I’ve been sitting on this story for way too long, nearly as long as I’ve been sitting in my wheelchair actually. To be honest, it’s been filed away on my laptop for almost five years now, waiting for me to finally release my grip and let it out into the ether for everyone or no one to see. Holding onto it has done my body no favours as I ignored the whispers, even the screams as my body protested noisily. Chronic pain has been a great teacher.

Already an orphan at the age of 15, paraplegia was a word I’d never stumbled upon until age 18 but it seemed easier to swallow at the time than the words, ‘You probably won’t walk again’. Like so many others, who one day think they’re invincible, I found myself suddenly staring at a hospital ceiling, totally reliant on strangers to wash my ‘private bits’ and to keep my body functioning. There was more to come when the sentence, ‘Oh and of course, you already know that you’re about 8 weeks pregnant’, was delivered nonchalantly. Another body blow that I’d been in denial about until that moment.

That gift was torn from me too though in the weeks that followed. My body was numb, the rest of me then joined it in sympathy. It felt so much easier for me to go than to choose to stay. That’s what happens when your heart is ripped asunder and it seems like everyone you love has been taken away. There’s only so much trauma you can absorb and bury as you grieve for all that you’ve lost and for the person you once thought you’d become.

This story has not only lived in my bones, it’s coagulated in my veins. That’s why ‘So Not Me’ was born. You don’t have the above kind of life without having to dig deep in the hope of stumbling across some form of bigger picture, even if it has taken me more than 35 years to haphazardly piece the jagged shards of the mosaic together.

I hope that I’ve taken the raw material of my life and of my world and shaped it into something truer and more beautiful, not just for me, but for all of you who choose to read this book. The thing is, I believe that trauma doesn’t just go away, it surfaces when the time is right for it to be transmuted into hope and love. With the help of my phenomenal editor, Suzanne Power, I trust and believe that’s what we’ve done.

I really hope you agree and would really appreciate if you’d take the time to leave a review. It would mean a lot. Somewhere in the shadows, grace waits patiently.