"When I think about my experiences, they still feel raw. For those who have read my story, they will know that my experiences around a disability I didn't know I had happened over a period of years, but those years could have rolled into yesterday, that is how raw they feel. Learning how to handle my feelings growing up, was challenging. As a child, I was angry all the time and was always negatively expressing my feelings to whoever was around me – those in the firing line. My issues weren't mine to carry.

Mental Withdrawal

But for me to cope, there were times when I would mentally withdraw and build a wall around me and although it was never a conscious decision to retaliate, the nature of withdrawing meant that retaliation would rear its ugly head. My anger as a child was based on repressed and denied emotions around a disability I didn’t know I had.

Managing our 'emotions'

But however we get to where we are, it is important to learn to manage our emotions so they don’t become a breeding ground for repressed emotions. It’s important to tune in to our emotions and deal with those. I know that however hard our experiences are or how difficult it is to manage our emotions, we should use our experiences to grow and to be in control of our lives. It took me a while to learn that."