For five years I worked as a speech and language therapist in a language unit attached to a primary school. I’d say that I truly loved it for two to three years, but my last year was hell.

Up till today I still maintain that my line manager had a vendetta against me! Nothing I ever did seemed good enough for her and there were many times that she sought to sabotage me. This started to take its toll on both my physical and mental health, meaning that I started to miss days of work which, of course, only made things worse for me.

Specifically, the physical symptoms that I experienced were feelings of extreme nausea that would culminate in vomiting. The episodes were so debilitating that if they started from home, I had to ring in sick and when I was at work, I couldn’t finish the school day.

Things came to a head when both my line manager and the headmistress accused me of faking my symptoms and refused to let me go home one day, claiming to not understand how I was fine when I came in and suddenly felt so sick that I needed to go home mere hours later.