Not a good 24 hours

Thursday 5th July was not a great day. Did an interview arranged by the publishers with the Outlook programme, on BBC World Service, which was a good interview but which upset me more than I thought it would. Relentless calls and emails all day, and no internet connection so I had to decamp to an internet cafe full of noisy Algerian youths down the road in order to continue to work. I was glad to meet up at the end of the day with some friends from KCU (Kings Cross United, which is the Piccadilly line explosion support group), and with other friends who were involved at the other sites on 7/7.

The lovely George from KCU was telling me that he was already halfway through my book, Out of the Tunnel. I have a few preview copies, so I gave one to George when I met him earlier in the week. The book isn't out until next week but the copies people have pre-ordered from Amazon were dispatched early so some people have already got copies. I worry about the effect the book will have on people who were directly involved in 7/7. They do not need to be reminded of how bad it was: they already know. Out of the Tunnel is dedicated to them, and to all who have helped them, helped me come out of the tunnel and into the light, particularly the police and emergency services.

The book is told through my own experiences - a personal journey through PTSD, which I developed as a result of the two experiences I had in swift succession when I nearly lost my life through stranger-violence. I wrote it because I wanted people to understand more about this wierd psychological injury - which affects many, many thousands of people, not just bomb survivors, but people who work in the armed forces, the emergency services, war correspondents, as well as people who have survived serious accidents, natural disasters, rape, child abuse or torture and other life-threatening, psychologically-overwhelming situations.


When I first had PTSD I did not know what was happening to me. I honestly thought that I was going mad, and that I would never be able to function normally again. I could not understand why I was re-experiencing the event in my dreams, in flashbacks when waking, why it haunted me, affected my moods, immune system, ability to concentrate and get on with life. Surely, I thought, I should feel glad to be alive? Why do I feel guilty for still being here? Why am I so numb, so frozen inside, so angry, so sad? People are worse off than me.

My G.P was no help at all. So I looked for other people's stories to see if I was normal, to see if I would get better. There were many stories of survival, but very few about the long hard slog picking up the pieces in the aftermath. As to books about post-traumatic stress disorder, all I could find on it were medical textbooks, back then. Finally I found a website where people were sharing their stories anonymously. I shared mine and read theirs. I read up on what was happening to me and to them. I began to get better.

Last night the people round the table shared their feelings about how they were getting on, and how the last two years had been. None of them had heard of PTSD before 7/7 either. All of them had been helped by reading each other's accounts and listening to each other's ongoing stories in the months after the bombs exploded. We looked back on how far we had come. We drank to life, and health, and the future.

When I got home I checked my (mail) messages, and found a long angry message left for me by someone using a pseudonym, in which he demanded of me repeatedly why I ''felt so hard done by''. He had seen the report on the BBC, in which Thelma's quote about feeling like a ''forgotten person'' as she battled with the lengthy compensation process to prove that yes, she really did lose her lower limb on 7/7 , was used next to my photo, to infer that we were all ''forgotten victims''( which was not something I said). The man was very clearly angry with me. He told me about his partner who had been injured by a drunk driver and was ''crippled'' and in constant pain. Why did I feel so ''hard done by?'' he wanted to know.

I felt absolutely terrible; I cried, and I could not sleep for hours afterwards. What could I say to him? I wrote the book to help people understand about PTSD. I push for an inquiry because I believe that having all the facts in one place and sharing the learnings will save lives in future, and bring healing and greater understanding and preparedness to defeat terrorism. I speak out when asked to, by people who want to speak, but whose burdens are greater than mine, and who cannot face the cameras, the public. I get flamed for it, by people who want to have a go at me for their own reasons. I try to develop a thick skin. I do not have a thick skin yet.

I cannot help everyone, how can I? I can only do what I can, and what I think is right. When I was attacked and left for dead in 2002 there was no publicity, no charities set up to support me, no media asking questions, no politicians expressing concern. But I did not ever think of writing long emails to people I saw on the news asking them what they had to ''feel hard done by'' about.

I do not think his anger at me was appropriate: there is no hierarchy of suffering, this is not a competition, and being the victim of a high-profile event brings with it a different set of problems to being the victim of a terrible event that does not make the papers. Speaking out means you get brickbats. I should be used to it by now. But his email was a slap in the face. And I do not know what I can do or say to help him. I do feel very sorry for him and his family. I do not know what it must be like to be him, or to be his permanently injured wife. But I do not suppose that he knows what it is like to be me, or to be Thelma struggling to get money to pay for a new £10,000 prosthesis and £85 a session physiotherapy, two years on, or how it feels to be anyone else battling their demons and injuries, their grief and their ghosts.

I really hope the book helps people. I hope what I am doing is right. I suppose I should prepare for more people to hurl their anger at me, because they see me on TV and in the news and think I am making a fortune from this, milking it, trying to be a celebrity or whatever. Yeah, right. If they knew, they wouldn't say it. Or maybe they still would, I don't know.

I hold onto this: that people I care about have heard me and held me and supported me, and told me that I should keep going. And that is enough; it has to be.