroscience behind it. I showed them the scans, talked through what was happening in her brain, and what it meant for her memory and future. Her daughter and son, whom I knew well, watched closely. She knew I wasn’t just teaching; I was working something out inside myself.
Then something shifted.
I asked her, with her cardiology background, to talk me through how she’d treat a heart attack. She explained the protocols, interventions, monitoring, and rehabilitation. And then I asked: Why is the brain any different from the heart?
She looked at me and said, “There isn’t one.”
We talked about illness, prevention, acceptance, and the parallels between the organs. And it hit me:
We would never expect a heart to heal solely through willpower. We shouldn’t expect a brain to, either.
A heart attack needs intervention, monitoring, and rehabilitation. A brain injury, PTSD, deserves the same.
That conversation brought me back. Not just to work, but to myself.
I functioned independently for 34 years, and I still needed mental health support after trauma.
That’s not a weakness. That’s an injury that requires treatment.
We wouldn’t tell someone with spinal trauma to “push through.” We wouldn’t tell someone recovering from a heart attack to just “focus on staying positive.”
Brains deserve the same standard.
Police guidance on supporting neurodivergent victims exists. Across my entire case, one officer seemed aware of it, and that officer’s understanding stood in stark contrast to every other interaction I had. They inquired about my processing style and sensory needs. They didn’t treat my ADHD as evidence; they treated it as context.
One person who recognised neurodivergence for what it actually is.
That’s not a training gap. That’s a safeguarding failure.
My ADHD didn’t cause the harm I experienced. The stigma around it did.
My neurodiversity strengthened my analytical thinking. It accelerated my learning. It heightened my risk awareness. It improved my advocacy.
I thrived with ADHD for 34 years.
The last two years, I’ve had to survive while living with PTSD created by repeated retraumatisation.
ADHD shaped how I process the world. Systemic failures shaped how the world treated me.
Both truths matter.
Neurodiversity is not pathology. It’s not evidence of risk. And it should never be weaponised in courtrooms or policing.
The harm I experienced wasn’t created by ADHD. It was created by bias, DARVO, and institutional failure to understand neurodivergence.
Yet despite everything, my neurodiversity remains my strength.
It fuels my learning. It drives my purpose. It keeps me engaged, analytical, and compassionate.
I thrived with ADHD for 34 years. For over two years, I’ve lived alongside PTSD, and I’m rebuilding.
Both realities coexist. Neither excuses abuse. And neither should ever be used as a weapon against survivors.
Now I see the pain in others that I felt then, in the families I work with through NAAVoices, in the survivor stories that mirror my own. I recognise it immediately. And I refuse to let them drown in silence the way I nearly did.
If I could go back to before April 17th, 2024, I’d tell myself: This will break you open, but it won’t break you.
You’ll lose six stone, teeth from the stress-induced vomiting. Your hair will fall out. You’ll lose your sense of safety. You’ll temporarily lose yourself. Your children will watch you disappear, and that will be the hardest part to forgive yourself for.
But your ADHD isn’t the problem. The system’s response to it is.
And you’ll survive this, not despite your neurodiversity, but in many ways, because of it.
Your brain isn’t broken. It’s injured. And just like that, a heart you know how to treat can heal.
Your three children will get more of you back. Not the same version, but a stronger one. Someone who spent 34 years believing she understood mental health, only to realise she knew nothing until she survived PTSD and learned how to live openly with a mental health condition. Someone who now knows that honesty isn’t weakness; it’s strength, especially in a world where stigma still exists.
Through lived experience, I see the pain in others’ eyes, the pain no one recognised in mine. And because of that, I ask the questions. I advocate. I remind people that their lives matter, because they do. I know now that the brain deserves the same care, compassion, and rehabilitation as any other organ.
I became someone who survived.
For 34 years, I never needed support for my mental health. For the past two years, I’ve learned to live with PTSD. My therapy came through training, courses, and a deep need to understand my own brain. Everyone heals differently, and for me, giving back to others was the beginning of my healing journey, and there’s no shame in that. My brain, like any other organ, deserved treatment when it was injured. And now, slowly, with the right support, it’s healing.
If you’re in crisis:
For neurodivergent survivors: Visit NAAVoices.com for trauma-informed, evidence-based resources created by and for families navigating complex systems.
A personal reflection on the neuroscience of surviving and healing
I’m currently working through a coaching certificate in post-narcissistic abuse recovery, and something struck me as I read through the materials: I already knew almost everything they were teaching. Not from textbooks or lectures, but from living it. Every pattern, every response, every survival mechanism, I’d experienced it firsthand.
That realisation hit hard. It’s a strange kind of grief, recognising that your trauma was severe enough to serve as your own education in abuse dynamics.
However, I then came across material on Applied Polyvagal Theory, and for the first time in this course, I found something that didn’t just validate my experience—it provided me with language for what my body had been trying to convey all along.
Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory reveals something the old “fight or flight” model never captured: our nervous system actually operates through three distinct circuits, not two. Understanding these has transformed how I view my own recovery journey and the work I do supporting others.
The Ventral Vagal State: When Safety Feels Real
This is our optimal state—the one where we can genuinely connect with others, where our face is naturally expressive, our voice has melody, and eye contact feels comfortable rather than threatening. In this state, we access empathy, creativity, and complex thought. We can be present.
