Hello, this is Eva May and I'm speaking to you from the Women's Radio Station for another of my series called Healing Image High. So Healing Image High was just me asking for some help from image and beauty professionals for the way that I looked, some help with it. I'd rather lost my way following the police investigation into my historic sexual abuse as a child. So from that project and learning from these people that I had great privilege to be in contact with, it's given me a lot more confidence and other things to think about, and it's changed the sameness of my days when they weren't really very good. So I'm hoping that this can give you some ideas on how, if you are struggling or you know someone else who's struggling, that the idea of trying to add in or find something that someone would like some help with— it could be in any area at all— might help them if they are suffering from any sort of mental illness, or just to help try and change the way that they think, because that for me was absolutely the most important thing. And being able to put together some clothes and know that they were okay and that I felt fine about them. The most particular piece of advice that was so good to me was about getting a new bra, and that was something I I don't know, maybe because I'm not great at having people sort of look at me or touch me. I'm not that fond of looking at myself sometimes. So, but actually getting a new bra, a proper bra, and making sure that I have a correct fit that gives me a better silhouette was absolutely, like, crucial to this. So I would urge anyone just to go and see somebody, a professional, and get some help. With that. It's a really good place to start. But from being able to learn about makeup, to talk about it, and to have conversations with people who I felt really comfortable with— my first attempt at makeup wasn't very good. I asked in a department store for some help, but the help there is often— well, it was for me— on the busy walkway of a store on a Saturday when they were able to give me about 15, 20 minutes. And I just— it wasn't for me. I didn't benefit from it at all. I didn't really learn anything. The end result was me being given a mirror where I looked in it and I didn't even recognize myself, and it certainly wasn't a look that I could do. So, if you you feel like you want to go and ask someone about sort of makeup and skincare, because it is, it is a good thing to, to do, to look after your skin and to feel good about yourself and your face, to say, you know, I need something really basic. I'm— these people who, who work with makeup every day, I mean, they can do incredible things. I've watched a really interesting series, I think it was on BBC 3 called Glow Up, where they have some— it's a competition where you have makeup artists who are training, some of them are working, but they have to complete sort of tasks, and the stuff that they were able to create, the looks, There were— some of the tasks were just absolutely, like, really, really tough. But my goodness, what they were able to do was so creative and so interesting that I really enjoyed that. But one of the things that I did learn from that was that moisturizing your face is absolutely key. So I now do take a lot of care in how I, like, clean my face and how I wash my face. With, um, you know, proper things, not wipes. I use a special cleanser now and, and use moisturizer. So Glow Up's a great program to watch, um, if, if you want to see something really creative. But certainly I don't think, um, there's, there's any chance that I will ever be on that show because what I create for myself just would not win me any brownie points on that one. So from So from having some help with that, I've been in therapy since I was 19 and I'm now 56, so that's an awful long time and I just think I shouldn't— it shouldn't have been like this. I should have had some better help, the right help. People maybe should have been honest, not just about the type of therapy that they were being able to offer me, which in some circumstances it just wasn't what I needed. So it was a waste of my time and it was a waste of their time. But there are only so many sort of resources and there's only so much information out there at the moment that what is available is limited. Um, particularly with our— we have, um, in the UK we have our National Health Service, the NHS, and they are incredibly stretched to try and help people. They are getting referrals for, for all sorts of things, and there's a, there's a big wait list. So, and also for complex trauma, which mine is, um, is, yeah, is, was. There is in this country, I have something called Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is DID, which is where the— when things were happening to me that were— shouldn't have happened to a child, where I couldn't use any words. The adults who were involved, you know, it was it was under threat, but also then there were some treats, so it was terribly confusing. But it really wasn't something that I could talk about. I definitely did not have those words. So it's extremely difficult to, to get this diagnosis for DID, and even when you do get it, which has taken me like sort of 30 years, then in the UK we don't actually have guidelines set out by NICE, which is our policymakers for helping conditions. There aren't any at the moment in the UK. So one thing I want to talk to you about today is something called the Truth Project UK. Which has— is the government's independent inquiry into historic child sexual abuse. So the inquiry's been going on now for quite a while. It's actually finished, and during the time it ran, they had face-to-face or Zoom interviews with over 6,000 Survivors. So, people could apply to take part in the