Blog

I'm a 4th year medical student at Cardiff University. I'm currently taking time out from my course after being diagnosed with OCD. In the third and fourth years of our medical degrees, we get a chance to do something outside the course. I didn’t want to be stuck in a lab or reading hundreds of research studies. So I thought of a way to combine my passions of psychiatry and filmmaking into an end of year project.

"Males are at least two times more likely than females to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs)” says Dr William Davies, Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University's MRC Centre. But why?

Low mood and anxiety are something we all experience at various points in our lives. And the enormous changes that occur on becoming a new parent means it is a time when these symptoms are particularly common. Dealing with these issues is an important part of caring for new mothers and mothers-to-be. But we need to be wary of turning normal human emotions and experiences into medical diagnoses.

When first moving away I was terrified, convinced that there was no way an idiotic little girl such as me could survive. Now, when I talk openly with others, have a good time, and find myself coping more and more every day, I know that I was wrong.

We’ve barely made it into 2017, and you may have heard the heralding cries of newly accredited gym bunnies in their pursuit of the ‘summer bod’. The media is saturated with the image of airbrushed men and women with the perfect weight and shape, and having a knock on effect upon young people in particular. It is estimated that 1.6 million people in the UK are affected by an eating disorder, making it one of the most relevant issues in our society today.

We were privileged to meet author and ex-police officer Matt Johnson to find out more about his experiences of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and his journey to becoming one of the most highly rated new crime writers of 2016. This is his story: