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Life before assistive technology

When an inherited condition caused Alex Lee’s vision to deteriorate, he began to discover the technologies that would help him navigate the world around him. Here he describes how his life began to change.

The seizure dog

Aparna Nair's dog Charlie made her feel safe in the world. His uncanny ability to sense when she was about to experience a seizure also gave her an unexpected ally in her struggles with epilepsy.

Succumbing to stimming in dance

As a child, Susanna Dye felt ashamed of their need to stim, but has found a way to incorporate these repetitive movements into their creative practice as a dancer and facilitator.

Families fighting for justice

In 1962 a group of parents whose children had been affected by thalidomide began a decades-long battle in the law courts, the media and Parliament in order to win fair justice for all thalidomide survivors.

The sweet sound of synthetic speech

After Alex experienced a serious deterioration in his sight, he came to rely on artificial voices to help him with everyday tasks. Find out how synthetic speech came to be developed.

Happy Joy Smile

Drawn from real-life experiences, this short story depicts a character negotiating the UK’s current mental health system. Discover what happens as they encounter waiting lists, sketchy healthcare and punitive government bureaucracy.

Adapting to life as a thalidomide survivor

Growing up as a thalidomide survivor meant coping with all the usual challenges of childhood and adolescence, while having to fit into a world designed for the able-bodied.

The man who remembers everything

Tilney1 can remember his life in minute detail, but can’t control the incessant intrusion of thoughts and images from the past. As cuts to mental health services isolate him more and more, a crisis approaches.

Selling sex and sacrificing safety

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.

Trust me, I’m a patient

Artist Rachel Rowan Olive is an expert in the way her mental health condition affects her. Here she explains how it helps if doctors understand that.

London, city of lost hospitals

Come on the trail of hundreds of ghost hospitals, whose remnants hold clues to medical treatments of the past.

Thousands of years of women’s pain

Even in the 21st century, women with severe monthly pain find their suffering minimised or dismissed by the medical profession. Such pain is seen as simply a natural part of being female.

Thalidomide, a bitter pill

Hear from some of the women who took the drug thalidomide over sixty years ago about the fear, isolation and grief that they experienced as the appalling pharmaceutical scandal unfolded around them.

How writing helps me manage schizophrenia

Reclaiming my story

Sharing her story of mental illness and treatment with trainee social workers has helped Caroline Butterwick make sense of her past, and continues to be a positive part of her life today.

Rejecting shame and a decade of change

Jess Thom spent years trying to ignore and suppress the tics of Tourette’s syndrome. Read what happened when she decided to celebrate them instead.

My important, ridiculous nose

The nose is a much-maligned appendage, but it’s a powerful organ capable of invoking powerful emotions from past memories and sexual attraction.

Taking the piss

Council cuts have created public-toilet deserts across the UK, limiting journeys and days out for people whose medical conditions mean toilet access is essential. Campaigner Kevin Crowe highlights the issues.

‘Jessy’, a film about cerebral palsy

How the 1950s British film industry portrayed this disease.

Thalidomide babies

In a time without scans or antenatal tests, neither medical staff nor parents were prepared for the damage to the foetus caused by the thalidomide drug.

Collecting pandemic stories

Find out how personal notebook jottings from two flatmates became ‘Journals of a Pandemic’, a comprehensive diary-keeping project encompassing dozens of writers from a wide variety of backgrounds.

When a private pee is a public disgrace

The free pee is getting rarer. And the lack of suitably equipped disabled toilets is condemning people to lives cloistered away in their own homes. Discover how toilet access for all is part of an equal society.

The boundaries that shape my writing

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.

Revelations of blindness in the Middle Ages

Medieval texts, from Islamic medical treatises to Christian books of miracles, reveal surprisingly varied and complex experiences of blindness. But when medieval scholar Jude Seal experienced visual impairment themselves, they gained an even deeper understanding of the lives they were studying.

An insider’s view of Play Well

Curator Shamita Sharmacharja offers behind-the-scenes insights into an exhibition about the serious business of play.