 If you're looking to sponsor the Anything Goes podcast and have your business promoted on this show, you can contact sponsoranythinggoesatoutlook.com or you can call 07584 650 203 for more information. Make sure you click the link to subscribe to my YouTube channel and also click the notifications button to be notified for when my next podcast goes live. You can also follow me on my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest is. I hope you enjoy this week's episode. Thank you. Baron. The day's guests have got Madeline Black. How are we? I'm good, thank you. Nice to be here. Thanks for being here. You're welcome. You've got a very heart-breaking and also powerful book called Unbroken. It's a best seller. Your story is very touching, very moving, but it's also very dark. It's a heart-breaking story. If you could elaborate on the wee book a bit. My story really is just a story of many people. When I was 13, I was gang-raped by two American teenagers. There's no easy way to say it. I just have to say it how it is. And then you were raped three more times before you were 18. And it was really, as I was saying to you before, I didn't really think about those rapes because one of the many side effects I had after the gang rape when I was 13 was I became really promiscuous so I thought I had loads of bad sex. But when I was writing the book, it just occurred to me, I said no and they said yes and they just carried on anyway. That's grim and it's difficult for yourself. How do you feel when you speak out about this as well? Does it bring back a lot of memories and emotion for you? Now I really am in such a good place and it almost feels like it's my duty that if I can speak out about it then I really should because I know the power that comes when we share our stories. I'm a storyteller for an organisation called The Forgiveness Project because I many years later chose to forgive these two men and Marina calls us, Marina's the founder, she calls us story healers rather than storytellers and I have felt that so many times. Because I know we spoke earlier and you said at the start you kind of, a lot of people blame themselves for these bad things and it's difficult. The night it happened, what were the plans leading up to her? When I had this friend at school who was just really cool, she just wore the best clothes and makeup and jewellery, and she suggested a night out and I said yes. Her mum was away and we both lied about where we were staying. She was meant to be staying at her grandma and I told my mum we were staying there and vice versa. We went back to her mum's empty flat and it was the late 1970s and somehow we managed to buy a bottle of vodka. We took it to a local Mexican café in north London which sounds pretty sophisticated but it was pretty scuzzy. It was the type of place where just a load of Americans hung out and a few of them joined our table. I had never drunk before so I got sick just really quickly and threw up everywhere so we were kicked out. And then two of the young men from our table put us into a black taxi and went back to her mum's empty flat and it just became very clear very early on that they weren't there to let me sleep off the alcohol that they were there for something else. And how old were these boys do you remember? They weren't much older than maybe 17 or 18. And the girl you were with was she raped that night? Well when we arrived they put us into separate bedrooms and in the morning I woke up and my friend was now in the bed next to me. She hadn't been touched at all and I had injuries on my body. And did you report it then? I didn't report it now because one of the very last things that the worst one said to me, he held his knife against my throat and told me if I told anyone that he would find me and he would kill me. And I believed him. So that basically just drove the fear into you to worry that it would happen again? Or because you were anated on you as well? They did and actually out of all of the painful things that they did to me to me that was the worst because that just really summed up how little they thought of me that I was just worthless. Nothing. And how was the experience after that then? How was your life for years because I know it took you years to come to terms? Well I know now that what we can't speak about I couldn't find my voice. It has to come out somehow. So I developed an eating disorder. I became anorexic. I had so many fears, phobias, anxieties. I used drugs and alcohol just to numb out, to push it far out of my head as possible. But really worst of all was what it did to my mind. I just thought I was worthless, dirty, contaminated. And I ended up taking an overdose, which obviously didn't work. But I didn't even know I'd had my stomach pumped. I took so many pills and when I woke up in hospital I just thought, God, what a loser. You can't even kill yourself. You can't even get that right. So from there I spent two months in a children's psychiatric ward. And when I was writing my book I asked for the notes. Just to see if they had any idea how a normal 13 year old girl turned into one who couldn't speak or eat or hated herself. But they had no idea according to my notes. And then after that my behaviour just, I just rebelled even more when I got sent home. I just partied hard, became really promiscuous because I was just too scared to say no. If a guy tried it on I'd just let him do whatever he wanted. I was also scared that it would get violent like the last time. And it was one particular morning that I came home late. I snuck in about four or five. My parents would say don't go out so I would go out. My mum is waiting and she's shaking me saying, Don't you realise what could happen? The danger you're putting yourself in. Inside my head I'm screaming the words but I couldn't write. I couldn't find my voice. So I wrote it down on a note which I left on my pillow before I went to school. And when I came back they said, Is it true? And I said yes. So they called my friend who was involved with the other gun. She said no it