At 10am on the 3rd of May, 2013, Paul walked into the therapy room. The sense of fear was immediate and palpable. He was shaking, hadn’t slept meaningfully for weeks, was barely able to function and in unbearable psychological and physical pain. However, this story of everything that had led up to this moment and what happened next, is being told from the other end of the therapist’s couch. A first-person account of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the life that led to it, and the challenges faced together by Paul his daughter Natasha during the fight back.

With nothing held back, this is an intimate and up-close look at how childhood abuse, trauma led to a spiral of self-destruction until the reunion of father and daughter starts a journey on the long, hard road back to health. This isn’t a story of recovery or cure. This is learning to adapt and overcome from severe psychological injury and to accept that the struggle continues. It is written for all those who never stood a chance, all those without a voice who are still hidden behind the veil of silence, and all those held mute by the stigma of abuse, trauma and mental illness that pervades our society.