Eva May opens up about her journey living with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a complex response to severe childhood trauma that went undiagnosed for over 33 years. After a police investigation into her historic childhood sexual abuse, Eva experienced a massive breakdown that left her unable to leave her home for nearly four years. She shares how dissociation manifests in her daily life—losing time, experiencing out-of-body sensations, and in severe episodes, engaging in dangerous behaviors without conscious awareness. Her story reveals the devastating ripple effects of unreported abuse and institutional failures to protect children.
Now receiving specialized treatment at the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London, Eva advocates fiercely for systemic change. She connects her personal experience to broader patterns of abuse, from the USA Gymnastics scandal documented in “Athlete A” to findings from the UK’s Truth Project about inadequate responses in residential schools. Eva emphasizes that organizations often prioritize reputation over child safety, with reporting being discouraged or ignored. Through her “Healing Image Hi” series and conversations with inspiring figures like Judge Rosemary Aquilina, Eva works to raise awareness about the gaps in UK treatment guidelines and the critical importance of proper trauma-informed care.
This episode is a powerful call to action for survivors, institutions, and policymakers. Eva demonstrates that healing is possible with specialist support, but access remains limited and unequal. She urges listeners to educate themselves about DID, support survivors, and demand that organizations prioritize child protection over institutional reputation.
Main Topics
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a complex trauma response that can result in loss of time, out-of-body experiences, and dangerous behaviors of which the person is unaware
Eva's abuse went undiagnosed for 33 years, with her experiencing depression, anxiety, and eating disorders treated in isolation rather than addressing the root trauma
A police investigation into childhood sexual abuse triggered a severe breakdown, leading to four years of agoraphobia and inability to work or leave her home
Institutional failures to report abuse are widespread, as demonstrated by cases like USA Gymnastics and residential schools that prioritize organizational reputation over child safety
Specialist trauma-informed care is dramatically different from standard NHS treatment, with Eva receiving 2 hours weekly face-to-face therapy plus additional support from trained dissociation specialists
The UK lacks NICE guidelines for DID treatment despite extensive research and effective treatment models existing in other countries
The Truth Project UK found that schools and institutions actively discouraged reporting and failed to adequately respond to abuse allegations, resulting in profound lifelong impacts on survivors
Full TranscriptHello, this is Eva May, and I'm talking to you from the Women's Radio Station for another in my series called Healing Im...▼
Hello, this is Eva May, and I'm talking to you from the Women's Radio Station for another in my series called Healing Image Hi. So Healing Image and Hi, so H for healing and I for image, saying hi, hello to yourself, is something that I really did for myself by asking for some help when I had a pretty major breakdown following the police investigation into my historic childhood sexual abuse. So I've been ill for, for so many years, and my sort of symptoms— depression, anxiety, eating disorders— all those things were kind of dealt with. Well, slowly, every time one sort of popped up, it got treated, or tried to treat it, but I didn't really get any better. And the first time this happened, um, that I got admitted to hospital, I was 19. Well, I'm now, I'm now 56, and I've been in the system all these years. Um, I I'm quite receptive to things, and I've, I've always wanted to get well and feel like I fit in, feel like I know myself. I've never really felt quite altogether, and now I know that the reason really is that I have something called Dissociative Identity Disorder. Which is shortened to DID. So it's a, it's a response that the, the body does to, to complex trauma. And my abuse went on for, for many years. Um, obviously the, the adults who were responsible for my care— well, apart from the ones that were hurting me— um, didn't, didn't know. And as a young child, I didn't have the vocabulary for it. It wasn't something that was discussed. I didn't have— it wasn't— there was no narrative for it. And it's made me pretty ill, and it affects my, my day-to-day life. And, and it has done for just years and years and years, for— well, since it started really, since I was groomed and my whole family were groomed. And then Yeah, until the, the police investigation for me was the time when I actually had to really realize as an adult what had happened as a child. And I had an extremely massive breakdown. I lost my job as too— I wasn't able to work