hadn't happened. Like I said it did. They were nice boys and they just brought us home. So I just felt really betrayed by her in that moment. Do you think though it could have happened to her and maybe she was too scared to admit it also? I've thought many things and I know I'll never really know. I do think along those lines either the same thing happened to her and she numbed it out and blocked it out like I had done or nothing happened to her and she couldn't really understand what I was saying. This is one of the reasons why I want you on this show but even though you've went through your trauma you've not let it defeat you because now you're empowering people. You're doing talks and it's a subject that nobody really speaks about. I think it's a very thin line that people are maybe embarrassed to come forward. The shame is crippling. The shame is toxic because it's such an intimate crime. It silenced me for years as well. I really thought that it was my fault that I'd brought it on myself. So when did you start coming to terms with it and kind of that because I know you've forgiven those men which is a difficult thing to do but to release and to move on with your life no matter the crime. I think that's one of the best things to do to move on. What is, did you start really going, ok I'm not going to let these boys take control of my life? I don't know if it's really an age and I would say it's really, it's just like layers. There's many many layers to it and it's a process I didn't get to this place overnight. So when my drug taking was really bad my parents suggested that I went away for a while to get away from the bad influences. So I went to Israel for a year. My mum didn't know that they grew grass on the kibbut so I was fine for a while. But anyway I met a Glaswegian towards the end of my stay there, Stephen who I'm still with 35 years later but he was the first guy that I felt safe with and I knew that I could trust him and he popped the question after about five years and I said yes but I had to remind him that I told him I would never become a mum because I just thought giving birth was going to be like being raped again and I just thought I can't do that. I was so scared the idea of men at my cervix you know my feet and stirrups whatever the idea of giving birth was in my head it was completely wrong. I had two amazing home births in Glasgow so it was very different but I just thought one day if I never become a mum then they've won. I am still handing them all my power and control so I was determined to become a mum and I have three gorgeous girls but to live my life as best as I could but I saw that we can convince ourselves of anything and I really thought that motherhood had healed me that I was fine but I still had fears and phobias and insecurities you know I'd get in my car, I'd put the buttons down straight away if I went to a multi-story car park and I wasn't on the first floor I would just drive out because I couldn't risk going in the lift in case a man came in or so many ways I couldn't put my wheelie bin down the end of the garden if it was dark because I was scared of the dark in fact it was when through my kids and training as a psychotherapist that I really saw my fears when Anna went to high school she wanted to take the bus like everybody else I said no I'm just going to drive you to primary school very protective I'm also a Jewish mother so I have that gene in me as well and she said no she wants to take the bus and I saw if I don't let her take the bus I am overprotecting her how will she ever be street wise how will she ever learn to really look after herself so I said okay you can take the bus I gave her the money I gave her a rape alarm I told her not to listen to her music with her earbuds in sitting there as the driver she jumped on the bus and then I jumped in my car and I drove behind that bus and I just thought this is crazy what am I doing to my kids what will be the point of bringing them into this world if I just infect their mind with my fears very caught and well but she's very difficult because you've experienced that so you know it can happen the majority of people haven't experienced that so they're not aware of it as much as you're aware of it so you're going to be protective to the day you die well yes and no because now Anna was clubbing at 15 she's now nearly 26 next week so she's very sensible now she just bought a house and all the rest of it but I had to let them live their life and if I never showed them how it was to live their life they'd be living a limited life as well so if I never showed them what it is to just to be spontaneous to be free and to be aware so I always said to them I don't care if you've been drinking, doing drugs whatever's happened phone us, if ever you're scared we will always come and get you so the first time that Anna got really drunk her friends wouldn't let her phone and they just said no no you can't phone and in the end she phoned and then she said they were scared of letting me know how drunk she was and I said we'll always come and get you maybe if you'd done that that night also then you wouldn't have been through so it's a good thing that you can also come forward when did you say to Stephen did you tell him straight away or did you have to wait to build up some trust I told him very a few details after a year or so after meeting him and it was only when Anna turned 13 the same age that I was that I had all the nightmares, all the flashbacks memories came back and I went back to therapy again for about three years that was the last time I went and my therapist suggested you know it would be a good idea to tell him all the details he didn't know all the details just so he would understand why I'm in therapy for three years but I was still so ashamed then the only way I could tell him was in the dark in bed holding hands with the lights off I couldn't look at him because the shame the shame is so hard you know I thought if people knew that they would look at me differently as if somehow what had happened to me was