For those of us emerging from narcissistic relationships, this state can feel like a distant memory. A version of ourselves we lost somewhere in the chaos, wondering if she’ll ever return.
This is mobilisation—fight or flight. Heart racing, shallow breathing, muscles tensed and ready. Cortisol floods the system. Energy is redirected to survival.
If you’ve lived for months or years under the constant threat of devaluation, rage, or silent treatment, this system doesn’t know how to turn off. Six months after leaving, you still jump when your phone vibrates, your body instantly preparing for the venomous message that might arrive—even though it won’t. The threat is gone, but your nervous system hasn’t received the memo.
This is the oldest evolutionary response immobilisation. When neither fight nor flight is possible, the system simply… stops. Heart rate plummets, breathing becomes barely perceptible, and a profound disconnection floods in. This is dissociation. Numbness. Complete shutdown.
I recognise this state intimately—those final months of my relationship when I became a ghost in my own life. Frozen on the sofa for hours, unable to move, think, or feel, while criticism poured over me like background noise I could no longer process.
What makes this theory so powerful is understanding that our nervous system follows a predictable sequence when faced with a threat. It’s called neuroception—an unconscious, automatic detection of safety or danger that happens before our rational mind can even process what’s occurring.
The sequence goes like this:
First: Can I communicate to resolve this? (Ventral vagal—social engagement)
If that fails: Can I fight or flee? (Sympathetic—mobilisation)
If that’s impossible, I must freeze to survive. (Dorsal vagal—immobilisation)
This progression became my life pattern during the abuse. I tried to communicate, to explain, to reason. But gaslighting and constant invalidation made social engagement impossible. Then I entered fight mode—confronting the behaviours—and flight mode—planning to leave. But trauma bonding, fear, and manipulation blocked those exits.
Eventually, my nervous system had no choice but to. Freeze. Dissociate. Numb. It was the last remaining survival strategy.
Here’s what complicates recovery: these states aren’t always pure. After prolonged trauma, the nervous system can become stuck in mixed states—the most common being simultaneous activation of sympathetic and dorsal vagal pathways.
Imagine pressing the accelerator and the brake at the same time.
Outwardly, you appear frozen, lethargic, and depressed (dorsal vagal). But internally, your system is in complete hyperactivation (sympathetic)—racing thoughts, overwhelming anxiety, constant hypervigilance. Exhausted but unable to sleep. Wanting to move but paralysed. Mind in turmoil in a body of lead.
This is anxious depression, and it’s devastatingly common after narcissistic abuse.
There’s another mixed state as well: dorsal vagal and ventral vagal, creating what’s called “functional dissociation.” You seem socially engaged, smiling, conversing, but you’re deeply disconnected from your internal experience. The social mask so many of us wear, functioning on autopilot whilst internally absent.
I lived in this state for longer than I care to admit.
Part of my healing has been learning to identify which state I’m in at any given moment. Each produces distinct signals:
Ventral vagal: Relaxed, expressive face. Comfortable eye contact. Voice with natural melody. Smooth, diaphragmatic breathing. Access to nuanced emotions. Ability to think complexly and be curious. “I feel good today.” “I noticed something interesting.”
Sympathetic: Visible tension; shoulders, jaw, fists clenched. Vigilant, scrutinising gaze. Rapid, shallow breathing. Agitation. Can’t sit still. Checking phone compulsively. Knee bouncing. Words tumbling out too fast. Anxiety, irritability, anger, panic, all swirling together.
Dorsal vagal: Expressionless, masked face. Blank or glassy stare. Monotone, flat voice. Collapsed posture. Shallow, barely perceptible breathing. Long pauses. Struggling to find words. “I don’t know.” “I don’t feel anything.” “Everything is blurry.”
Learning to recognise these states in myself and in my children has been transformative.
The crucial insight is this: what helps in one state might be harmful in another.
When sympathetic (activated, anxious):
When dorsal vagal (shutdown, frozen):
When ventral vagal (regulated, safe):
Here’s one of the cruellest aftereffects of narcissistic abuse: your neuroception—your unconscious safety detection system—becomes profoundly dysregulated.
After months of gaslighting, where the environment was objectively dangerous but presented as safe, your safety/threat detector stops working correctly. You feel endangered in safe situations (normal conversation triggers hypervigilance, comfortable silence feels like the silent treatment, and genuine compliments are scrutinised for hidden sarcasm).
Worse, you might miss real danger signals. Your nervous system, conditioned to constant activation, interprets intensity as passion, unpredictability as excitement, and chaos as familiarity.
Re-educating neuroception is slow work. It means creating new experiences of authentic safety and consciously noticing them. When you’re with someone who makes you feel safe, what do you notice in your body? What’s the quality of your breathing? How does your stomach feel?
It means practising present-moment orientation: “Look around this room. Is there immediate danger here, right now? Name three things that indicate you’re safe in this moment.”
Session by session, experience by experience, your nervous system begins to learn: This is what safety actually feels like.
Polyvagal theory isn’t just academic; it’s deeply practical. It’s given me:
It’s also transformed how I support others. Whether in my healthcare work or my advocacy, I now understand that people can’t access complex thinking or emotional processing when their nervous system is in survival mode. We have to address the state first.