project. I applied. I felt that it was something that was extremely worthwhile, but I was very cautious, and I would really urge anybody who's thinking about entering into any sort of project or survey or talking to somebody, even talking to the police, to find out what sort of safeguarding and support there's going to be for you. Because they said that there would be safeguarding, but I wanted to make, um, absolutely sure that I knew what that meant. Because I've been in situations before where really, where people who've been in the position in a caring profession, in the healthcare profession, to help me, they haven't. I don't know if they've done that deliberately or if they just couldn't see it or if it was bad practice or if they had a bad day, but I certainly have experienced that, and some of it has been extremely damaging, and some of it Well, I've learned from it, and so have my family, I'm afraid, and some to their cost. So anyway, I went— I decided to go for the Truth Project, and they sent me an interview date, but it was in Liverpool. Well, I live quite near London, so I really didn't see why I could well, how I could get all the way to Liverpool, take part in sort of a 2-hour face-to-face interview, and then travel all that way home. So I pulled out. I said, no, this isn't going to be for me. I then read more and more about it in the press, and I thought, I really should be doing this. I've, I've been in the system I've— I have been a victim, so I need to take part in this. Because not only do they want to hear survivors' experiences, they also put a very heavy emphasis on listening for suggestions from survivors on how to move forward and how things could be changed for the better. So I contacted them, I phoned, and they're great. They have a phone line that actually picks up and you can talk to a person almost immediately, and they were— they apologized and said, well, of course we'll send you out an appointment for London, that makes a lot more sense. So I felt happy with that, and I also said that I wanted to talk to somebody and make absolutely sure what the safeguarding, so the support afterwards, would be. Because I don't really know when I'm going to be triggered. Something that I didn't know what I was actually going to speak about. You know, when you've been abused for a long time and in several ways, you've got 2 hours, so I left the rest of it on— I wrote in a report and submitted that. So, you know, things could have come up that were going to trigger me, so they got someone to call me back and I was assured that I would get support from one of the people that I actually met and that it would be sort of telephone support but it would be fairly sort of regular intervals and for a reasonable amount of time. So I decided to go ahead with this, and I'm glad I did. The findings, um, the full findings of this inquiry aren't going to be released until the spring, um, so 2022, so it's not too long to wait. But if you go on their website, or if you're on Facebook, they also have a page and they put up videos and they put up data. So I've— I would like to read to you some of the findings, the data from these 6,000 people, because every one of those people, it must have taken incredible courage to go and do this. I mean, 10% of those 6,000 people, for them it was the first time that they had actually reported their abuse, and I found that quite shocking. Um, but the, the reasons given were that they may— they were older and in relationships, so they didn't want to change their lives how they were or how they seemed. But I think for those people going into the project is Well, that's just incredibly brave and a really admirable thing to do. So findings that you can find on the Truth Project UK website show that 70% of the survivors who took part, they were female, and the biggest category for the age of people taking part in the project, it's 54%, They were between the ages of 40 and 59 years old. So, you've got people there who— When you consider that— That's 54% of people who are reporting abuse that happened to them between the ages of 4 years and 15 years. That makes up a total of 84% of abuse. So, um, and the other thing that I found quite, quite shocking was that the average time that it took for people to report abuse was 19 years. But then when I looked at— thought about that, It actually taken me 19 years to say something, to actually find some words to start. I mean, I didn't— wasn't able to say the whole thing. So, um, I think it just really highlights the fact how if children are in an abusive situation that they don't have the words. So it's extremely important that safeguarding measures are in place, that adults are observant, and that if children that you, you know or you see are acting or changed into— to really— or they're, they're trying to tell you something, then really, really try to listen. Because the impact of abuse, it, it runs really, really deep. And it's like 88% of those 6,000 survivors have mental health issues. Um, 54%, they're saying that there's an impact on their relationships. Well, I would say, I mean, yes to both for me. And 42% had problems with education or employment. Well, I did, and I, I actually, you know, I lost my job through having police investigation. And it also— there was quite a high percentage that has impact on their, their physical health. So this is something that— it's a really serious thing. If an animal is abused, that is reported and people ask about it. There would be a lot of conversation, there would be an investigation. People who maybe take on an animal that has been abused can talk about what's happened to that animal to people that they know or who see it, or medical professionals, and that animal will get an awful lot of