If you met me at work, you’d see a primary care nurse getting on with the job.

You’d see the clinic lists, the assessments, the routine pressures of general practice. You might notice that I take safeguarding seriously, that I ask different questions, that I pay attention when something “doesn’t quite fit”. What you probably wouldn’t see is the path that brought me here – or why I rebuilt my entire life and website from scratch.

This is that story.

The Question That Sent Me Back to University

I had already earned my BSc (Hons) in Nursing and completed multiple master’s modules, as well as gained advanced diplomas in areas of general practice. Alongside this, I bring years of primary care experience, a foundation in acute medicine, and several years of experience working in mental health and child and adolescent services. Yet, despite this breadth of knowledge and dedication, my world came crashing down.

After years of coercive control and abuse, I finally left. What followed was worse than I ever imagined: the abuse continued through services supposedly there to protect, and then the family court, professionals looked the other way, and systems I trusted were used as weapons.

I found myself asking a question I couldn’t let go of:

How can a human being choose to inflict such pain and suffering on those around them? How do they remain unchanged, unmoved by the harm they cause? How can deceit come so easily, as though truth were meaningless? How can they live without conscience, acting with cruelty yet finding rest at night?

It wasn’t an abstract interest in psychology. I needed to understand psychopaths, coercive control, and deliberate cruelty because I was living with the aftermath of it. I wanted to know what kind of mind can inflict that level of damage and still perform “normality” for professionals.

That question sent me back to university.

I self-funded a Postgraduate Certificate in Neuroscience & Psychology of Mental Health. I did it quietly, alongside my job in primary care. Very few colleagues knew I was studying. This wasn’t about promotion or a title. It was about survival and understanding.

The reality is blunt:

No amount of academic theory will ever make intentional cruelty “make sense” in human terms.

But the course did something important. It gave me language, evidence, and a framework for what I had lived through. I learned about trauma, attachment, adverse childhood experiences, personality structure, chronic stress, and how the brain adapts to survive.

I am qualified in mental health, but my day-to-day employed role remains in primary care, with different clinical priorities. The mental-health training sits behind the scenes: it informs how I think, how I listen, and how I build this work, but I am not employed as a specialist mental-health clinician.

That distinction matters. So does the impact the course had on everything that came next.

Building on the framework provided by the PGCert in Neuroscience and Psychology of Mental Health, my journey shifted from solely personal survival to a commitment to serve others who are where I once was. 

This led to further specialised training, including becoming a Certified Trauma Healing Practitioner, a Certified Narcissist Recovery Practitioner, and a Certified Neurodiversity Coach through CMA- and IPHM-accredited providers. 

These qualifications are not mere credentials; they represent my dedication to transforming lived experience and academic knowledge into structured, ethical, and evidence-informed tools that I can share, ensuring this work extends beyond personal narrative to provide tangible, practical support.

ADHD, Masking, and the Shape of “Resilience”

At 34, I was finally diagnosed with ADHD – something I had suspected for years but never prioritised because I was too busy coping.

Suddenly, a lot made sense.

• My ability to hyperfocus through chaos
• My drive to fix complex problems that aren’t technically “mine”
• My tendency to keep going long after most people would stop – until I crashed

ADHD had quietly shaped my career success and my personal vulnerability. It helped me advocate, absorb information quickly, and think laterally about systems. It also meant I masked distress and over-functioned for far too long, calling it resilience while my nervous system was burning out.

The combination of primary care nursing, postgraduate mental-health training, ADHD, and lived experience of abuse and institutional failure created a particular kind of clarity:

• I could see the patterns
• I could name the dynamics
• I could track how systems were failing – not just for me, but for my children as well.

The Day the Music Told the Truth

There was a point where the clinical knowledge, the qualifications, and the “I’m fine” façade all fell apart.

One night, I sat in a chair, listening to “I Am Not OK” on repeat for an hour.

I wasn’t writing. I wasn’t coping. I was rocking, dissociating, and trying to keep my brain from breaking under the weight of what had happened – and what was still happening through the courts and institutional responses.

Two months later, in September 2024, I was diagnosed with PTSD.

The label didn’t shock me. It simply caught up with reality. Hypervigilance, flashbacks, sensory overload, the constant scanning for threat – all of it was textbook trauma layered on top of chronic stress and unresolved safeguarding failures.

At that point, writing stopped being a hobby and became something else entirely:

It wasn’t writing – it was survival.

When Your Children Show You the Cost

Some memories don’t fade, no matter how much time passes.

I will never forget the day my eldest son cut his wrists.

I will never forget my middle child hiding at the bottom of the stairs, convinced his stepdad had come back.

Their fear was a mirror. It reflected my own internal state – the same dread, the same hyperawareness, the same sense that danger could reappear at any moment.

These weren’t “incidents”; they were symptoms of living in prolonged fear and then being failed by the very systems meant to protect us.

