‘I didn’t leave my house for a year – now I’ve skated the Wild Atlantic Way’

Yet during lockdown, Gilmour lost a close friend to suicide, which deeply affected her. There was no funeral. She “couldn’t handle those feelings” and she blamed herself for his death, believing she “could have done so much more”. When she told people she was coping with suicide loss, she could “see them recoil because they didn’t know how to talk about it”.Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A few months after his death, Gilmour was sexually assaulted and was forced to navigate these two traumatic experiences at once. She says: “I really struggled, and was so unwell. I thought there’d never be a way out of it. I didn’t leave my house for about a year.” A therapist took her on without...