Coming back to where I started: yes, it’s grief-inducing to realise I already knew the course content from lived experience. But there’s also power in it.
I have pattern recognition developed through survival. Emotional intelligence forged through navigating manipulation. Practical understanding of what actually helps versus what sounds good in theory. And the credibility that comes from truly “getting it.”
This combination —professional healthcare background, formal training, and lived experience—positions me (and others like me) to offer something unique: evidence-based support delivered with the empathy of someone who has been in the depths and found a way forward.
Polyvagal theory gave me the missing piece: the neuroscience behind what I already knew in my bones.
And now, as I continue this work, I carry both the hard-won wisdom of survival and the structured understanding of how nervous systems heal.
If you’re reading this and recognising yourself in these patterns, please know: your body’s responses make perfect sense. They were protective. With understanding, patience, and the right support, regulation is achievable. Your nervous system can relearn safety.
One breath, one moment, one small movement at a time.
A detailed, evidence-informed blog for survivors, families, and professionals
By Laura Prince | NAAVoices.com
Neurodiversity and mental health are deeply interconnected — not because neurodivergent people are ‘predisposed’ to mental illness, but because society has historically failed to recognise, support, and accommodate different neurotypes. Research consistently shows that autistic, ADHD, and otherwise neurodivergent individuals experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma responses, and chronic stress. These outcomes are shaped by unmet needs, stigma, late or missed diagnosis, and environments that demand constant masking.
This is not a story of inherent deficit. It is a story of environmental mismatch, systemic barriers, and the profound cost of being misunderstood.
In December 2025, the UK Government launched an independent review into mental health, ADHD and autism services, acknowledging that demand has risen significantly and that many people who are autistic or have ADHD are struggling to access the right services and support. This blog explores the evidence behind these struggles — and points towards a more compassionate, trauma-informed approach.
A groundbreaking 2024 article published in World Psychiatry by Dr Giorgia Michelini (Queen Mary University of London) challenges the traditional approach to diagnosing neurodivergent conditions. The research introduces a transdiagnostic framework that views autism, ADHD, and learning disabilities as points on a spectrum rather than distinct categories — and recognises their frequent overlap with mental health challenges.
Current diagnostic systems, such as the DSM-5 and ICD-11, separate these conditions into distinct categories, overlooking their shared characteristics and complex interplay. Dr Michelini’s work proposes a more holistic approach, acknowledging that mental health difficulties often arise not from the neurotype itself, but from the interaction between a person’s traits and the world around them.
Research from the University of Birmingham (2024) — the largest examination of neurodiversity among UK adults to date — surveyed 1,000 people aged 18-70 about their experiences of characteristics associated with neurodevelopmental conditions.
The findings revealed significant overlap: people with higher levels of characteristics associated with one condition (e.g., ADHD) are also more likely to have higher levels of the characteristics related to other neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia). Professor Ian Apperly explains: “People’s experiences of neurodevelopmental conditions are highly variable, and it is common for people to have more than one condition.”
Crucially, the research also showed that different underlying causes can explain the same traits — some people exhibited high levels of autistic traits without showing high overall neurodivergent characteristics. In contrast, others showed autistic traits alongside traits associated with other conditions.
| Finding | Research Evidence |
| Higher rates of anxiety and depression | Frontiers in Psychology (2025) found that neurodivergent individuals experience significantly higher levels shaped by the interaction between neurodivergence and other identity factors, such as gender and sexuality. |
| Masking linked to burnout | Multiple studies confirm masking is consistently one of the highest predictors of autistic burnout — a distinct, recurring condition with severe consequences for functioning and wellbeing. |
| Suicidality risk | Growing evidence suggests masking to hide autistic traits is strongly associated with poor mental health and suicidality in autistic adults (PMC research). |
| Environmental mismatch | PLOS Mental Health (2025) stresses that neurodivergence and mental health are ‘distinct but too often intertwined’ — calling for systems that recognise lived experience and reduce stigma. |
| Gender disparities | Women are diagnosed later, more likely to display internalised symptoms, and experience greater masking burden. Quinn (2005) calls ADHD the ‘hidden disorder’ in females. |
Across the UK, there is a whole generation of adults — particularly women, AFAB (assigned female at birth) people, and those from marginalised backgrounds — who were never identified as neurodivergent in childhood. Many were labelled ‘difficult’, ‘sensitive’, ‘lazy’, or ‘too much’, internalising shame and self-blame instead of receiving understanding and support.
Research published in 2024 on women with combined autism and ADHD (AuDHD) confirms this lived experience. The study found that the combination of ADHD and autism contributed to women being missed and dismissed, as they didn’t fit gendered stereotypes and didn’t fit neatly within one diagnostic box.
For many adults, receiving a diagnosis later in life brings both relief and grief — relief at finally understanding themselves, and grief for the decades spent unsupported and misunderstood.
Masking is when neurodivergent individuals conceal their authentic selves to conform to societal expectations or avoid judgment. It involves suppressing natural behaviours (like stimming), forcing uncomfortable eye contact, mentally rehearsing conversations, and performing neurotypically — often from a very young age.
