everybody has a story

A heads-up: this story contains graphic imagery and might be a bit tricky for some to read.

I was three when war broke out in Sierra Leone. That’s when I became a refugee. We were internally displaced until I was about nine or 10. You can’t get out of your own country, so you’re stuck inside, trying to seek safety. All those years we were stuck, until we were able to get out and make it to Gambia, to an unofficial refugee camp. It wasn’t sanctioned by the UN – there was no support – but you sort of band together with all these other Sierra Leoneans who ended up in Gambia.

I remember insecurity and unsafety and every day not knowing what was going to happen. No sense of a future. No forward planning. My childhood is also fraught with memories that are locked away for my own safety. It’s called trauma-informed amnesia. That’s allowed me to have some semblance of normalcy. But every now and then, even though I live in Australia, I’ll smell something or hear a sound and all of a sudden I get triggered. I might not even