PTSD insulated me – until I was forced to confront a terrible trauma

It was only when I started collapsing - violently, dangerously - for no apparent reason, that I began to understand the impact of being kidnapped 25 years earlier

You might say the first major fault lines made their appearance just as I arrived at the door of a hard-earned adult-made happiness. It was 1992 and my husband Thomas and I, newly married, were in Paris visiting his sister and her husband.

While there, we went to the cinema one evening and afterwards had a bite to eat. I felt shaky, listening as the others discussed the film. It was rare for me not to offer an opinion, but the harder I tried to formulate a coherent thought, the more it eluded me. The interest I felt a minute before disappeared. I felt nothing. An emotional lens closed.