I've suffered from severe PTSD & debilitating Depression for 25 years. brought on by 'Torture trauma'. It took me 10 years to tell my story to a therapist, and after I told her she treated me differently, she spoke to me differently, she looked at me differently.....I felt like she could see inside me. After a few more sessions, I just couldn't go back, as I felt that the trust had been broken between us.

I think that she felt out of her depth, and would get frustrated with me often. I opened up to a man I had been seeing after being together for 2 years...I had to, as parts of our relationship were dysfunctional. A week later he told me that it was best we stopped seeing each other, as (in his words) 'I didn’t sign up for this' It's not that he was insensitive, it's just that he couldn’t look at me the same way ever again. And I totally get that; I mean how could he not see me differently.

And so after unspeakable trauma, what you’re left with is a mess. Something that sort of resembles a person, but smashed into a million pieces. See, what happened to me is not the kind of trauma that elicits the response 'You poor girl' more like "Get as far away from me as possible'. So I can’t talk to anyone about it, I just can't. I tried writing it all down in a journal, but tore it up out of fear that someone else may read it.

I have been in and out of therapy, on umpteen different medications, ostracised by family, friends and colleagues, and shunned by society in the search for an answer, just an inkling of how to get myself ‘well’. 14 months ago I said ….ENOUGH!….I mean, really, what’s the point of living a ‘quarter life’. A life with constraints put in place by all those that said throughout those 25 years ‘To hell with you, you’re not one of us’. All those lost years of being afraid to live my life because I was told over and over that I didn’t fit in, that I was damaged and therefore not quite good enough.

So all I can do is just endeavour to become someone else, someone that didn’t have this dreadful experience. That's exactly what I've been doing for the past year or so..... reinventing myself, I've even changed my name. I’m wondering, is there anyone else out there that has had success using this strategy as a coping mechanism? I feel quite liberated so far, but what if I’m doing more harm than good? Either way, something has to give because I’ve lost 25 years of my life, and I’ve got to start living again.