“When you have PTSD and it’s that intense, you need to speak to somebody. The whole plot of trauma is that you’re unsafe and you should feel shame. The minute you speak to a therapist and you build this relationship with them, all of that slowly goes away. It’s not something that you can figure out on your own.”

Those are the words of Sarah Hassan (not her real name), a young Qatari national who fled her home country at the end of 2019. Having been plagued by intense flashbacks and nightmares after arriving in the UK, therapy with Trauma Treatment International helped her recover and reclaim her life.

Sarah explains that she grew up in the Qatari capital of Doha, raised by her late father’s two wives. Living in an affluent country, her life was ostensibly one of wealth and privilege – but, as a female in a deeply patriarchal culture, it was more akin to being imprisoned.

She says: “The tribe I come from followed a political wave in the 1970s and 1980s of reintroducing radical Islam into the Gulf. A big part of that was a focus on women and reimposing the structure of a patriarchal family.

“I was the youngest in a large family, with a big age gap between me and my oldest sibling. What comes with that is having to follow the structure, what the siblings have done, the history of the family. As a girl, your existence essentially signals the honour of your family.”

She added: “The biggest shift for me was when one of my dearest brothers, who was close to me in age, was allowed to leave the house and play in the streets. That’s when the realisation came that things would never be the same for me.

“I started noticing how the treatment was different between girls and boys. Even the schools mimicked the cultural norm, and the examples just kept piling up. But if you start questioning things, you question the family’s honour.”

Sarah’s frustration at this inequality grew only stronger as she began reading western literature and learning more about the world outside Qatar. “When I was 14, I saw the black and white version of Alice in Wonderland,” she says. “That was really cool to me, watching a girl character going on this journey.

“Most of the literature I was reading was about independent women and it kind of proved the points I had in my mind. I tried to navigate why there was so much hatred towards women and it just didn’t make sense.”

As Sarah moved towards her late teens, she knew her future in Qatar would be limited to getting married and having children, and never experiencing the life she truly wanted. She explains that, while she was allowed to study for a university degree, this was mainly to make her more attractive to potential husbands. “It’s an extra point on your CV,” she says. “By the time I was 22, I was considered to be really old, and was asked why I still hadn’t said yes to a man.”

Sarah says she always knew she would flee from her home country to escape the confines of life as a woman there. After many years of planning, the stars aligned and she took her chance. She said: “I was ready. There were so many pressures, but I knew that if I didn’t go then, very bad things would happen.

“It was like Russian roulette. I was going to try and birth a new life for myself, but I knew that if I got caught my life would be ended. I thought, that’s the price I’ll have to pay and it will be worth it.”

She adds: “I remember the last interaction I had with my mother, when I hugged her before I left. I looked at her for the last time and thought, ‘this is probably for the best’. If she continued treating me as less than a man, then I wouldn’t see myself viewing her as my mother for much longer.”

Sarah made her escape in the early hours of a December morning. “One scene I’ll never forget was opening the hotel room to leave and looking back at all my black clothes on the ground,” she says.

Full of adrenaline, Sarah made her first ever solo trip abroad, having memorised the steps she would need to take at the airport, and preparing a cover story about meeting family members in London

“I was questioned at the airport and was scared because it would have been so easy for them to send me back,” she says. “We had a stopover in Amsterdam, and I knew that that would be the perfect place to return me. But as soon as we got on the plane to the UK, that was it – halas, as we say in Arabic. That’s when I started sobbing, really crying. I felt like I was going through another dimension. The man next to me was playing poker and eating a raspberry cupcake. He would never have guessed what had happened to me.”

She added: “I had never been out on my own, never. And now I was going to live my whole life as an independent woman.”

With not a penny to her name and not knowing a soul in England, Sarah arrived in London and began the lengthy process of seeking asylum. “When they saw this burgundy, very expensive-looking passport, they couldn’t understand why I was an asylum seeker,” she says.

Thankfully, her situation was taken seriously, and after five days in temporary accommodation in London, she was moved to Wales where she waited for settled status and the right to work.

“I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and put myself out there – I met some wonderful people early on,” she says. “I’d walk around in nature and find moments of joy in just being on my own.

“But I had no idea that, when you flee abuse and you’re finally somewhere safe, that’s when it all comes out. I thought PTSD was something that only happened to soldiers, I didn’t think it was something I would have. I had my first proper flashback when a friend jokingly threw something at me. That was a trigger for me, and I went into a memory of my sister throwing things at me and asking why I wouldn’t listen to her.

“During the flashback I was out of the room, I was time travelling. After the first one, they all started coming. Anything could be a trigger – smells, touch, taste. It was classic PTSD.

It made me angry. I’d managed to escape and was grateful to have done that, but I knew I would never be truly free if I kept having flashbacks.”

Sarah began researching trauma-informed therapy, and after a number of conversations with different psychologists, she was directed to Trauma Treatment International co-founder, Dr Brock Chisholm. After just their first session, she knew she had found the right therapist for her.

“What I really appreciated was when he explained the science behind trauma, without jumping into my own experience,” she says. “He also explained that I would have more flashbacks at the beginning and that it would get worse before it got better.

“I found that every appointment was like a mini-surgery. It was painful to dig into my memories but it was in order to mend and recover. I’d get sore for a couple of days, but after the soreness went down, I’d feel more like myself.”

She added: “Dr Brock always used language that was so direct and accessible. That is extremely special, as is his ability to be entirely and unapologetically human. He’s able to connect with you in a way that’s so honest. It also helped that he was aware of immigration politics and has had many clients with the same experiences.”

As well as delving into Sarah’s past to unlock the trauma she continued to feel, Dr Chisholm helped her learn to soothe herself when her emotions were at a heightened state. “You focus on the fact that you’re here, focus on your breath,” she says. “He taught me to experience the flashback but understand that it’s in the past.

“He also helped me understand the triangle of thoughts, emotions and actions, and how these three things impact each other.”

She adds: “I felt a lot of guilt and grief about leaving my family. But he gave me a really good analogy – he said, ‘if you were imprisoned in a cell and had a key, would you tell your captor that you had it?’”

Sarah’s sessions with Dr Chisholm, which took place over two and a half years, slowly helped her to recover from her PTSD. Now, she is living in London and working in a fulfilling job. She regularly travels abroad and enjoys painting and making art in her spare time.

In short, she says, she is creating the life she’d always dreamed of. “I am building meaningful connections now and getting to know myself more and more,” she says. “Sometimes life gets tough, but there’s so much to look forward to.

“I’m so impressed to have reached this point of stability in terms of my trauma symptoms so quickly. What therapy gave me was the ability to have strength in myself. That never would have been possible without having a place of trust with Dr Brock. I am very grateful for him. Very grateful.”