About

I’m real and I’m not afraid to open my mouth.

One day I was browsing the bookshop looking for a sciency book for my 4 year old who always wants to know “WHY”. I knew I had struck gold when I found “The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Ugly Animals”. These are MY PEOPLE! I thought as I flipped through the pages laughing into my COVID mask, hardly able to believe these animals could be real. And there it was, on page 107, my spirit animal…the Sarcastic Fringehead. This darling fish is “a small but very hardy saltwater fish that has a large mouth and aggressive territorial behavior”.

I’m an adult survivor of child abuse. I have been called many things that are not pleasant or true but I am indeed sarcastic and I do often sport a fringe. I’ve been in therapy with this latest psychologist for over 10 years. I’ve been diagnosed and misdiagnosed, medicated and hospitalised. My current diagnosis is C-PTSD with a dissociative disorder and BPD vulnerabilities. The last 2 years have been the most brutal as I work through the memories of my childhood abuse.

But here I am, alive against better judgement, tumbling into forgotten rooms and hidden dungeons within my head. My psychologist says “you should really write a book”. I say LOL, download the WordPress app and give you this blog instead, a record of my messy unravelling.

And maybe when therapy is all done, if it is ever done…I might eventually, finally, bravely speak the unspeakable to the truly ugliest collection of animals ever created – my family.