Smashing through trauma with EMDR

The past few months have been challenging. We live in a different world now. This is 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. I started the year with PTSD pre-counselling group therapy, which I found very confrontational, and excessively draining. It was only 3 sessions, but still … it was rough. When the pandemic hit, […]

Hello you

I have a diagnosis. Frankly, I don’t know how or what to feel about it. I’ve been in free-fall ever since I saw the lady who wrote this letter; almost 4 weeks ago now. The occasion was an assessment for trauma informed therapy. It was the first time I had spoken to a professional about […]

Running on empty

My first post for the wonderful CPTSD foundation was recently published. You can read it here.

The road to recovery

The road to recovery is long and arduous. The act of seeking help, and the anticipation of receiving it, is among the most challenging of all. It stirs deep, dark waters and the sensed but unknown terrors that lurk in waiting underneath the sediment of my mind. I can feel them slither in their murky […]

Year of the Rat

A few years after I moved out of my parental house my then partner and I got a pair of fancy rats. Gorgeous little critters. Moira and Oisin – soon dubbed my pair of little klouterkabouters or climbing gnomes, because before you knew it, they would be up in the curtains. Gosh, these things could […]

The Trauma Tree

Are you, are youHiding in the tree?It harbours a childWhom none could or would seeStrange things did happen hereNo stranger would it beIf we met at midnightIn the trauma tree Are you, are youHowling at the tree?Where grown folk turned roundPlaying no can seeNo stranger would it beIf we met at midnightIn the trauma tree […]

Goldilocks

Isn’t it funny how our mind and body shield us from remembering our traumas until the circumstances are just right for you to safely start processing them? I saw it many years in my Mum, whom in her hour of need finally found a kind soul who was receptive to her extremely private nature and […]

Faery Tales

When I was a toddler, I used to have a record player with a series of recorded faery tales by the Grimm broths and Hans Christian Anderson.  They were set to classical music; Strauss, Mozart, Smetana and other contemporaries of the Romantic period. I would spend hours and hours in my little room, pottering about […]

Come on, little one, talk to me

I feel like I want to write. I don’t know what about. I’ve wasted all day messing about with Facebook and Reddit. What am I avoiding?Come on, little one. Talk to me. I see you. It’s a grey and chilly day. You’re a burst of colour in your red lacquer raincoat; a tiny solitary figure on […]

On Trees

I was walking my bonkers border collie Sadie in the park the other day – I think it was the day after I went on Christmas Leave and it dawned on me that for the first time in years, maybe ever, I could relax and enjoy this time of year. So I let her off […]