anymore in the profession that I I'd worked extremely hard in, and I consider myself that I was good at what I did, but I wasn't able to do anything like that. And in fact, I didn't leave the house for nearly 4 years. I didn't even go in the garden. I used to open the door sometimes and look out, and sometimes my husband would I put my arm in his and he would walk me around the garden, but doing anything on my own, I just couldn't go outside. The whole space outside just was— felt so overwhelming that it was just literally going to swallow me up, and I couldn't. I'd be sort of forcibly sucked away, so I stayed in. I think one of the things was that the police put it in perspective as to what happened to me. They were very, very thorough. The process takes a long time, so I had to talk about— well, try, because finding the words was extremely hard, and I would dissociate. So that means going to two different parts of a sort of traumatic state or drift off, um, collapse even onto the floor, like lose time. I could have been on the floor crying out in pain for a couple of hours, and then I would— my body would just go limp. And it was extremely difficult, and I now have to work really hard to try and get through every day because the impact has been so severe that it does affect my day-to-day life. So I'm hoping that by doing these series and by talking to, to people like Judge Rosemary Aquilina, we can raise awareness of the actual damage that this does and that how important it is that reporting and signs are, because there were signs for me, but people, it's the unsayable, it's something that nobody wants to do. In the case with the US gymnastics Olympic team, when an athlete had reported this to the organization and to her coaches and her parents knew, they were told not to talk about it, they would ruin an investigation, where from— if you watch, there's a Netflix film called "Athlete A," nothing was being done. The the reporting process just didn't happen. They didn't want to have this, to face it. They didn't want— they were worried about somebody who was considered to be a very respectable and great person, um, to, to be doing these things. So it just didn't get reported, and then he was able to, under the guise of medical treatment, who's somebody who was comforting and helping these girls when they were injured during their training, who, you know, would listen to them, who would make them laugh, who would give them sort of sweets, you know, treats. So he was, he was like the really good guy. And I guess that's kind of what happened to me. In fact, my, um, my, my abuse was, um Organized abuse, and that means that there's, there's a group, so it's, um, and it's quite rare. Um, I'm learning more and more about it, so it is quite rare, which I think is probably why the head of the Child Protection Unit that I went to— I had to go to, you don't get a choice, there are reasons why you go to a certain one, told me that in front of my husband that my case was in his sort of top handful, handful in all the years that he'd been in doing that job of the, the most severe. And as an adult, especially as a mum with kids, I couldn't, um, I couldn't take that in. I don't think I needed to know that information, but then maybe I do, because I can now use it and hopefully raise awareness of where gaps are in treatment, delays in diagnosing Dissociative Identity Disorder within the UK, to try and get it recognized and have some guidelines by NICE because there aren't any. I am now, after 33 years, in the, um, at the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, which is based in London, and it is funded. My, my NHS had to do some pretty, uh, well, arduous, traumatizing assessments on me to say that they could not have helped me. The specialist care that I needed, they could not provide. This followed several, um, this is difficult to say, but if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, then you can drift off into different parts, you can get triggered, you can freeze, I experience like out-of-body sensations, and I can lose a few days and not really be with it at all. And during some severe states or episodes, I've— myself has done something to myself without myself knowing, because there were these different parts, and I've ended up in hospital in critical care, not knowing actually if I'm going to live. The last episode, which was, yeah, really, really severe, it wasn't actually that long ago, to be honest. Well, I mean, within the last 18 months, I was found and I was 20 minutes away from losing my life. So that is how serious it is. So we need to make sure that people— well, don't get abused would be the best thing, but if they do, or people are suffering this trauma, that reporting goes on, the proper reporting, and that the child is protected, because that's the most important thing, not the reputation of the organization, or the: "Let's brush it under the carpet," or: "Gosh, this might affect our sponsorship." Those things don't matter. They have to be reported, and there are laws across the