a reflection of me but I know now the shame never belonged to me it always belonged to them those boys always did but we carry the shame as survivors thinking that people will look at us differently and you've been blessed to get through it and to do what you're doing because a lot of people who go through that torment, drug abuse like you say you've went through that suicide comes into play, you've tried that and it's difficult, we do homeless work and a lot of the people who come through have been abused when they were young and a lot of them blame themselves which is so sad to think that so for anybody watching that's been through any kind of struggle I've went through like something you've went through what advice would you give for them? I would say it's never, ever too late to find your voice there's always support if you can find a therapist share your story I've done lots of different therapies some may be more alternative than mainstream therapies but the biggest thing has been to find my voice to give it oxygen to put it out there when we don't speak it but also what it did to me it numbed me out I was just existing but I was on autopilot I wasn't really alive or spontaneous I was like a block of ice I was just numbed out so really with my girls as well I thought I have to show them that I can get past this but also how to live my life I was concerned with my safety and my well-being that I was protecting myself from living if that makes sense so when you started making all the changes when you wrote your book because your book's been out two years now see when you wrote your book because it's written right into depth of actually the whole experience how was that feeling? well it's interesting so before I wrote my book I've been going to workshops for many years by a teacher of life and he suggested to me to write my story down and I said no way there's no way I'm going to let you read or anyone else read my story this was in about 2010 and it took me about four years I stopped and started that process many times and one night it literally just flowed out of my fingertips and 12 pages had been written and he then said great I'd like to use it in one of the workshops and I said there's no way I can't let you use it and he said it's going to really help people it's going to be good for you but it will really help people your story to show them that you can go through extreme trauma but you can come out of it as well and so I thought okay well I trust this man he's been my teacher for 10, 15 years and I allowed him to do that but while he was at the workshop it was in Switzerland I was back in Glasgow I had a sense of my words I could feel them flying around the room and I thought the bugger he has let them read what I had written there was all the details he said to hold nothing out and he did he let them read what I had written and I thought I can never go back I was so ashamed but I thought if I don't go back I need to realise and I just thought they knew everything about me they couldn't know anything more intimate about me so I went back to the next workshop for me was in Cork in Ireland and walking in was just like being naked I felt so exposed I also didn't know was he told them to give us some peace show her some respect don't say anything to her just leave her alone so I walked in they all just kind of looked down at their feet nobody even said hello they didn't kill me I am still alive I don't believe I am my body I don't believe I am the things that were done to my body were all so much more than our events in life and actually after about four days it's a four day workshop people couldn't keep quiet to come forward and say it happened to them too or they shared different stories or there was one guy who said that he had been scammed in a business deal and this man owed him loads of money but he said if I can forgive these two men he can just forgive that because he's holding on to all his anger and he saw like me that when I was holding on to anger it only impacted me they had no idea about me being angry at them the thing I love about your book at the back it says you talk about your empowering story as she discovers our lives are not defined by what knocks us down they are defined by how we get back up which is very important I do believe that it's not what happens to us that is important in life but it's what we do with it that matters it's about how we react to those situations and we've all got trauma some people trauma is worse than others but it's how we deal with those traumas and again it's not about comparison all rape is a total violation it's not worse because I was 13 and it doesn't matter it's not about comparison I was meaning just before we get traumas but we have to really be with that trauma you can't just get to that decision overnight this has been a process this is 40 years ago now for me so it's been a huge process but it really is possible to walk it out but you have to let the trauma do what it has to do as well yeah and you'll be working on yourself through day you die you'll be constantly working on yourself but the fact that you're speaking out about it is very empowering and I've got massive respect for that so far going forward for your life after you released the book how many people have actually came forward and spoken out and helped so many, well I shared my story with The Forgiveness Project in 2014 not that long after I had written my story out for Imoho and he shared it and it was after that that I realised what Marina the founder when she calls us story healers I really understood what she meant because so many people just from my story going online got in touch to say well me too this has happened to me, men and women not just women, first of all in this country then overseas I've had every day I get messages from people from just all over the world one of my best examples is the reason why I speak out I've had brilliant interviews like yourself but the best one I have to say sorry, what's the Trevor McDonald what's the Trevor McDonald I can't