20 YEARS TODAY.

“It’s your subconscious telling you to deal with it.” These were the words a telephone counsellor said when I talked about recurring nightmares that I was having. I remember one day; I wanted to turn into the carpark at my doctor’s clinic when a little girl ran out and as I was about to turn, I had a flashback to a bully at school when we were playing table tennis, who went to serve and deliberately missed with the intention to put me off. I’d had nightmares of it, as well as other things.

The phone call that I made was 20 years ago today. I remember it well, it was a beautiful day, but I was trapped. Trapped by memories. That afternoon, I made an appointment to see my doctor, and I told her that I had been having these recurring nightmares. The first step was the hardest, but I made it. All the while, I had my mother’s voice in my head saying, “They’ll lock you up.” I knew by then that locking people away was not that common.

My GP referred me to a psychologist and so began the journey of unpacking over a decade’s worth of painful memories. That was followed by medication.

I was diagnosed with PTSD, which was then upgraded to complex PTSD. For years, I couldn’t drive past my old high school. One of my mistakes was thinking that if I relocated geographically, it may improve. It didn’t. If anything, it got worse, and the only positive news was that another psychologist identified my autism.

That was the day that I started to address things. I did reconnect with some people from school later on.

I now know that what I experience has a name.