world in different countries, so the laws of those countries must be followed by people in responsibility, in positions of responsibility, because the impact that Dissociative Identity Disorder has on my life is pretty severe and it affects my day-to-day life. So I just hope that by— if you watch something like Athlete A, gain more understanding. Google Dissociative Identity Disorder, and let's really try and raise some awareness. I would like, um, the UK to think about setting up some nice guidelines for this. There's plenty of research and plenty of effective treatment going on in other countries, so I think it's about time that We got that— well, everybody who needs it gets access to it. So at the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, I'm— it's based in London, but they have specialist psychotherapists who are trained, um, by the, the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation. So There aren't that many of them, and there needs to be a few more because my treatment now is so incredibly different to what I was getting that I'm not even sure that the NHS realize quite how specialized and quite how different it is. I get 2 hours face-to-face in one block. Of therapy with a specialist consultant psychotherapist each week. In addition to that, I get an hour of support, or— well, I use it, why would I not— to either message or, I don't know, talk about things that have happened, arrange a phone call. I have an hour to spread over the week and use how, you know, my therapist and I obviously communicate about how this could best be used. And I actually don't know what I'd do without it because it's, it's a real, it's a real, real lifeline. So another thing that I took part in, which is in the UK, is something called the Truth Project UK, which is the government's independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. It's been chaired by Dame Alexis Jay, and every now and then, um, like, well, the findings are going to be published in spring 2022, so not too long to wait. But there were over 6,000 survivors of historic abuse who took part in the project, and I was one of them. And this, this week there were some findings that came out, and they focus on different areas. So this one was about residential schools. So we're talking, I don't know, like any, any school. There's lots of reasons why people go to residential schools, whether it be for the arts or educational reasons or special educational needs reasons. So they, they, this was focusing on that, and they found several schools who did not respond adequately to allegations made against their staff by children. The children whose, whose job these people are to, to take care of and protect them— that has to be the forefront of all this. And they also uncovered that there was, um, a culture within these organizations, institutions, that actually discouraged reporting. Many people in charge were found to have, have said that it was just inconceivable that their staff might be involved in abuse of children in their care, or that actually the, the head teachers or people in that position of responsibility didn't actually properly understand their role in responding to allegations. They were more focused on protecting the reputation of the school than the interests of the children. And I'm actually quoting Dame Alexis Jay because I, I sat and listened to this. She also states that the impact of this abuse and the delay in reporting and, well, the not reporting has such an impact on the lives of the victims that it is both profound and lifelong, and that many perpetrators are not brought to justice. Well, the impact on me has been profound and lifelong. I wasn't in a residential facility at all as a— for educational reasons, so but I still have these difficulties in my life, and I'm 56, and I'm still trying to live with it. Now, talking to Rosemary Atkarina for me was a massive privilege. She has an incredible audiobook which actually is now published in paperback, I think, called Just Watch Me. I've never listened to an audiobook before, it's the first one, but because I've been in contact with her just through messaging really. She's given me some strength that I'm hanging on to and building on actually, and this audiobook, just watch me, it's 9 hours long and I've listened to it 3 times, so I feel like I've spent at least 3 days with her and I know quite a lot about her and the way that she speaks and narrates, and I was able to conjure up this sort of picture of this, this mother of 5 who also has her elderly parents living with her, she has dogs and she writes books and she sews and she paints and she cooks and she's a judge and she was in the National Guard. I mean, she's an absolutely incredible inspirational woman, you know, she She loves her hairspray, she loves coffee, she sings in the car, she does things that— Well, I don't have hairspray, but I certainly do the coffee and the singing bit. She wears cowboy boots, and if you listen to the book "Just Watch Me", you'll understand the significance of that and how to her that's