Skip to main content
272 results
  • Article
  • Article

The meaning of trauma is wound

| Daisy JohnsonBenjamin Gilbert

Daisy Johnson recalls her difficult journey to being diagnosed with vaginismus, and why women are so good at turning bad things into a joke.

  • Article
  • Article

Surviving as an asexual person in a heteronormative world

| Seleena Laverne DayeNan Carreira

Experiencing no sexual attraction led Seleena Laverne Daye to feel she was somehow failing as an adult. But she found a way to claim her identity and to thrive.

  • Article
  • Article

The solidarity of sickness

| Sinéad GleesonCamilla Greenwell

Visiting an injured friend in hospital prompts writer Sinéad Gleeson to reflect on the instant rapport forged between compatriots in the kingdom of the sick.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Alopecia in men

| Orlando Gili

Men break their silence about total hair loss in these intimate portraits and interviews by Orlando Gili.

  • Article
  • Article

When everyday environments become anxious spaces

| Louise Boyle

Social anxiety disorder isolates those who experience it. Part of the solution is to design public spaces with mental health in mind.

  • Article
  • Article

Belonging, babies and self-belief

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

As a first-time mother living abroad, it seemed too exhausting to truly connect with new acquaintances. Instead, Tanya Perdikou began to make a kind of peace with herself.

  • Article
  • Article

The sickness in the wellness industry

| Gwendolyn Smith

In recovery from anorexia, Gwen Smith began to realise how the wellness industry needs its followers to feel bad about themselves in order to make money out them.

  • Article
  • Article

Communities of cross-feeders

| Alev ScottVicky Scott

A desire to help leads some women to “cross-feed” – breastfeed other parents’ babies for free. Alev Scott delves into the emotions behind this altruistic act.

  • Article
  • Article

Selling sex and sacrificing safety

| AbigailJessa Fairbrother

Sex workers who report crimes against them can face a “what do you expect?” attitude. But one organisation is working to protect vulnerable people in the sex industry.

  • Article
  • Article

Doctor in the house

| Ishani Kar-Purkayastha

A house is not always a home – sometimes it’s impermanent, impersonal. But other aspects of the itinerant life can be the source of a sense of home.

  • Article
  • Article

Close encounters of the spiritualist kind

| Kate WilkinsonThomas S G Farnetti

When it comes to practical and emotional advice, Daphne heeds the words of her lost loved ones. Find out how a spiritualist medium helps her stay in touch.

  • Article
  • Article

The boundaries that shape my writing

| Caroline ButterwickKimberley Burrows

While writing about her life can be enormously helpful, Caroline Butterwick needs to regularly reassess her boundaries. Here she explores the line between what’s public and what’s private, and how porous that can be.

  • Article
  • Article

Social isolation and the search for sanctuary

| Furaha AsaniGhazal ZargarBenjamin Gilbert

Threatened with deportation, Furaha Asani turned to her church for support. Met with silence and disinterest, she walked away, but argues that churches should do much more for migrants.

  • Article
  • Article

Diagnosed bipolar, prescribed lithium

| Laura Grace SimpkinsAlice BoydMatjaž Krivic

In the first part of a series looking into lithium, Laura Grace Simpkins recounts the beginning of her troubled relationship with this mysterious drug.

  • Article
  • Article

Autistic togetherness during lockdown

| Kate FoxColin Potsig

While lockdown has presented autistic people with greater challenges than life pre-COVID, many have found strength and comfort in the situation. Autistic writer and performer Kate Fox explains how.

  • Article
  • Article

The intermediate life of spirits

| Courttia Newland

Courttia Newland explores the events and his feelings surrounding the death of his mother-in-law, Tara Chauhan.

  • Comic
  • Comic

I became very attached to the geese

| Lesley Imgart

What furry and feathered friends have helped you through the pandemic?

  • Article
  • Article

How depression ruined my relationship with sleep

| Lauren GeeNgadi Smart

One reaction to depression is a craving for sleep, creating a dependence that can provoke guilt and anxiety. Emerging from “five blurry years”, one writer tracks her steps to better health.

  • Article
  • Article

Fighting shame by speaking out

| Lucia Osborne-CrowleyEduardo Rubio

Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s first instinct after being raped was to cover it up. Shame silenced her for ten years, but #MeToo gave her the courage to speak out.

  • Article
  • Article

The blood notebooks

| Rupert Thomson

Novelist Rupert Thomson explores his unusual behaviour during a time of self-imposed isolation.

  • Article
  • Article

The colonist who faced the blue terror

| Anna Faherty

India, 1857. In a British enclave, Katherine Bartrum watches her friend, and then her family, succumb to the deadly cholera.

  • Comic
  • Comic

Menstruation

| Rob Bidder

I talked in depth with my friends and family about their periods.

  • Comic
  • Comic

Fascia

| Rob Bidder

Fascia holds you all together like an organic hairnet. Fascia is your friend.

  • Article
  • Article

Shame’s long shadow

| Lucia Osborne-CrowleyEduardo Rubio

What is shame and why is it so powerful? A violent sexual assault left Lucia Osborne-Crowley suffocated with shame, but she’s now determined to understand how this overwhelming emotion works.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Renaissance women and their killer cosmetics

| Jill BurkeSteven Pocock

In this extract from ‘How to be a Renaissance Woman’, Jill Burke delves into a complex world of beauty products, poison and patriarchy – and reveals the impossible contradictions of femininity faced by 16th-century women.