Masking is not a conscious choice or a form of deception. It’s a deeply ingrained survival mechanism that enables individuals to navigate a neurotypical world. For women especially, societal pressures to be agreeable, empathetic, and socially graceful intensify the pressure to mask.
Research confirms that masking is a ‘no win’ situation — while it facilitates access to opportunities and social inclusion, it is consistently described as exhausting and ultimately leads to burnout. One participant in research described it as: “Masking is a skill, but can feel like a curse.”
UK legislation recognises the connection between neurodiversity, mental health, and vulnerability — even if the term ‘neurodiversity’ itself is not explicitly used in the law.
Under the Equality Act 2010, a person is considered to have a disability if they have a ‘physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’.
This includes mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, OCD, and bipolar disorder — all of which are more common among neurodivergent people due to chronic stress, discrimination, and unmet needs.
Public bodies, including the NHS, police, schools, and local authorities, must comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty, requiring them to:
Understanding the connection between neurodiversity and mental health is not about pathologising neurodivergent people — it is about recognising the harm caused by systems that were never designed for them.
Burnout varies greatly from person to person, and often looks different for neurodivergent people compared to neurotypicals. Here are evidence-informed strategies:
The research is clear:
A compassionate, trauma-informed approach acknowledges that neurodivergent people are not ‘broken’ — the systems around them are. When society adapts, mental health outcomes improve. When people are understood, supported, and allowed to be their authentic selves, they thrive.
The goal is not just for neurodivergent people to unmask — it’s to create a world where they don’t have to.
| Organisation | Support Offered | Contact |
| National Autistic Society | Information, advice, and support for autistic people and families | autism.org.uk |
| ADHD UK | Advocacy, resources, and reasonable adjustments guidance | adhduk.co.uk |
| Mind | Mental health support, legal rights guidance | mind.org.uk |
| ACAS | Workplace neurodiversity and reasonable adjustments | acas.org.uk |
| Samaritans | 24/7 emotional support | 116 123 |
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This resource was created for NAAVoices.com.
Evidence reviewed January 2026. For educational purposes only — not a substitute for professional advice.
Author: Laura Prince | www.naavoices.com
December 15, 2025
At 34, I lost everything.
Not my job—work remained my only safe haven, the one place that still made sense when nothing else did.
What I lost was far more fundamental.
I lost my belief that people do the right thing.
I lost my trust in the world.
I lost my ability to understand how humanity functions.
Because when my children needed protection most, the world looked away.
My mental health collapsed for the first time in my life.
Not gradually. Not with the warning signs I could have prepared for.
It shattered, completely, devastatingly, in the face of a truth I couldn’t reconcile:
The systems designed to protect children don’t always protect children.
The people who should intervene don’t always intervene.
The world that promises safety doesn’t always deliver.
I stood face to face with the devil himself.
And nobody came.
Nobody protected my babies.
Nobody did the right thing.
And I couldn’t understand why.
How do people fail children? How do they see harm and turn away? How do institutions built for protection become instruments of further trauma?
I still don’t have those answers.
I’m not sure I ever will.
What made it worse?
They treated me like I knew nothing.
Just another hysterical mother.
Just another woman overreacting.
Just another parent who didn’t understand “the process.”
I was dismissed.
Patronised.
Underestimated at every turn.
As if loving my children made me irrational.
As if my fear for their safety made me unreliable.
As if being a mother meant I couldn’t possibly understand the systems designed to “help” us.
They were wrong.
But my three children were still watching.
Through my traumatisation, through my confusion, through my complete loss of faith in humanity, they were watching to see what I would do next.
And in that darkness, broken and alone, I made a vow that changed everything:
I will NEVER be that woman again.
The woman who believed people would do the right thing.
The woman who trusted systems to protect her children.
The woman who waited for help that never came.
I will NEVER wait for the world to save my kids.
Because I learned the brutal truth: it won’t.
So I stopped waiting.
And I rebuilt myself—not as the same person, but as someone entirely new.
I became educated.
If they were going to dismiss me as ignorant, I’d make sure I knew more than they did.
I earned qualifications while my world burned around me.
I studied safeguarding frameworks, legal processes, and institutional procedures.
I learned every system that had failed us, inside and out.
I became independent.
If I couldn’t trust anyone else to protect my children, I’d learn to do everything myself.
I built Nurse Against Abuse — the foundation that grew into NAAVoices — rising from the ashes of institutional betrayal.I created the resources I wish had existed when I needed them.
I turned my shattered faith into actionable expertise.
I became the shield the world refused to be.
Here’s what they don’t tell you about surviving this kind of betrayal:
The triggers still come.
There are moments when I’m transported back to that version of myself—the one who believed, who trusted, who thought the world was fundamentally good.
I still don’t understand how people fail children.
Even with all my knowledge, training, and experience, I navigate these systems. I cannot comprehend how adults look at vulnerable children and choose inaction.
I remember the woman who believed in humanity.
Sometimes I grieve her. She was softer, more hopeful, easier to be around.
But she’s gone.
And honestly? She had to be.
Because that woman couldn’t protect my children.
This version can.
The world is not always safe.
Not everyone chooses to do what they should.
Not everyone will protect you.
When your children are at stake, trust must be earned, never assumed.;
But YOU—you can become everything your children need.
