Someone once said to me, ‘Why do you live your life behind closed walls, when the door is wide open’
It is only now that I realise what they mean. I have lived over the years with everything that should be yours to own, except I live it in the real world and at the same time, very much in secret.Although I can recognise that those walls have, over the last few years started to come down, through courage, perseverance, and hope. I now know for me, if I have gained anything from this meeting, it is to keep believing that all those fears I had and have, will and can change. And more importantly than anything, is to keep going and to remind myself that not only can I reach that open door, I deserve to be standing outside of it.
Extract taken from a letter written by myself in 2010 after restorative justice with my biological mother whom murdered my biological sibling. There was no acknowledgment on her part of what she had done, though I was able to forgive myself for what was never my fault.