Alex: Issy Hamlett does the most incredible bird imitation that I’ve ever heard.

Issy: I go through times of like, mimicking sounds like it's called echolalia. For example, a seagull will chirp outside and I'll just go {squawk!} back to it. It's just so… it's so bizarre. I don't understand why I do it. It's just a form of communicating.

Alex: She sometimes does this other thing,, where she’ll chatter her teeth to a beat or song.

Issy: There was one particular time in my life where I couldn't stop doing it. It's the one where someone's on a horn and they go doo, doo, doo, England! And it was just one of those things where I just chatter my teeth to the tune because it was just like, yeah, I'm doing something and I'm grounding myself. That feels good.

Alex: The other thing you need to know about Issy is that she’s a proud obsessive.

Whether that’s with food …

Issy: absolutely obsessed with eating noodles, just plain noodles with broccoli

Alex: … textures …

Issy: the satisfying feeling of something being so soft and smooth

Alex: …or her beloved pet rabbit, Ripley.

Issy: She is a real big character and she'll grab the glasses off my face, and throw them off the sofa and launch them across the room.

Alex: But Issy’s eccentricities haven’t always been appreciated.

Issy has always had a big imagination. When she was around eight years old, she would tell this story about a three-wheeled clown car.

Issy: And it had these sunflowers that squirted water coming out the wing mirrors. It was brightly coloured and had reds and greens and yellows and purples, like all the colours of the rainbow on it.

Alex: The driver of this car … was part-man, part-wolf.

Issy: He wore high heels, and he wore a tuxedo jacket. And he had a top hat on. His face was human-like with wolf ears. He would drive around all day in his car. And he would beep at random people to come and join them on the weird car brigade. And all of these people, they made their own cars. Some people had big giraffe looking cars that are really tall, like something you'd see Jeremy Clarkson make on top gear. And then you know other cars had these weird spirals coming from them.

Alex: This troupe of zany cars would parade around the villages and towns of Issy’s imagination.

Issy: That is the epitome of my child brain, that things and thoughts and feelings would just come out in these extravagant ways. I would be so creative and be so… so strange in the way that I did things.

Alex: When she told her grandparents this story, they were in hysterics. They loved it.

It didn’t go down so well when she told it at primary school.

Issy: Children afterwards, would sort of… keep their distance from me.

Alex: It was around this time that Issy began to realise something,

Issy: I'm different to my friends, I think differently, I act differently.

Alex: She remembers one specific class, a citizenship lesson. Each of the kids had a piece of paper stuck to their backs.

Issy: And to build friendship with each other, we had to go round and write a name– a really nice friendly way of describing the person that the paper was on the back of.

And I remember pulling my piece of paper off my back and just looking at it. And all my friends had pretty, gorgeous, funny, friendly, really good person, really nice friend. And I was fully optimistic that other people would find me beautiful, they’d find me funny, they’d find me kind.

But all I remember being on there was… “bubbly”... “weird, but in a good way” – those exact phrases.

And, you know, it is a good thing to be weird. And it is a good thing to be strange. But at that point in time, I wanted so badly to be like everybody else. I wanted to feel the same way that everybody else did. I wanted to feel pretty, I wanted other people to tell me I was pretty. I wanted other children to tell me that I was a good friend. I wanted other people to tell me that I was cool. But I was always the friend that was, you know that oddball in the group.

Alex: This longing didn’t let up as Issy moved through her teenage years.

Issy: I wanted so badly to fit in. Because when people see that you're different and treat you differently, they make you feel like you don't belong to something, or you shouldn't be the way that you are.

Alex: At the same time, Issy refused to stop doing the things she loved. The things that made her unique. She trained with her local swimming club, took horse riding lessons….

Issy: I'd get involved in all the drama, and the dance competitions and all the drama clubs and stuff.

Alex: Sometimes she’d miss classes because she was rehearsing for a play.

Issy: I was so obsessed with performing and just being this big, exuberant character, that people didn't understand why I liked that so much.

Alex: In class she would make silly noises to make her friends laugh.

She was outspoken too – Issy made sure to speak up if any of her friends were being picked on.

Issy: And because of that, I made myself a target. People knew that they could tap into things that I was so insecure about.

Alex: The kids at school called Issy names. They would follow her home, spit at her shoes, and spread nasty rumours about her.

Issy: And I'd feel like such an outcast and an outsider, that I became so angry. I was riddled with wondering why me? Why do they treat me like this?

It was all of these things sort of mounted up to a massive pressure that I began to lose who I was. I began to act out and I began to be misbehaved, and I would push boundaries.

Alex: But people didn’t get why Issy was acting out. She says that’s a common misunderstanding of people who experience things differently.