Those moments changed the trajectory of my life. They turned advocacy from something I did around my job into something that sits at the centre of who I am.

The Courtroom Where My Voice Didn’t Count

Leaving an abuser should mark the beginning of safety.

Instead, I watched the family court become another arena for control.

My ex played the system. Professionals stayed silent. I was never properly heard. Evidence that should have mattered was omitted from the narrative. At one point, the court accepted the names of individuals supposedly posing as “police officers.” These individuals were not actual officers.

The one person stood up and did his job. A police officer tried to act with integrity. He paid a heavy price for it.

His own investigating officer became my point of contact; eventually, her humanity ruffled some tethers. That told me everything I needed to know about where the priorities really sat.

I was left with a clear message:

You can be a nurse, a mother, or a credible witness. Yet, you may still be silenced when it threatens the bad reputation.

That level of institutional betrayal changes you.

The Moment Nurse Against Abuse Was Born

The night after court, I wasn’t okay. I was struggling to hold it together.

My daughter was upset because she wasn’t “the best” at something. I’d explained to her that everyone has different things they’re good at, and she looked at me and said:

“You are the best at looking after people.”

When the systems around us wouldn’t protect us, that sentence became my guide. If I couldn’t make them listen to me, I could at least create a space. There, others would never feel that level of erasure. They would not be without a map in their hands.

During a period of severe mental decline, triggered by further police leaks and ongoing court proceedings, I realised something uncomfortable but undeniable:

If I kept trying to be heard in spaces designed not to listen, I was going to break.

So I did the only thing that made sense to my ADHD brain, my nurse brain, and my traumatised brain all at once:

I built something new.

Nurse Against Abuse did not start as a brand. It started as a survival mechanism.

It began with a nurse who had no idea how to build a website. Documenting everything in real time.

It was a rough, raw account written as disclosure failures, safeguarding concerns, and procedural anomalies accumulated.

Over time, informed by my postgraduate mental health training and ongoing personal experience, it evolved.

I rebuilt the blog. I turned loose posts into structured tools, timelines, and resources.

And now, two years on, it’s evolving again into www.NAAvoices – a space built not just from my story, but for every voice that deserves to be heard.

From Troubled Minds to Empowered Voices

“From Troubled Minds to Empowered Voices” was never intended as a branding effort. It grew out of my own journey. Traumatised and feeling voiceless, unable to find the words I so desperately needed. ]

Traditional trauma therapies don’t always fit everyone living with PTSD; for me, speaking was impossible.

Out of that silence, I developed a technique. It first became a journal for myself. Then, it became a tool for others who also struggled to speak but longed for help.

These journals are available to purchase, but the truth is, I give away and donate more than I ever sell.

It began as a personal survival tool.

Now, it has evolved into the From Troubled Minds to Empowered Voices Collection.

• From being overwhelmed and unheard to finally understanding what was happening inside my own brain
• From surviving day-to-day to building something that might make the path easier for someone else
• From having no voice to ensuring others never feel their lives matter so little to those who were meant to protect them

Throughout all of this, work remained constant.

I love primary care, my patients and my work family. Though it is a workplace, it has always been the place I turn to when I am struggling. A CAMHS worker asked me this week if I have support in place, given that my children still need help to recover from the abuse they endured. My answer was simple: I have work.

There, I could just be myself. Not a victim, not only a parent of traumatised children, but someone who can give others the care they deserve. My therapy is being able to serve others. It is where I was myself and where I can still be myself.

• Work became my sanctuary when my home was no longer safe
• My mental health qualification provides the theoretical foundation for what I share here
• My lived experience ensures none of this drifts into abstract theory

Together, they underpin everything you see on this site: the blogs, the survivor tools, the professional resources, and the insistence that people deserve to be heard, believed, and properly safeguarded.

Why This Story Is Here

This page exists for one reason: context.

When you read my blogs about West Mercia Police, family court, coercive control, ADHD, PTSD, or child safeguarding, I want you to know the perspective they are written from:

• A professional with lived experience and the qualifications and knowledge to support
• A mother whose children have lived through domestic abuse and systemic failure
• A survivor who has seen what happens when institutions protect themselves instead of the vulnerable

I am not neutral.

I am informed.

And I am still here.

If you are reading this because you are trying to make sense of your own situation – whether as a survivor, a parent, a professional, or all three at once – you need to hear this clearly:

You are not overreacting.

You are not weak.

You are not the problem.

And you no longer have to walk through this without language, without tools, or without a voice.

About the Author

Laura Prince (pseudonym) BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing | PGCert Psychology & Neuroscience of Mental Health | Certified Trauma Healing Practitioner | Certified Narcissist Recovery Practitioner | Certified Neurodiversity Coach (via CMA- and IPHM-accredited providers).