Why I’m giving up writing. For now.
Hi to everyone reading this.
Further to a discussion with the Canary leadership team I have an announcement to make.
From Friday 8 February I am formally not writing on a regular basis for The Canary anymore. I will be continuing to do the podcast weekly and accompanying music features.
The reasons for this are complicated – but actually very simple. My partner Nicola is chronically ill, as many of you know. Before we got together she had previously been told her illnesses were ‘all in her head’ and mental health-related, even to the point that professionals sectioned her under the Mental Health Act when she was desperate for support. She was not living with any mental health issues. When we met she had been given a Fibromyalgia diagnosis (which, in my opinion, doesn’t exist – it’s a parking diagnosis/bullshit illness when there’s actually other things going on).
Since we met, and pushed the medical profession to take her seriously, she’d now living with:
►Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos/Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder.
►Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).
►Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS).
►Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.
►Non-epileptic tonic clonic seizures.
►Deformities in her left foot and leg.
►Suspected Craniocervical Instability.
There has been a noticeable worsening in her overall health over the past year, and the time for pussy-footing around this has ended.