care and there'll be an awful lot of conversation around that subject. But when it comes to child sexual abuse, it's not the same. It's a very difficult thing to talk about, and people don't know what to say. It's a shock. It's the unsayable. It's an absolutely awful thing to have to mention. I've had to see my family know what, what has happened to me. They don't know everything in detail, but they, they know enough, and, and it's, it's really impacted quite a lot on my, my family, and it's not a nice thing to see at all. So another thing I wanted to talk about was, um, cases that are in other countries, because I think with a We can learn a lot from, from all sorts of reporting, not just things like an inquiry that's done by a government. But I watched, um, on Netflix a program called Athlete A. And now when I watch things like this, my family are like, oh, you know, should you really watch this? You know, it's a bit 'You know, I know what it's about.' And it was about the abuse of an athlete who was known as Athlete A, who reported something— she was abused— to an organization, to the United States gymnast organization. But Nothing was done, and her parents were not allowed to say anything because they were told there was an investigation going on, but the adults who were responsible for that organization, they didn't report. They were— to the authorities. They were worried about tarnishing someone's reputation. So, that makes it really, really difficult. Now, if you watch Athlete A, It's a very, very well done, well, in my opinion, program or documentary. You have the families, you have the victims themselves, you have many of the victims, they don't know each other, so when they did report, the first one, this Athlète A, hers didn't get to the right authorities at all till much, much later, but other people had reported the same named person, and gradually that then became 3 people who didn't know each other all reporting and saying the same thing. Now, eventually they found out that this person— this is Larry Nassar, who was the doctor to the U.S. gymnast team, and he'd worked in many other settings involving children. He'd actually, at the end of their investigation and when people came forward, probably had abused around 500 people, um, 500 young girls. So, um, that's just absolutely shocking, and I watched it and These girls, they read out their impact statements. They had received some dreadful, horrible things written by people that don't know them and that they don't know on social media. I think they were pretty shredded apart by— I mean, I was appalled by some of the things that were written, but I can't say I'm all that surprised because seeing how social media works. It's not always a kind platform, and people really must be aware of that. But in the end, these women have come through, and there's, um, you could really feel this strength of all of them sort of coming together and being really, really empowered by going through their court process and getting the justice that they deserved. There's still an ongoing with the USA Gymnastics, I think that's what it is, I apologize if I've not got the name right, because they didn't report to the authorities and nor did some of the trainers. So I don't, we need to break this cycle of people not going to the authorities. And, and breaking this problem where people are so worried about damaging someone's reputation. Because people don't walk about and tell you that they are abusing children. It's just not going to happen. But it's so, so important to listen to children. Now, the judge on this— for this case is Judge Rosemary Aquilina. And she's going to be a guest on my series coming up. She is in America, so we're just trying to fit around time to record because she's obviously extremely busy and there's a time difference for this. So I would recommend Athlete A. I did tell— I messaged Rosemary Aquilina and I said I had seen it and what I had felt about it. And she then suggested that I might like to watch something called 'At the Heart of Gold.' So that's, that's also about the abuse of the Olympic gymnasts because they did win gold. So at the heart of getting that gold medal, I mean, you not only did you have the sexual abuse, but there were girls having to perform their routines with broken bones and really pushed to win this gold in, yeah, quite a draconian way. So those are two things I would recommend. On the first one, Athlete, there's a lawyer who speaks there, and he touched on something that really was something I've not heard before. Those words come from someone else, but he said that for, like, the majority of these women, if not all of these women, it was their abuse was their first experience that they've had of their first sexual experience, and that that really has stolen something very special, very precious, very intimate, and that they are still struggling. And I think that from, from my experience, I would say that yep, that is definitely something that is not spoken about very much, But it is confusing if that is your first experience, your first sexual experience. It's, it is extremely difficult. I still am confused and I fight with it. I feel that my body betrayed me. I, I feel disgusted, I feel ashamed, but then I also do understand as an adult that it wasn't my fault. But it's something that I can't erase. It's something that I need to learn to do, get on and to deal with, and it's not easy. It's really not easy. So I spoke, I think last time, about going away, like having a holiday. Those sorts of things are quite difficult for me. I have a routine to my day when I'm at home, my normal week, where I would go and I walk my dog in the morning and I meet fellow dog walkers for a coffee. And I've been doing that for 