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What Black women do when the NHS fails them
Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.
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Daniel Regan on using photography to manage emotions
Artist Daniel Regan manages his emotions and stays grounded through photography, allowing him to engage in the world around him.
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- Article
Why the truth is better than a happy ending
Caroline Butterwick often uses lived experience to inform her journalism, but she’s discovered a tension between the truth and stories that will sell.
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Spiritual joy
Spiritual joy can be a source of strength. Like the optimistic Pollyanna, there’s a lot to be said for finding reasons to rejoice, even in adversity.
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Children in burns prevention campaigns
Whose responsibility is it to prevent accidental burns and scalds in the home? Shane Ewen’s research shows that it’s everyone’s concern.
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Surviving as an asexual person in a heteronormative world
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.
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Hands-on healthcare
A young hospital volunteer feared her contribution was a long way from the serious business of real healthcare. But time spent painting patients’ nails proved to be a valuable contribution to life on the ward.
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Medics and the bomb
Would a nuclear attack on the UK overwhelm the NHS? At the height of the Cold War, despite government optimism, medics predicted doom.
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How injury changed my brain
Meg Fozzard, who experienced a brain injury in her 20s, writes about the huge impact it's had on her life, and talks to others with similar injuries.
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Belonging, babies and self-belief
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.
- Photo story
- Photo story
Beautiful bedding and how to die well
When you are unwell, your bed can be both a refuge and a prison. Discover how artist Poppy Nash created a bed-centred artwork inspired by her own chronic illness and depictions of ill health from history.
- Photo story
- Photo story
A portrait of me with my mother
A series of portraits with stand-in mothers helped Camilla Greenwell to process her grief, and then to question whether our photograph albums are ever really honest.
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The healing power of the physic garden
Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.
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Birth, babies and boxes of memories
With memories of her baby in neonatal intensive care still fresh, Erin Beeston decides to unearth the poignant objects her family kept following births, going back as far as Victorian times.
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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.
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Autistic togetherness during lockdown
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.
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Louis Wain’s cryptic cats
Once famous for his quirky cat illustrations, today Louis Wain is often portrayed as a ‘psychotic’ artist whose illness can be mapped out through his drawings. Here Bryony Benge-Abbott takes a more rounded view.
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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.
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Living in limbo when a loved one is missing
When someone goes missing, loved ones are thrown into a state akin to constant grieving; waiting for news, living in hope. Novelist Bev Thomas describes how they try to cope and carry on.
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Electrical epilepsy and the EEG Test
The EEG (electroencephalograph) literally electrified the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. But for Aparna Nair the dreaded EEG tests of her adolescence were a painful ordeal.
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An insider’s view of Play Well
Curator Shamita Sharmacharja offers behind-the-scenes insights into an exhibition about the serious business of play.
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Sick of the theatre
What makes the stage a good place to share real-life experiences of ill health?
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- Article
How to cure the eco-anxious
Could community activism be the key to overcoming a fear of environmental collapse?
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What the nose doesn’t know
Losing her sense of smell for over a year motivated Stephanie Howard-Smith to sniff out the history of treatments for this unsettling condition.
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In search of the ‘nature cure’
Under the competing pressures of modern life, many of us succumb to mental ill health. Samantha Walton explores why so-called ‘nature cures’ don’t help, and how the living world can actually help us.