I consider myself to be a pretty calm and rational person, but it’s the early hours of the morning and I’m struggling to clear my mind of worries. This is after a day of being hit by waves of anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic.…

My niece Bean is almost three. Her mum is my sister, regular readers know her as Fat Sister, a name my tics came up with many years ago while she was on a diet. Fat Sister is a doctor at a large London hospital, and she was on call last weekend.…

As fears around the COVID-19 pandemic intensify, the pressure on many of the systems we take for granted has intensified too. Social media is full of photos of supermarkets with empty shelves and reports of people fighting for supplies.

In a time of uncertainty and tension, the urge to look inward at our own immediate needs is understandable.…

The world’s in the midst of a global pandemic and everyone is rightly being encouraged to practice good hygiene and to socially-distance themselves from others, limiting day-to-day physical contact to reduce the chances of passing the virus from one person to another.…

I’ve always loved drawing – since childhood it’s been a key part of how I think and make sense of the world.

Having Tourettes hasn’t always made this easy. As a child my obsessive and impulsive tendencies meant that if I made even a tiny mistake I’d have to start again, or sometimes I’d impulsively destroy my work.…

Over the last decade, just existing as a Disabled Person has felt like a political act. Everything I do is directly affected by the political decisions of people who’ve never met me. There’s the social care support that means I can get washed and dressed in the morning, the Access to Work – support that’s enabled me to continue doing the job I love, the NHS-prescribed wheelchair that means I can move freely, and the medication and catheters that help me manage my pain and sleep at night.…

I’ve tried to manage my tics a number of different ways over the years and one of the most effective for me has been through practical solutions and interventions that make life easier and safer.

Several years ago I did a round-up of all these interventions, and I often share it with others who might find it useful.…

I’ve written a lot about my love of wheelchairs and what an important role they play in my life.

There have been times when my chair’s been broken or I haven’t had the right equipment, and as a result, my mood and wellbeing have been seriously affected. …

I’d had a really disrupted night. My pain level was exceptionally high and didn’t respond to any of the things that usually help, so I’d been awake since the early hours desperately trying to get comfortable enough to go back to sleep.…

For the last few years I’ve been struggling with feeling sick a lot and there was a long period when I used be sick every time I ate anything. A few months ago a dietician at my local hospital put me on a very restricted diet to try and work out whether there are particular foods that are causing the problem.…