I haven’t written for some time due to my beloved dog dying. I’ve also had stuff related to a friend to navigate that has taken my energy and focus, but for today, and next Tuesday, because of a conversation I had with my therapist, who is on holiday for 2 weeks, I am posting here. These posts will be my “support” until she returns. Although my therapist doesn’t support me in the way you might imagine. I chose my therapist carefully. It had to be a woman; I get on much better with women than I do men. It had to be an autistic therapist. They needed to be very political, a socialist, and able to spot bullshit. The cherry on the cake was that they weren’t British. I’m not fond of the white middle-class therapy cult that positions itself above its clients. Tories or Liberals who tell you you’re the problem instead of the system you are enslaved by.
I posted on BlueSky recently that I felt so trapped by prejudice that I feel I can’t write the things I’d like to. The reason for this is because older men are seen as perverts and stupid, disabled people are seen as worthless, and also because I am still struggling to find the balance of writing a political blog, or an autism, sexuality blog. As you can imagine, the two don’t mix. So I think I’ll put the more personal content behind a password. Maybe I will add a small charge to keep the idiots away.
I told my therapist that I feel like an alien. That I speak a different language. That there’s nobody like me in my world. It is frustrating and lonely to be surrounded by automatons. I either have to downgrade myself or have no human contact, and neither of those options work for me.
When I was a child, my mother would go out dancing and leave me alone in the house. I was terrified. When I took myself to bed, I would hide under the blankets and pretend to snore loudly, like what I thought an adult man would do. I thought this would deter anyone from attacking me. The trauma of this has never really left me. When I go to bed, I never look forward to it, and I never feel safe or comfortable being in bed. As I did when I was a child, I long for dawn so that I can feel safer.
Along with my childhood trauma, I also have to contend with the autistic difficulty with sleeping. Most autistic people have severe issues with not being able to sleep. Now, I’ve watched two videos while typing this article because I wanted to provide some good information for you people reading this. However, I felt too annoyed to include them because, although they provided good information, they followed that by either providing useless advice or including links to expensive groups they ran. No, I’m not interested in giving those accounts publicity. So let’s talk about reality and my experience.
I have decided that I need to think about changing anything and/or everything with regard to sleep. I don’t believe for one minute that I can change the problems autistic people have with sleep; we simply can’t. What I want to do, though, is to make the problems less punishing to my health and welfare. Now, normally, I can’t go back to sleep when I wake up. However, I realised recently that my depression is probably not depression but sleep deprivation, and that shifted something in me. It has made the barrier to going back to sleep less of a hurdle, because now I have a tangible reason to do so. I hope that makes sense to you. I am a problem solver and now I can see a possible solution, so that interests me. I know the difference is subtle, but it is a difference.
When the sun is coming through my bedroom window, and it is in the afternoon, that is when I feel the least overwhelmed. It is also the time when, for 12 years as a postman, I would sleep. I woke very early and slept in the afternoon. I believe that is how foxes live, and I feel an affinity with foxes, but doesn’t that make sense? I remember cycling to work at 1:30 am, and I would regularly encounter foxes. Unfortunately, I also have the Protestant work ethic, which means I feel guilty for not working during the day, which lessens as the day progresses.
So let’s try to summarise where I’m at. I know my lack of sleep is seriously affecting my well-being. I can’t just push through it anymore. I have to change something. I’ve decided to try and go back to bed when I wake up, and have had a cup of tea and some toast. That’s the first thing. I’ve done it before but I didn’t have the insight re; the depression I thought I was feeling. The other thought I’ve had is that I am very sensitive to my environment and that I need to have some decorating done to make my living space feel cosier. I want my house to feel more like my home. My bedroom is actually the best room in the house, but I feel I need to make it feel more like an oasis or woodland. That might include buying a projector, it might include adding a lot more plants to the room. Nature calms me.
Finally, the only thing I want to recommend is a weighted blanket. Weighted blankets make me feel safer. The pressure makes me feel safer, more grounded.
OK, and now finally! Here’s a rather wild idea, for want of a better word. What if we could hire people to cuddle us until we fell asleep? Or cuddle us, and even have sex with us, be nice and kind, and then just go? Wouldn’t that warm, kind, physical and emotional connection enable us to fall fast asleep? I wonder how much of our sleep problems are connected to just feeling safe. Something to consider.
There is a curious relationship with substances and their public persona, or rather, the persona given to them. In a previous post, I mentioned that I was withdrawing from a prescription drug called Elvanse. This drug is amphetamine. Amphetamine has the nickname of Speed. However, it is legal to prescribe this form of drug. Alcohol is another potentially addictive substance that is legal to consume. In 2023, 10,473 deaths from alcohol-specific causes were registered in the UK, the highest number on record. Let’s look at smoking tobacco products. 57,200 to 57,600 cases of cancer in the UK in 2023 were caused by smoking, equating to around 160 cases per day. Like alcohol, tobacco products are freely available in Britain.
