I wrote a poem for the wonderful, and very necessary, Dx: Diagnosis and Writing website. Dx: Diagnosis and Writing seeks to publish a range of responses to the broad question: what has the experience of seeking, receiving or living with a diagnosis, medical or self-identified, meant for your writing practice, whether that be creative, academic, journalistic or other?
In response to this question, I began a process of erasing and restructuring an essay I wrote some years ago on the themes of motherhood, neurodiversity, diagnostic spaces and writing - turning the essay into a poem. My aim was to give these themes back the fluidity, ambivalence and uncertainty rightfully theirs (and mine) before I tamed them into an essay structure.
You can read the poem, and more about its creation, here
Image credit: Jeremy Simon