Just an episode talking about environmental noise issues I've been suffering a lot lately, which has made recording my podcast seemingly impossible. I live in a shared house and I'm working to get moved into a place of my own by the council, but when I started the podcast the noise levels were much much lower than now. I talk about that more in detail in the episode as well as the mitigation measures which may still allow me to record.

But, if not— I'm just putting it on the record that this podcast definitely hasn't died! It just may become a lot more sporadic or it may have to go on pause entirely until I can live in my own place and in a better location (which is going to be a long-winded process for sure).

Topics:

—Autism

—Hypersensitivity

—Anxiety

—OCD

—Environmental stress

Reading and discussion of my poem 'The Hidden Achievement', talking about the hidden achievements day-to-day and over the longer-term, when suffering with mental ill health such as depression or anxiety after traumas.

I talk about how these 'hidden achievements' are not always so obvious— to yourself or to others— but how recognising them is important to resilience, optimism, motivation.

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A poem about OCD and trauma— how traumatic events and situations have worsened OCD for me, and about how destructive and counter-productive the left-over habits are, even as I try to recover from it all.

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I describe my ADHD revelation which happened in March 2018, when I first took the step of specifically researching a possible cause for some of my struggles and stumbled upon Jessica McCabe's TEDx talk titled Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story.

I talk about the great relief which I felt upon watching that talk and the subsequent further research that it inspired, and how I came to realise that ADHD had been implicated in some of my most significant lifelong struggles.

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I've been struggling to enjoy things for the past few years, as a result of traumatic experiences which have worsened OCD and body-focused repetitive behaviours.

This anxious activity results in a level of dissociation which seems to serve a purpose for minimising painful experiences at the time, but leaves me struggling to enjoy the simplest of daily things. However, I also talk about my reasons for optimism.

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I talk about the traumatic background to writing my first mental health poem— Come Back To The Living— written shortly after my 32nd birthday in June 2019, followed with reading it aloud.

Come Back To The Living addresses isolation, depression and general mental ill health after traumatic experiences, and what can be learned from such experiences in order to increase compassion and benefit other people going through tough times.

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A recounting of some of my experiences with somatic OCD and body-focused repetitive behaviours, in particular with how they have been triggered by recent traumatic situations.

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Talking about some of my daily experiences with the 'Just Right' subtype of OCD, as well as reading from a poem— Just Right OCD Is Not Right At All— which I wrote.

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An episode about generalised anxiety which I've been experiencing for quite a while, which is often expressed as OCD behaviours, but I've lately been feeling anxious just to be anxious, it seems!

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Discussing some of my early experiences of OCD from childhood.

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