In this blog, our Trauma Ambassador Georgina reflects on two years of survival. Please note that this blog post contains discussions of self harm and suicidal thoughts.
“Today marks a significant milestone for me: two years of surviving &, perhaps more importantly, two years of speaking. It’s a journey I reflect on across three distinct Augusts, each carrying its own weight, its own lessons, & its own form of persistence. Looking back, I still find it hard to believe I survived the dark days when the final act felt inevitable—a desperate, aching desire to end the confusion & pain.
August 17th, 2023: The Day Everything Broke – & Didn’t That day, I left my home not wanting to return, feeling too loud, too heavy, too sharp inside. The exhaustion was profound, & the pain unseen. I scared those around me, Karen & Carol, with the honesty of my words “I don’t want to be here anymore”. & I truly meant it, desperately so, trying more than once.
A flicker inside me made me reach out, not because I believed things would improve, but because I didn’t want my pain to become someone else’s burden. After a troubling call to 101, which surprisingly suggested I go to a train station after I’d voiced suicidal thoughts, I ended up at a mental health unit. Though a health care professional listened & called me highly suicidal she then let me go, Carol didn’t. She took me in, sitting silently beside me, letting us just exist in that moment. That was the real beginning of just staying alive – not healing, not recovery, but simply enduring. The days were messy, marked by self-harm & a constant fear of being alone, with everyday objects becoming a threat & a temptation. But Carol stayed, & I stayed, not for myself. But because I didn’t want to be the reason someone else shattered. This was the year I started fighting to understand my pain, not to escape it, but to name it.
August 17th, 2024: One Year On – Tired, Tangled, Trying I had hoped time would fix it, but grief, trauma, & chemical chaos don’t follow neat timelines. A year later, I was still drowning, still on the ledge, still filled with shame for needing help & for still being here. I continued to fight to be seen, diagnosed, & understood. I saw psychiatrists & GPs, receiving a litany of labels: PTSD, unsupported autistic traits, emotionally unstable, hormonal, overdramatic, PMDD, perimenopause. So many words, but still no answers.
I was doing all the work – journals, safety plans, therapy, breathing techniques, routines. Yet, I was still not better. What was changing was my awareness. I started noticing my cycles, seeing when the darkness came & how it whispered. & I felt a growing anger at the systems, the labels, the silence. Still, I stayed, motivated by the birth of Menna & Carol needing me for court, understanding that even if I questioned my own worth, I had a role. My friends were amazing, holding space for my mess & not asking for polished answers. I didn’t know who I was, but I was starting to ask with more compassion. Despite the ongoing struggle & the lack of answers, knowing how much my friends cared & checked in, dropping everything to talk, was a profound realization. I was deeply ashamed of who I was, feeling like a failure at being a human, unable to cope with being alive. Yet, I was glad I had stayed for Menna & the court case.
August 17th, 2025: Two Years On – Still Breathing, Still Building Today, I sit in my own home, in peace. It’s not a dramatic or movie-ending kind of peace, but a stillness that lives in my bones more often now. This calm doesn’t come from fixing everything, but from finally understanding it.
And now… I know. Autistic. ADHD. PMDD. These three words haven’t magically made everything better, but they have finally made it make sense. Six months post-diagnosis, I’m beginning to understand why everything always felt so loud, intense, & impossible; why I masked without knowing; why I collapsed when no one was watching; & why my brain & emotions seemed to defy common rules.
I haven’t healed, but I’ve stopped blaming myself. I’ve stopped trying to be someone I’m not & stopped looking for solutions in shame. There is deep grief for the lost years of trying to fit in, for the help I didn’t receive, & for the younger me who self-harmed for relief. But with this understanding comes clarity, language, & immense relief. I used to believe survival meant being fixed, but now I know survival sometimes just means staying in your own skin — even when it itches. Even when it burns. Even when the world keeps trying to peel it off you.
I am no longer a puzzle to be solved, but a person to be supported. This shift has changed everything. I now show up differently: speaking, writing poetry, challenging systems, & holding space for others who, like me, were once told to “smile more, try harder, be better”. My voice, once a whisper wanting to disappear, now proclaims: I stayed. I speak. I matter.
This isn’t a perfect ending; it’s not even an ending. Some days, I’m still exhausted, hormonal, overwhelmed, & Autistic, but now I know why & with that knowledge, I give myself permission: to stim, to rest, to say no, to unmask, to feel deeply, to take up space.
My journey of survival has transformed into a powerful platform for advocacy. I work with the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training programme, delivering essential education on autism to NHS professionals & co-producing training videos. I’ve joined interview panels for senior mental health roles, ensuring lived experience is central. I’m collaborating with Chartered Forensic Psychologists to create pre-therapy materials for autistic inpatients & joined a co-production panel for Essex Perinatal Mental Health Services, sharing my perspective as an autistic woman navigating mental health care. As a Trauma Ambassador for Healthwatch Essex, I’m actively involved in discussions on neurodiversity & women’s health, particularly excited about the development of a Women’s Forum & a research project on women with multiple health conditions. I also contribute to the Essex All-Age Autism Strategy, helping shape priorities through a lived experience lens.
To the girl on the bench, who thought it would never make sense: “You weren’t weak. You weren’t dramatic. You weren’t broken. You were human, tired, hurting, & trying, undiagnosed & unsupported. You weren’t too much; you were autistic, ADHD, living with PMDD, & no one saw it. But now, I do. You didn’t fail by falling apart; you fought through a system that made you question your every feeling. You succeeded by staying”.
“You showed me what survival truly looks like: Not shiny. Not loud. But persistent. Quiet. Relentless. You saved my life. & now, I use that life to speak, to write, & to stand beside others. Because stories like ours matter, because people deserve to be believed the first time, because recovery doesn’t come with a checklist, & because love—the kind Carol gave me—can keep people alive. & most profoundly, because pain, when shared truthfully, can become power”.
Two years on, I finally have the words to name what I was feeling, not labels as limits—but language as light. Now, I speak so others know they are not alone. I speak to change how professionals respond, so no one else is told to walk to a train station when they say they want to die. I write, I train others, I show up. I honour the silence I lived in by breaking it open for someone else.
Some days, the exhaustion & ache return, but I’m no longer blaming myself for not coping in a world that was never built for my brain. I’ve claimed my story, not just to heal, but to transform. I didn’t just survive; I rewrote the ending. & now? Now, my voice might just save someone else’s life. “Thank you for staying. We’re still here. & now, we speak”.
I am a survivor. Not because the darkness vanished overnight, but because I stayed through it. Because I held on when every part of me begged to let go. Because survival isn’t shiny or loud; it’s quiet, relentless, & profoundly brave.”
Georgina,
Trauma Ambassador