Author: Rachel Turnball

Words fail me: describing my inner experience

Posted by Rachel Turnball | 1 Jun 2015 | Dissociative survivors' experiences

I exist as a phantom. I ache to be connected, to be able to express what life is like for me. Me, as a dissociative we. But I don’t have the words to become connected, I don’t have the words to become real. Words fail me.

The cost of benefits

Posted by Rachel Turnball | 1 Feb 2014 | Dissociative survivors' experiences

Being on benefits wasn’t a choice I’d made and certainly not something I did willingly. From before the age of fourteen I’d always had a job, pausing only for maternity leave. But when my dissociated trauma burst onto the scene three years ago it became a massive achievement simply to stay alive.