a real sign of hard work. And then she talks about her role as a judge, and is saying, really echoing what Dame Alexis Jay was saying in the Truth Project UK, that, you know, if the reporting had happened when Athlete A, which is a film on Netflix which is about the athlete called Maggie Nichols, her mother does actually read out the impact statement to Judge Rosemary Aquilina during the trial and says, my daughter doesn't want to be known as Athlete, she wants to be known as Manky Nichols. It's an incredibly empowering documentary, and I, I would think it, it's very well done, and I hope that it can— if the more people who watch it, the more hopefully some understanding can be gained. So I want to talk to you about my week because that— well, the highlight was speaking with Rosemary Aquilina. She's— that, yeah, was like, um, I messaged her after the Nassau case when she, she did the sentencing and I was able to watch on television with many eyes from around the world. Of, you know, this, this terrible thing that had happened to— well, I think in the end they came to the— it's about over— it's over 500 girls. So yeah, she did something in me. It gave me a feeling. I'm not really sure what the words are, but it certainly was something that was positive and strong. And I just sent her a message She received thousands of messages from around the world, and she tried to acknowledge in some way each one. And she appreciated that people wanted to let her know that it had had some impact on their lives. And I got a message, I got a response from her the next day, so it was like a double lift. And since 2018, when this happened, the court case, she and I have, you know, over the years just dropped an email here and there. And, you know, I read your book and that was really great, I really liked it. And she's like, oh, thank you so much, you know, I've written another one, or, um, how are you, or, you know, and, and it's just been She feels like somebody that I just really get on with, so please listen to that broadcast because it's— what she talks about is absolute gold, so it's something that we need to discuss more of. So my week was, yep, fantastic seeing Rosemary and Corina on Zoom. The only problem was that I'd made a bit of a mistake and assumed that she lived in an area of the United States when in fact she was 3 hours away from that particular point and in another time zone. So rather than me speaking to her at half past 5, I had to speak to her at half past 4, and that was the, the hour that I'd kind of planned to get myself ready, like with my healing image skills from my image and my beauty sort of professional help. That didn't happen. I looked like I'd gone through a hedge backwards and she looked amazing. But anyway, that was fine. So I have 3 kids and one of the things that I miss hugely is them not being at home anymore. They, they're adults, they've, they've got jobs. Two of them, it takes a plane ride to go and see, and they're not even together, they're in different— so different plane rides. And, and one of them is extremely busy at work and has to, to live away, um, and also has a very busy social life and, and it's a very busy sort of sporting commit treatments. So I miss my kids hugely. I never thought when I had them that their day would come when they leave home, but it comes around pretty quickly, and I would love to have one day where they were just all little again, but that's not going to happen. So I'm just going to have to recall the memories of when they were here. Um, now I do find life a bit of bit difficult. I can isolate myself quite easily, and I need to, to not try and do that. Sometimes maybe it might be a good thing to do. I do have a dog, and for 6 years she is like my emotional support animal. She and I do an awful lot of things together, and through her I've met friends, and they are friends that I I do see every day, and this is important. If I didn't see these people, my friends who I've met from having a dog because they have dogs and our paths crossed, literally, um, I probably wouldn't see anyone. Um, I could message people, but actual human-to-human contact isn't there. I don't take my kids to places and talk to other parents and stuff anymore, that's not, not a thing. Anyway, my— one of my children was having a birthday on, on Tuesday just gone, and I was missing them terribly. To get anything posted over to where they live takes forever, and there's usually a pretty hefty customs charge on it as well that they have to pay. There's the other end, so it was decided that gifts and things would be kept at home until a later date when they could actually fly over and visit. And I just missed, I just missed them so much, and I got very low, and I was, you know, like crying and missing them, and I'm Yeah, it was difficult, it was difficult. I think probably because of the birthday. And, um, so I went to bed on Thursday. I'd actually been to London for a therapy session which is 2 hours and it also involves about 3 hours in total of traveling, so when I get home I'm usually