Trauma Does Not Define Me

It is difficult to explain everything that has happened throughout my life because so much of it has been shaped by trauma.

As a baby, my sister and I lived in a home where there was severe neglect, abuse and addiction. We were often hungry, unwell and frightened. When I was only six months old, my sister died as a result of that violence. Neighbours eventually reported what was happening, and I was removed from the home and placed into foster care.

Foster care was not the fresh start I had imagined. There was conflict and fear there too, and I struggled to understand why the adults who were meant to keep children safe often didn't.

Just before my fifth birthday I was adopted. For the first time, I allowed myself to hope that life might finally be different. In many ways it was, but not in the way I had dreamed. As a young child, someone I trusted repeatedly sexually abused me over several years. It took me a long time to understand what had happened, and when I eventually found the courage to tell someone, I wasn't believed. That experience taught me to stay silent, even when I desperately needed help.

As I grew older, addiction and conflict became part of home life once again. Alcohol and drugs changed the people around me, and I often found myself trying to manage situations that no child should ever have to manage. I lived with fear, confusion and loneliness, never knowing what each day would bring. Around that time I met a friend who became one of the brightest lights in my life. She listened without judgement and reminded me that someone cared. Looking back now, I realise how much her kindness carried me through some of my darkest days.

Despite that support, the weight of everything I had experienced eventually became overwhelming. I began using self-harm as a way of coping with emotional pain because, at the time, I didn't know any other way to survive.

Then everything changed again. My best friend was killed in a car accident. The grief was unbearable. I felt completely lost and ran away, hoping to escape the pain. During that time I experienced another traumatic assault that left me feeling even more disconnected from myself and the world around me. When I was eventually found and taken to hospital, it wasn't just my physical wellbeing that people became concerned about. I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, frightened and unsure whether talking about everything I had lived through would make anything better.

Slowly, I began to realise that healing couldn't happen while I carried everything alone.

When I returned to school, I entered another relationship that initially felt safe. Unfortunately, it became controlling and abusive. I stayed far longer than I should have because I desperately wanted someone to love me, and I believed I could somehow fix what was broken. During that relationship I became pregnant. I believed that maybe this would be the beginning of something better. Instead, following another act of violence, I lost my baby. It was one of the most devastating experiences of my life. The grief, trauma and years of unresolved pain finally caught up with me. I reached another crisis point and was admitted to hospital again.

This time something was different. Instead of shutting everyone out, I decided to try. For the first time, I began talking honestly about everything I had spent years hiding. The abuse. The assaults. The grief. The self-harm. The fear. The shame. None of it disappeared overnight. Healing never works like that.

But every conversation, every therapy session and every small decision to keep going became another step forward.

While I was focusing on my own recovery, changes slowly began happening around me too. My father entered rehabilitation, and my mother also began making changes in her own life. Things weren't suddenly perfect, and they still aren't today. There are still difficult days. There are still reminders of everything I've lived through. But there is also hope. For so many years I believed my past would always define me. Today I know it doesn't.

My story isn't one of someone who escaped hardship untouched. It is the story of someone who survived, kept getting back up and chose to keep healing, even when healing felt impossible.