Believing in Different

A Note to Our Community

To our valued families and supporters,

You might have noticed that our organisation isn't as active on social media as others. We've made a conscious choice to be less present here because we've found that for many of our families, who are navigating complex and often traumatic situations, social media isn't always a safe space.

We believe it's more important than ever to protect the well-being of the people we support. Our highest priority is creating a trusted and secure environment where you can get the help you need without the pressure and public scrutiny that can come with these platforms.

We're still very much here for you, and we'd love to connect in a more meaningful way.

* From January 2026 we will be publishing a monthly newsletter filled with valuable resources, updates, and helpful guidance, all delivered directly to your inbox. You can sign up for it on our website https://www.believingindifferent.org/reflections

* You can also reach us via our website or by emailing us directly at [email protected]. These channels allow us to offer a more personal and secure space to communicate.

* Please know that while we're not always posting publicly, we do monitor our direct messages here, so you can always send us a private message, it will just take us a bit longer to respond.

Thank you for understanding and for being a part of our community.

Believing in Different

Image Description: A glass ball being held in front of some bare trees with the light of sunset coming from behind it. The reflection in the ball is upside down.

Image Credit: Yeshi Kangrang Unsplash

This has been a work in progress since last summer and a definite labour of love - but it's finally here 💜

Check out our new website at www.believingindifferent.org and let us know what you think ☺️

- hope -

As many of you will know, I am mum to a young neurodivergent young person whose experience of attempting to attend early years settings has left him with significant trauma and very high levels of anxiety. He's been unable to leave the house for year, and unable to have me leave it either.

This has meant that other than 'urgent' one off appointments - vet, medical, funerals and the occasional dog walk - I have not left our house for a year either. I have shifted to working fully online, and haven't been in a shop, pub, restaurant or any other place for all that time too.

On Thursday (bizarrely a year to the day since the last time I was able to leave the house for anything other than urgent appointments) my young person was OK with me leaving the house for a short period of time, while they stayed at home with their dad.

I wanted to share this because I know there were times in the last year that it didn't seem possible that I might leave the house again. There are times when other people's voices made me question what I was doing; leaving me thinking that by staying home when my young person needed me was making it worse.

It didn't make it worse. It made it possible. Trusting my young person to recover in the way they needed to has made recovery possible.

Giving in and practicing radical acceptance is a show of strength, not a failing or a weakness.

I will be forever grateful to the wonderful individual who wholly validated my actions, and encouraged me to trust my gut, and my young person, above all else.

We're not there yet. We're on a long journey. It may be some time before I can leave again. But I did leave, and that's important. He got there on his own, when he was ready - as he has and will with everything else too.

All we need to do is facilitate it 💜

Image Description: A single, fragile, delicate red flower growing upwards against a background of other unflowered stems, with a background of light blue cloud.

Image Credit: Raquel Raclette Unsplash

- confused -

I've seen quite a few references in the last week to people offering webinars and the like on the "advantages and disadvantages" of EOTAS.

EOTAS isn't a pick n mix selection box. You don't "choose" to do it - weighing up the pros and cons. It's what happens when nothing else works - when you have no other choice because continuing on with how things are will mean the systematic traumatisation of your young person.

Every family I work with who has EOTAS is supporting a young person with extremely complex needs that cannot be met in a setting, all of whom also presenting with complex and debilitating mental health needs. Yes - it's hard - but the alternative is unthinkable.

To frame it this way - as a choice - plays straight into the hands of Local Authorities. It supports their narrative - that those of us needing EOTAS are just parents who WANT our children not to be in school.

It's incredibly irresponsible, and only goes to further complicate the situations of those who are desperately trying to prove that this is their young persons only option.

Please, think before you speak.

Lives are quite literally in the balance 💜

Been MIA on here for a few weeks.

I am really working on trying to practice what I preach so to speak - and so dropped the social media ball in order to keep my other priorities in the air.

We are super small - as you know - and super dedicated to doing the best we can, and getting the best outcomes we can, for everyone we work with, and inevitably that means that we sometimes can't do it all.

As often comes up with the families and young people we work with - it's totally OK (and actually very healthy) to know your boundaries and your limits and to step out for a bit when you need to. It protects your mental health and is a great example of energy accounting.

It also helps show our young people that we aren't perfect either - and that they don't need to be perfect to be acceptable or healthy or loved.

Things have calmed down a little here - so hopefully we'll be back to posting more regularly - but please keep expecting some turbulence as we travel through our different seasons and balance things out as we adjust 💜



Image Credit: Jack Deng

Image Description: Aerial view of a rocky canyon with a fast-flowing blue-green river cascading through it. The river is framed by smooth, white and grey boulders, creating a striking contrast with the vibrant water. The surrounding rocks have rugged textures, enhancing the dynamic scene.

Our young people tend to move in cycles (in reality we all do, but that's another story).

Like the waves crashing on the shore, the effort of moving forwards inevitably also leads to some backwards motion. Neurodevelopmentally foundational, it's the same framework that operates during the so-called “sleep regressions” our young people experience as babies. Monumental developmental and neurological progress is inevitably accompanied by some kind of interrupted development elsewhere - in this example in their sleep.

These things can’t be fixed and they don't need to be - whatever people might well-meaningly advise you. They are just seasons to be moved through.

