Island in the Void

@islandinthevoid.bsky.social

Tottenham, board games, music, misery. These things describe my life.

Always wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower. Have been Disneyland Paris twice but never been into the city. This is our third Disney trip and I wasn’t going to miss the chance again. So here’s some pics of me, my brother, and my son 674 steps up enjoying a well earned beer and ice cream. Life is good.

Cannot stress enough how grateful I am for the life that I have, the people I have around me, and for the positive changes over the past 18 months or so. Life is way too short to be unhappy. You can't make things perfect, but you can make changes to move closer to it.

Remember Streeting's review into whether young people are being overdiagnosed with ADHD, autism, and mental health issues? Well, the interim report is out, and there's a reason the media are silent on it (spoiler: it proves what a lot of us have been saying all along)

In others, notably ADHD and autism, rising diagnoses and referrals appear to exceed changes in underlying epidemiological prevalence and are likely to reflect a combination of:

improved recognition
changing help-seeking behaviour
institutional incentives
pressures within existing service pathways
Across both ADHD and autism, best currently available population-based estimates remain relatively stable, while administrative diagnoses, self-identification and recorded service demand have increased substantially. In autism, the evidence also points to particularly rapid growth in identified need within educational systems, including increasing identification among girls and among young people without learning disability.These patterns suggest that rising demand is not simply the result of increasing prevalence, but of several processes operating simultaneously, including:

real increases in distress in some groups
improved recognition of previously unmet need
changing expectations about support
systems that frequently rely on formal diagnosis as the primary route to assistance
Across the system, support is too often accessed through pathways that are slow, fragmented and heavily dependent on diagnostic categorisation. While diagnosis remains essential for some forms of clinical decision-making, the evidence suggests that current arrangements do not always provide the most effective or efficient way of identifying and responding to need. In particular, where access to support depends heavily on formal diagnosis, demand for diagnostic assessment can increase more rapidly than systems are able to respond, generating long waiting times, duplication of assessment and pressure on specialist services.

The next phase of the review will therefore focus on clarifying the relationship between distress, diagnosis and need, and on examining how systems might respond more effectively to these patterns. A central objective will be to identify opportunities for developing more coherent, evidence-informed care pathways that enable support to be provided earlier and more proportionately, while ensuring that specialist services are available in a timely and appropriate manner for those whose needs are most complex.

Since beginning my ADHD medication in November one thing I have really noticed is an increase in my confidence, or rather a reduction in some of my introvert tendencies. I was always very averse to speaking with strangers or staff at a shop or cafe. I don't know if it's related or a coincidence.

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

Telegraph headiline:

"Heatwave hysterics wouldn't have lasted a day in 1976", overlaid with a bold “MONK DEBUNKED” stamp.

Container and Lost Ruins of Arnak last night with Dan and Jake. Jake won Container with a very large lead over Dan and I (Dan taking a very large risk late on that backfired). Dan won Arnak as the only player to reach the top of the research track, also grabbing one of the 11pt tiles #boardgames

BildBild

Earlier this year I was offered, and accepted, a job as a police constable. Later in the process my background checks got rejected and so I did not end up in the role. This morning I can really feel the positives to having been rejected.

Had such a busy day yesterday that I actually forgot what the date was. 16 years since I attempted to take my own life, and every year, month, week, and day is a reminder of how much I would have lost and missed out on. Life is hard, but the people around you are there to help lift the weight.

I've had a strained relationship with Tottenham the last couple of months. I still cannot support De Zerbi as manager, I still hate the ownership and management structure. I've only watched one game since he took charge, but there's no way I could miss today. Incredibly nervous. COYS

Stop blaming referees. Stop blaming other teams for fouls etc. this scenario is down to terrible management, terrible recruitment, horrific medical management, bad players, crap managers. The lack of spine in this team means Sunday has every chance to be an utter capitulation.

I respect democracy, and if that means parties and people win that we disagree with then we have to accept that. However it is our responsibility as a society to start calling shit out more, stop accepting the degradation of decency. We fucking do something or we are also to blame.

I feel like a ton of reform wins today could be a great result as people will get a chance to see how utterly, chaotically shambolic they are at actually doing anything. However this logic only works if people ever fucking learn from what they see. We might be doomed.