pretty whacked. Um, and I try and have a sort of fairly quiet, stable evening and go to bed at a reasonable time, which I did. Then on Friday morning, I get up as I usually do, and I go and put on some dog walking clothes, and then I go for a walk to go meet my dog friends for coffee, and we have our morning briefing, which is great fun. I love it. And my husband said, 'Oh, oh, before you go, can you just—' I'm not a morning person. I can't usually speak to people until I've had at least 2 cups of coffee anyway. I didn't really gather what was going on, so he took me— he opened my door my child's bedroom door, and there she was. Her little face was in bed. They picked her up. She'd flown over. And I, I can't tell you, like, how something— what that means to have that, to be able to just to put my arms, you know, have our arms around each other and Yeah, it was just, just the best thing. Just all I want is just to know my kids are happy and well, but to have them in your arms as well, and just, it's just incredible. And, and it was, it was just terrific. But they wanted to go back to sleep because it was a bit early, so I went out as usual, and I couldn't wait to tell my friends. Like what a great morning I'd had. So, um, this was on a Friday. So it then transpires that everyone's been planning this as a surprise for me, and that night we were going out as, um, a family of— well, not all of us were together, but also with a couple of friends because they wanted to see their friend who's had to— who's flown over, who doesn't come over very often, especially because of COVID as well, that's been even less frequent. And I can't do— I'm very— I'm not very good in restaurants, I am— I have a lot of issues around food. I have a lot of issues around noise. I also have a metal jaw, and my jaw is only— was put in— it's complete— it's titanium on both sides. It's full jaw joint replacements. And it's probably down to stress or physical trauma. So clenching, basically my joints are completely worn away, so I had bone on bone and bone was crumbling away, so they're metal. And it— I'm still, I'm still recovering from that. It's still quite painful, and it tends to be painful around the ears where the joints move. So I'm quite sensitive to noise. So I said to my family, "Look, do you mind if we don't go out to the restaurant? Could we— I will cook and we can eat at home. That would be just, like, perfect." "No, we can't do that. We can't do that. The restaurant have phoned, confirmed that we're going." so we have to go. Well, and I, I said, I'm, I'm really like, I know this is probably going to be a bit too much for me because going out, bearing in mind I'd also gone through quite a lot of therapy the day before and was still processing things. I just really want people to realize that if someone with a condition who says quite clearly— I mean, I couldn't have said it any more clearly— that this is going to be too much for me, to be told: "No, no, no. We're going. Don't you spoil it. It's this." Well, I got there and there were 6 of us on a round table in a restaurant that doesn't have soft furnishings. There's no— nothing to absorb sound. They had music playing. It was completely full. It was so, so noisy that I, um, I can't, I can't stay present. I start drifting and trying to focus and touch a glass, or I was, I picked out a piece of ice and trying to hold that, and I could not, I couldn't do it. I actually had I had to leave. So in their eyes, um, they were like, 'No, no, no, no, it's fine, it's fine.' But you know, there's always a little bit of— I, I feel like I've let people down. Um, but then I know that I had to remove myself from there. I also knew two other people on different tables who I've then heard through other people since found it exactly the same. So the noise wasn't just me having an issue, there were other people too. It was incredibly noisy. So, um, yeah, that was that. The next day, um, it was planned that we, we would go out for the day, which involved about 4 hours of driving and another meal out and, you know, a nice time as a family, but Even I found this a lot. I would have probably been better with a quiet weekend at home or a dog walk around a field, but we went somewhere where again there were quite a lot of people. You know, it was fun, it was a treat, it was— but I have to be constantly aware of triggers, and I can get triggered quite quite quickly, and I'm working, working on towards managing these triggers. But the first thing is to name them. And if I'm naming them to people and they're not listening, or they're not getting it, or they just think it's completely ridiculous because there's not a huge amount of understanding— I mean, there really is not a lot of support for my family at all. In all of this. And my sort of previous to where I am now in for the specialist treatment, the other treatment I received was at a facility in Arizona in the United States where I was for 70 days. And my family, they never— they don't even know anything about it. They know what I've told them about it, and