really he's a legend, I don't mind plain saying as long as I'm saying but it was obviously amazing to meet him but it's what took place once the radio interview had been aired my friend's mum told me that her mum had been listening and to cut a long story short she was 81 and she told her daughter that day that she had been raped as a teenager and she had never told anyone and she ended 64 years of silence so every time I speak I think of her someone's coming forward and that's why, do you think that's gave you the purpose in life then to keep going and keep speaking out you've got some drive and purpose to realise wait a minute, yes it's happening but now you're helping save lives also my voice is now my tool or now my power and I intend to use it because it was the courage of somebody else speaking out that helped me find my voice and I just intend to pay that forward and one of the good things is is to realise that you're not alone I think if people can accept that how can people, where can they contact or where can they phone or what's that place you work for can people contact them on Facebook or anything is there a crisis centre I am a councillor at an organisation in Glasgow called the Tom Allen Centre I don't believe any issue or couples but there's rape crisis there's a Samaritans but you don't necessarily have to find a therapist because not everyone can afford to pay Tom Allen, there's a donation service as well so you don't actually have to pay the full rate of, I think it's 45 pounds there's a fast track but just to find someone even if it's not a therapist, a friend just to be listened to to be heard and to be believed there's nothing more empowering than that find someone to speak to, write your story down tell yourself your story and read what you've written because we spoke on the phone at the weekend we were talking about obviously the porn industry and the way people are looking at sex do you think that's playing a major factor now Absolutely, I recently did a radio show BBC Radio Humberside and we had a vicar on, vicar Becky who was lovely but she goes into schools and she talks about porn and consent and shockingly she said the average age for a child to access porn eight years old eight, because in your palm you have this computer that's far more powerful than any laptop eight years old and I've read something else that boys think it's normal for girls to cry when they're having sex because they get their lessons from porn Do you think the girls are crying then because they're not wanting to do it but they're too scared to say no Absolutely, well if you were enjoying it would you be crying? Yeah that's scary because is there enough it getting spoke about in schools? I don't know so much in Scotland but the vicar Becky that was on said in England and Wales they do a programme now called the Bikini programme or the Pants programme and they go into primary schools and it's about not being touched in bikini areas so your genitalia and your breasts and it's to let them know if anybody touches you there and they tell you it's a secret to always tell someone don't ever keep secrets if anybody tells you it's a secret and you have the right so of your body you might just say no and I think that's so important I think we need to start at Addressing it straight away At nursery level even if it's not consent about sex but you know I was forced to kiss my grandad or go and say hello to this one sit on Santa's knee are we actually ever given a choice even as a little child? Majority abusers are manipulators as well so they can manipulate people's mind and a lot of rape we spoke about earlier again a lot of rape even though there's women men are raped as well but for men to come forward as well they're imagining about a lot more pride than it is as well because again with all the myths that are out there people assume if you're male that you could fight them off you're a big guy, you're not your typical victim and it's no typical victim that babies are raped women and burkas are raped men are raped, I recently spoke at a conference called Break the Silence in Kilmarnock and there was a boxer Callum Hancock who spoke out he's an amazing young man he was just so powerful when he spoke and he was 10 years old when he was raped and you think he's a boxer that he could fight back but yeah he spoke out and for him to find his voice I know because it's not just going to help him it's going to help so many other men and women to come forward too yeah it takes a lot of courage there's been talks made but we will need to wait and see because your story is very fascinating even though I've spoken about it before it is heartbreaking but it's also empowering to help others so if anybody's watching how can people contact you? well I'm all over social media so I have my website madlineblack.co.uk but Twitter, Instagram I'm madblack65 and get involved and drop her a message if she's interested because the story needs to be told more as much as possible and that's why I wanted you on because it's such a touchy subject it makes people feel uncomfortable and to me I'm really touched when a man invites me on to speak about rape because I think that must be even harder than for a woman to speak about I recently spoke at Awaz community radio station Asian Glasgow radio station and I spoke to Anne Breen and she said one of my colleagues said he'd like you to come on and I think that's brilliant women and men are raped but the majority of the rapists aren't men and it's good to come forward and people that old woman who's 60 or jeer held on to that pain and hurt and blame and to hold on to that destroys your life because it would release a chemical of that frustration and anger and she said she was listening to the radio and she just heard a woman on the radio who understood and I spoke about how I always thought it was my fault that I was to blame and I'd brought it on myself and that's what she told her daughter that you know I always thought it was my fault and then she made me see it never was it was always his