It can be so scary. Witnessing your young person not being able to do something they did before, watching them as they "appear to" lose skills.

Those skills aren’t gone. They are still there. Your young person just needs a moment; to breathe, to recalibrate. To make sense of the world again in line with the progress they are making elsewhere; the sense of self they are developing or the new skill they are exploring.

That process will be worked through naturally accompanied by love, connection, understanding and patience. It will stall if we try to fix it with fear or pressure or rigidity or pace. Even dogged determination.

It’s a big part of why the school system isn’t likely to work for our young people. Our young people need time to work through these seasons with a huge amount of flexibility to just breathe, recalibrate, and be - exactly as they are.

Our role is to accept the rhythm. Be at peace with the process. Watch the season pass.

Allowing our young people to be and trusting that they are unfolding, in exactly the way they need to and enjoying the peace that comes with it.



Image Credit: Sebastien Gabriel @ Unsplash

Image Description: A photograph of the sun setting over the sea. Waves are coming in and out across the sand.

- intensity, completion, balance, connection -

Full Moon: Harvest Moon

Rising in Pisces
- Empathy & Imagination

✨🌕✨

ImageCredit:

Image Description: A large white moon over a still ocean, with stars across the moon and behind it in the sky. Digitally created with a purple, blue and turquoise wash background.

- who we are -



A little shout out to our very own super talented and supportive indie artist maker.

From creating our logos to illustrating our posts and being a general all round cheerleader on all fronts we are super grateful to for everything they are doing behind the scenes as part of and 💜



Image Description: Fabled Illuminations Logo with blue and turquoise letters, squiggles and dots on a black background.

Image Credit:

- radical acceptance -

I got caught in the rain walking the dog the other day. Only a tiny little bit of drizzle on a warm enough day and it reminded me of a time when we were living in China. We used to ride these little scooters around from work to home and home to work. They were our little piece of freedom and independence there.

There was this one time quite near the end of us being there, and it was hot and humid in the summer, and there was this massive thunderstorm. It was literally hammering it down the rain, and I needed to ride the scooter home from work so I got out this plasticky poncho thing and started putting jt on, and I was just like, "What am I doing?"

Like, those things are so sweaty and, like, sticky - generally unsensory friendly. And I just made the decision in that moment to stop myself, thought f*ck it and put it back under my seat.

I rode home in the rain, on an open scooter and was only wearing, like a little summer dress. Rode home through that pouring down rain, and I'll never forget that experience. The xcceptance of it, and it being just what I needed at the time.

Remembering that got me to thinking about radical acceptance. And you know, sometimes when we're trying to change things, or trying to, like, get things to happen in the way we think they should happen, or not even what we think, but what everybody else thinks should happen. It's like trying to get on that stuffy, sticky poncho that is the most uncomfortable thing ever. Just uncomfortable to wear. Sticky, it's hot, it's just all of the things. And actually just taking it off, allowing yourself to get wet, allows you to be in that present moment and just accept what's happening and be at one with what's going on in a very natural, deep way. And honestly, riding that scooter home in the rain is such a powerful memory of mine. Not fighting it, going with it, and enjoying it for what it is. It's freeing 💜



Image Credit: Max Bender @ Unsplash

Image Description: Blue, purple, pink and golden lights seen through glass spotted with rain drops.

- trigger warning: su***de, self harm & suicidal ideation -

I'm writing this post today as someone whose life has been profoundly impacted by su***de.

I find days like today a bit gimmicky if I'm honest, but the work that I do leads me down the same roads over and over, so I feel compelled to speak on it.

I am involved in young people's lives at almost every stage and age. I see the different tracks they've taken, or are in the process of taking, and simultaneously where those paths might lead. Its like seeing into the future and into the past all at the same time. It gives me hope, and it can also be terrifying.

For our neurodivergent young people especially, the stakes are so high.

I've seen it first hand. I've been in rooms with young people who have told me how they have planned to die by su***de. I've sat with young people who have told me they don't want to be alive anymore. I've held stories young people have told me about the ways in which they do harm to themselves.

As parents and caregivers who adopt a neuroaffirming and trauma responsive stance, we are so often told we are the problem. That it's our fault. That our kids just need to learn to fit in. We need to make them be like the others, train them even to be like the others.

They won't be able to survive unless we do.

The truth is they may struggle to survive precisely because we do.

What we are expecting of all young people, not just neurodivergent young people, is so often far beyond what they are biologically and neurologically capable of. To make matters worse, we've somehow ended up in this entirely bizarre societal norm whereby advocating for our young people is immediately perceived as being neurotic, where protecting them is automatically perceived as harming them. Where to do the right thing you have to be OK with everyone thinking you are doing the wrong thing.

As a parent or caregiver, its isolating, lonely and gaslighting.

As a young person, the stakes have never been higher.

***depreventionday ***deloss

- rest, reflect, recharge, recover -

New Moon: Harvest Moon

Key Themes
- reaping benefits of your efforts this year
- taking stock ahead of Winter

✨🌑✨

Image Credit:

Image Description: A night scene illustration features a star-filled sky with various constellations. A tent stands by a campfire along a winding path, surrounded by pine trees and shrubs. The background shifts from deep purple to blue, creating a serene feeling.