The shock of survival

Like many thousands of others, I was shocked and horrified. Not only did I start to imagine the victims and the families of those who had died, but my thoughts also went out to the people who had witnessed it. As with any profoundly shocking event, those who were caught up in it, even just as a bystander, may now be at risk of developing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a debilitating condition.

PTSD is something I now know a lot about. It is an invisible and sometimes deadly attacker that can stalk and terrorise the victim for many years. Most people associate it with soldiers in combat, but it can happen to anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed to the point where they froze and were unable, even momentarily, to respond to the situation before them. The good news, though, is that trauma doesn't have to be a life sentence.

In the hope that it may encourage other people - perhaps even those who witnessed the tragic events of the bin lorry crash or indeed other accidents or assaults - to seek help, should they need it, I have decided to share my own story of what it was like to suffer from PTSD and, most importantly, how you can get better.

My mental health problems began on May 23, 2012, the day my husband and I were meant to be starting our new life in Switzerland. By a bizarre twist of fate, it also happened to be the day I got blown up.

By then I had been in living in London for 10 years, working first as a criminal barrister and then as a Home Office legal adviser. For all these jobs had been interesting, my real love was writing. So when my husband was offered a job in Switzerland, we both jumped at the opportunity. I had visions of mountain chalets, cheese fondues, cows with bells on their collars and beautiful summer meadows. Most importantly, I planned to focus on my new novel and see how it went from there.

I remember waving goodbye to my husband as he boarded the Gatwick Express. We were not used to spending time apart so it was emotional as well as exciting. Unfortunately, I still had some of my notice left to work, which was why he was flying out to

Geneva a few days ahead of me. As the train pulled out of the station, I became aware of a woman smiling at me. I figured she must have been watching us say goodbye and I smiled back at her. I was happy; happier, in fact, than I could ever remember being.

As I had time to spare, I decided to walk to the Edgware Road, where I was meeting a friend for dinner. It was unusually hot and it felt as if the whole of London had downed tools and spilled out on to the streets to celebrate the fine weather.

Then it happened. The pavement I was walking on blew up and I was engulfed in a fireball. At the time I thought it was a car bomb, although as I subsequently found out it was a gas leak combined with an electrical fault in an underground cable.

It is hard to describe what the explosion was like. The main thing I remember is a rush of hot yet also very cold air, the sort of air that sucks all the sound away and brings you face to face with your thoughts.

Strangely, I didn't feel any pain or panic. While I remember thinking I was going to die, to my surprise I didn't fight against it. There was a still, almost peaceful form of acceptance. But at the same time, I was gripped by an overwhelming sense of guilt. As irrational as it was, I blamed myself for walking into the explosion. I blamed myself for leaving my husband. And most of all, I blamed myself for having been so damn happy that day.

When I finally came to, I looked down at my hands and saw that in the space where my nails should have been there were hard, fleshy bubbles. I then looked across the street to another woman. I recognised the dazed and confused expression on her face and yet somehow something wasn't quite right.

Then I saw it. The hard, fleshy bubbles were on her face, around her eyes. I couldn't understand how her face could be white and red at the same time. I still can't.

The strange thing is, in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, and indeed for several months later, I was utterly convinced I was going to be OK. When the NHS psychologist warned that I might end up suffering problems, I assured her I would be fine. I had been through worse things when I was younger, including the murder of a school friend. Besides, I had been really lucky. I had survived, and what's more it really hadn't been that bad. One of my worst fears had been realised. I had been blown up and here I was laughing about it. I felt great.

In truth, the elation lasted for a few months, although there were fleeting moments of panic and despair, usually triggered by loud noises. An ordinary thing like a door being pulled shut could leave me in tears. But I told myself this was to be expected. I felt proud of how I had coped. Worse things happen to other people all the time. What right had I to break down?

The trouble started when my family began to make comments about how strangely I was acting, which I found very frustrating. If I had been honest, however, I would have seen that I wasn't coping. After all, I was beginning to find simple things like cooking dinner, unpacking boxes and even catching a bus increasingly difficult.

Over time, a sense of guilt crept over me, to the point where it seeped into everything I did. I was haunted by the fact that in running away from the explosion, with my tights and the back of my dress blown off, I hadn't stopped to help the older woman, whose face had been badly burned. She had taken the force of the explosion head-on, whereas I had been lucky enough to be hit from behind.

