Labels can be so useful, for identifying, explaining, pooling information, finding things out...but they also come with pitfalls. Exploring how to use them (with caution) and also the power of positivity as a tool for breaking out of any boxes.
What's in a label and looking at the bigger picture: Considering the importance of using the right descriptor when conveying the seriousness of your condition to yourself and others whilst exploring a possible link between CFS / ME and neurodiversity.
As an autistic person, some places instantly deplete me like I have taken a chemical bath or eaten something off my allergy list…the effect is that instantaneous. Exploring the importance of place as a primary factor in sensory processing and other aspects of neurodivergence.
The slow and steady loss of independence that can happen when you have a disability or health issue can be quite pernicious, quietly gnawing into the roots of your confidence until its too late to undo. Exploring ways that we get to feel independent in spite of other limitations and how important it is to preserve them.
It seems that autism does lend itself to glitchy handling of oxalates, glutamates and some other dietary factors including omega 3s and certain vitamins, with broad ranging effects on health, pain levels and mental wellbeing. Piecing together some of my own detective work to iron out life-long struggles due to dietary factors, hoping to shed some light for others.
An unusually busy phase has blown some theories I once held about neurodivergent traits and chronic illness out of the water or reframed them in a new light. Exploring the link between needing to keep busy, pain perception, sensory sensitivity and chronic fatigue.
What you or I need to recover our health, to maintain it and truly thrive may be completely different, even polar opposite to what someone else needs. Considering the potential relationship between ADHD and a chronic (as in, long perpetuated) state of poor health.
What happens when huge amounts of energy get stuck in the body as trauma, leading to a freeze response or shutdown? How does this intersect with chronic conditions such as CFS, fibromyalgia, sensory defensiveness or other syndromes and does being autistic make you more prone to this? How can somatic therapies be used to discharge years of trauma? Exploring through my own deep-dive into the territory.
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is debilitating, devastating, isolating and often quite unbearable and yet nobody that has not experienced it for themselves can imagine what it truly feels like on the inside; there is no point of reference for anyone that isn't wired that way since it is the product of particular genetics plus epigenetics combined with a lifetime of trauma. As a common experience of both autism and ADHD and something I experience myself, this important topic has been on my list of most daunting things to cover for quite some time...here goes.
Environment is such a big topic when it comes to chronic illness, perhaps an obvious one too but I also think far too many people with chronic health problems get so wrapped up in their own situation that they fall into the trap of imagining all their problems stem from a faulty body. Even when they do realise the environment may be playing a considerable part, they don't seem to see what the issues are or they assume there is nothing that can be done about it, but that's not entirely true...awareness always leads to choices we may have overlooked.
Living whole 