they also have their own opinions about it, some good, some bad, but they don't know. And it always reminds me of a clip, if any of you have ever watched the movie A Star Is Born, where— oh, it's just so moving where Bradley Cooper goes into a rehab facility and you see him sitting on a bench in quite pleasant surroundings with some sort of therapist or person from the facility and they're, you know, life seems pretty good. He seems like he's in a pretty healthy, good place and then he's going to go, go home, and he does. He goes back to life, and— but it's hard. I mean, you're kind of a bit institutionalized as well, plus people don't fully understand what's going on there, and you think that you've got it, and then, you know, with— if in that scene when he then gets home, he— other people around him don't make any adjustment themselves to, to accept or, or to support. And so it is very difficult. And that for him in, in this story had, you know, devastating consequences. So yeah, it does remind me a little bit of that. So, um, yeah, we got through all of this, um Saturday thing, and I was completely exhausted, like completely, completely exhausted. Then on Sunday there was more friends planning on coming over and some more members of our family for a big, like, birthday 3-course meal, which I had to go out and shop for and cook for and get the house ready for, and I didn't— I found— I find this sort of thing a lot. I used to really enjoy it, doing it, but without knowing that, having it sprung on me, and yeah, capable 56-year-old mum should be able to do this, but actually I can't, I can't always do it. It's very tiring, it takes a lot out of me. I think because of lockdown also, you know, not having people around, not having the kids at home, it meant that I got out of practice with doing this sort of catering. And again, it was talking and making sure everybody's all right when actually it was a little bit too much for me, and all I really wanted to do was sit down with my, my family, just us, and not go and do this grand scale sort of 4 days of pretty busy with being in contact with a lot of people and going out and about. Now, one of my, my main, my main triggers, which we have, is known in my household is a hoover, the noise of a hoover. If anybody wants to hoover when I am in the house, the rules are, and they have been for years, that you ask me, you tell me, and then I can either say yes, okay, say no or go out, and that's how we roll, and that's how it has to be. Because when I was— when things were happening to me that should not have been happening, then people who were in a position who knew what was going on and who should have reported this were actually using a hoover to cover up— to make a noise. So, I have this association with this hoovering. Now, without thinking and with absolutely no intention to do this, one of the people in my house started hoovering in a room that I was in. Now the reaction from my body is not something that I've planned. I plan, and it's not something that happens very often because people don't hoover around me at all. They know not to. But because we'd had people around, then obviously we needed a bit of tidying up doing. Well, I just collapsed. I, I was just like screaming but no noise coming out. And it was like every bit of air being sucked out of my body. And I was lying on the floor and I just couldn't believe that I— that my house, the four walls of my house, are the safe place, the safe place that when I have my breakdown I couldn't leave the safe place where everybody in there knows, do not hoover in the room where Mum is. Ask Mum, tell Mum, Mum can leave, or take Mum out. Well, I, I just couldn't. It was a total, total collapse, a total drift away from my body. Out-of-body, the worst thing with DID is to collapse and to get on the floor. The, the thing that I need to try and keep working on is, is to keep sort of moving, maybe go out and do some star jumps, something like that. But I mean, nothing is actually happening to me. I am not being abused when somebody is hoovering in my house. That— let's make that very clear. But at the moment where I am with my treatment, and because— is, is that I cannot distinguish, or the parts in me cannot distinguish. They do not get on well, they do not work comfortably together, they do not understand each other, associate the— like, if you're, if you're abused and there's a scene, there will be in a scene. So you've got colors, you've got sights, you've got sounds, you've got, you know, what was going on in that scene. Now, if the walls are painted green, it does not mean that every time I see a green wall, that is where I was abused. But at the moment, that is where I'm at. So now, if I hear a Hoover then I can't distinguish between the fact that it's not— this hoover is not causing me— I am not being harmed while this hoovering is going on. But that's what's happening. It was, it was so bad. Um, it, this, this was particularly bad. I just couldn't believe it, that my house wasn't safe. I was— I could hear this