Debbie Fanning (2023) The Journey Home.

The Journey Home is a short book, self-published by Debbie Fanning. In subscript at the bottom of the cover is the message she wants to convey after being raped by two men on Burns Night, 25^th January 2003, when she was twenty-one: ‘Finding my voice and taking my power back after a devastating assault’.

‘I’m OK. You’re OK.’ That’s the name of a philosophy and a way of listening and doing. It’s one of those convenient lies. Rape and brutality are not buttons that can conveniently be sown back onto a body. Whenever. Get over it.  The body keeps the score.

Bamidele Jermaine Alli (Dele Alli) is an English international footballer and millionaire, but in the self-hatred and self-mutilation, he’s not worlds apart from a former nursery head- teacher in Clydebank.

Most rapes and sexual assaults take place in the home. Victims, like Dele Alli, know his or her attacker. Debbie Fanning did not. She felt a hand over her mouth and was dragged down a back lane outside Queen Street station. Our justice system continually fails to prosecute, which mostly means fewer resources and less money is being spent on victims. An increasing number of rapists get away with it. Femicide numbers are growing.

Rage is not the enemy. But the battleground where mind meets body. Touching points of vulnerability. Righteous anger protects the sense of self. Debbie Fanning’s Journey is not complete. It never is. But I guess the message she wants to give the reader is one of hope. Read on.