I Met My Younger Self for a Coffee
This is a beautiful trend inspired by Jennae Cecelia’s poem in her book ‘deep in my feels’.
I met my younger self for a coffee this morning…
BBC Disclosure: Kids on the Psychiatric Ward - A Reflection
BBC Scotland’s Disclosure ‘Kids on the Psychiatric Ward’ tells the stories of young adults who were patients at Skye House, a children’s mental health unit in Glasgow, between 2017 and 2024. I have just watched the programme and…
School-Based Anxiety and Attendance
Sometimes it feels like the only thing that matters to politicians and education leaders is school attendance. And when they declare that the best place for children to be is in school, it makes me feel like my school experience doesn’t matter, and makes me feel angry for all the children…
ARFID is Not ‘Fussy Eating’: The Truth About Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
Sky News published an article yesterday titled ‘ARFID: The little-known eating disorder that is on the rise’ and the responses on social media highlight the extent of stigma and misunderstanding surrounding this condition…
Christmas Reminders and Mental Health Support
Happy Christmas Eve Eve!
Christmas can be magical, fun and full of joy, but it can also be overwhelming and difficult. Here are some reminders for anyone who needs them…
The Mental Health Bill: Autism and Sectioning
I survived OCD, anxiety and depression, and growing up autistic without my needs being understood. But I also survived the mental health system - which is something that can be hard to explain.
In September, 2,020 autistic people/people with learning disabilities were in mental health hospitals across England…
World Suicide Prevention Day - Suicide Prevention, Autism, ADHD & Suicide, and a Message to You
Today, September 10th, is World Suicide Prevention Day. In 6 days, it will be 7 years since I was admitted to hospital for the first time. I was 16, had just started sixth form and the years of anxiety and OCD had become too much. I didn’t think I had a future. But I was wrong...
The Misdiagnosis of Autistic Distress in the Mental Health System
When I am asked why I wrote Girl Unmasked, I say that I was angry. Which is true. I was angry at finding myself sectioned on a psychiatric unit at the age of 16, at the doctor there telling me I just had high social anxiety not autism, at the fact they described my autistic meltdowns as ‘hysteric attacks when she doesn’t get her own way’…
The Good Within The Broken System
Amongst the brokenness of the system, the difficult experiences, and the trauma, there is also good. And sometimes the smallest things make the world of difference. What about…
The nurse on the CAMHS unit who sat in my room night after night talking to me about her rabbits because…
ARFID Awareness Day
Today is the first ever ARFID Awareness Day, thanks to the hard work of ARFID Awareness UK - the UK’s only charity dedicated to raising awareness of ARFID.
Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (aka ARFID) is an eating disorder which lacks awareness and understanding…
Autism and Mental Health: Practical Advice for Managing Your Mental Health
Last month, I wrote a rather depressing but important blog post on why so many autistic people struggle with their mental health. Read it here. As promised, I’m back with some practical advice on managing mental health as an autistic person.
Firstly, I want to acknowledge that managing mental health is different…
Mental Health Awareness Week: The Exclusion of Mental Illness and What We Should Be Talking About
Today marks the start of Mental Health Awareness Week.
It is good that more people are talking about mental health now than in the past. It is good that there are conversations taking place about how to look after your mental health. It is good that people are talking about how important mental health is. But the above…
Autism and Mental Health: Why do so many autistic people struggle?
Research suggests that 80% of autistic people experience mental health problems throughout their life, and around 40% of suicides are estimated to be autistic people (Autistica, undated; Cassidy et al. 2022). This is incredibly sad.
There are a variety of reasons why this might be the case.
Moving Through an OCD Blip: Reflections and Reminders
One of the things about living with OCD is that you never know when it is going to strike. I know that it hits most when I am stressed, tired or feeling low. I expected it when I lost my dog Coco in October, and moved through it. I was NOT expecting a new OCD theme to hit three and a bit weeks ago. I almost forget the pain of OCD until it returns…
The Truth Behind the ‘Attendance Crisis’ and Stories From Those Who Have Been There. #NotASchoolSkiver
On the 8th of January, the UK government launched its attendance campaign ‘Moments Matter, Attendance Counts’. The same day, Good Morning Britain hosted a news segment titled ‘School Skivers: whose fault - teachers or parents?’. In response, I wrote‘I Was Not a “School…
‘Anxiety Recovery’ whilst Autistic
I spent my teenage years chasing the idea of ‘anxiety recovery’ that I later discovered didn’t exist. I wanted a life without anxiety, because all I understood was that it was limiting, destructive, painful, and stole too much from me. I also thought that was what I was meant to want. At church, year after year, people prayed for my anxiety to go…
Why You Are Not ‘So OCD’: OCD Myths
I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people say ‘I’m so OCD’ when they just want something to be tidy, clean, arranged in a particular order or done a certain way. Or, how many times I’ve seen phrases like ‘Obsessive Cat Disorder’ on mugs or prints. Or, how often I’ve been frustrated by people declaring they wished they…
Challenges Autistic People and ADHDers Face in Therapy and What Can Help
I remember being fourteen, sat in a CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) session and being completely bewildered by what the lady was trying to teach me. I was having daily panic attacks - some of them more likely meltdowns - because I was so overwhelmed. I began describing how I didn’t want to go into the canteen because…
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - by someone with OCD
My first memory of OCD is of eight-year-old me, consumed by the worry that I was going to catch nits. I worried about it all day every day, for weeks at a time. I wouldn’t want to go near other people, tried hard to stop my clothes from touching anyone else’s, and would spend excessive amounts of time looking through my hair. Of course…
The War In My Mind: Fighting Anxiety
Anxiety is not just an emotion for me. It's a daily state of being. It's a feeling that lives within me that I can't quite describe. It never goes away. I don't know what life is like without anxiety as a companion. I don't know what it's like to not be at war with my mind.