Hi, I’m Sarah,
I’m extremely happy to say that I’m one of the luckiest women I know.
I get to do work I love. I live in a beautiful part of the world, surrounded by kind people. I’m mother to two of the most wonderful humans on the planet. And, somehow, I’m married to my extremely hot best friend and soulmate.
I feel safe. Seen. Heard. Understood. Most days, I’m content in my own skin, grateful for the emotional and physical health I’ve worked so hard to rebuild.
But life wasn’t always this way.
What I Carried & What I Hid
1
I am twelve years old, sat on a long wooden bench in human biology class. Boys on one side. Girls on the other. Nervous laughter rippling through the room.
The teacher asks us to turn to the black and white line drawings of the male and female reproductive systems. As he begins describing sexual intercourse, the colour drains from my face. I feel nauseous. My stomach drops. In that moment, I realise what the teacher is describing was what my stepfather is doing to me.
In that moment I realise just how different I am from everyone else in the class, that what is going on in our house is never to be spoken about. I feel disgusted, ashamed, confused, and scared. My throat closes, my jaw clenches shut and I swallow everything.
And no one could ever know.
Five years later, aged 17, sat on the bottom step of the open plan, wooden staircase in our living room.
I am looking up at my mother’s furious face. Standing over me, hissing in a fierce, hushed whisper: ‘’Well, you’ve got what you want, you can have him’’. ‘’Don’t go mum’’ I want to scream, ‘’please don’t leave me’’, the words crash around inside my head, but I make no sound. My jaw clamps shut. My throat closes. I lower my gaze, tears in my eyes, swallow the pain, the shame, and say nothing.
I watch her walk away, taking my brothers with her.
The Day Everything Changed
2
It’s 10th January 1994, I lie propped up in a maternity ward bed, having just had an emergency caesarean section, holding the most precious creature in the entire universe, in my arms, at that moment, as I look into the eyes of my beautiful daughter, feeling the warmth of her tiny perfect body pressed to my breast and feeling the enormity of the indescribable love I feel for her, I have a precious glimpse into the future, of what eventually would be my truth.
In that fleeting moment I suddenly experienced what it felt like to feel enough, to feel proud of myself, to feel like the cleverest creature on the planet! Miraculously I had grown this precious gift inside of the body I hated, the body that had caused me so much shame and pain, I realised, could actually do something that I could appreciate it for. In that instant I vowed that what had happened to me was never going to happen to her. No one was going to hurt my child.
My fierce determination to protect grew stronger with the birth of my exquisitely perfect son nineteen months later. As he and his sister grew so did my resolve to speak up for myself, to be heard, and to no longer swallow my feelings in order to keep the peace in my dysfunctional marriage.
But I still had a long way to go.
Learning to Ask for Help
3
After weeks of thinking about it, only to chicken out at the last minute numerous times, I finally plucked up the courage to go to my GP and ask for help. He referred me for counselling.
A month later, as I walked into the overly warm, cramped therapy room at the local psychiatric hospital to meet my therapist, my heart sank, Danielle was Daniel. I had been given a male therapist to share my darkest, deepest secrets about sexual abuse with. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Daniel did his best, although he admitted that he had no experience in helping people heal after sexual abuse. The sessions consisted of endless discussions about the abuse and how it made me feel. Leaving the clinic, I would invariably feel worse than when I had arrived. It seemed to take me all week to stuff all my disturbing, unmanageable feelings back into the box that they had been dragged out of during the hour we were together.
As I closed the door behind me for the last time, feeling exhausted and extremely relieved that the therapy was over, I decided that the only way to deal with my childhood was to box it back up and file it in the farthest depths of my mind, never to be revisited. Therapy, I resolved, sucked. I would sort myself out.
The Mask of High Functioning
4
For a decade, I threw myself into motherhood and work. I got promoted. Left the marriage. Started a side hustle. Read every self-help book I could find. Dated. Left. Distrusted. Kept my walls high.
To everyone else, I looked like I was thriving.
Inside, I was exhausted.
Haunted by nightmares. Jaw locked. Back aching. Unable to rest. Unsure where to turn.
As long as I kept moving, I thought, we’d be okay.
And we were.
Finding My Way Back to Myself
5
In 2004, I moved to southern Spain with my children. It was an adventure, and, if I’m honest, an escape.
But the restlessness didn’t leave. I devoured every healing modality I could find: Law of Attraction, energy work, Reiki, crystals, mindfulness. All helpful. None complete. Nothing got to the root of the problems I was struggling with.
Ten years later, I signed up for a hypnotherapy course.
I didn’t expect it to change my life. But it did
Week by week, as I practised with my classmates, I met parts of myself I’d never known how to reach. The inner children. The outdated beliefs. The subconscious patterns keeping me locked in survival.
For the first time, something deep inside began to shift. I wasn’t talking about my pain. I was releasing it.
That course gave me more than a qualification. It gave me a calling.
The Scam That Shattered My Illusions
6
In August 2024, I discovered I’d been scammed.
It wasn’t just a financial loss. It was a slow, calculated betrayal by someone who mirrored me, studied me, and preyed on my trust. Months of manipulation by someone I believed was helping me build something meaningful, and then used every opening to exploit the most vulnerable parts of me.
He took my entire nursing pension lump sum, along with money I was coerced into borrowing. Over £110,000. Gone.
But that wasn’t the real wound.
Why I Created the FREEDOM Programme
The more I healed, the clearer it became: Women like me, high-functioning, self-aware, emotionally intelligent women who’d buried the past, needed something different.
Not simply talking about the pain, but a gentle, effective way to rewire the subconscious survival programmes that have been driving you for decades.
My FREEDOM Programme is a 12-week, one-to-one journey that combines trauma-informed hypnotherapy, EMDR coaching, and nervous system work to help women come home to themselves.
So that they can release the trauma stored it their bodies, and finally find peace. Safely. Gradually. Powerfully.
I hope my story helps you feel less alone.
I hope it shows you what’s possible, even if the path feels far away right now.
Start Your
Healing Journey
Get to the root of what’s driving your reactions — with 1:1 support so that you can respond differently in everyday moments.
Choose your next step: explore the Programme, or get in touch to talk it through.
