Returning to Work with PTSD

Reflection — Two Years On

Original entry, 10 September 2024, written during active trauma

The entry that follows was written during a period of active trauma, while the abuse and its consequences were still ongoing. At the time, I was attempting to survive, parent, work and make sense of events that kept unfolding. I did not yet have the neurological framework to fully understand what was happening to my mind and body.

During that period, I was studying the neuroscience module of my postgraduate certificate. One lecture in particular focused on neuroplasticity and the neurological impact of trauma. Through neuroimaging and clinical evidence, it became clearer to me that PTSD is not a personal failure or a weakness of character. It is a trauma-related condition that can profoundly affect the nervous system, particularly when someone is repeatedly exposed to threat or forced to relive harm.

That understanding mattered.

For a long time, I carried responsibility that did not belong to me. I questioned my decisions, my resilience and my capacity to cope. I told myself I should have left sooner, should have handled things differently, should have been stronger.

What the science helped me understand was that the injury did not arise from leaving too late. It came from the abuse itself, and from being repeatedly pulled back into it through systems that failed to protect us.

I had left. I was no longer living with him.

What followed was not something I chose, and it was not something my children deserved.

The neurological changes I live with are the consequence of sustained harm and re-traumatisation. Those who caused that harm made choices. Systems and individuals who failed to intervene also made choices. The injury that resulted is not mine to own in terms of blame, even though I am the one who has had to live with its effects.

This reflection is not a correction of the entry that follows.

It is context.

The original post remains close to how it was written. It reflects the reality of that moment, before I had the same insight and understanding I have now. It was written before science helped me make some sense of what had happened to me.

Within the Two Years On series, entries are presented as they were lived, alongside the understanding that came later.

The words that follow are not evidence of failure.

They are evidence of injury.

And of survival.

(Original entry — 10TH September 2024) (written during active trauma)

PTSD is often described as a mental health condition. Living with it, however, has felt more like a traumatic injury to my nervous system than an illness I simply developed.

I learned about this recently, and it left me with questions I cannot easily answer.

Does this mean I have to endure it forever?

Will it worsen if the abuse and re-traumatisation continue?

Research increasingly shows that PTSD and traumatic brain injury can share overlapping neurological consequences following trauma. Global estimates suggest that around 1.1% of the population experiences PTSD within a 12-month period. Approximately 69 million people worldwide sustain a traumatic brain injury each year.

The neuroimaging below illustrates how PTSD and TBI can differ and overlap in brain perfusion patterns.

Trauma alters neural pathways involved in threat detection, memory and emotional regulation. These changes are adaptive during danger. However, they can become destabilising when safety is delayed or denied.

**Figure 3. Brain SPECT Images of Healthy, PTSD, TBI and PTSD co-morbid with TBI perfusion patterns.**
Source: Amen et al. (2015). *Functional neuroimaging distinguishes posttraumatic stress disorder from traumatic brain injury in focused and large community datasets.* PLOS ONE, 10(7), e0129659.

Top row: surface scans with threshold set at 55%, showing the top 45% of brain perfusion.
Bottom row: active scans where blue = 55%, red = 85%, and white = 93%.

Healthy brain: Full, even, symmetrical perfusion with the most active area in the cerebellum.
Classic PTSD: Increased perfusion in the anterior cingulate, basal ganglia, and thalamus.
Classic TBI: Multiple areas of low perfusion visible on surface scans.
PTSD + TBI: Displays both increased perfusion patterns associated with PTSD and low‑perfusion areas associated with TBI.

I struggled to wear my uniform

I Struggled to Wear My Uniform

With the children back in school and my return to work approaching, I thought it would be sensible to spend some time reacclimatising.

To get used to the environment again.

To be around people.

I struggled to wear my uniform.

I felt disconnected from the proud, compassionate nurse I once was.

The ongoing attacks on my character through the court process had deeply shaken my sense of self. It became difficult to protect my identity and continue fighting when so much of who I was felt under question.

I questioned my strength.

I questioned who I was.

I arrived early, completed the routine checks and went straight to my room.

The grip PTSD can have on the mind is profound. I expected relief when returning to a place that had felt safe for so long. Instead, it felt foreign.

The warmth had gone.

There were memories, but not the ones I had expected.

The comforting memories were gone.

There had been days when I went home thinking about patients. I would check in because I knew people had a lot to manage. There were times I knew I had made a difference. Work had been the place where I could be myself, where I felt free, and where I found respite from the hell I was living at home.

Instead, the photograph a colleague had encouraged me to keep was still on my shelf. We had covered part of it with another image so that only my child and I remained.

I could not even look at it.

When I tried to pick it up, my hands shook so badly that I dropped it. It smashed across my desk.

The room was full of memories.