terrible, terrible screaming. That was me. I was like lying on the floor and just crying. And this goes on and on until I pretty much blow out. I've got no energy left. I've upset everybody who's— who— they're all distressed. They, they didn't mean anything, and it's had this disaster, and I fled the house. I, I, um, I did, and I don't actually remember where I went. So, so it's just not something so simple. If somebody says to you, please don't do this, No matter how trivial it seems, just please try and remember that they are asking for help and doing their best. So let's just try and keep this, um, conversation going and help people like me and many people who suffer from any form of trauma, these situations. So, you know, dissociation happens— it's like a mental flight when physical flight is impossible. So it's not something that, um, that, that, that's what I did when I was you know, experiencing abuse. There's other things that I can't do, and with working through my therapist, we've been trying to process and understand why. Now, this is, this is something that happens to me. I never met anybody else who's been through what I've been through, so I don't know when I speak. I might sound as if I'm being inappropriate. Well, I in no way, shape, or form mean to be inappropriate with anything that I say, but I have experienced things that I shouldn't have, and so if I speak about them, please don't think I'm being inappropriate, but I can't sprint. So I can run at a steady pace, but I can't sprint. And I do go to, to the gym. I, I go and I have, um, somebody that I work with in the gym, so one-on-one. I put on 2 stone fairly recently, about 2 years ago, when I went on to HRT for the menopause— something else that needs talking about— I asked, I said, 'Please, will this make me put weight on?' Somebody who suffered from eating disorders and still has issues around food, which is another reason why the restaurant thing didn't go down well, I was assured that no, it would be really unlikely that I put weight on with this HRT. And all my friends, they're skipping about, you know, never felt so well, and I kind of wanted some of this. So, but oh no, for me, 2 stone— in fact, I think it was more like 2 and a half stone— it seemed like something that I wasn't ever going to get on top of. It just happened so incredibly quickly, and I've got weight in places that, you know, it's never been before. So I work one-on-one with somebody, um, who don't— they don't know anything about my mental health, um, and I enjoy working with them actually, and I find I like the challenge, and I feel I've achieved but I can't sprint. And sometimes we do do like shuttle runs, so sort of running between cones and going from the first one back, second one back. And I cannot put on acceleration at the end. I have to keep my same pace. And, and she, she's— my trainer's just like, well, you know, can't you— come on, sprint it in, sprint! I can't. I cannot do it. When I go to boot camps, which I do, I love going to, I go to an all-female boot camp in the UK, I think it's GI Jane, it's called, we do a run and I can pace it, but when you're coming to the end and you've got people cheering you on, everyone else can sprint, and I can't. I have to keep my same pace. If anything, I'd go slower. So we were talking about this, and I know it probably doesn't seem like a massive thing, but it is definitely a funny feeling in me about trying to accelerate and run, um, and, um, I got this, this terrible, terrible flashback, and it wasn't something that I wanted to talk about because it just took me back to being a very, very scared child. Um, but anyway, I will tell you what happened. So this is how it can impact on your life. I had a friend who I used to go and see after school when I was in my sort of— I was about 12, and they had horses, and they had horses that were in a field by the road. Their house was down, well, way past this field really. They had many fields, and then their house was at the end of it. Now, one of the places where I I was harmed wasn't that far away from, from this field where the horses were. So I managed to, to get out of the building that I was in, and I ran, and I ran because I didn't like it and I wanted to get away, and I ran And I can remember hearing my breath, I can remember moving my arms, hearing my feet pounding on the ground, and like going so fast that I could feel the wind going past me. So I ran and I wanted to get to my friend's house, and I never made it. I didn't get there because Obviously, like, the people who were causing me harm didn't want this to happen, and they came out for me in a car. So my sprinting as fast as I possibly could got me nowhere. It got me put in the boot of a car, um, which is terrifying. And yeah, so I can't sprint because for me it doesn't matter that I don't sprint, but it's something that I have to, to process and I don't have to explain to everybody why I can't do it. I, I, you know, I've had my, um, I've had some pins put in my feet because they were like bungy, and you know, I got that