hayleypearce

Maeve asks me, ‘On a scale of 1 to 10 , how bad is it?’ ‘A 10, I reckon,’ I respond. ‘Ok’, she looks at me, ‘Go with it.’ As she moves her hand across my eye line, I follow it, back and forth. Time travel begins. I see her Continue Reading

You ask yourself, what’s it all for? and even though you know, you still ask. It’s the question left at the end of all the fighting to get safe, to become free. When life has shown you that speaking out to protect yourself and your child, from the organised child Continue Reading

I left myself behind, in places I did not belong. I was stranded. Lost and alone, not able to find my way out, because I didn’t even know I was there. I stayed missing for a long time. Too long. But all that time I was lost to myself I Continue Reading

Recently I realised I was in a depression so deep, I’d no awareness I was in it. Living with Complex PTSD I’ve had episodes of clinical depression before, where circumstances of unrelenting stress have changed my brain chemistry, due to the constant rush of cortisol from trauma responses. Previously in Continue Reading

It is bad enough to be a survivor of organised ritual abuse, but having to face the disbelief and denial which surrounds this crime, makes bearing it even more difficult. Society struggles hard enough to look honestly at child sexual abuse happening in so many families. Statistics from Rape Crisis Continue Reading

Something is happening inside me I don’t understand. It is an occurring of a way to be that is coming around, after all denial is gone. Lost forever. I feel love for the denial I once had. It was monumental, it saved my life as a child, it held me Continue Reading

Last night I phoned Rape Crisis to share some emotions, to offload feelings I have about my mother. I struggle using that word, mother. She was not a mother, she was a monster, a terrorist. I know the full reality of her now. The denial I created around my experience Continue Reading

I never cared much for the label,’ disorder.’ I got used to living with it hanging round my neck, like a sign directing others to crazy. Did I ask for it. No. No one does. When I received it as a diagnosis I felt relieved. I knew I dissociated, I Continue Reading

This is what we desired. Safety. This is what we needed from day one, our right, a biological need to grow and thrive as children. Safety. And what if we never knew this ? If all we knew was terror ? Or the constant fear of doubting yourself, because anything Continue Reading

There are places I cannot go, places I have learned to stay out of. I treat my thinking like a child who needs boundaries, I coax, I tell, I nurture , I direct, I guide, I love. I am aware of the place I could go. The place that is Continue Reading