6 years and I have met some absolutely lovely people. There's just a few of us, but we nearly see each other every morning for every day of the week. And it's great. I like— I feel myself, it gets me up. I've seen some people, I've spoken, I've listened, I've laughed, I've shared other things in their lives which, um, you know, have been difficult, but we've been there for each other, and it's, it's a nice time for me. And then I'm able to come home and start my day. Now, I don't think if I If I didn't have that in my morning, I wouldn't get up and go out like I do. And also going out with my dog gives me that little bit of extra confidence. In the UK, we don't have recognized emotional support animals, but I certainly would say that she is my emotional support animal because I feel so much better with her. But I don't go into the I wouldn't walk into the town or walk around a field without her. So, and I know a lot of my friends feel the same about their animals, so they're extremely, extremely important relationship. And my dog, you know, she, she just has a great day all the time, so that's quite nice to be with, you know, even if she's an animal, that I am with this, this dog who is absolutely loving everything that we're doing. She's fantastic company, and that's really important. But it's so important that I do go out and speak to people. Now, I do— I'm in therapy, uh, the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London, which, um, it follows guidelines from from Europe because there aren't any, as I said, in the UK. And it's only recently that I've got there. It's only been a few months. It took an awful lot of— I don't know what you call it, sort of— I had to take some tests, psychological tests, to be discharged from my local trust for them to say that they did not have specialist care for my dissociative identity disorder, because when I have an episode— so I have different parts, personalities, alters, whatever you want to call them— that sort of come into play and they do things and they take over. I have no idea. I don't know what's going on. And I— my body can actually dissociate so much that I think it's trying to get at the pain that I still have very deep inside, but it can lead, and it has led, to some very dangerous situations where I found myself in intensive care or critical care, on dialysis, or having had an emergency operation, or being unconscious for a several days and actually not knowing if there's going to be lasting effects or if I'm actually going to live. So getting to the right place is absolutely crucial, not only for me but for all the other people who haven't got to the right place because their DID is quite difficult and often goes on to diagnose and can go undiagnosed. So I am, I am on therapist, I think it's number 18, since I started therapy when I was 19. And a lot of it was medication really, and my first inpatient stay when I was about 20 there wasn't a lot going on. And in fact, we went out a lot. They— I was deemed fit to leave the wards, with so were other people. We used to go out. I mean, pretty dreadful really. We used to go to the, to the wine bar and get a cheese board. So it wasn't really getting me any better. I then continued getting older. I managed to live quite well and function pretty well for, for a while until I, I went through the police investigation. There was also a stage in my life where one of my children was diagnosed with a form of blood cancer which involved nearly 4 years of treatment, and during that 4 years my focus was definitely on my family. I didn't really think about myself at all. And so I didn't have to, to deal with the— what had happened to me during this time. I mean, my focus was 110% on my family, and in particular my child who was unwell. Unfortunately, she's an extremely healthy person in their 20s who is now working and is successful at what they do. So that's, that's, yeah, we've gone through that. But after that, things started to go a bit wrong, and I would dissociate. It's very difficult for my family and my friends to know what to do, to know what to say, and then I don't even know what I've done. So for me to get to the Clinic for Dissociative Studies is this massive, massive relief, but it has not been an easy journey. When I disclosed about my abuse, I was seeing a therapist who I was paying to see privately, and, and it's expensive. If you have private medical insurance, it runs out very quickly, and then you're, you're left in a situation where you either have to, to leave or pay. So, so we paid, and I was given this therapist. I don't know quite how they allocate them. When I was admitted for an inpatient stay, and so then when I— my private healthcare money had run out and I could no longer stay in that hospital, I then continued to see this person in another location where they had a private practice, and that went on for many years. Now, she, um, it didn't— it was— I was hopeful that we were going to do some really good work, and, and this was the plan and this was the promise. But the truth was, after many years, sometimes going twice a week, not a lot was changing. And I couldn't see it, or I didn't want to see it, or I didn't want to believe it, but this is the person that I did disclose to. So then the police became involved, and then I really, really believed that once I told somebody, it would sort of be a relief, that things would get better, better really quickly, that I would just be taken care of and loved and held, but that doesn't really happen. Everybody is in shock around you and you feel like you've just blown everybody's universe apart. And then the police have to come in. So it was decided that I would— we would pay for me to stay in the hospital, the private one where