Change is something most of us tend to avoid. Once settled and comfortable, we often fear upsetting the equilibrium of our everyday lives, worried that we’ll spiral into something new and scary.

Simone Jones’ beautiful memoir explores a different type of change – not one self-inflicted, instead one forced upon her with great difficulty. Simone suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm and has undergone a long recovery process. This is her story.

We asked Simone about how her career has helped her write this memoir, what barriers she needed to break through in the process, and how writing helped in her recovery.

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The origins of this book are in the recovery of your acquired brain injury, with your writing aiming to send a message of support to those in similar situations. Are you proud of having your book finished and published?

Yes, I am so proud of that. There was a time when I was unsure it would ever get to the publishing stage.

You are an educational psychologist, a qualified nursery nurse and previously worked daily with children under five years old. How have these experiences shaped you as a person and what improvements do you wish to share with others?

I think my experiences with work and my personal life, being a parent at such a young age, showing determination to achieve something in my life, perhaps seeking to change the stigma of being a parent so young, and the bullying I experienced all contributed to the resilience I have now. But after my brain injury, my training for work really helped me to see the patterns I had fallen into, how trying to be a ‘yes’ woman for everyone and avoiding the inevitability of separation was not working out well for me. My openness to seek support and the value I have for therapeutic input supported a further understanding of myself and to gain new skills I didn’t have before in a compassion focused way. I enjoy a slower pace of life. I’m ok with slowing down. I’m ok with noticing nature, especially. It resources me. My body now doesn’t like the faster way of life. I get a reminder from my body now when I am going too fast. I’m more tuned in to hearing what my body needs, and its need for self-care. I often say I’m like a moped with a restrictor. I have the ability to go faster, but I’m ok at the restrictor speed. It allows me to take in the scenery!

Processing a traumatic event and reliving your life through the writing of a memoir can be an extremely difficult and complicated experience. What barriers did you run into in your writing journey and how did you break those barriers down?

I knew I wanted to write about my journey. I originally wanted to track the recovery as a memory aid to look back on my progress. Then I felt a calling to do so. As if something inside compelled me to get a message out to others. I attended a workshop ‘The Author Marathon’ by Peggy McColl on how to write a book in 26 days! Unsurprisingly, it took me longer than that, but it helped me to structure the book and organise my time. I wrote five chapters of the book and then one evening, I had a great idea to password protect the document with a fantastically created never before used password. Only to discover I couldn’t remember the password the next time I went to open the document! I tried everything to help me remember, I bought a book on memory aids and then some IT software to see if that could help. Nothing worked. I had to start again. I still have that document on my laptop that I cannot open! But in doing so, the first draft, the lost version was cathartic, a therapeutic dump that allowed me to really decide what I wanted in the book.

The most difficulty I had was in trying to finish the book. I was stuck in how the ending might go and paused writing it with a bit of a block. The reason I had difficulty was because I hadn’t experienced what I needed to experience in order to complete it. In moving job to one with a more compassion focused approach and in completing compassion focused therapy (CFT) with the Neuropsychologist from Headway, it allowed me to gain knowledge and skills I did not have before. So it was not relearning something I already knew, it was a whole new perspective and a new way to live my life.

Lives are an intricate tapestry of hardships, achievements and varying emotions. In writing about yours and rediscovering past events, what are you most excited to share with the readers? Which one story would you like to highlight for us now?

What I’m most excited to share with readers would be not being afraid to die. In having a NDE (near death experience), I’m at peace with death, the inevitability of that and the opportunity to live more peacefully knowing that we are not alone, we are all connected, that we all meet again in the non-physical realm. The most important thing for me now is looking after my body, mind and soul while I am here in the physical realm. I guess that is one of the messages in the book, one of the reasons I felt compelled to write it. To not fall into complacency with what we have here in the physical or spend so much time worrying and feeling anxious about what may or may not ever happen.

A story I would like to share would probably be one that comes under the theme of social anxiety and maybe one where on numerous occasions as a younger person I spent a lot of time worrying and overthinking the small things. Big things seemed easier to manage. It was smaller everyday life events such as going to the shop, ordering food or a drink at a bar, or getting petrol at the fuel station. Worrying if I made a mistake, or what people might think, if I did something like put the wrong fuel in the car, trip or fall on the way up the step, or go to order something and not have any words come out of my mouth. The level of dis-ease, anxiety or worry that could be generated just from those tasks was unreal and although it felt very real to me then, it seems unnecessary to me now. Though perhaps that is because I have the skills to cope with those small situations now, that I didn’t have before. And that’s also a highlight, that I am here and I have lived through it and there is possibility and opportunity to change that. I had to experience a NDE, the choice to come back, to have an opportunity to learn, grow and develop this way of life. It doesn’t have to take that extreme experience to get there!

With the completion of this book, a new chapter in your life has begun. Do you see a follow-up to The Rupture Repair in the future, further following your path of recovery?

Yes, not a new chapter in my life, a whole new book in my life!! My life is very different now. Some things stay the same but for the most part, my life has completely changed! I travelled alone across the world to become a yoga teacher last year and met some fantastic people. I have a new partner and my lifestyle is very different. There’s always an ebb and flow to life. We are not the same person we were last year, last month, last week. So I am really excited to write a follow up.

The Rupture Repair is available now in paperback.