Have you ever had what you thought was a promising relationship end prematurely only to realise afterwards how many things were just not quite right? I’m not talking about the things that would be considered objectively ‘wrong’, like disrespect, dishonesty and selfishness, but the things that are subjectively ‘wrong for you’.

My dating experiences by and large haven’t been in the heterosexual world so a lot of the dating advice predicated on gendered patterns doesn’t apply. Unlike straight women, I don’t need to look out for the constellation of behaviours that arise from male entitlement.

There’s a freedom that comes…

My life is a study in contrasts. I can hold my own in a meeting with senior managers discussing strategic policy but struggle to make a phone call to change a medical appointment. After a morning structuring my thoughts into a written submission, I head out to buy lunch and put a dint in the car as I back into a railing. …

We’ve all heard of Zoom Fatigue: I hear it’s one of Google’s most searched terms of 2020. But what does it actually mean?

For some, it gives expression to a general feeling of being over it. They’re sick of the restrictions the pandemic has imposed on their lives and worn down by the anxiety wrought by relentless uncertainty.

But Zoom fatigue also has a more specific meaning grounded in neuroscience. We feel exhausted because interacting with people through a screen demands a higher level of sensory processing than communicating face-to-face.

Difficulty with sensory processing is central to the experience of…

I can easily spend hours at a time in my kitchen. It’s where I gravitate to in my down-time; where I decompress, gather and ground myself. It’s where I can truly be me. When you’re a late-diagnosed autistic adult, this means having the space to give full expression to your unmasked autistic self. It’s recently occurred to me just how autistic I am in my kitchen.

It helps that I’m really into food and love to cook

Autistic people have a complex relationship with food due to the way our brains process sensory input. For some, this plays out in…

“I’m a bit ADHD,” she said, maybe twice, maybe three times. I didn’t put any more weight on it than if someone had said “I’m a bit OCD,” the way folks do. It wasn’t until she said, “No, I actually have ADHD” that it sank in.

I knew a bit about ADHD in children but it wasn’t on my radar for adults, much less one I was entering into a relationship with.

The relationship was at the wondrous getting to-know-you stage where I was hungry to learn about and embrace everything about her. It was all part of the rich…

I can’t help feeling wary when I hear a mother talking about their estranged child. I can’t help wondering what’s not being said: the child’s experience that is being erased; the role of the parent that is being overlooked.

I’m talking about adult children, and it’s the mother-daughter relationship that has particular resonance for me.

I know that there are women who have lost contact with their adult children who are not like my mother. Sometimes loving relationships fall apart under the strain of complex family dynamics. There are women who have turned themselves inside out trying to work out…

Margaret Court is a 78 year old Australian woman who played tennis for Australia between 1960 and 1977. She achieved a measure of success, having won a total of 64 major tennis titles. To put it in context, Serena Williams is the only one who has come close to nudging the record.

These days Margaret Court is much better known for public airings of anti- LGBTQ statements. We hear about her whenever a tennis event turns the spotlight on her character; on whether she should still be considered a “legend”. …

When I was a little girl of about three in the early 1970s, my mother took me to my first dancing class. Embarrassed by my total lack of co-ordination, she marched me out, never to return. I can’t remember what she said but my memory of how it felt is embedded on a cellular level. I have always been clumsy and I have always known it.

I excelled at some things at school but sport was not one of them. I’m still tormented by memories of missing the ball as I grasped for the air around it, twenty five sets…