October 2024 marks the 10 year anniversary of what is perhaps the proudest achievement of my academic life.

In 2014 I submitted my Masters dissertation after what had been a trying two years of studying part-time while holding down an extremely stressful full-time job as a senior writer at a healthcare PR agency based in Whitstable. My family was also going through an intense period of trauma, the repercussions of which are still being felt to this day.

To make matters worse, I was being bullied at work by my boss (the business owner) who took quite badly to the news that I might want to leave my job, and so started a campaign of harassment against me. This culminated in the colleagues in my shared office being moved downstairs to leave me in an office on my own as some sort of ‘punishment’ for daring to suggest that I might want to leave.

It was a very tough time indeed.