I also started to feel guilty about the murder of my school friend, who had been stabbed in an unprovoked sectarian attack when I was 15. I began to have dreams about him and whenever I woke I would be left with the feeling that I was somehow to blame. I also started to feel as if my reaction to his death had been inappropriate, as if I hadn't really had the right to grieve the way I did. I was worried, terrified even, that in setting up the anti-sectarian charity Nil By Mouth, I had been attention-seeking, which seemed almost too unbearable to contemplate.

It got to the point where I felt as if I was unravelling. I would find myself overwhelmed by tears for seemingly no reason. It was embarrassing when it happened in public, as often I would struggle to control my breathing. Sometimes at home, particularly when I was in the shower, I would hear myself cry, even howl, and wonder who it was that was making that noise.

At times I'd go through the motions of normal life and say the things that I knew I needed to say, particularly to my husband who was struggling to cope with the changes that were happening to me. I could tell it was having a terrible effect on him, but it was as if I was reading a script. I knew I should care. I knew I was hurting him, threatening everything we had worked so hard for, but I couldn't connect any feelings to that knowledge.

One time, he broke down while driving on the motorway. With tears streaming down his face, he said he didn't know how long he could go on like this. I remember looking at him then and just wondering whether he would be able to continue driving. I felt nothing in that moment, for him or for myself.

There were also several times when I hoped he would crash the car. I asked him afterwards whether he was purposively driving recklessly. I thought he must have felt the same and the best thing would be if we both died then and there, but he assured me he was driving normally. I realised then I was losing my grip on reality.

It was around this time that I started to be consumed by thoughts of death. Methods of killing myself would pop into my mind and hang over me for days on end. In between times, I would be consumed by guilt about how selfish I was being. I knew if I took my own life I would effectively be taking my husband's too. It would devastate both our families and I therefore owed it to them to hang on, even for just a little bit longer.

I also began to have thoughts of self-harm. One time I was lying in bed and my head felt so tight and sore, the pain felt so great, that I had to fight back the urge to go and fetch a knife to cut it open.

By this time, I was living in Switzerland and I was very fortunate in that I was referred to a psychiatrist, who prescribed medication and I started psychotherapy. However, after several months of talking about how awful I felt, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't working. The more insight I gained into what I was feeling and why, the worse I actually felt.

The turning point came when I heard about a form of therapy called Somatic Experiencing, which I now credit with saving my life.

It works by engaging the more primitive part of the brain, the part that governs our instincts and physical responses.

If anyone had suggested that to me before I had been desperate enough try Somatic Experiencing, I would probably have thought them mad. How could paying attention to your physical sensations help you overcome psychological problems?

Well, there is a science behind it, but I'm not going to attempt an explanation. What I will say is that when I was finally able to feel the horror of my friend's death - a horror that actually underlay my reaction to the explosion in London - it was a physical pain in my face, jaw and head, a painful sort of numbness. After that I began to feel a tension in all of my muscles, as if I was ready to strike out.

And without in any way thinking about it, I knew with absolute certainty that I felt exactly as I had done when I was 15 years old, standing in that church looking at my friend's coffin. Although nearly 20 years had passed, it felt exactly as it had done in that moment when someone had leaned across the pew and touched my arm, even though up until that point I had no memory of this incident.

And I realised then - or rather, I felt - what it was to brace against the horror of his death. But this time I could now move towards it, and as I did I knew without any question that I didn't have anything to feel guilty about. I was hurt, that was all; so profoundly and deeply hurt. With this realisation came the most wonderful feeling of warmth; a deep glowing warmth, emanating from my very core. As I sat there basking in it, I knew without needing to put any words to it that this was love. This was self-love.

Setting up Nil By Mouth was one of the best and easiest things I have ever done - because it just felt like the right thing to do. What I never anticipated was how difficult it would be to live with it afterwards. Yet it didn't have to be that hard. Thanks to the explosion, I see that now.

Being able to feel what it is you feel is a precious gift. It's one we are all born with. But the trouble is that sometimes, out of fear, the more refined, thinking part of our brain tries to take over.

In my case, I thought I could control the way I felt about my past, but I couldn't and, most importantly, I didn't need to.

The truth is we can't avoid feeling pain and hurt in our lives - at least, we can't if we also want to have the capacity not just to feel good, but to feel alive. Thanks to the explosion, I now know what it is to feel alive again and it's actually a physical feeling of being alive. And the best thing about that feeling is it feels good. Life really does feel good.