My 5-year-old needs a mother who will never break like that again.
My 13-year-old needs a warrior who fights without hesitation or fear.
My 15-year-old needs living proof that one person will never, ever give up on them.
That’s who I became.
Not because I’m special or extraordinary.
Because I had no other choice.
Losing faith in the world at 34 gives you exactly two paths:
Path One: Drown in the grief of what you lost—your innocence, your trust, your belief in human goodness.
Path Two: Rise as something you have never seen in yourself before—forged in fire, built from betrayal, unstoppable in purpose.
I chose fire.
Now I have:
Because I always will.
Here’s what breaks my heart:
I shouldn’t have to use this knowledge for my own children.
No mother should.
I built expertise in safeguarding failures, legal frameworks, institutional navigation, complaint procedures, and evidence documentation; not because I wanted to, but because I had to.
And I’m not alone.
Too many mothers are being dismissed as hysterical.
Too many are treated like we know nothing.
Too many have to become experts in systems that should protect our children, just to be heard.
Not just for me.
For every mother who’s been underestimated.
For every parent told they’re overreacting.
For every family that has failed because of the very systems designed to help them.
Because until those systems change, we become the experts anyway.
We have to.
You don’t overcome betrayal by learning to trust again.
You overcome it by becoming so educated, so independent, so armed with knowledge that trust becomes irrelevant.
By building integrity so solid that you answer only to yourself.
By gaining expertise so deep that you don’t need anyone’s help.
By developing determination so fierce that other people’s failures can’t touch you anymore.
When you trust your own knowledge above all else—
When you become independent enough to act alone—
When your expertise makes you undeniable—
When they can’t dismiss you anymore because you know more than they do—
Other people’s failures stop mattering.
Their underestimation becomes irrelevant.
Their dismissal loses its power.
Because you’re no longer waiting for the world to protect your children.
You became the protection.
The world failed my children once.
I made absolutely certain it was the last time.
And now?.
Until the systems change?
We’ll document everything.
We’ll learn every framework.
We’ll master every process.
We’ll build resources for each other.
We’ll refuse to be dismissed.
We’ll protect our children—with or without the world’s help.
My children will never know the naive woman I was at 34.
The one who believed people were fundamentally good.
The one who trusted institutions to function as designed.
The one who thought loving your children was enough to keep them safe.
They know the fight she took on and the person she became as a result.
The woman who learned that sometimes the only person you can count on is yourself, so you’d better become someone worth counting on.
At 34, the world broke me.
At 36, I became unbreakable.
Not for me.
For them.
For my 5-year-old, who deserves stability.
For my 13-year-old, who deserves fierce advocacy.
For my 15-year-old, who deserves unwavering protection.
Always for them.
And for every mother out there who’s been underestimated, dismissed, and forced to become an expert in systems that should have protected her children from the start.
You are not hysterical.
You are not overreacting.
You are not alone.
And you are far more powerful than they ever gave you credit for.
Laura Prince
NAAVoices.com
https://naavoices.com/
If this resonates with you, please share it. Because somewhere, another mother is being told she knows nothing, and she needs to know she’s not the only one who has had to become everything.
December 5, 2025
3:15 am. Awake Again.
I am lying awake again.
My body will not settle. My mind will not switch off. I am exhausted, but wired. That horrible tired-but-alert feeling where sleep is nowhere to be found.
I send a voice note to a friend, just to get the noise out of my head.
And as I am talking, it hits me.
It is today.
Twelve months.
Twelve months since that day in family court when everything finally clicked into place. More than a year after I left him, and yet my nervous system still has the date marked like an anniversary it never agreed to.
My mind did not clock the date.
My body did.
We were in family court. Another round. Another day of my life being dissected by people who would go home that night and forget my name.
He was there with his barrister. Classic DARVO. Confident. Comfortable. He had used the same tactics for years, not just in court, but to manipulate me after incidents he created.
And then it happened.
Through his barrister, he dropped a police officer’s name into the middle of proceedings. Casually. As if it was normal. As if it made sense for him to know that name, and to use it, to summarise a case that was not even finished.
He should never have had those details. He should never have been allowed to lie about them. He should not have known anything at all.
My barrister and I sat there stunned. There were so many mistruths and factual inaccuracies, all easily disproved if we had been given the opportunity.
It was obvious he was still being fed information he had no right to.
And one question screamed through my head:
How does a perpetrator with an extensive criminal history get information before the victim of the crime?
Because that is exactly what was happening. He was ahead of me in a system that was supposed to protect me.
Later, I raised it with the officer I was dealing with. The explanation I got did not fit. It did not even come close.
What I did know was that on that same day, a member of Professional Standards was doing her job properly. She passed his name through Anti-Corruption to work out how he was getting so much inside information.
The name he used in court?
A civilian statement taker.
Not a PC. Not a DC.
Yet in court, that name was presented with a rank and repeated confidently by his barrister.
Misleading again. Contempt again.
He sat there, backed by a barrister, using an officer’s rank and name combination to summarise a case I was not even being properly updated on.
We were right to be shocked. We were right to be suspicious.
This was twelve months after my own IDVA asked me if my ex knew someone in the police, because nothing was sitting right with her either.
