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Nara: I had stopped praying and wearing a headscarf, and I'd had a few big rows with my parents because of this. When they told me my grandmother – who I had been very close to – had died, we all went to Iraq for the funeral. But I found out she hadn't actually died and it was just a plan to get me back to Iraq and keep me there.What did he do to you?
My dad shut me in a room and wouldn't let me leave. Every day he came in and beat me and then locked the door. I'd never had a great relationship with my father, but he was ashamed of me. He let out all his anger. He fractured my left arm and ribs. I was held against my will for a month in my grandmother's house. After four days I was allowed to go out into the courtyard, but I was basically under house arrest. I had no phone, no internet and I wasn't allowed onto the street.
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I had a Kindle that had a browser on it. I found an open wi-fi network and started contacting my boyfriend back in the UK to arrange my escape. He told me the embassy knew I'd been kidnapped and was already searching for me. So I described what the house looked like, but their patrols never found me. One day, dad left the house, and so I thought, 'It's now or never' – although I knew I might never see my family again. I found the key to the back door and got a taxi to the embassy, and they put me on a flight back to the UK.When did your experiences start to haunt you?
I had to change my name, change jobs, change my doctors. I had to sever all links with my family. My boyfriend was supporting me and, at first, I thought I'd not been affected much by it. But mentally I hadn't dealt with it. Six months after coming back from Iraq I had a bit of a breakdown. I got more and more depressed. I had night terrors, insomnia and suffered PTSD-like symptoms, such as flashbacks. I was getting just three hours of sleep a day. I took two months off work and went to therapy. I was put on sedatives to help me sleep.
And where did LSD come into all this?READ: Why So Many Young Brits Are Taking So Much LSD and Ecstasy
By the time my father conned me into going to Iraq I had taken most recreational drugs. I wasn't a big drinker; MDMA was my favourite. I'd done a few quite pleasant LSD trips in the park with my friend, but after having a bad experience with 2CB, I was never someone who took drugs alone.
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Yes, in October last year. I half-expected the same thing to happen, but this time I took 200 micrograms and I'd done some research online about LSD dosing and using it to treat trauma – although you have to take what people say online with a grain of salt. I was more prepared, so I just let go. I was with friends and I just let it do its thing. That's when I made this breakthrough.What happened?
When I was high on LSD it allowed me a glimpse at how to deal with the problems I was having, like opening a drawn curtain. For the first time I realised what had happened. It wasn't my fault, none of it was. It was an eye-opening experience. For me, taking LSD – and talking and thinking about what had happened to me – was actually quite a cherished experience. It made me open to other things: one of the effects was to make me a lot more responsive to the therapy sessions I was going to. I found it easier to approach my problems in therapy, because I already had done so on LSD. It was so much easier to talk about.
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Why do you think LSD had this effect?READ: LSD, Coke and Edibles – How Various Drugs Affect You at Work
With LSD I get a view from the inside. With other drugs, such as MDMA, you don't get that. LSD is like an emotional bottle opener for me; it helps me see things from a different angle. But I had to find the right dose, the balance between disorientation and self-awareness.So a year after taking LSD as a form of self-medication, how are you?
Well, on the downside my therapist wasn't very pleased with me for taking LSD, but she said she appreciated my honesty. And I've realised I can never take LSD for fun again – it just gets so heavy; I open up about my family and the abuse. I can't avoid that issue. I'm still not in a very good place, although I'm much better than last year. There's been a lot of progress and the trigger for that was acid. I still take sedatives, although if I'm tripping I have to leave a three day window where I have to not take them.Have you had any contact with your family?
I've not spoken to anyone in my family since February of last year. I particularly miss speaking to my two younger sisters, and that's not great. It's painful, but there's not much I can do about it. I can't just hop over to Iraq, where my family now lives, and say, "How are you doing?" And there's so much fighting there now. Instead, I've got a network of friends – I've built my own family. But I have to stay low, even in the UK, because if I do "out" myself [my family has] family here, too.
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