fault How was the discussion with your mum and dad when you left the letter? Yeah that was interesting because my dad was determined to go to the police even though my friend said it hadn't happened like it had and my mum was really quiet and it took me many many years to understand my mum's silence she didn't want me to be examined she thought I would have an examination by the police three years later I wouldn't have done and it was only when my dad had died many years later that I was having therapy again my mum told me as an eight year old girl she had been raped and my dad they were married 40 years five kids never knew at all she was too ashamed she could never find her voice it was her friends, her neighbours dad and every time my granny would send her to play my mum would be raped by this man she was able to tell her brother who then told my grandparents and also abusing his daughters and when he was in jail my mum's family moved away and then they never spoke about it again That's heartbreaking But as I said at start my story is the story of so many people How do you feel though that the men are still at least does it ever worry you that they've committed more? They may have committed more but that is not my responsibility I once had somebody sent me I'm very lucky I don't really get trolled at all but somebody sent me a vile message saying well it's your fault because you'd ever reported that they're out there raping again I'm not responsible for a rapist's decision if your car's broken into and you don't report it are you responsible because then your neighbour's car is broken into as well? Yeah that's definitely not your fault but you're going to get trolls you're going to get people questioning even the girl who you're with that night denied that it happened or denied so because there's no one a conviction also 99% I have had so much support and so much love that yeah I know it was the right thing to do and now something about writing it all down with all the details just kind of shattered my shame I don't really care who knows anymore because that's not me and it's a paradox because yes it is a part of me and yes it did influence my life and then it's not me I'm not what happened to me so yeah it's interesting and we spoke about because we spoke about ayahuasca I'm going to do a documentary next month in Costa Rica to document the experience of ayahuasca but you were talking about what was the thing you were talking about? Well I knew about ayahuasca but ayahuasca can render you senseless and when I was taking San Pedro so San Pedro is also plant medicine which comes from Peru a lot of the shamans in Peru will take San Pedro, ayahuasca and it's softer than ayahuasca so I wasn't rendered senseless because you will just really be you'll be emptying your body from both ends yeah you're apparently can shut yourself oh yes I've done that as well because it's a fourth day it's a night of a process we drink the tea and then we're there for it it was apparently yeah it's a taste like shit I heard but apparently you get into your subconscious mind and try and reconnect with your soul and find out your purpose I'm constantly searching because I'm drinking drug free I'm questioning it also why am I doing it because I want to do it for the right reasons I'm going to document the experience a lot of people have came forward and it's changed their life for me actually it was a revelation taking it out so San Pedro is softer so I could move around and be around it was up in the Highlands of Scotland and it was a course it was maybe 20 of us that took it and it just really strips you of any conditioning so for me every time I always went back to trauma I always went back to being raped I'd be in a fetal position crying my eyes out you know shaking fighting and it was all for God's sake and the very last time I took it I've taken it about five times I just went okay show me all the pictures I'm going to sit here and I'm not going to let it affect me because after a while you know the pictures when they came back they come back with all the energy that was locked in when I was just 13 and I would shake in my therapy sessions I would cry I have thrown up in sessions and it was very real I started to get paranoid I thought that I could see them everywhere I turned I was triggered left right and centre but I just decided show me all of the pictures and I just sat as steady as I could by the river one day by myself and I saw it and it was just like watching a film and it didn't affect me the sting had been taken out of the energy how do you still get nightmares not anymore no so the three years when all these memories came back I stopped myself going to sleep at night which was really not a great idea but I thought if I go to sleep I'm going to get nightmares all of my memories came back in my dream state but when I went to sleep eventually I would just wake up and their faces would be above me and I would be fighting screaming kicking Stevens line in a bed next to me so it was hard it must have been hard for Steven as well to live with such a mad woman he's an old man but it must have been difficult because to go through all that trauma and pain because he would have been battling it with you but it just shows you how strong a character he was I really do believe that he was an angel sent to save me because I was on a path of self-destruct when I met him and if I hadn't met him I could have just ended up overdosing becoming a prostitute I mean I was not far off that the little self-respect I had from my body it was so low my confidence and really you know love is always going to win he showed me that I was lovable because I didn't believe it I would drive him mad, I couldn't understand what he wanted to be was someone like me and I saw I was lovable I could give love back in return and I slowly learnt to like myself and love myself I was lovable for steam I would have been probably paranoid and insecure that why does he love me well you could not understand you could not understand me well you like don't