Latest posts
When Rest Feels Unfamiliar: What a Quiet Evening Led Me to Learn About Polyvagal Theory
What happens when you finally stop and realise you don’t know how to rest? A quiet evening of reflection led me into learning about polyvagal theory and how our nervous system responds to safety, stress and trauma. A personal reflection on lived experience, healthcare training and understanding the body’s survival responses.
The Lay-By That Held Me Together
A quiet, reflective piece about the lay‑by that became a lifeline during years of trauma. Returning there after difficult news revealed something profound: the body can learn safety again, and the places that once held our fear can become proof that we survived.
Accountability Doesn’t Vanish Simply Because a System Looks Away
Learning to Live a Life I Never Understood For the past two and a half years, I’ve been living a life I never expected to face. People often say that after two years, things should feel different, that healing should have taken root by now. And in some ways, it has. There are days when
The Administrative Burden of Survival: What Post-Separation Abuse Really Looks Like
Post-separation abuse doesn’t end when you leave. A survivor-led account of digital coercive control, documentation fatigue, and the hidden labour of staying safe after domestic abuse.
When ADHD Met PTSD: How Trauma Rewired My Brain and How Understanding That Saved Me
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. For 34 years, I lived with ADHD, and never once needed mental health services. I’d worked through the front line during COVID, wards, diabetes clinics, and mental health services. Thirty-hour weeks, raising
Mental Health and Neurodiversity – Understanding the Link
A detailed, evidence-informed blog for survivors, families, and professionals By Laura Prince | NAAVoices.com Why This Conversation Matters 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
At 34, Everything Changed
At 34, Everything Changed December 15, 2025 The Mother They Created When They Failed My Children 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
From Survival to Voice: The Journey Behind NAAvoices
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
Day 1 — A Personal Account of Police Corruption, Institutional Betrayal, and What Happens When One Officer Dares to Do the Right Thing
Two years after fleeing domestic abuse with three children and one plastic bag, this first-hand account documents what happened when repeated disclosures of child abuse, coercive control, and serious safeguarding risks were met with silence, dismissal, and institutional failure — until one officer chose to do his job properly. Part One of a two-part testimony…
DAY 8 | The Quiet Before It Starts, Recognising the Calm That Isn’t
Abuse rarely begins loudly—it arrives disguised as love, concern, and protection. As Domestic Abuse Awareness Month winds down, this reflection explores how coercive control first appears as quiet devotion, slowly shrinking your world until your autonomy is traded for someone else’s comfort.
