Flickr/Andre Valente. CC-BY-2.0.As an asylum seeker, I know how frightening loneliness can be, and how difficult it is to escape. You lie in bed waiting for your parents or children to come and say good morning. Then you sit up and realise you’re alone, in your room, again. Alone with the chatter of anxiety, terror, worthlessness and depression all banging about in your head.
You get up and shower, and everything moves in slow motion; the water drops take forever to slide down your skin, and you feel as if you’re drowning in questions: what have I done with my life? Will anybody ever love me again for myself, for who I am?
When I first arrived in the UK, I didn’t speak a word of English. I fled from my country for my life, with no idea where I was going. I came from a small village. I thought I was being brought to freedom and a new life, but instead I found myself a prisoner, locked up for months in a house where men spoke around me in a language I didn’t understand.
