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About the AMHDM Series
The present series is one of the outcomes of a project organised by Early Career Researchers (ECRs) from EDIFY to showcase and reflect on science communication activities across a range of research programmes that were funded by the UKRI “Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind” (AMHDM) initiative. Having received an “Early Career Researchers – Networking and Knowledge Dissemination” award from UKRI, Dr Tine Opitz and her colleagues organised a mixture of training and networking activities to facilitate and enhance wider public impact from the AMHDM-funded programmes. The current article series is a collaborative project that allows ECRs and youth advisors from associated programmes to reflect on research processes, public engagement, as well as their roles and identities within their research environment.
Articles:
The Gold in the Cracks
I learned to live two lives before I learned much else. My mother had schizophrenia. I was a child and did not know what the word meant. What I knew was that some months she did not get out of bed, and I fed myself. My dad drank his sorrows away. I remember him coming home drunk, and my brothers and I learning to disappear. In that house, invisibility was how you stayed safe. That was the first life.
Manuel Gomez
6 hours ago6 min read
What Four Years of Research Taught Me About Treating Depression In Pregnancy
In November 2022, I took my first step into science as a full-time researcher. I had no idea then that the very first project I worked on would take nearly four years to reach publication. In this article, I will talk about what truly works to treat depression in pregnancy, and why I do this research. Depression in pregnancy, which is known as antenatal depression (AD), affects nearly 30% of pregnant women around the world.
What makes AD so important to treat is the negati
Riddhi Laijawala
3 days ago4 min read
Care-Experienced Young People Shaping Mental Health Research
This piece was written by researchers at University College London (Havovi Khareghat and Eva Sprecher) and lived-experience advisors (Clo H, Valerie, Ace Garmodon & Alfie-James Waring) from the ReThink programme. ReThink is a UKRI-funded research project that explored what makes a difference to the mental health of care-experienced young people (who have grown up in ‘state care’ e.g., foster care or children’s homes) moving through early and late adolescence.
Havovi Khareghat
4 days ago5 min read
Men’s Grooming and Mental Health: Why the Routine Matters
I'm Adam, a 28-year-old lad from Nottingham, and I'm the founder of Kick The Stigma — a male grooming brand on a mission to support men's mental health. That sentence probably sounds a bit unusual: a hair product brand and mental health support in the same breath. But stick with me, because the two are more connected than you might think. My journey didn’t start with products. Growing up, I was fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of love, joy and support.
Adam Hyland
5 days ago6 min read
Weathering the Storm of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
“Drama Queen” “Forever a victim”“She’s doing the ‘woe is me’ act again”
“She’s having another hissy fit." These were just some of the things I grew up hearing about myself – and continue to. In hindsight, remarks like these were thinly veiled commentary that people saw me as too sensitive, too emotional, too moody - and too easily hurt by the things they did or said.
Emma Green
6 days ago5 min read
The Invisible Challenge of Cystic Fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis is a rare, autosomal recessive genetic disorder caused by mutations in the CFTR (Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator) gene, located on one of the 22 pairs of non-sex chromosomes. An affected child inherits two mutated copies of the gene, one from each parent, who possess only a single defective copy and are asymptomatic “healthy carriers”.
Giovanna Zerial
Aug 175 min read
The Long Way Home
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey contains all the elements of an epic: gods, monsters, storms, shipwrecks and spectacular battles. Yet the part that stayed with me was much quieter. It was Odysseus’s growing recognition that victory in war may be an illusion, and that even a victorious soldier can return carrying profound psychological wounds. Matt Damon’s Odysseus is celebrated as the brilliant strategist who conceived the Trojan Horse and brought a ten-year war to an end.
Tony Woods
Aug 146 min read
Is it the End of the Bad Boy?
Take one look at me, and you can probably tell I had an emo phase (“it was never a phase mom”).
To this day, I’m still allergic to wearing colour and can be found listening to the 2000s emo and pop punk bands that brought me comfort in my teens. But, at this point, I’m starting to run out of bands to listen to that haven’t had serious allegations made against them. I’m only 30, but so much has progressed since my school days - gay marriage has been legalised, Black Lives Ma
Niamh Alford
Aug 135 min read
The Curse of Being a Lover Girl: The Fantasy of Being Chosen
Before many women even know who they are, they already know what it feels like to long for love. Girls grow up consuming love stories long before they ever experience love itself. Five-year-old me already dreamed about my future wedding and the white princess dress I would wear. Many of us spent our early teens creating Pinterest wedding boards, singing along to Taylor Swift heartbreak anthems, watching Snow White and Aurora being kissed awake by their true love, and imaginin
Caroline Lackner
Aug 125 min read
Discovering the “I” in Impact
“If you’ve spoken to me for even 5 minutes, you know I stammer. What you don’t know, unless you stammer too, is what I’ve undergone in the 5 decades I’ve been a stammerer”. This was how I started the message I sent to friends and family when sharing my recent ITM article, Stammering: An Invisible Handicap. In the piece, I shared my lifelong experience as a stammerer and spoke about ways in which those who stammer can be treated with more acceptance and compassion.
Manan Dhuldhoya
Aug 115 min read
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