leave me kind of I just would question him and say why do you want to be with me so we met in Israel and I went back to London he was in Glasgow and we would travel, it was before the internet I know that seems weird before I had to still phone him it was great, I spent six months on a kaboots and six months in a town called Ashglon and you know I could just shove it further down inside my head because nobody knew me nobody knew my story and I could just really pretend to be someone else so how did you know of your become a boat with Trevor McDonald so really through the forgiveness project they just got in contact with me they must have read my story online and they were doing a program about redemption and it was myself and another young man who you would be really interested to interview a guy called John McAvoy who was the cyclist he was an armed robber so his book is called redemption and the show was about redemption so he has gone from iron bars to iron man the most wanted man the power of sport the most wanted man to have been now sponsored with Nike he's sponsored with Nike exactly so I think they're making his book into a film as well so it's going to be an amazing film he spent 16 years in prison whilst he was in prison his prison officer Darren discovered that he was amazing on the rowing machine and so he broke world records whilst he was in prison so they allowed him remember you meant to be locked up most of the day they allowed him to do a 24 hour row he did a marathon on the rowing machine and Darren said you're really good at sport and he said it was his escapism it was his meditation or his focus he just rowed and rowed or did his thousand press ups every day whatever he did I love that but I think people who go through trauma you've got to kind we've got to replace it with something we've got to replace it with something and at that time when I was going through Masha it was through drinking drugs it was to numb the pain it was to hide from it but then you focus onto something you find a lane but only it's hard as well because only a very small percentage are blessed to get out that pain and misery to try and speak about and awaken people to realise that anybody can change your prime example yourself again you can do it I don't care how old you are what your crime is or what you've been through in your life you can rewire your brain you can change your life for me it was about when I stopped minimising it because when the memories came back I didn't want to remember it it was just like a porn film running through my mind but I was the star of that film so my three years of therapy in the end it wasn't the pictures that were causing the damage I used to believe it I wanted them to make them stop and kind of laugh and I realised I had to find a way to accept all that was done to me and learn to be okay with that Is that the main thing? Is that the number one to accept and to let go and forgive? Well you know I'm not here to preach forgiveness I'm not here to say in order to heal you need to forgive but this is how I did it and to me I look at it as like it was for giving me a better chance because I fantasise for years about somebody kidnapping them taking them to an empty flat beating them up, raping them torturing them for four or five hours just like they had done to me so they would get it so they would know the impact doesn't last for one night it lasts for years A lifetime? Yeah it can do I really honestly can say I have no hate or any residue of trauma left in my body at all I feel like it really has been People left it from your show doesn't I think by speaking out about it has really helped and I'm not suggesting that everybody gets on to a stage and speaks or shares their story publicly but to give it oxygen because it moves it then it doesn't stay trapped inside us when we can admit something because the minimising it and denying it it was like this Jack in the box that I just kept pushing it further and further down inside and then eventually the lid opened and I couldn't close it anymore So when you started getting at the psychology kind of things was that to try and understand the brain as well was that to try and educate yourself? People think it's because of what happened to me but my dad was a Holocaust survivor so I was always fascinated how people can come out of the same situation but come out very differently so his mum, his dad, his five brothers and sisters were all Gaston Auschwitz his youngest brother was only six Mordechai they were all murdered there but his aunt my aunt, his sister survived my auntie Eva was schizophrenic, agrophobic paranoid if she heard a motorbike outside her flat she would call us and say that Gestapo would come in to get her years and years later she stayed in and cleaned her flat when she got out she just wanted to get home and my dad, if you met him he was five foot nothing he loved life, he said life is for living I've met your mum, I've had five kids I'm so lucky and my mum also had her own trauma and she was in an operation and was bedridden for a couple of years and she listened to a hypnotherapist on the radio one day and went to see this man Joe Keaton from Liverpool, incredible man and she came home she got rid of the nurses and all the people that were looking after the kids while she was bedridden chucked all her pills away and said she's going to use her mind to heal herself so I've had great teachers my parents have shown me that not by what my dad said but how he lived his life I saw that god if he can get past that and live a good life surely I can get past this as well I think that's what's helped a lot then with the courage that they had to make the changes I think so I really think so so I am a participant in a project called the global resilience project a project run by a Scottish woman called Emma Bell and she's taken 50 of us and we've all have different stories but we've all overcome adversity in some way and she wants to find our blueprint to see what we have there's nine characteristics which I don't know all