Trigger Warning: My Story Involves Gun and Domestic Violence
As October 13 approaches, I find myself reflecting again on the day that changed my life forever, the day I ran screaming from the garage after the shooting of my friend, Debra Allen.
I’ve spent years untangling what that day meant to me, how it shattered everything I thought I knew about safety, and how it eventually guided me toward healing, wholeness, and the quiet freedom I now hold so close.
October 13, 2012: The Day Everything Changed
That afternoon is etched into my memory in sharp relief.
I was helping Debra move some boxes from her garage to her new apartment. She was hopeful, ready for a fresh start. Then, in an instant, everything changed.
She said his name, her soon-to-be ex-husband, and before I could process what was happening, the shot rang out.
I didn’t see the gun. I just saw the look on his face, pure rage, and I felt evil in the air. Then, a voice spoke clearly to me, one that didn’t come from outside but from somewhere deep within:
“Run.”
And I did.
Terror took over. My arms flailed, my legs pumped, my heart pounded. I wasn’t thinking; my body and subconscious were. That moment split my life into before and after.
The world no longer felt safe. Everything I trusted fractured, and I was left trying to pick up the pieces.
Seven Years of Panic, Anxiety, and Searching
The trauma didn’t end that day.
For seven long years, I lived in a kind of suspended fear. Every sound, every silence, every shadow, all became potential threats.
I woke gasping for breath, heart pounding, drenched in sweat.
A car backfiring could send me spiralling.
A door slamming could take me right back to that garage.
Therapy helped at times, but the terror still lived in my body. I didn’t understand it then, but my nervous system was trapped in survival. I wasn’t broken, I was stuck.
I felt imprisoned by my own body, waiting for danger that wasn’t there.
The Turning Point: Discovering Energy Therapies
After years of searching, I discovered energy therapies, and that was the beginning of my return to myself.
At first, I was skeptical. But as I began exploring modalities like Biofield Tuning, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), and Craniosacral Therapy, something inside me started to shift.
The tightness in my chest began to ease.
The panic came less often.
I could breathe again.
Healing didn’t happen all at once. It came slowly, in waves, through moments of grace, through gentle hands and safe spaces, through practitioners who met me with compassion and helped me release what had been trapped in my energy field for years.
For the first time since that day, I began to feel safe in my own body.
Finding Peace, Holding Gratitude
As October 13 approaches again, I honour Debra’s memory by sharing this story, not from a place of pain, but from a place of gratitude and truth.
Memory holds power.
When we bring our experiences into the light, we begin to reclaim the parts of ourselves that trauma tried to take.
To the incredible practitioners who walked beside me, through EFT, Biofield Tuning, Craniosacral Therapy, and Matrix Reimprinting, thank you.
Your compassion and presence helped me find my way back to peace, freedom, and hope.
And to anyone reading this who still feels trapped in fear:
Healing is possible.
There is life on the other side of trauma.
And the power to heal, to move from fear to freedom, lives within you, too.