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How my wheelchair changed my life
A young woman diagnosed with a disabling condition found her world shrank without the mobility aids she needed to get outside. Finally facing the stigma around using a wheelchair transformed her everyday life.
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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.
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Six personal health zines that might change your life
Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.
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NHS strikes and the decade of discontent
When the social unrest of the 1970s spread to the NHS, dissatisfied staff challenged the status quo for the first time in quarter of a century.
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Nurturing my autistic, gender-questioning child
As mother of an autistic child who questions her gender, Jude Lax describes cherishing her growing daughter as she explores her identity.
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Dancing for joy
Dancing is a mood enhancer, it increases social bonding and it improves creativity. Maybe you really can dance all your troubles away.
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The ugly truth about fast fashion
Aja Barber reflects on her relationship with fast fashion, outlines its polluting and destructive effects, and shares the small, personal changes we can make that could help.
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Drugs in Victorian Britain
Many common remedies were taken throughout the 19th century, with more people than ever using them. What was the social and cultural context of this development?
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When everyday environments become anxious spaces
Social anxiety disorder isolates those who experience it. Part of the solution is to design public spaces with mental health in mind.
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Shame and the online free-for-all
Lucia Osborne-Crowley looks at how shame manifests online, where public humiliation is common and second chances all too rare.
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Death and our digital ghosts
When we die, our data lives on. And as companies are increasingly spotting money-making opportunities from digital legacies, now could be the time to think about – and control – yours.
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To stop or stay on lithium
In the final part of her investigation into lithium, Laura Grace Simpkins faces a dilemma – should she put her own mental health or other people and the planet first?
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Coasting to catastrophe
In climate change, everything – and everyone – is connected. The watery process that will gradually cut off the Isle of Thanet from the British mainland has begun, and everyone in the UK needs to pay attention.
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Can our sexual desires be transformed?
In the 1950s, many psychiatrists thought that homosexuality could be reformed. One found that it couldn’t – and his discoveries led to a change in the law.
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Rebuilding my identity after a brain injury
Chris Miller talks about how a brain injury forced him to reassess his place in the world – physically, personally and socially.
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Raising a baby in prison
Gary’s second child spent much of her babyhood in a prison mother-and-baby unit, after his wife was given a custodial sentence. Here he explores the family’s experiences of that time.
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“People see the disability but forget the ability”
I’m a disabled Asian woman, and mother of four. I’m trying to show people that we have to talk about disability if we want things to change.
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Uncovering experiences of dementia
Focusing on three 19th-century women’s case notes, Millie van der Byl Williams explores how our definition of dementia has changed.
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The quest to breed gifted children
If you had the chance, would you choose a genius baby?
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- Photo story
Transitioning and the family album
“It’s really hard to describe to people how you know you’re a man when those ways of describing masculinity to me aren’t true. You need to find your own.”
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This is a MOOD
Adults might sometimes dismiss teenagers’ ‘moodiness’, but adolescence is a time of complex shifts in brain and body, which are intricately bound up with fluctuating feelings.
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A little wildness
To salve her longing for a dog, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan chose a puppy. She found that, despite centuries of domestication, her dog still retains aspects of her wild ancestry.
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The island of unclaimed bodies
In New York, those who live and die on the extreme edges of society are buried on an isolated island, often forgotten and unmourned. But recent legal changes aim to reduce stigma and restore their dignity.
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Why gene editing can never eliminate disability
In a world where DNA testing and gene editing offer ways to eliminate certain disabilities, Jaipreet Virdi explores a more accepting and inclusive approach.
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Equality in genetics
Genetic counsellor Sasha Henriques harnessed her energy and resolve to tackle the racial biases she saw in her profession – with positive and promising results.