Trauma does not stop at the outside world. It invades even the spaces that once felt safe.

Haunted by My Sanctuary

I avoided reception.

Everyone had been kind, but I was petrified of being asked how I was. I could not keep the emotion away, and crying in a shared workspace was not something I could cope with.

My nursing team had already been supportive through a difficult period. I did not want to cause more worry.

It was nearing a year since I left him, and the impact of what we had lived through had touched every aspect of our lives.

The continuation of it made me feel worse than I did when I left. I had believed leaving would end his control. Now I knew how far he would go, and I could not see an end in sight.

My colleagues came in individually to catch up, give me a hug and see how I was.

I wish there had been a cure.

A way to wave a wand and make it all stop.

A way to be me again.

We all have “our” rooms, even if we are not meant to call them that. I had decorated my noticeboard after twelve months because I was certain this was the right place for me.

I could not stop thinking about how to change the room.

I kept staring at the same wall. The same view. The same space connected to days when my private life was unstable and I was still trying to work, think and function.

The chest pain.

The stress.

The fear.

Unless you have lived through something like this, it is difficult to understand the depth of damage it causes.

One thing I do know is that people in healthcare care.

Even when they do not fully understand, they care.

That compassion had not been reflected by many other agencies involved.

Flashbacks and Intrusive Thoughts

Flashbacks and intrusive thoughts are particularly prominent in complex PTSD. I hope I reach a point where these experiences ease, where I can close my eyes without fearing what I might see.

I spoke to my manager about moving my desk.

A different view might help. However, it was not practical. It would affect the layout of the room and how safely I could work within it.

He was thoughtful and busy, but he still tried to think of ways we might change the space.

I suspect he could hear the struggle in my voice and knew I would not say exactly why.

Normally, I would share anything new with the team. That day, despite knowing I needed a drink, I could not even face going out to get one.

My work mum asked if I wanted a cup of tea, and I went with her.

I knew I had to find the strength to return, but where that strength would come from was beyond me.

Constraints Beyond Choice

He continued to control the mortgage and still had not signed the deed. I was paying over £600 more each month, and it could take weeks to resolve.

Going to half-pay was not an option when I needed to provide for the children.

I completed my flu vaccination training and deliberately avoided anything connected to the police or court. I was trying to find a connection beyond the constant protection of the children, but it felt almost impossible.

Even reviewing evidence to safeguard them brought further trauma.

Everything felt overwhelming. Silent and deafening at the same time.

I think those who live with PTSD will recognise that contradiction.

My manager found it amusing that I needed to update my safeguarding training. He knew I could probably recite Working Together to Safeguard Children by heart.

The sole focus of the previous ten months had been safeguarding my own children, yet no one had afforded them the same level of protection.

I had a few wobbles.

A few cries.

I hoped to manage six hours, but I could not.

At lunch, I felt jumpy. Although I knew I was safe in theory, my body did not believe it.

It is surreal to feel empty and hypervigilant at the same time.

Small talk felt pointless, but I still cared deeply about my colleagues. Normally, I would be full of ideas and support.

I did not want them to know how far away I felt inside.

I am beginning to realise it is not my team who are the odd ones.

It is the wider world.

When empathy and compassion feel rare, those who still carry them matter.

The Blog as a Safe Space

I contacted CMHT and called my GP.

I was not on regular medication, only medication for acute trauma responses, but I had run out and was worried about how I would manage the following day.

One colleague had become a close friend. She and my work mum provided character references for court. I could not read them at the time.

It was clear that I had changed, despite my attempts to fight through.

I hated being seen differently, yet part of me was relieved they could not see inside my head.

This blog became my safest space. The only place I could be honest without causing worry to those I care about.

The next day, I had to meet CAFCASS.

I was terrified they would see only the broken version of me, not the person I was before the abuse became too much.

I did not want to be broken.

I knew I could not live freely while he continued to exert control, and I feared what he would do next.

I had not been able to process what I had lived through because it had not stopped.

I knew there was still part of me inside.

I did not know whether I would ever fully come back.

The Real Hug

That evening, my youngest asked their middle brother for a “real hug.”

Watching them climb out of bed to embrace stirred something in me.

These moments, small and fleeting, are what I cling to.

They remind me of what things once felt like.

They remind me of what is still worth holding on to.

This reflection is shared as lived experience to support domestic abuse awareness, trauma-informed understanding and the normalisation of mental health support. It is not intended as clinical advice or a comment on any individual patient, colleague or workplace. Identifying details have been limited where appropriate to protect privacy and maintain professional boundaries. The purpose of sharing this is advocacy, reflection and reducing stigma around trauma, domestic abuse and seeking help.

My Lived Experience: A Personal Journey Through Trauma and Recovery

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 this 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.

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.

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” facade 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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. 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.