the nine yet but we don't all do them but we all do some of them and she wants to use it for mental health for businesses just to help people improve and personally develop and expand and become better human beings and I'm fascinated by it as well I've all that because I believe we've all got a blueprint on how we want to be but we are conditioned when you spoke earlier about the jack-in-the-box you're putting that down we can be like an onion therapy is just an onion and that's been my journey I became a mum and thought that was it and I realised God now is still so much fear then there's another stage and another stage there's constant layers bastards so you're talking everywhere just now you're killing the show obviously behind Trevor but I don't mind that you're talking everywhere are you going to be travelling a lot with it now as well yes I can now say I am an international speaker because I spoke in South Africa and hopefully in July I'm speaking in the Maldives which I know is going to be really tough but that's with UNICEF so I'm so excited to be going to speak for them because that is really where my heart is to speak to disadvantaged women and children around the world and hopefully make a difference so they are speaking at a women's conference and UNICEF want me to speak to 18 year old girls and 18 year old boys and to me that's really important to share my story with them is there a place is there a place in the world where it's higher rape than other places when I was in South Africa I was told that if you're a black woman you have more chances of being raped than getting an education and that was just like awful and I think it is very prevalent in South Africa it was a very violent place I was in Johannesburg because the muddeck rates high there as well my friends live behind bars in their houses there's metal bars there's grids inside your house so you can cut off parts of your house if you have a home invasion they live behind electric gates, wires they have security that drives around the streets we have it easy here we just don't realise our freedom what we can do yes I still believe the world is a good place so I'm always trying to see the good in everyone but there is some places where it's a good time there brilliant people what about trying to get another book out I don't know, when I wrote that book very much like when I wrote the 12 pages for Imoho suddenly I went to hear a speaker normally all the forgiveness project events are in London and Marina contacted me and said there's one at Shorland's Academy and she said is that me I said it's two minutes from where I live I'm just in the south side of Glasgow so I heard a woman speak called Marion Partington and her sister Lucy had been murdered by Rose and Fred West and when I heard her speak she just emanated this peace and she's also taken part in the Restore programme where we go into prisons which I've started to do and we share our story with the forgiveness project it's like a personal development course for prisoners with men and women and I bought her book which is called If You Sit Very Still and she had written inside Now You Must Speak I hadn't started to speak publicly and that night I thought I could write my story down not just a book but just for me and I started to see all my words flying around my head and I just sat down every morning at my mac and I just felt like a typewriter I just literally vomited the words out vomited a book but about eight weeks later it was written, it was done so I don't feel anything alive in me at the moment but I feel I use my words I use a spoken word rather than the written words Yeah but if your book's changing lives so that should give you the inspiration what can I do now and speak about your amazing journey now Well the next thing that's coming up I don't know if you know on June the 14th there's TEDx in Glasgow I'm one of the speakers 2,000 people which is a little bit scary Shitting yourself Maybe fine, I'm trying not to think about it but Annie Lennox is going to be the headline so that's incredible and QC Helena Kennedy so there's really strong females that are standing on the stage speaking out and male prison stuff is a lot of rape is a rape high in there I think they say in America that the statistics of male rape is very high because of the male prison system There'll be sentences over there like 200 years as well 100s of years and The conviction rate for Scotland is very low I recently went to hear a woman speak called Miss M, she doesn't give her real name and she had a conviction a criminal case against a man who raped her and he was found not proven and we only have this in Scotland it's a very weird sentence because it suggests that we know you're guilty but we don't have enough evidence to prove it That's another thing that people are scared to come forward with because it's such a difficult thing to get convicted of and why is that then if they know he's guilty but yet there's not enough She went on to have a civil case against this man and she won her case and he was sued for £80,000 he's now declared himself bankrupt so he doesn't have to pay her I can't do these I went to hear her speak last week and she said it's never been about the money it's about admitting what this man did to her she now has injuries on her body that she'll never recover from the amount of force and violence that he used against her so the not proven it needs to be abolished because it's such a weird message but we can't be naive and think that jury members make their decision based on the evidence that they only hear in court that day evidence we make our decisions by thinking absorbing all the rape culture messages the messages that are given out there's a case recently in Ireland last year where the young woman that was raped by a gang as well that were found not guilty there were rugby players she was wearing a lacy thong that meant that you were up for it so the women in Ireland are incredible and the men they all took to the streets lacy thongs in the air this is not an excuse