Category: Stories

How Having PCOS Shaped Me As a Young Person

Post author By Ester Scott
Post date 26 January 2022
1 Comment on How Having PCOS Shaped Me As a Young Person

TW: Periods including mentions of blood, dismissive doctors.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is defined by the NHS website as ‘a condition that affects how the ovaries work.’ Its most common symptom is periods being irregular or heavier compared to the “norm”, which is due to hormone imbalances within the body.

However, as someone diagnosed with PCOS, I know that it involves more than just heavy periods. PCOS is a fundamental part of my identity. It has a wide range of implications, and it is something that heavily impacted how I grew into a young adult.

Tags menstrual, menstrual cycle, menstruation, pcos, periods, polycystic ovary syndrome

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What the Slow Train to Reading Taught One Severely Sight Impaired Traveller

Post author By Chris Owen
Post date 17 January 2022
1 Comment on What the Slow Train to Reading Taught One Severely Sight Impaired Traveller

I find the best way to pass the time when sitting on a train is to put pen to paper. This article began with me sitting on one at Didcot Parkway. I should never have been here, but an incident at Oxford led to me missing my intended train (but more about that later).

It had been an eventful day leading to me discovering I’d reached the milestone of being Severely Sight Impaired. It had also highlighted how varied the support can be when travelling independently with a disability.

Tags access, assistance, passenger assistance, public transport, train, trains, transport

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Self Forgiveness After the Storm: how I Learned to Live a Better Life with BPD

Post author By Rachel Badham
Post date 9 June 2021
2 Comments on Self Forgiveness After the Storm: how I Learned to Live a Better Life with BPD

TW: mentions of self harm and suicidal thoughts/actions

At the best of times, the symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are like listening to rain gently tapping on your bedroom window; you know it’s there and that it’s probably going to continue to rain for a while, but it’s not necessarily distressing and the noise can easily pass you by.

At the worst of times, it feels like the rain has poured through a gap in your window and is filling up your room while you’re struggling to keep your head above the water.

Tags bpd, Mental health

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I’m not Responsible for the Misconception That all Disabled People are Asexual

Post author By Charli Clement
Post date 6 April 2021
1 Comment on I’m not Responsible for the Misconception That all Disabled People are Asexual

There wasn’t much time between when I realised I was asexual and when I was diagnosed as autistic – only around a year. Ironically, the first person I ever came out to was a therapist I only saw once, when I originally began to fall into the mental health crisis causing the realisation that I was autistic. It’s been six years since then, and I’m still asked – or alternatively told – whether the two are one and the same.

Tags asexual, autism, autism awareness month, autism spectrum, autistic

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Life and Anxieties as a Deaf Woman in the Wake of Sarah Everard’s Murder

Post author By Lucy Armstrong
Post date 13 March 2021
1 Comment on Life and Anxieties as a Deaf Woman in the Wake of Sarah Everard’s Murder

TW: Murder of Sarah Everard, sexual assault/harassment concerns, victim blaming. There are links to places to find support at the bottom of this article.

I jump when my sister walks up behind me in the kitchen, then we watch my Fitbit as my heart rate comes down almost double because of the scare. I don’t know if my parents were scared about me growing up as a deaf young woman. They knew I was fiercely determined and were probably quite afraid to get in my way but I am moderately deaf and don’t hear footsteps, even those of the people I love most, even in the quietest of houses.

Tags deaf, deafness, invisible disability, murder, Sarah Everard

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The Social Life of a Disabled 18 Year Old

Post author By Niamh Ingram
Post date 19 February 2021
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I don’t have the typical 18 year old lifestyle. I’ve not experienced the ‘average’ teenage years: and I won’t know what it feels like to live a standard life, probably ever.

Tags eds, ehlers danlos syndrome, fainting, fatigue, hypermobility, night out, social, social life, socialising

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My doctor lost my ADHD diagnosis paperwork, and couldn’t see the irony

Post author By Helen Sulis Bowie
Post date 12 February 2021
No Comments on My doctor lost my ADHD diagnosis paperwork, and couldn’t see the irony

Talking to a friend about receiving their ADHD diagnosis well into adulthood, the thing that struck me most was “but everybody lives like that?” rather than the more obvious take “oh, perhaps this is relatable because I too should seek a diagnosis.”

Tags ADHD, doctor, doctors, paperwork

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Gut Feelings: Being Gay with Familial Adenomatous Polyposis

Post author By Christopher Moore
Post date 4 February 2021
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Love has never come easy to me. Living with chronic illness and the aftermath of three surgeries, I struggle to let people in – to be intimate during sex.

It all started when I was 11. Sitting in a hard-backed, plastic chair, the doctor told me I had familial adenomatous polyposis (or FAP for short). They explained to me that tiny wart-like lumps called polyps (or adenomas) were growing inside my bowel and rectum and if untreated, they would turn cancerous. Fast forward seven years – and the removal of my bowel and the lining of my rectum – I came out to friends and family as gay.

It took me years to figure out what it meant to be gay and to understand how I fit into the world. Burdened by family and medical trauma, I found it difficult to process it.

Tags bowels, familial adenomatous polyposis, fap, gay man, gut, lgbtqia, queer, relationships

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How Being Diagnosed as Autistic at 29 Helped me Find my Identity

Post author By Sara Rocha
Post date 28 January 2021
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The standardisation of the human existence in society makes us try to fit into it in a way that we end up cutting pieces of us to do so.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics attempted to describe the average Australian, which was apparently a woman. However, when they tried to find that woman, they could not. When attempting to find the “normal”, no one is found.

“While the description of the average Australian may sound quite typical, the fact that no-one meets all these criteria shows that the notion of the ‘average’ masks considerable (and growing) diversity in Australia.” Australian Bureau of Statistics

That goes for everything in human existence. It is a spectrum. Just like Autism.

Tags autism, identity, late diagnosis

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Virtually Perfect – Disabled Queer Dating in a Remote World

Post author By Cassius Naylor
Post date 26 January 2021
No Comments on Virtually Perfect – Disabled Queer Dating in a Remote World

I was diagnosed with Tourettes’ Syndrome when I was 10, though my disorder first manifested many years previously. Over the interceding period I was diagnosed and re-diagnosed and prognosed by anyone and everyone around me.

Tags dating, lgbtqia, relationships, tourettes