This Voice is Mine: the Unquiet Podcast

Ruby describes herself first and foremost as the little sister of her big brother Ewan, who is profoundly autistic, non-speaking, and has a severe learning disability. In this episode of *This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast*, Ruby joins Dr Emma Offord to talk about a devotion that has shaped her whole life, and a system that has repeatedly let her family down.

Ruby shares what it meant to lose her closest companion to residential school at seven, to learn to be let down, and to live inside a hypervigilance that never really switches off. She speaks with rare honesty about the 454 days Ewan spent in a psychiatric hospital, the fight to bring him home, and finding her own identity beyond being his shadow.

This is a conversation about love that carries fear, and fear that never once looks like resentment. A story for anyone who has ever had to hold two things true at once.

Follow Ruby on [her Instagram account here](https://www.instagram.com/ewenandme/).Find out more at divergentlife.co.uk. This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast.

James Hunt, founder of the Stories About Autism community and SAA Clothing, and author of Love Needs No Words, joins Dr Emma Offord for a tender conversation about fatherhood, communication and connection. James is dad to Jude, 18, and Tommy, 15, both autistic, non-speaking and living with global developmental delay. He shares how one Facebook post grew into a community of hundreds of thousands, and how his family have found ways to communicate without spoken words, from eyes and body language to AAC devices and, more recently, nightly text messages with Tommy. Together, James and Emma talk about Jude turning 18, the fear and hope of watching him grow more independent, living with the uncertainty of Tommy's tics, and the small sensory rituals that keep James grounded. Honest, warm and full of heart.

Follow James on Instagram @storiesaboutautism.
Find out more at divergentlife.co.uk.
This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast.

In this episode of This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast, Dr Emma Offord sits down with DL Clinical Psychologist Ashlyn Firkins, an HCPC registered assessor with over a decade of experience across NHS and private practice. Ashlyn was diagnosed dyslexic in childhood, an experience that shaped how she sees the world and, later, how she came to understand her son Ted, diagnosed autistic at three. She talks candidly about being a late bloomer, holding two sides of herself (the perfectionist and the playful, spontaneous one), and the long, uncertain wait for a diagnosis. She shares what changed when she stopped searching for answers in a textbook and started following Ted's lead instead, and the values-led practices that help her show up for him on the hardest days. This is a moving, honest conversation about resilience, grief and learning to truly see your child.

Follow Ashlyn: @an.autism.care.space
Listen and follow: divergentlife.co.uk
This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast.

Rachel Clark was seventeen when she wrote her debut book, How to Save Your Own Life. In this episode of This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast, Rachel talks to Dr Emma Offord about growing up as an undiagnosed autistic girl, the years she spent internalising difference as personal failure, and the eating disorder that became the only way she felt she could be heard. Rachel speaks openly about situational mutism, about a treatment system that wasn't built for her brain, and about the nurse who gave her hope when nothing else could. She shares how a late autism identification became a turning point rather than a complication, and why she now believes there is no such thing as too complex, only someone who hasn't yet been properly understood. A conversation about survival, identity and the hope that makes recovery possible.

Follow Rachel on Instagram @rachelc1ark 

This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast, from Divergent Lives.

In this episode of This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast, Dr Emma Offord talks with Linsey Biggs, full-time parent carer to three and the voice behind Unschooling Stanley, about the years that led her to take her eldest son out of school entirely.

Linsey describes watching her son's distress build until it became impossible to ignore, and the moment she finally trusted what he was telling her over what the school system kept insisting. She talks about recognising her own ADHD and school trauma through his journey, the judgement that came with choosing a different path, and what eight years of unschooling has taught her about trusting children as whole people, not projects to manage.

A raw, grounded conversation about crisis, recovery, and what becomes possible when you stop pushing a child to fit a system that was never built for them.

Follow Linsey: @unschoolingstanley (https://www.instagram.com/unschoolingstanley/)
Divergent Lives: divergentlife.co.uk
This Voice Is Mine: The Unquiet Podcast