Annabelle's Story
When Annabelle fell in love, she had no idea it would result in her being imprisoned and tortured for ten years.
Annabelle has fond memories of her childhood, playing football with her brothers and cousins, she describes herself as confident, happy, and loved by her family.
It wasn’t until she was in secondary school that her life changed. Annabelle started dating a girl – with no indication of the consequences that would follow. She had no idea that being gay was illegal in Uganda, it wasn’t something that was ever spoken about. But her time at school become challenging. Other students would call her names, harass her, chase her. She began to hear accusations that she was teaching and recruiting other girls into homosexuality.
When she got to college, Annabelle felt the need to hide who she was. She wanted to feel safe. She started spending a lot of time with a boy to cover up her real relationship. Hoping that the difficulties would go away.
But when he found out she was dating a woman, he reported her. She lost her job. The police started looking for her, even visiting her father to find out where she was. When the police found her, she was arrested and imprisoned. Subjected to the unimaginable pain of inhumane torture - for a decade.
When Annabelle was released, she fled to safety and found herself in the UK, but although she was no longer at risk of torture, the memories and trauma still followed her. She had sleepless nights, and when she could sleep she had nightmares.
It wasn’t until she found Freedom from Torture that she began to heal. Annabelle completed a course of group therapy with our Finding Our Ground group and she is now receiving Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET). Annabelle is still healing, and attends therapy weekly to support her progress.