Bendy Me

[davidgillon]

So, I spent a couple of hours this afternoon doing an interview (via email) for DiversifYA (a website that advocates for more diversity in YA fiction, one of the precursors to #WeNeedDiverseBooks) on living with HMS/EDS. It was intriguingly difficult to answer the 'What was it like growing up with HMS/EDS?' question as no one I knew had even heard of it at that point, and my bendiness didn't become noticeably disabling until 24/25-ish - I knew there was something going on, but never realised there was a disability (or three) lurking. I'm not sure it's actually possible to discuss the growing up experience without bringing in the dyspraxia and neurodiversity, as the bullying certainly didn't draw a distinction between them! But again, no one had heard of them at that point (late 60s to early 80s).

I'll post a link when it goes live.