My life and PhD researching autistic people, gender identity, mental health
I started blogging in 2009 I think and continued on a different blog for another four years using a wordpress hosted platform. Back then, Facebook had only reached the masses for about eighteen months, maybe two years. Social media was a novelty, an unexploited paradise of consumption and audience participation that promised new and exciting…
I have been thinking about how to start writing on my blog again for a while. Most of 2025 it was unavailable because the hosting company I previously used was taken over and getting my files out was a nightmare. Then I got detained under the mental health act, for about two months between October…
Not too many this month as it has been head down and write to get ready for my PhD year 1 viva. The allotment is looking really lovely at the moment, as is my back garden. The many different colours and shapes in the leaves and plants are really calming to regard when I have…
Hi, my name is Jenn. I’m recruiting for a one-to-one support to work with my son who is a bright energetic eleven year old who is an autistic ADHDer with sensor processing differences. Role details: Term time only (Derby City school holidays), based in our home and around Derby City. Tuesday afternoon 1345 to 1645…
. In the last two weeks, I took delivery of my first ever solo-authored book chapter, in the wonderfully named tinfoil hats: stories by mad people in an insane world. The contribution that I made was hard-won life experience; it talked about some really difficult unpleasant and often traumatising experiences that I had…
This weekend I spent more time outside than I remember having done in years. Highlights included time in the woods with my son at the excellent Tori’s Forest School, down my new permaculture allotment (photos to be added when there are some plants in) and an afternoon at ‘The Land‘ in Little Eaton a beautiful…
In the last week, I have realised that firstly I am getting old and secondly that I am getting excited. Both are interlinked so I will begin with the getting old bit… I have had various allotments and growing situations over the last six years which have all become unviable for a number of reasons;…
** * * * * * * * * * * * The dreams of death and dying. The emptiness inside. This place in which I’m hiding, whilst life carries on outside. That love and life and meaning, with which I just can’t coincide. When all I have are these dreams of death and dying…
A short piece of writing that I completed for the Beyond the Spectrum Writing Group organised by Writing East Midlands: The stone is smooth and round and fits in the palm of your hand. Its surface is flecked with silver flashes that spark when the light hits them as the stone is turned. Tiny black…
It’s been a while since I posted here, not because of a lack of good intentions but simply because there was barely enough time to breathe last year, let alone find the time to update my website. I returned to work at the end of 2020 to begin a PhD at the University of Nottingham…