Each winter, as fireworks and chinking glasses welcome in the New Year, a clock starts up within me, ticking down to 14 April. My limbs grow heavier, my chest tightens, and my brow furrows. I find myself jumpy and cringe at sounds and movements, startled by catching my foot on a paving stone or by the roar of a motorbike engine. I gasp as a jumper slides off the back of a chair, or my neighbour gently knocks to drop off a parcel; my arms lift and tense like a baby in the Moro reflex, adrenaline flooding my body to the tips of my fingers.
My clock has a name, as it turns out: the ‘Anniversary Effect’. And this April marked 15 years since the clock was set – the night I nearly died.
I was 22 when it happened, living in Paris to study French after graduating the year before. That evening I was with eight others at my friend’s apartment, listening to music, drinking beers and singing into the balmy night. When smoke and heat started pouring in, and we realised we needed to get out, it was too late – a fire had started several floors below and had blazed through the building’s only staircase.
I, along with several others, jumped out of the window and fell three floors to the courtyard below. We had no other choice. I don’t remember making the decision to jump; I just knew I needed to breathe. The fire left me with over 40% burns, fractures, a smashed face and lung damage that nearly killed me. Five people died that night; four of them were my friends.
My long recovery and multiple surgeries meant my 20s were entirely different to my peers’. I spent weeks in a coma and many more in outpatient care. I had to learn how to sit up, walk, use my hands again. I felt left behind – in socialising, work, romance – and lived through the wax and wane of trauma and heart-shredding sadness.
In the years since the fire, I usually mark the anniversary with friends and family in some way. Mum and I like to give each occasion a little name – 5 years alive, 10 years strong. In most ways, it’s a happy day. I’m proud of the life I’ve built, full of friends and family, hobbies, culture, and a career focused on improving public services and support for people who may need access to the kind of care and opportunities I did. I couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination have believed that such a life was possible when I was first injured, or even a year on from the accident. I also celebrate 14 April because it resets the clock again. Not right away, not the day or even week after – it’s never tangible enough for me to be able to pinpoint the change. But, just as the feeling creeps up on me before the anniversary, so it begins to slowly fade. At the bringing in of May, as people across Europe celebrate with ribbons and flowers and dancing and music, I unfurl into myself again.
Now, it’s back to work. As a freelance policy and communications consultant, I have the good fortune to direct my efforts toward where they will have the greatest impact. And I am bringing my own experience into sharper focus. I want to ensure others living with trauma and complex health needs get the best care possible, and are supported to live full and healthy lives. That the voices and experiences of those of us with lived experience are not just heard, but truly listened to, so that the policies and systems that affect us work for and with us. Attitudes about lived experience, coproduction and representation in policymaking have come a long way since I was injured, and we’re finally starting to accept that being trauma-informed requires something much deeper than changing the language we use. But we still have a long way to go – that’s the work of the next 15 years.
When your world is tipped upside down, recovery can take a lifetime. It comes with surges in progress and confidence, as well as many setbacks. The return of my symptoms every winter is a reminder that policy and systems of support and care must cater to the messy and non-linear nature of trauma, and be able to adapt when it shifts and evolves. I’ll continue to fight for this not just to be understood, but also to be reflected in practice. And I’ll make sure to take the breaks I need along the way, each time the clock starts ticking again.
Ruby Livings Waterworth
Policy, communications & strategy consultant
https://www.rubylivingswaterworth.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruby-waterworth/
Photo by Marcel Strauß on Unsplash