this therapist worked, and that the police would come in and we'd have the interviews there, and I would be safe and cared for. So the whole morning was, I think it was 2 or 3 people from the police came, and it was extremely draining. The questions that they had, I had to answer under oath, and I was completely wiped out and no more energy left physically and mentally, just completely just drained out. And because we were paying, I got put in this really small back room which was away, it was like a corridor away from their main nursing station on the ward that I was on. So nobody was sort of really taking care of me, and I, I fell asleep. I had this tiny single bed, but anyway, I managed to get— I fell asleep. But this meant that I got woken up by a rather angry therapist because we had an appointment to meet that afternoon and I'd fallen asleep. So, I would have thought— well, maybe you too— that in this situation, somebody like that with that job would gently say, 'Come on, you know, are you okay? It's your appointment now to see me in my room, you know, we'll go together, take your time.' Well, that didn't happen. They were really furious and angry and cross that I was late, and rather than waiting for me to sort of come to, work out the surroundings that I was in, They stormed off. Well, the hospital I was in is a bit like a rabbit warren, it's got stairs and corridors and doors everywhere, and I, I don't really know what happened, but by the time I got to the room, somebody else was, was already there, another, another client, so I'd missed my appointment. And I walked in on this, which is a really big no-no, but I don't know, maybe they should have had a sign on the door or could have locked the door, I don't know, but anyway, I got rather shouted at and then I had to find my way back to my room, which was pretty difficult. So I was staying that night and the next day my husband was coming to pick me up. So I was totally just shattered, completely, completely shattered by this whole experience of talking to the police and then with this angry therapist and her not being able to see me. And my husband text me, or no, I think he called to say that he, he had arrived to pick me up. So, um, I went down to reception with my belongings and told people I was going, and I couldn't find him. I found the car in the car park, but I couldn't find him. So I rang his phone and I heard it ringing in the reception area in a back room. So I went in there and the therapist had intercepted him taken him into this sort of back room where they— it was a bit of a shop really, they sold toiletries and cards— and was saying to him that about my behavior and how I missed my therapy appointment, and so I was going to be punished. And my punishment was going to be that I would not be allowed any contact with them or my private psychiatrist because they'd spoken to them and explained the situation and got them on board with this idea that I was to be punished with no support for 2 weeks. I was absolutely, completely devastated. I was in the car on the way home desperately trying to phone, to message, begging, "Please don't leave me, I can't do this, I'm sorry," all those things. And looking back now, that should not have happened, and it should never happen. And I hope that if it ever does happen to anybody, that they report it, because I think that the hospital that I was in, they should have reported that. It's not professional. And to, to the Therapists Governing Body, and they certainly should have had policies in place for this sort of thing, but there wasn't. They kind of closed ranks. I then got back to seeing this person, and I was obviously hugely apologetic and promised I'd never do anything like that again. And so we continued for a long time, and I was really, really wasn't getting anywhere. My, my family could see that I wasn't getting any better, but what they didn't know was that this particular person had told me that I'd seen so many people over the time since I was 19 that I— nobody else would be able to help me, and as I told them, then they were the person that was going to be able to help me. And if I didn't stop acting like a crazy person, which happens when I'm in a dissociative state, then my other option would be that I would be locked in a secure unit for a year. Well, that was terrifying. Like, there's, there's, there's no way that, you know, you either got to see— be seen as an outpatient or you're going to be locked away in a secure unit, which I was given a pretty horrible and harrowing description of. So I kept on seeing this person and I wasn't getting any better. In fact, it was like living under threat, really, again, like I was when I was being abused. My family, um, they really noticed this, and they really tried to get me to change, but I couldn't. I was terrified I was going to be locked away in a unit with all those locked doors and not to be able to see anybody, and I couldn't— like, I couldn't have that. It was the last thing that I could ever imagine would happen just because I told somebody that I'd been abused as a child. I thought I would just be cared for and loved and everything would just get better, but it didn't, it all got worse. So I managed to, I did manage to leave that person temporarily while I went away to a facility in the United States But it was my wish to go back, and I really was not the person to make that decision, but I was so adamant that my wishes, they were accepted. So I continued more with somebody who really was not helping me and who I was too terrified to let anybody know that if it, if it wasn't this treatment with this person that I was going to be locked away for a whole year minimum. So, um, eventually, um, things got so bad and there was lots