The one person who truly tried to get to the bottom of it was one of only two professionals who never breached their own conduct.
That tells its own story.
I had tried to prepare myself that day. I even bought an Apple Watch because I knew how bad my anxiety had become.
My heart rate hit 160 the second he said that name. It would match the court transcript timing exactly.
My body went into full alarm before my brain caught up.
At the time, I did not even understand who he was referring to. I only figured it out when I messaged the officer from Professional Standards afterwards. She clarified who the person actually was and confirmed he was not a PC or DC, despite what had been said in court.
So there I was:
Collapsed in a court building. Heart racing. Trying to process that the man who abused me was once again one step ahead, and the systems around us were enabling it.
This was not new.
From the beginning, it was always the same pattern:
Twist everything. Invent lies. Manipulate the world around him so he came out clean. Paint me as hysterical, unstable, alienating, “the problem”.
By then, I was silent. Numb. Trauma does that.
He was skilled at planting narratives, using half-truths, hiding behind procedure and professional language. He even texted me once about a mental health app saying, “It’s not my first rodeo. I know what to say.”
But that day in family court, something else happened too.
I came home and knew with absolute clarity:
I cannot just survive this. I have to do something with it.
That was the beginning of Nurse Against Abuse. The day I stopped begging systems to see me and decided to build something of my own.
Fast forward to tonight.
I am lying awake. No obvious trigger. On paper, I am fine. I am functioning. I am not in that courtroom anymore.
But my body is wired. My chest is tight. I cannot rest.
And then it clicks.
It is the date.
Twelve months since that courtroom scene. Twelve months since my heart rate hit the roof. Twelve months since I collapsed in a place that was supposed to be about justice and protection.
My mind had moved on enough to forget the date.
My body had not.
This is trauma.
Not just the original abuse, but the way systems responded. The way information was weaponised. The way professionals who tried to help were sidelined.
Here is the difference now:
I am not that woman sitting in court, terrified and confused, wondering how he knows more about my case than I do.
I remember how broken I felt. How small. How powerless. How much I wanted someone to say, “This is not right.”
Nobody did.
So I became that person for myself.
I am not scared of him anymore. I am not scared of naming what happened. I am not scared of systems that prefer silence over accountability.
That day in family court nearly crushed me. It also lit the fuse.
It was the day my body went into full alarm, and the day my mind quietly decided:
This ends with me.
I will not be silenced. I will build something that gives my children and me a voice. I will fight for others whose lives were treated as disposable.
Twelve months on, my nervous system still remembers. But now, so do I — fully, consciously, on my own terms.
And this time, I get to decide what I do with it.
So I got out of bed.
I said goodbye to the work I had done to understand whether the officers who failed to record crimes or act on child abuse were correct.
Now I know that when my OneDrive was shared with my fifth investigating officer, she did not review the evidence. Because if she had, others would have been made aware of what was in there. There was far more than child abuse and coercive control.
But I will put those boxes in the loft.
They were my life. There was no AI then. I did everything by hand. And I learned a lot.
Part of the countdown to Domestic Abuse Awareness Month
Day 5 focuses on the science behind survival, the part I know both professionally and personally.
Trauma isn’t just emotional; it’s neurological. The body keeps the score long after the danger ends.
As a nurse, I understand the physiology of trauma. I can explain how the amygdala, our brain’s alarm system becomes hypervigilant after prolonged threat exposure.
I know that the nervous system gets stuck in survival mode, unable to distinguish between past danger and present safety.
I’ve seen it in patients: the racing heart rate, the elevated cortisol, the way their bodies react before their minds can even process what’s happening.
I could teach this. I do teach this to those who are struggling to understand the cause of their health when there are no other answers.
But knowing it academically doesn’t prepare you for living it.
Even after I left, my body reacted like I was still in danger.
Loud noises. Unexpected messages. Footsteps behind me. Instant panic.
My colleagues saw the shift in me. The hair falling out. The ECG shows irregular rhythms that shouldn’t have been there. The physical manifestation of a nervous system that couldn’t stand down.
It took time, research, studying, and therapy for me to understand what was happening: my nervous system was stuck in survival mode.
My body was still fighting a battle I’d already escaped.
I know the amygdala doesn’t forget a threat easily. It needs retraining through safety, breathwork, and connection.
As a survivor, I learned that healing isn’t intellectual, it’s embodied.
You can’t talk yourself out of hypervigilance; you have to teach your body it’s safe again.
That’s the part they don’t put in the textbooks.
You can understand every neural pathway, every stress hormone, every trauma response, and your body will still betray you with a panic attack in the shop because someone walked up behind you too quickly.
The shift happens when you stop fighting your nervous system and start working with it.
That’s where self-regulation becomes power.
Every time you ground yourself, feeling your feet on the floor, naming five things you can see, focusing on your breath, you’re not just “calming down.” You’re literally rewiring your brain toward peace.
Every time you breathe properly, with that long exhale that activates your vagus nerve, you’re telling your nervous system: “We’re safe now. You can stand down.”
Every time you stay present instead of dissociating, you’re building new neural pathways. Ones that lead to safety instead of survival.
It’s not quick. It’s not easy. But it’s real.
The body keeps the score, yes. But the body can also learn a new story.
Mine is still learning.
