For anyone old enough to remember, in 2011 Rihanna found love in a hopeless place. That place, if the video is anything to go by, turned out to be County Down in Northern Ireland. The song, with its catchy chorus, went to number one and spent an astonishing 63 weeks in the UK charts.…

Content Notice: References to genocide and Euthanasia

In 2016 much to my surprise and delight I became a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow. This Fellowship from an internationally recognised health research foundation allowed me to create new work and start new conversations about the intersections between disability culture, ethics and research.…

The sun brought a gentle warmth to my face as I weighed up my next move.

To my right, Scarbrough’s cliffs rolling up towards the sky, echoes of grandeur sprinkled over Victorian hotels.

To my left, the rhythmic rumble of the sea and a satisfyingly simple horizon.…

Tourettes is a surreal condition to live with – anything can become a tic, including stuff I’m not even conscious of knowing. For example, I had no idea that Keith Duffy is allergic to peanuts or what a marmoset is until my tics started talking about them.…

I’ve had a new tic for the last few weeks. It’s frequent and consistent and leading to lots of conversations, some intense, some interesting, and some challenging.

This new tic is: “Long live Palestine, long live Gaza.”

This is a tic.…

Preppers are people who plan for emergencies in practical ways. Exactly what they’re preparing for varies but can include natural disasters, economic crisis, civil unrest, or a zombie apocalypse.

Prepper culture focuses on self-reliance, making detailed plans, stockpiling essentials, and doing everything possible to support survival in a catastrophic breakdown of society.…

Last March we launched our Practical Intervention Fund, which provided small items related to wellbeing and relaxation to deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people of all ages. It was the first time we’d run it and we provided items for over 50 people across the UK.…

Tomorrow I have a phone appointment with the pain clinic. I’ve been under their care for a few years since I began experiencing chronic pain probably caused by the long-term impact of my tics, and being a wheelchair user.

I haven’t had an appointment in quite a while because my pain is generally manageable thanks to a mix of medications and other approaches.…

It’s Friday evening and I’m exhausted and sad. Ines, my support worker, is changing my sheets in the other room, Gogglebox is on in the background, and I’m fighting back tears, and have been all afternoon and evening.

As a warning to you, I’m not feeling very proud of, or positive about my neurodiversity at the moment, and I’m feeling annoyed and worn out by my own behaviour.…

For me, Tourettes means I have strong oppositional impulses – the automatic urge to do exactly the opposite of what I want to do. This is why I shout ‘I’m over here’ during games of hide and seek,’ why I shout ‘bomb’ in airports, and why 400 Australians in a theatre knew Fat Sister was pregnant before our mum did.…