of sort of stuff that we got in emails and texts and things that I did report this person to the Governing Body, and that is an extremely difficult thing to do, but I think more people need to do it People need to know if therapists are acting in a way that is not helpful, um, and whether they do something about it or not, at least they've been given the name. And if that is something that is— becomes practice from people who are in therapy, then there are training, supervision, or there's sanctions. The person I'm talking about got some sanctions and I got some money back, or they can be struck off. So it's almost like abuse if you, if you've got a therapist that's not getting you any better, but the only alternative is just so horrendous that you can't even speak about it, can't tell anybody. Then I now know that I should have left and that what they were telling me was not true. It is not true, but you need to get to the right help. So I, I then saw someone else who was actually an awful lot better, and once I'd started working with this person, I could understand how they were boundary, like they didn't hug me. I mean, a therapist should not hug you. They shouldn't take gifts from you. They shouldn't show you the shopping they did at lunchtime. They shouldn't tell you about their personal life. They shouldn't be taking phone calls. They shouldn't— There's a lot of things that I knew should not be going on, but they were, and I couldn't get away. So, anyway, I got away, and then I worked with another therapist for 2 years, and then we worked to end. And I think I, I've made some quite good progress there. We did some therapy called EMDR, which is used for complex trauma, but I still hadn't got really to a specialist center for DID, which is where I am now and where I should have been a long time ago. So after that, I went to our local NHS and I got a psychiatrist and a somebody, a community support worker, to come to my home. Now, I welcomed them in, I was open to it, I was receptive to it, and they were quite useful. They made notes when they came to my house and then accompanied me to my appointments with my psychiatrist, and they prompted things from the notes. So that, that was pretty good, and I I also allowed these appointments to go on sort of at lunchtime when my family might be home. My husband would be back from work maybe for a short time, or in the afternoon when my kids were there. So if they had any questions or wanted to be involved or say something about me, I wanted this to be completely open because the more information that I felt that my team had, then the better for me. Then I got a text from this person that came to my house saying that she was discharging me. So without any warning, I'd been dumped by text, and I just couldn't believe it. I was— I mean, when you receive a message, like, nobody knows what sort of frame of mind you are when you receive it, but from a mental healthcare professional, that was just devastating for me. I trusted this person, so I phoned my psychiatrist's secretary and nobody there knew anything about it. So all this team, whatever, work, this was not in place for me. So it was put in as a complaint and they were disciplined. And that's when we realized that also my, my whole care package was looked at, that actually my psychiatrist hadn't done the right thing by me in quite a few ways. There was a lot of paperwork that was wrong or hadn't been done, and phone calls that he said he'd made to me which he actually hadn't, and there was quite a good paper trail. I do always keep my, my letters and things and texts, so I do have these things because I'm really— I am not mad. I do know what I need as an adult, and I do know what I expect. So, um, yeah, so that was pretty devastating, and that was when the process started then the service realised that they couldn't offer me what I needed. So, so if somebody does that to you, if they mess you around, if they're not confidential, if they send you inappropriate texts, or if they, like, discharge you, you must report it, because whoever's doing something wrong, they need to know. And it's not right, it really is not right when your mental health is at stake. And if you are somebody who's got these concerns, you must try and find the courage to, to tell somebody. It's not going to be easy. I found it very, very difficult. It dented my trust in adults and services so, so much. And I'd had a problem with trusting adults anyway because I was abused by adults. So this pattern is something that you cannot allow to have, not when you're supposed to be being treated. So, um, I would— I think the more people who can report to, even to governing bodies— I mean, anybody can become a therapist and they can say that they specialize in X, Y, and Z, but you don't know. You're not going to get on with every single person. And it's— if you have a, you know, went in for a knee replacement and you came out with a bad knee, you would say something because that had gone wrong and report it. But with mental health, it is— it's harder really to pinpoint But that's definitely what my advice would be, and I wish I'd, I wish I'd done it sooner and got away from this person, because when I went to a tribunal hearing for their governing body, the excuses and untruths that that they told to try to save their job and because they had a mortgage and other clients and etc., etc., then I was absolutely astounded and really, really hurt that there are people— that somebody could actually do this to me. And the other thing they'd done is that my family and I had had some support from people who ran a charity about abuse, and, um, that didn't really work out. The, the boundaries changed from help as a, as an organization as to help more on a