Richard Feidler

And I didn't know at 25, I didn't know how I was going to survive in the world.

I came to see that there was, for me, there was nothing there.

And someone sent me to or suggested I go to see this beautiful alcohol counsellor.

So I was about eight months at this time.

I tried to commit suicide three times that year, almost successful the last time.

And she just said to me, Katie, you know, you're just a fragmented person.

and when she used that word fragmented, there was like an actual gut reaction.

That's how I felt I had been, not even thinking about the abuse, but certainly since the abuse.

There was no joining of the dots.

I was just a bit of this and a bit of that, which is why I could see I would travel, oh, I'll go and do this, because I had no sense of who I was, what I wanted to do.

It was always what other people wanted to do, oh, I'll do that.

Well, it was an epiphany because she said, well, you can start again, Kate.

You can start again.

Like a blank notebook, you can start your life again if you just grip the support stuff with both hands.

And that's what I did.

and I haven't picked up a drink or a drug all that time.

Many, many things have happened in that time, some awful, but I've come to believe, for me, that picking up anything, that means I've got the problem back again, worse probably.

So it was all about learning to deal with life on life's terms without any substances.

In my first year of not having any drugs and alcohol, the first thing that came into me that I thought, oh, my God, I'm a lesbian.

how crap is that?