Some days are better than others.
Some triggers still catch me off guard.
But I’m no longer at war with my own nervous system.
I understand it now. I work with it. And slowly, so slowly, it’s learning to trust that the danger has passed.
That’s the science behind survival. And that’s the hope in healing.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse:
You deserve safety. You deserve peace. You deserve to teach your body that it’s finally safe to heal.
Part of the countdown to the end of Domestic Abuse Awareness Month
What major historical events do you remember?
The Day I Left
It’s survival layered with fear, logistics, and sacrifice.
Leaving meant letting go of everything I’d built long before I met him.
I funded the home from my own savings, paid the mortgage alone, and raised my child as a single parent because of past events. A fair amount of time over the 18 months I spent living there was likely lost because he wouldn’t leave.
But finances and stability meant nothing compared to facing another day in that house, sleeping in clothes, and having my voice recorder always running on my phone.
I was done with the manipulation. I knew the truth.
The trauma bond was broken, but it still took more for me to find the strength to leave.
The day I finally said enough.
The day I took my three beautiful children and left, making ourselves homeless because staying meant we were no longer safe.
After seeing the fear in my son’s eyes, a mirror of the dread I had long buried.
I knew there was no going back.
No manipulation could ever drag me into that darkness again.
I still remember the look in his eyes, the flinch when my ex stood up.
The fear I’d carried for years had taken root in him.
I packed our bags in silence while, upstairs, he cast himself as the victim, accusing me of cruelty, unaware that within ten minutes, we would be gone. Free.
He could try all his usual tricks – tantrums, shouting, threats.
None of it could change my decision to leave.
I was desperate for freedom, for safety, to live, but had nowhere to go and felt trapped from the second I woke up!
Every sound made my heart race.
I pretended it was just another day, but inside, I knew: if I didn’t leave, I’d be gambling not just with my sanity, but with our safety.
So I left. Freedom came with consequences, and I paid for it.
But if you think the abuse stopped when I walked out that door, you’d be wrong.
In the weeks and nearly two years since I left, abuse didn’t stop; it evolved.
When direct control failed, the focus shifted to controlling the narrative: how others saw me, what they were told, and which version of events survived.
I can now name the pattern: blame-shifting, performative victimhood, and quiet history rewrites.
The old caution is accurate:
listen to how someone talks about every ex; they may be describing themselves.
I wish I’d believed those who came before me, but abusers are skilled performers.
He worked hard to make me doubt my judgment until I stopped accepting his script and wrote my own.
Those early days were filled with police disclosures, failing to document, safeguarding calls, and court forms.
Exhausting doesn’t begin to cover it.
But even in that exhaustion, there was one undeniable truth: I could breathe again.
I could choose when I saw my family. I could choose to spend time with all three of my children. I could choose to rebuild the bond we’d all been starved of.
As time passed, trauma set in, and I realised I needed help.
Yet, despite the torment that followed, I thrived as the version of myself I refused to let him strip away, the nurse, the empath, the mum, the student, the one committed to saving others from the pain I was forced to endure.
Some days, I questioned whether it was worth it, whether facing the consequences of leaving was worth it.
But the reality is, yes, it is!
That autonomy, the freedom, and the ability for our children to live, bond, and be a family after years of control was worth everything.
Here’s what he could never understand, what he could never do no matter how hard he tried: he could not change how I perceive the greatness in others, or diminish my capacity to help and to heal.
While he continued his attacks through family court, while he manipulated the world around him, I was building.
Not just surviving – thriving:
Through the pain, Through the love and words of my children. In 12 months I achieved.
Of all my achievements, one stands above the rest.
My five-year-old now draws pictures of her family, her older brothers, herself, and me, all smiling in a row.
To some, it’s a small thing.
But not long ago, every drawing was filled with sad faces.
The most significant accomplishment I hold is reflected in the bond my children now share: the love they deserved but were once starved of.
Two nights ago, as I lay beside my little one, she whispered her nightly “I love you.” I always reply, “I love you more,” before she finishes. But she didn’t say “you” this time, she told her brother’s name.
A day spent with him, learning guitar, and being loved.
Her “safe people,” as she calls them, include her two teenage boys, me, and others close to us.
And I am proud of that.
The boys lived through hell, yet not one resents a single hair on her head.
Our home is finally filled with safety, guitars, time, together, and days out. Their friends became a support and part of our family, and they accepted her, letting her join in, her little protectors!
Years apart in age, never divided, no resentment, no rivalry.
Just pure sibling banter, jest, bickering, love and fierce protection… Just Normal!
How it was years before she was born.
That is what I’m proudest of. And in that safety, they’ve found the freedom to be who they truly are.
In the quiet of night, I continue working on more, but that will have to be saved for another blog!
But all of it has made me stronger, sharper, more determined.
He thought breaking me would be easy.
He thought taking everything would leave me empty.
He was catastrophically wrong.
I no longer respond to character attacks.
I don’t read anything directly from him; friends, family, or colleagues do it for me.
Then they outline what needs to be done, which, funny enough, I usually predict.
Just by revisiting the statement I wrote before I left him.
That’s DARVo in action.
I document. I protect my children. I keep moving.
Every book I publish is a testament to survival.