personal level, and my therapist used them as witnesses against me and my family for this tribunal. So be prepared, it's not ever going to be an easy process. So all those women in Atholí A who went to Portfarnesa, anyone, go and you must say if something is not right. Keep notes I don't even know if you can keep recordings of things, but, um, keep a paper trail because your health and you are more important than what anybody else says. And keep going. I hope that if somebody listening knows someone or is someone who does have Dissociative Identity Disorder, then go and demand that you can have this treatment. We need from— especially now we've got the Truth Project UK inquiry coming out— that I hope that we are going to get the guidelines set out in this country and the resources and the provision for the specialist help, because my treatment is predicted to last for 5 or 6 years. And my— the therapist that I'm seeing, I mean, her main job is to keep me stable and to keep me alive, because that is how serious DID is. Now I'm coming up to the end of this. I hope that you can listen to some of my previous broadcasts because they're not all quite as downbeat as this one, although I hope there's some hope in there too and some plain talking. But I, I'm a great believer in going to looking for your, your own healing. I spent 4 days on a short break with my, my husband and 2 of my 3 children, and usually holidays with me are horrendous. I turn into a monster. It's very triggering, um, living in, um, you know, a hotel room where every other area is public. It's not like when I'm in my house when I can go and move and remove myself or go to bed or whatever. But we actually really planned this one, and this is the first time that it's actually gone okay and I have not ruined a holiday for everybody, because I can, I can go absolutely like, um, just crazy, berserk, like it's a completely different person, a different part of me, and then seeing how it's left them all and the impact, the negative impact, and then I'm like looking at them not having a clue really what I have done, and, and it's embarrassing for me and also it's embarrassing for them because if you're staying away in a hotel there are other people there and, um, yeah, it's not really something that you want everybody involved in. So we managed to to do this quite well by going to a place that we've been to before, so I knew where I was going. And we also put in some— if I said I needed some time out, maybe go and have a coffee, go and do— go for a walk, then I could do that and that I would be okay on my own. I actually found the games room in the hotel and they had a pinball machine. Well, that was a really great distraction for me and it reminded me of being younger when actually my uncle, he used to have a pinball machine, and I thought it was completely amazing to go there. So awesome to have a pinball machine in your lounge. So that brought back some really happy memories for me, and, um, luckily there weren't, uh, too many other people waiting to play, so I had the machine to myself. So, um, yeah, so I feel really proud of myself for doing that. And, um, I also had one night where I didn't go out for dinner. I just was too tired, just physically too tired. So that's absolutely fine to say, to get an early night. Make sure that, you know, I got some really good rest. I wasn't going to sort of get up and do something else while they were gone or anything like that. I purely wanted to rest, and that's what my body needed, and it certainly worked well for us. So, um, yeah, at 56, it's still not over. My abuse did go on for, for quite a few years, and, um, you know, had more components than just being sexual, as well as physical and emotional, and I think there's a few other controlled, few other, and organized words that have been linked to what happened to me. So next time I'm hoping that I will have this possibility of, there's two guests, so it will be at least one of them, so you won't have to just listen to me anymore on my own. But I really hope this is helpful. It's not an easy subject to talk about. It's not something that I ever thought I would be in a position to now to talk about this in the way that I am on the radio station. And, and really all this confidence to, to try and be open and honest has come from making that step when I identified that I needed some help with my image, and I persevered and approached some image and beauty professionals who helped me greatly. And that was the first step of many that I've now taken, but we're only talking about in the last sort of 5 or 6 years. The police, after my investigation, the support that I got, because they promised support, well, I got a victim support letter. I got one and it didn't even have my name on it, it was just a generic thing. So I would definitely also recommend checking out what sort of support you are going to get, what support means, because these are the police, mental health services, they only have so much in the way of resources. So make— there has to be provision because it's not safe to do this without professional support. These are difficult subjects and it can open up a lot of things that need to be processed, and that takes a lot of time. So it's not a quick fix, but I just wish that, um, that you— I hope that you all learned from something. Maybe if you see, uh, some pieces in the media about the Truth Project UK, which will be coming up. If you fancy looking— watching Athlete A on Netflix, I think that's an extremely good production, one that they should be very proud of. And I'd like to wish you all— send you all my very best wishes and look forward to speaking to you again next time. So, this is Eva May from the Women's Radio Station, and thank you.