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Personal
Personal writing on mental health, life and the things I am into outside of work. Press / to search titles, excerpts, and labels.
32 posts labelled Mental Health
· 10 min read
I hated school. The UK system rewards memorising and sitting still, and skips most of what adult life actually needs, from money to burnout. For autistic pupils it is harder again: only 26% say they feel happy at school. This is why it did not work for me, and what I wish it had taught.
· 6 min read
My friend Dani told me I let people get under my skin and end up being used. I did not see it then, but she is right. This is how taking people literally as an autistic person leaves me open to being used, why it hurts so much when people leave, and what I am working on.
· 30 min read
What dysregulation actually looks like in an autistic adult: the difference between a meltdown, a shutdown and plain irritation, why it is not a tantrum, what masking costs, how sensory load drains the budget, why I cannot always name a feeling until hours later, and why a changed plan can flatten me.
· 8 min read
What it feels like to pour your all into someone who drains you: everything having to be about them, losing your sense of self, a nervous system on fire from hot and cold behaviour, being called ugly, fat, and useless, and why leaving feels like withdrawal.
· 7 min read
Alex thinks I might have alexithymia. I had never heard the word, so I read the research. It is not feeling nothing. It is struggling to tell what you feel, and to say it, and it is far more common in autistic people than I expected.
· 7 min read
For years I put everything into people and got hurt. Then I put myself first. This is what working on myself did for my confidence, and why looking after yourself and loving yourself first matters so much.
· 2 min read
Letting another person's mood set mine is hard for anyone. As an autistic person, my emotions just happen, my logical brain switches off when I am overwhelmed, and I feel things harder than most. That is why I need a buffer, and why I am not broken.
· 19 min read
A checklist I am writing mostly for me. How to be there for my partner through pregnancy, birth and the first weeks, how to prepare for fatherhood (leave, baby skills, safe sleep, crying, my own mental health), and how to be a team once the baby is home.
· 7 min read
People pleasing, over preparing, being the intense one, over apologising, rejection sensitivity, hyperfocus, executive function struggles, and feeling empty inside. What I thought was my personality turned out to line up with ADHD.
· 7 min read
Fixing things is how I make sense of the world and where a lot of my purpose comes from. The same instinct fires for problems that belong to other people, and learning to tell the difference has made me better at the ones that are mine.
· 13 min read
My own experience of putting others first, ignoring red flags, and romanticising situations that meant less than I hoped. Having my heart broken is the first time I have put myself first, and I am working on my health, my peace, and a family with my partner.
· 10 min read
If you find out your child is bullying, address it. Explain the primary and secondary consequences for the child on the receiving end, how trauma develops, and why mental health matters on both sides.
· 6 min read
Chronic bullying through childhood and my teens left me with trauma, low self esteem, and social anxiety. I wanted friends but could not trust anyone, and RuneScape was my escape. It has only been this year that I have done things on my own, and a lot of it lines up with being autistic.
· 5 min read
Obsessed with external validation, rewatching videos of themselves, belittling others, never wrong, and cutting people off like it is nothing. What it does to your nervous system, and why they ruin the days that matter most.
· 7 min read
I have felt like an imposter my entire life, not in my work but in my own body. Most of the time I feel disconnected from myself, like an observer watching someone else live my life, and I do not feel real.
· 4 min read
I take actions at face value and miss the feeling underneath. I have done this most of my life, and I hate it. Naming the bias helps. Repair still matters.
· 6 min read
I struggle to learn without the why. Curiosity is a constant hunger for more information, and once purpose shows up, the how finally sticks.
· 5 min read
I feel deeply, get hurt, and sometimes hurt others without meaning to. Emptiness, pushing people away, trauma bonds, and the open question of BPD versus autism — and learning to let go.
· 4 min read
Addiction, ruined relationships, lowered confidence in men, trauma, and what the NoFap community got right. Stop producing it. Ban it everywhere.
· 7 min read
The NHS is brilliant at trauma. For chronic illness and men's mental health it is often a holding pattern. Why I stopped waiting for a system to get curious about me.
· 2 min read
I love these pictures of us. You brought me back from the depth of despair. We get each other, nothing is a contest, and it is a team effort. Thank you for being my world.
· 1 min read
A friend I met through my mum. A genius in dead-end jobs who got me into World of Warcraft, web development, PHP, and Django. He passed away in his house. I still think about him.
· 7 min read
Professionals wrote me off as a child. Bullied, quiet, fixated on computers — and why I resonate so hard with Elon Musk. Miss Barclay, if you are out there: thank you.
· 2 min read
A Reddit post about partners who pick fights before deadlines and big days named the sabotage. I am with someone who makes me feel safe and loved now, and the alarm finally quieted.
· 6 min read
Subjective reality is the filter. Objective reality is what is left when the filter lies. Cortisol, thyroid, sex steroids, and metabolic chemistry shape that filter — and a lot of human conflict is two filters colliding.
· 7 min read
Alcohol has real trial evidence. Cannabis, nicotine, opioids, and stimulants have signals and studies underway. What the reward biology explains, what it does not, and why this is not an approved addiction cure.
· 5 min read
A birthday that felt safe for once. Care instead of manipulation, love instead of isolation, and why the right person is not the one who needs you broken.
· 5 min read
Why autistic attention tunnels make immersion beautiful and release hard, and why rejection, sensory load, and rumination make hurt land louder and stick longer.
· 6 min read
Enemies become allies, characters actually change, and the real plot is the one I reused after bullying, failure, and heartbreak: take the hit, power up, come back sharper.
· 6 min read
Nothing was ever enough. Drama, victimhood, and emotional drain that left self-harm, night terrors, a breakdown, caught fleas mistaken for BPD, and trust that still will not come easy.
· 5 min read
Autism can make me more prone to outbursts that do not match who I am the rest of the time. A flooded state is not a character reveal. Do not weaponise it.
· 8 min read
Depressed from 11 into my thirties. Assessed, listened to, prescribed for, and never once given a blood test. When someone finally took one, my testosterone was on the floor.