For those living in hypervigilant nervous systems, misreading social cues isn’t a flaw - it’s a survival response. Safe words can act as trauma-informed communication tools, interrupting emotional escalation and offering clear reassurance in moments of overwhelm. This critical review examines how pre-agreed safety signals can reduce dysregulation and build trust for neurodivergent people and survivors of complex PTSD.

Recovery wasn’t about forcing myself to stop my eating disorder or self-harm. It was about understanding what those behaviours were doing for me and building a life that replaced their role.

January nearly killed me.
For years, it was the most dangerous month of the year - fuelled by diet culture, productivity pressure, and the demand to reinvent myself instead of care for myself. This piece is about why January isn’t neutral, why survival years still count, and why I now do New Year differently - with compassion, honesty, and resistance instead of punishment.

Success is often judged by rules that are never taught.
This essay explores how ambiguity, unspoken expectations, and selective opportunity disproportionately harm neurodivergent people - and why transparency is essential for true inclusion.

An honest reflection on the long-term consequences of eating disorders - the kind that recovery doesn’t erase. A piece about regret, resilience, and what happens when your body remembers before you do.

Suicide isn’t always about wanting to die - sometimes it’s about not knowing how to live with the pain you’re in. In this deeply personal piece, I share my lived experience of suicidal ideation and the conversations we’re too afraid to have. This isn’t about blame - it’s about awareness, compassion, and changing the way we talk about suicide so that fewer people feel like silence is their only option.

Sometimes survival means walking away. Living with C-PTSD has taught me that stepping back isn’t weakness — it’s hope, it’s resilience, and it’s choosing life when the world says you’re too much or not enough.

Welcome to Legally Detained - a new space for unapologetic storytelling, creative activism, and survival turned into power. I’ll be sharing new reflections alongside some of my favourite past posts: raw, honest, and never watered down. If you’ve ever felt “too much” or “not enough,” this blog is for you.

First published in January 2024, “I don’t want to be included, I want true inclusion” became one of my most-read posts. It’s a raw reflection on what it really means to belong as an autistic person - not forced to conform, but valued for existing as we are.