Every woman and man I have supported proves that pain can transform into purpose.
Every course I complete, every skill I learn, every achievement I claim, all pieces of myself I’ve reclaimed from the wreckage he tried to create.
Leaving isn’t a single event. It’s a process of reclaiming yourself, piece by piece.
And I’m not done yet.
For anyone still in the darkness: You are stronger than you know.
The person you were before the abuse is still within you, transformed yet waiting for you to remember.
And when you leave and finally break free, you’ll discover you’re capable of more than you ever imagined.
To those who came before me and tried to warn me: I see you now.
I believe you!
And I’m using everything I learned to make sure others don’t have to learn these lessons alone.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse:
You deserve safety. You deserve peace. You deserve to reclaim your life.
Compliance note: I don’t name private individuals. Everything here is anonymised and compliant with court orders and reporting restrictions.
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.
The paperwork landed and I recognised it within seconds. Same choreography, new date stamp. Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. Procedure doing the talking while the truth is pushed to the side.
The difference this time? I had my own words—and my record.
I went to work. I ran clinic. Two colleagues knew, no one else needed to. I was told to go home; I didn’t. A GP I trust anchored me with one sentence: You know who you are and you’ve already done the work. Let the record speak. It snapped me back into myself.
Before the Virtual hearing started, my body did what bodies do under pressure. I ended up on the floor in ny room with my legs up, breathing slow, music quietly in my ear to blunt the noise. My manager found me there and—without fuss. No questions. Just presence. .
And then I spoke. Calmly. likely too much, trauma still evident, but it was To evidence, not theatre.
The statement against me was full of neat certainties that didn’t survive contact with dates, emails, and basic logic. I didn’t need to perform. I just needed to answer what was asked and keep my boundaries. I did.
What I saw—again—was textbook:
It’s not personal style. It’s a tactic. The aim is to control the narrative through process. Naming it early stops it stealing your energy.
What worked for me:
I didn’t lose sleep this time. I didn’t pick apart every sentence. I recognised the pattern and refused to hand over my day. School still happened. Work still happened. Life still happened.
Two years in, I finally got to say some truth out loud. I explained, I justified where needed, and I stood by my reality—steady, not scared. People with integrity don’t need every detail to recognise what’s in front of them. They see it.
The platform remains. The work continues.
No order, accusation, or tactic is going to take away the purpose I built from all of this.
Contains descriptions of domestic abuse, police failures, and trauma. Read only if you feel safe to do so.
Sometimes I can’t write. The weight of what we lived through—what was ignored, what was twisted—can feel too heavy to put into words. I started writing for one reason: for my children.
This isn’t just my story. It’s the story of countless survivors failed by abusers, by institutions, and by the systems meant to protect them. It’s about children caught in the fallout of coercive control and systemic neglect. I write because silence protects perpetrators. I write because my children deserve a record of the truth. I write because someone has to.
No victim should have five different investigating officers.
No victim should have their personal information leaked to the defendant.
No victim should have witnesses told they will be called to court, only to be dropped without explanation.
And yet, that is what happened to me.
I discovered corruption isn’t only in headlines. It exists in quiet offices where officers decide which stories get told and which are buried. My case wasn’t merely mishandled — it was manipulated. Statements were rehearsed. Timelines were twisted. Evidence was ignored. The focus wasn’t on protecting children; it was on protecting reputations.
Child Impact
After three years of the relationship I have more than 100 pages of notes. That’s before the police correspondence and management timeline. I never tried to “get him”; I tried to protect my children. That meant educating myself and documenting everything.
What I have gathered and cross-referenced to CPS guidance and the Children Act:
Child Impact
Domestic abuse is more than bruises. It’s coercion. It’s financial fraud. It’s rage in front of the children. It’s drink-driving with them in the car. It’s staged self-harm.
I remember the day my ex took an overdose and stabbed himself in the arm while our child was present. I remember him drunk at the wheel at a known suicide spot, children within earshot of his rage. I remember cutting a fringe to cover a head injury before a family christening.
And I remember my children’s fear — refusing to sleep alone, lashing out, developing tics, refusing food. Trauma etched into their bodies in fear of him returning to our home.
Child Impact
This blog isn’t about revenge. It isn’t even just about the police, though their failures run deep. It’s about children. Children who don’t get a voice when institutions silence their parents. Children labelled “resilient” when they’re actually terrified.
Children forced to adapt to chaos when what they need is safety and stability. Every time domestic abuse is minimised, every time coercive control is brushed aside, every time safeguarding is ignored — children’s futures are gambled with. And that is unforgivable.
My child saw things no child should ever see.
I don’t write because it’s easy. I don’t write because it makes me feel better. I write because my children deserve a record of the truth. I write because victims need to know they aren’t alone. I write because silence only protects perpetrators — whether that’s an abusive partner or institutions covering for their own.
Children’s safety must always come first. Until it does, I will keep writing.
Existing isn’t enough. Surviving isn’t enough. This week I reclaimed a small piece of myself: I brought home a bike. Something simple, but something that makes me feel alive.
On that bike, for a short while, I feel freedom. I feel breath in my lungs that isn’t weighed down by fear, and I remember there is more to me than what they put me through.
It isn’t the end of the fight. But it’s a reminder: I am still here.