Hello and a massive welcome to Happy Place with me Fern Cotton.

This is the show that offers different perspectives through different life stories.

And today, I'm chatting to Louise Thompson.

Post-traumatic stress disorder will sadly plague me for the rest of my life.

At its worst, it looks like traumatic flashbacks,

which can be triggered by anything. You know, it's the smells, it's the sensations,

it's the condensation on the window that can trigger me into feeling really scared.

I have moments where I feel dissociated and I can not smell or taste or hear or even see that well

and then I have other moments where I can smell here taste too much so I'm very very very sensitive

I'm actually recording this introduction in my kitchen so that's why it might sound a bit echoy, but also it is pissing

with rain outside and my cats are all zooming around me. So if you hear any strange noises,

lovely listeners, that's where you can picture me. Fig is usually, fig's my kitten, by the way,

if I haven't bombarded you enough on Instagram with pictures of her.

And she will kick about anything like a football.

Jewelry, keys, bits of tissue, just rolls of cellar tape.

It's all up for grabs.

But I hope you're all well wherever you're listening to this.

I learned an interesting lesson this week and it's one that it's definitely not the first time I've learned it.

And it's quite a big overarching lesson that I had to learn.

I mean, the big ones are the ones that we need to keep learning, right?

So last week I felt really shit.

Not as shit as I did, say, 13, 14 years ago, but I felt really low.

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