Don’t let it bring you down, it’s only castles burning.

I lost another job today. Like many of the jobs I have lost in the past 15 years, it was a job I really wanted. A job that I thought would lead somewhere. A job that was to be the next stepping stone in my life. A job that was meant to lift our noses

Line up the dominoes, a light wind blows. You try to stop it tumbling, But on and on it goes…

I’ve known for a while that my anxiety was a problem. For the entirety of my life, I’ve needed to drive myself to keep going. If I didn’t keep moving at full tilt, I wouldn’t get anything done. Lay off the whip and I’d go nowhere. And I think back in the day when I

Take the pill, or you’ll be sorry.

So first of all, it has been months since I updated this thing. Which is something that I swore I wouldn’t allow to happen. I was not going to start this project just to abandon it. I was going to update it regularly. Like most of the times I make such resolutions, it failed. And

Misery loves company and company loves more, more loves everybody else, but hell is others.

It’s time I admitted that I’m terrified of people. It’s not just the fact that I am autistic, although that certainly contributes. I can imitate social norms to a certain degree, but on their deepest level they are incomprehensible to me. I am 40 years old and still have frequent missteps when trying to navigate

But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical…

It’s weird remembering my school days. I was a “gifted” child, of course, like many kids with ADHD. But also like many kids with ADHD, my gifts appeared very selective. The initial plan was to skip me directly into first grade. My ADHD-raddled five-year-old brain heartily disagreed with this plan, which is why I was

The monster I was so afraid of lies curled up on the floor.

In many respects, my brain is broken. I have a chemical imbalance that leads to depression and anxiety. I have a neurodevelopmental disorder that effects the dopaminergic production and function in my brain, resulting in difficulty maintaining my attention, organising, and completing tasks. I literally have to ingest chemicals in order to mitigate the issues

Maybe I’m just tired, or maybe I’m not brave.

I don’t know what feeds me anymore. When I was younger, I feel like I knew how to refresh myself. I could spend take a day off to read books, play video games, watch horror movies, spend some time with my friends, and come away feeling ready to engage with life again. And somewhere along

It isn’t easy to be kind with all these demons in my mind.

I recently read the indomitable and incomparable Allie Brosh‘s second book, which includes a chapter on how she tried to overcome loneliness and depression after her divorce. She described the process as “befriending herself”. This is something that both my husband and my former therapists have attempted with me, but for some reason it resonated

So today I’m gonna do my best to drink coffee in the morning and live as if I didn’t feel lonely and hopeless and helpless.

There are times that I feel despairing about my life and the way it has turned out. I turned forty years old last month. A woman now unquestionably in her middle years. I have no career. No savings. No real prospects for the future. Even if I was offered my dream job tomorrow, the chances

I’ve been to your cities, I didn’t stay long.

Most of my childhood was spent living in the suburbs. It was not a place I enjoyed being. It’s a liminal space, the suburbs. It has neither the rich culture, opportunities, and convenience of the city, or the peace, privacy, and soul-restoring nature of the country. I could neither get away from people or go