to rape me this is not an invitation it doesn't matter what you're wearing because we know as we said babies are raped women and burqas are raped it's not about your underwear and if they got down to your underwear surely that wasn't consensual as well but surely that is then the judge should be getting looked at then for saying that and using that as an excuse just because if you went to a strip joint and you seen people cutting about with bras and pants you can rape them on the dance floor but it's a touchy subject that too many people don't know what to speak about so for you coming on to speak about that I really appreciate that and how can people get involved in your stuff or how can people reach out they can google me and they'll find me on social media my website or twitter facebook page, instagram because you're all over social media but you know we have to really be because because I have a book but because I speak out but also because as you said it's good to know that you're not alone so if I put on a post and someone will comment or people will people will comment to me in private as well they say I've seen your post but I can't like them because I don't want anyone to know that I'm liking a survivor's post because then they might guess what's happened to me so it's still so hard to break that shame so I feel if I can speak out it's almost like a duty a responsibility that if I can do it then I should sorry before we finish up let's see your kids and stuff as well what age did you tell them, did they know about your experience they always knew but I always used kind of age appropriate language they always knew that two boys hurt me very badly so how would you approach it that way though for anybody it's maybe scared to tell their kids or scared to tell well because I was always the paranoid Jewish mother I always wanted to keep them safe and I realised that sounds like I'm putting the the emphasis on the woman to keep herself safe but it's not what I mean but I always wanted them to be aware of situations just to be a bit street wise and not too naive when you're out with your friends and you've left your drink don't go back to drinking somebody could spike it all these kind of things so I always told them from a young young age exactly what had happened to me and it's about communication they maybe didn't know all the details and they have got the book but I don't think they've all read the book neither read the chapter about her Mimi read the very very end page and Leila when she was actually 13 read the whole thing Is she a lot like you? They're all very different too you have three and you think we're going to be the same and they're all so different How is it though when you're obviously because everybody's what we piece here now to tell your story how does it drain you a lot that you're on autopilot now and talking about it or do you kind of get used to it because you know actually okay and it's interesting when I went for my TEDx interview they said to me that I was too polished that I wasn't raw and authentic enough and it really made me think well what place do I tell my story from and I very nearly didn't get through but somebody was doing a video who's now following me on my TED journey and they saw that I really got what they said and it made me think well how do I tell my story every time because I have to remember you've never heard it before so I hope I don't say it from a place where yeah this happened and that was that Of course not but it's still Honestly it really doesn't impact on me when I share the story now Then as your story it doesn't matter what way you say it there's no way you can do you sit and cry when you tell it and sometimes it will surprise me I was invited to see a play by an Irish writer Louise O'Neill I did some work for the sexual violence centre in Cork and there was a production of her book called Asking for it so it's about a young girl who's drunk and gets gang raped at school so there's a lot of stuff resonated with me and on the night when I was raped what saved me or what helped me before I left my body completely was counting there was a border that went around the top of the walls made out of bows and I just counted them over and over again and then the violence escalated I literally kind of left my body and in this play in the scene where she's being gang raped this was only last year I found myself leaving my body and the stage was made out of windows and I just started to count all these windows and I thought oh my god I didn't know that I could still do that and it really scared me and I just started to shake I was sitting with my friend and she's just holding my hand we were invited to go for a drink afterwards and I thought no I need to sit with this and just acknowledge what's going on and be okay to ground myself again like an outward body experience and for years that has been my journey because I left that night and I didn't come back in for years so my journey has been about getting back into my body and accepting my memories you know what I think if I stayed in I would have died I really do think that I had to get out of the way because the trauma was horrific they had three attempts to try to kill me which clearly didn't work and they made three serious attempts to end my life and I think if I was in I would have died on that night when you were 13 fucks sake that's some odd deal and to be sitting here and to be doing TED talks and to be writing books and to be in Power of Women it's phenomenal, you should be really proud of yourself and to be sitting here you're clearly doing well for yourself right on that show but it's been so far so far so far but for coming on and telling your stories I've got massive respect for you and I wish you nothing but the massive success for the future and going forward and powering more women to come forward even men as well to get involved and come forward and you're not alone and I've nothing but to say for you Madeleine it's been an absolute pleasure and thank you and all the best for the future