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.…

I was chatting earlier with a friend who’s having a tough time, and it got me thinking about affirmations, by which I mean positive statements that you say out loud to help overcome negative thoughts.

I looked some up, and then my tics immediately responded with their own suggestions.…

At the start of lockdown I was sent a short story about the experience of growing up with a parent with Tourettes by a young writer called Yaska Sahara. I found the piece incredibly moving and it was a perspective that I hadn’t encountered before so I reached out to Yaska asking if she’d be up for writing a guest post about her family’s experiences.…

I did a stand-up comedy gig this afternoon, the first since lockdown. It was online of course, but it was still great to be performing again. The show was with Abnormally Funny People, a collective of disabled comedians. Alongside me on the line up were Tanyalee Davis and Lost Voice Guy.…

On Sunday 15th March I went swimming with my niece Bean and her dad, my brother-in-law, King Russell. Afterwards we came back to the castle and watched a film together. What I didn’t know as Bean and I sat cuddling was that this would be the last time we’d have close physical contact for many months.…