too. So I can always use my feet as a little bit of an excuse. I don't have to tell anyone that, oh yeah, well, I had to run away from my abusers and I was sprinting so fast down the road, but actually I got caught and stuck in a car boot. Now, every time I sprint, I am not going to be put in a car boot and driven back, but while I'm still at the stage where I am, that, that's where That's what's going on. So what's really important is that I try and remember that, you know, my family are only human. They're hoping that my life's moving on. They— there's something called compassion fatigue, you know, they're basically a little bit like maybe not consciously, but fed up about this. And they don't— they haven't experienced what I've experienced, and I don't want them to know all about it. And you know, when I get this sort of strange numb feeling where I can sit and stare off but not really see anything then I've got to take some responsibility for that now and work, be receptive, and try and keep myself moving, doing something sort of physical, like, like doing some star jumps, go outside in the garden. And if I need to leave the house, then go and leave the house. I, you know, I have to have people like that I could could, could go and see, or I have my dog who is like, to me, like, well, not only do I love to bits, but she is like an emotional support when I go out. So I hope this, uh, this has been, yeah, a bit difficult. So started off like really exciting, like having my, you know, my youngest child over for their birthday for 4 days, but having so much packed in, and you know, my husband works, and of course my, you know, my children, the 2 that came, managed to come home for this occasion, we were down 1, You know, they work, they want to see their friends. So as a mum, um, yeah, you know, I'd go out, get the shopping, plan, cook, you know, decorate, do the whatever, get the cake, yeah, invite people around, talk, listen, you know, try and look after everybody. But actually it was just a bit too much, and I'm going to have to work on that. As well. And also my family are going to have to listen because I didn't ruin going out. I told them I was not able to do it, it would be too much, and I was— it was— I wasn't listened to. So I'm now authorizing that someone from the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London, which I go to, they are— they have spoken with some members of my family previously, but we need to keep this communication going because I don't have the language or the energy to keep trying to explain it, and it's an extremely difficult thing to explain to somebody, and it's also very distressing, not only for me but for my, my family, my loved ones, and, and some people who have done, um, whose actions I've not been able to comprehend are people who I no longer actually see. And that at the moment is how that needs to be, because my dissociation can get worse. And a trigger would be if someone does something to me or says something about me, writes something about me that I just cannot make sense of, because I cannot make sense of what happened to me. I cannot make sense that adults can hurt children, and you know, from speaking to Rosemary Atkulinah from the broadcast last week, and from listening to Dame Alexis Jay releasing some findings about residential schools, um, which was done as part of the inquiry into the government's independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, so the Truth Project UK, about people not responding adequately to allegations against staff, and that this culture of discouraging reporting has to change. And it's not an easy process for, for anybody. So I thank you for listening for this one. I'm going to Next week I'm hoping to have a guest from an organization called FIPPI, which is the Federation of Image Professionals International, and they are like an international organization that actually have accredited sort of recognition for the training of their members for image, um, look, um, to help people. Um, and in 2019, before COVID I was actually invited as a guest speaker to speak about Healing Image High, um, in relation to, to image and trauma at their annual conference, where I spoke to their members and I was really honoured and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them and I was hoping that I was going to be able to do some more speaking like that and then we got into the lockdown situation. So that's why you've got me with my Healing Image Hai series for the women's radio station. So This is Eva May, and I look forward to recording my next week's broadcast, um, with the events coordinator from FIPI, where, um, I think you'll find it extremely interesting. Um, her name is Nevo, and I have actually met her because I do like to meet my guests. I mean, I couldn't fly to the States to meet Rosemary Aquilina, but would have been lovely to have done that, but maybe one day, you never know. So I'd like to wish you all a very good week. Thank you for listening, and I will be speaking to you very soon. Thank you. Goodbye.