Alcohol duty receipts in the UK reached £12.6 billion in the 2023/24 financial year, according to HMRC data, up from £12.4 billion the previous year. Tobacco duty receipts for the financial year ending March 2025 were £7.926 billion, a decrease of £878 million (10%) compared to the previous year, driven by declines in both cigarette and hand-rolling tobacco sales. These figures represent direct tax revenues collected by HMRC—the British government.
Aren’t you even a little bit curious as to why there is such a push to ban vaping because of the idea that it is addictive, given the fact that there have been no confirmed deaths in the UK directly proven to be caused by vaping, using nicotine-containing products?
Nicotine has a similar effect on ADHD symptoms as amphetamine in that it stimulates dopamine production in the brain. My experience of it is that there is no crash in between taking it and not taking it, and it doesn’t stop working after a while of using it, unlike ADHD medication. Now I’m not saying that nicotine has no addictive properties, but we have a love affair with coffee, we have coffee shops everywhere, and we joke about coffee withdrawal as though it were a cool thing. As we do with alcohol hangovers. So why is vaping the bad guy? Could it be because tobacco sales have dropped? Or could it be because if you’re vaping, you might be less inclined to take pharmaceutical products for ADHD? “On the 4th December 2025, in the second quarter (Q2) of 2025/2026, 297,000 patients were prescribed drugs for ADHD”.
As always, make up your own mind, but remember the truth is always based on irrefutable facts.
“Detox” is short for “detoxification”, and it means removing addictive substances from your system. Stimulant withdrawal symptoms usually begin within the first one to three days after stopping use.
Vyvanse is a long-acting amphetamine. Unlike street amphetamine, prescription amphetamine is supplied in smaller doses. It is, however, still amphetamine, and it is addictive. It is untrue that medical treatments of amphetamines are not addictive, just as it was untrue that antidepressants weren’t addictive, but the drug companies insisted they weren’t. Just as they insist today that amphetamine isn’t addictive.
I am experiencing withdrawal today as a result of stopping my 30mg dose of Elvanse, although my withdrawal really began when the medication stopped working. What usually happens when you tell your clinician that the drug has stopped working is that they’ll increase the dosage. This may work again, until it stops again. That is what amphetamines do. I am not here to tell you what you should think or do if you are taking prescription amphetamines. This is my experience, and it is valid.
The dangers we face during our titration are many, and we are vulnerable and need the best support available, but what we get are, as I mentioned in a previous post, usually private clinics with basic levels of support, with staff who are usually ex-mental health nurses or similar. They are given a script on what to say and will not move from that script, because that script is designed to protect the company, and not you. The NHS and the government are fully aware of this issue, but do nothing to stop it because the government’s priority is the privatisation of the NHS, not you.
I have withdrawn from prescription drugs before. Antidepressants, tranquillisers included. What I always keep in the front of my mind is that withdrawal is temporary, and that each day there is less of the drug in my system. This gives me the strength to do it. Whatever your relationship with amphetamines, I wish you the very best of luck in finding the solution that leaves you feeling healthy.
If I were to write here, only about politics, I don’t feel that my readers or I would benefit a great deal. The purpose of my writing is to give me an interesting and positive tool in my survival toolbox. I do want to do my part in educating people about autism and adhd, and how politics has an impact on my life and the lives of other neurodivergent people, but I will always put my welfare first, and I think you’d agree that is the correct thing to do.
Today it is Sunday. It is raining again, it rarely stops, and I am recovering from an overdose of adhd medication. Overdose, as in I took a higher dose than my brain could deal with. This occurred because, despite my repeated protests, the nurse who is employed by the ADHD private clinic that I am going through titration with, manipulated me into doing so, by giving me a no-win choice. Take the higher dose that I had already reported made me unwell, or try another drug, which would mean me suffering months of trials, under the dangerous supervision of this private clinic.
I took only one of the higher-strength tablets, an increase from 30mg to 40mg, but very soon I was feeling very depressed and afraid. I knew that I wouldn’t take any more from that moment. It has been 2 days since I took just 10mg extra of this drug. Make your own mind up about that.
Support for people with ADHD in Britain today, 2026, largely consists of poorly qualified staff run by equally poorly qualified people. They have almost no degree of care, instead robotically following scripts given to them by their bosses. You talk to them on a mobile phone, and have little access to them other than the day they ring you. This situation is happening because the Labour government are running the NHS down until they can fully privatise it. Support for autistic people is even worse. I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in 2019 and haven’t seen my GP to discuss it: 6 years, zero support. I’m 64 years of age.
People understandably don’t want to think about politics when they are ill and under pressure. The globalists know that if we are mistreated, we are less likely to challenge them. I know how hard life is for my neurodivergent brothers and sisters. And they must do what they feel is best for them. I am not an expert on anything. All I can do for myself is write because I am a writer and I suffer much more if I don’t express myself, and rage against the machine.
