As I approached the turn-off from the Bruce Highway toward Maleny, the voice in my head — the one built on years of survival and running — told me I didn't need this. "I'm fine," I told myself. "I don't need any help. I will just keep going." But the car had other plans. It … Continue reading My Logic Told Me to Keep Driving

The Laurels It was 1964. I was five years old. And no one kept a record of me. I didn't find out the name of the place I had been sent to until 2018, when an organisation called Find and Connect helped me trace what had happened to us. Someone unearthed a letter — not … Continue reading The Laurels

Fight, Flight and Freeze — when the switch gets stuck What your nervous system is trying to tell you, and how to help it feel safe again. What is the fight or flight response? Your nervous system has one primary job — to keep you alive. When it detects danger, real or perceived, it floods … Continue reading Resetting Your Nervous System

It started in a hospital corridor in 1975. I was sixteen years old, already a mother to sweet baby Lisa, and carrying a secret I wasn't quite ready to share with anyone. I remember sitting outside the nursery every single day, straining to hear the babies crying, wondering if one of those babies was my … Continue reading The Empty Chair

My earliest memory: I am two and a half years old, sitting in a car with my oldest brother, waiting. My father has gone inside to collect my mother and my new baby brother. I am giggling with the particular excitement that only a small child can feel — pure and uncomplicated and full. Our … Continue reading Little Rae

Lisa was my tidy, neat-as-a-pin, uncomplicated Virgo. Tamara was my passionate, wild, untamed Scorpio. They were opposites in almost every way — except for their eyes. They both had my eyes. Big, blue, and expressive. Whatever else the world took from us, it could not take that. When Lisa died, Tamara was eleven years old. … Continue reading Lisa and Tamara

I found it while browsing through my favourite bookshop. The Body Keeps the Score, a book written by Bessel van der Kolk, and to say I was intrigued is an understatement. I found remnants of myself on every page. By the time I reached the end, I understood something I had spent a lifetime trying … Continue reading The Body Keeps the Score: How Trauma Transforms the Mind, Body & Spirit.