It's The End of Marriage As We Know It: On Polygamy
I broke myself, I closed off, dissociating, derealizing, depersonalizing, putting every feeling in a neat little box and slamming closed the lids. I could not just not feel toward a single person, or several, I had to form disjunction after disjunction in my capacity to feel such ways at all. It is no surprise to me now that in my worst depressive states I admitted to my partner that I did not love them. How could I? I loved no one, by necessity. To play the role of monogamist I had to abandon the pretense of monogamy as growth of purest love.
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Don’t Bash the Beeb — Just Take a Closer Look
This year, the BBC celebrates 100 years of broadcasting, and those who regularly watch its TV channels will notice the recent ‘This is our BBC’ idents, where clips of programmes have been edited to create a narrative around the importance of the BBC, featuring greats such as David Attenborough, Lenny Henry and Judi Dench. On the surface, it may look like a way to tug on the heartstrings and appeal to nostalgia, but there is a subtle change of tone with the line ‘But the BBC doesn’t have to be here, it only exists if we really believe it matters’. We’ll come back to that.
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Are Schools' and Universities' Mental Health Services Adequate?
For several years now, governments in various corners of the UK have been gradually recognising the influence on young people’s mental health of schools/ universities–for better or worse. And it is worth noting, too, that they have a duty of care in common law to their students – both educationally and pastorally, to protect their students’ health, safety and welfare.
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The Rise of the Content Creator - I Miss The Innocent Days of Zoella
Youtubers were a new and exciting type of celebrity. It felt as though they were real people with relatable lives. Youtube was how I learned to apply foundation and understood what a skincare routine was. Some of the earliest videos were filmed on grainy webcams and the soundtrack was twinkly royalty-free music.
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Together Forever: "Here Are Your Photos From One Year Ago Today"....
Just imagine you come out of a long relationship, so you have tons and megatons of pictures of your ex on your phone…the chances of seeing their face whenever you go left from your home-screen are pretty damn high. Sure, sometimes it helps you relive the highs of June 2019… but it also helps you relive the bad times. The very, very bad times.
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The 'Columbus' Compliment: “Has Nobody Ever Told You You’re Beautiful?”
I’m sure I speak for many people when I say that it can feel fantastic to receive a compliment – both within the first (and hopefully, continual) steps of the ritual that is dating, and as part of everyday life. Paying compliments, too, can feel just as nice.
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Scarborough Fair and the Oral Tradition
How can we imagine so much about the past? The answer is simple: through the stories left behind for us. Both ‘The Elfin Knight’ and ‘Scarborough Fair’ tell the story of a woman who’s about to marry a mysterious man. The wedding doesn’t have to go ahead – but only if she completes certain impossible tasks. The situation sounds hopeless.
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Unsent Letters To My Exes
If only being someone’s muse was enough. The best of friends. For seven years I held your hand like it was almost my own. Your superb kindness and loyalty was like a chain around my neck. I stayed because the thought of leaving your beautiful soul hurt me too much. How selfish of me. You deserved better than that. You should have had someone in your bed that ran like a horny badger in the night to get to your body. But really, I was stuck, my cartoon addictions and inability to say ‘I don’t think this is working’ was toxic. I didn’t like how I spoke to you. I didn’t like how I was with you. I didn’t like how I needed to drink wine every day. I didn’t like that I wanted to leave when I was sat next to you. I didn’t like that I had already left.
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Woke History: Impartiality IS Political
The problem with trying to pretend that history was neutral, something that happened without deliberate political choices, is that history happened to real people. Africans were enslaved. Jews were murdered on a horrific scale. Women were assaulted and raped. Precious objects were looted and stolen from where they were created and displayed as exotic things thousands of miles away.
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Human Rights Act: How the Government's Plans for Reform Might Affect Us
The Human Rights Act passed in 1998 as an assurance that all people in the UK would be treated with dignity, equality, respect, and fairness under all public authorities. Using this as a frame of reference, the act has been an invaluable source of protection for people in the UK at their most vulnerable, ensuring individual freedoms and their welfare. In the last few months, these rights have come under attack.
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Stay In Your Lane: Why Kirstie Allsopp Probably Won’t Be Moving Up North
“Are you still watching?” Or are you shattering all your dreams of ever owning a home and would you be better off staring at a blank TV screen and listening to the sound of that extra £5.99 a month lining your pocket, bringing you one step closer to the first rung of the housing ladder?
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Boris & His Last Ditch Attempt at Popularity: Calling The End of Isolating
Johnson’s pie-in-the-sky promise of making Covid-19 untransmissible – at least that’s what I’m assuming he means by declaring that there is no need to isolate even when you are infected and infectious – is a last-ditch attempt to maintain that bump of popularity.
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Single Shaming - At What Point Can You Tell Your Nan To F*ck Off?
And they lived happily ever after…
From the day we are born, we are surrounded by the idea of love, from Prince Charming on horseback to Grandad gently placing a cup of tea next to Grandma as she watches Strictly.
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Healthcare is a Feminist Issue
Since the start of the pandemic many people have experienced a worsening of their mental health. Factors such as social isolation, a loss of support and stress at work impacted the young and the elderly alike. During this time healthcare workers experienced a high level of anxiety and stress at work and reported lower levels of wellbeing. According to research published by the University of Sheffield in 2021, distress was especially felt by nurses and female healthcare workers.
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Navigating the Other: The Cliches of Motherly Grief
Growing up as, and forever being, a girl-without-mother has become somewhat a defining character trait. This trait is malleable, and has morphed over time to represent, and be represented by, different things.
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The Mental Health Crisis in Midwifery and Medicine
The world of medicine is a demanding career for even the most intelligent and driven people. Long hours, little to no breaks from study and the pressure to keep up with the workload of a professional has created some very unhappy students.
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Dating Apps: Burning Society One Swipe At a Time
As like most people, I have tried some of the most popular dating apps there are and my honest opinion is that it is a waste of time that’s fulfilled by sucking people in with hope. I
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Self-Care Is A Product - So Is It Only For The Rich?
I’m not going to dispute that these items and activities don’t work for people but why have we accepted that self-care is something we can buy when, in essence, it shouldn’t be a necessity? And if self-care can be bought, who gets to be the customer?
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Things I Wish I'd Known in my Twenties
I shall attempt to advise my 20-year-old self, but it’s hard because I’m not entirely sure she wasn’t a bit of a dickhead. So, that’s the first thing I’d say: If you can look back every 5 years and think, “God, I was an idiot, wasn’t I?”, then you’re making progress.
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How To Be a Half-Decent Human Without Being Insufferable: A Guide.
Earlier that day, I’d gotten into a bit of a heated debate with a classmate. Looking back, I can’t even remember what on. I’ve always felt an intense need to be a good person and felt equally as intense guilt any time I thought I wasn’t being up to scratch. One of the ways this manifested itself was in me keeping exhaustingly up to date with any matter of social justice.
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