Issy: There's a misconception that we do it because we want to be naughty, because we want to make other people feel bad and stuff like that. But we don't. We do it because we have no other way of communicating. We've tried to express how we feel through negative emotions through feeling sad and crying and being upset. But in the long scheme of things, it doesn't work and people don't recognise that the way we behave is because of how we feel.

Alex: Being repeatedly misunderstood … it was like being trapped.

Issy: We feel this tightening within ourselves and we feel like a fizzy bottle of coke that is being constantly shaken. Every single shake is a different experience that we have. Every single time that builds up and builds up and the pressure expands and expands. And then it bursts out and explodes into a behaviour that we can't control.

Alex: As Issy got older, it became less about wanting to fit in – – and more about wanting to be seen, heard, and accepted for who she is.

But sadly, it took a long time for that to happen. And the trauma that Issy had experienced growing up – began to affect her body.

Issy: At the age of 17, 18, I began to experience body and joint pain and extreme fatigue hypermobility in my joints, and began to progress stomach problems and migraines

Alex: Issy went to her GP, who referred her to various therapists and clinicians to talk through how she was feeling.

Issy: I experienced so much stigma. And I questioned whether or not I was just damaged and broken or whether I was actually making the right decision to talk about these things and open the conversation.

You know I'd experienced all these things, nobody was helping, nobody was helping me. And I felt so let down by so many different people that I didn't know what to do next. And it just got so… so much that I just thought, what is the point? What is the point?

Issy: I was in such a deep dark pit of depression that I was swamped in this just abyss of darkness. That just made me feel so incredibly pressured. And just the weight on my shoulders was so intense that I… did…. you know, the only way that I could cope with it was to hurt myself. And there was one point in time where I, I ended up in hospital because I overdosed.

Alex: What eventually helped,, was Issy’s passionate and slightly obsessive nature. She realised: knowledge is power.

Issy: And I began to research the ways in which different people with disabilities can be accepted and represented and included through theatre and performance. And this was such a powerful moment in time for me. I began to understand about the different disabilities that people have and it's not our individual condition, or impairment that makes us disabled but instead the society that surrounds us, and the way that society can restrict us from getting the things that we need.

Alex: Issy went back to her doctors, armed with information.

Issy: I used my own lived experience, to advocate for myself, to be powerful for myself, to go to the doctors and to provide a presentation, a list of things, look, I need you to investigate this, and I need you to look at this, you know, and it's not been easy. And it got to a point where these people were able to then listen to me and what I needed from them.

Alex: Issy was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

Issy: which is a chronic pain condition that is sort of characterised by the way that our nervous system reacts and adapts to different things. And one day, I can be experiencing such an immense amount of pain that I can't get out of bed, but the next day, I can be feeling better. You know I can feel good and I can get things done. But that's so dependent and it's so unpredictable.

And along with that comes me or my algae can suffer myelitis which is also called chronic fatigue syndrome. And that is developed from a disease or condition or event in life, sometimes trauma, that offsets the nervous system in the body. And it can mean that sometimes on some days my skin can be so sensitive, or on another day, I will just need to sleep the whole way through.

Alex: If Issy has a flare-up, she might have to cancel plans with family or friends. Or she can’t make it into work. And she’s faced discrmination because of that. Because people don’t understand her needs.

Issy: I've been in situations in previous job roles where I've been threatened with being sacked, because I needed a day off here and there, or I needed some reasonable adjustments to be put in place, for example, needing to sit down, or needing to have a check in with somebody just to let them know how I feel. And at that moment in time, you feel so lost, and you feel so… so vulnerable. And you feel like the power that you have as a person has been diminished by the things that we can’t help as people with disabilities.

Alex: Issy is currently on a waiting list to be assessed for ADHD and autism.

Issy: The fact that it's taken me to the age of 25, to be listened to and to be heard, isn't good enough. As a society, we need to be much more open to the possibility that people have these neuro-diversities. People have differences. And I know for myself that my journey has not been easy. And you know, I don't say this for anybody to feel pity or to feel sorry for me. Because that's not the point. We say this to raise awareness for the fact that although we have come such a long way, our society is still not fully accepting and inclusive of people who have protected characteristics.

Alex: Issy’s latest passion is making sure people who experience the world differently aren’t left out. That their opinions and needs and feelings are recognised.

Issy: I'm terribly, terribly obsessed with the subject of inclusion and diversities. And you know as a queer female, the subject of myself being included in so many different things.

Alex: Last Autumn, Issy was invited to an interview for a position as an equality diversity and inclusion assistant. She was nervous: her last employers hadn’t listened to her. Why would this job be any different?

In a plain white room, Issy sat in front of a panel of people, answering typical interview questions. Then came the curveball.

Issy: They said, What are you proud of? And I sat there, and I just cried. I said, I am just so proud of myself, that I have been able to ignore my inner saboteur and my inner demons. And that I've got myself to a position where I can be interviewed for a job role that I am desperate wanting to do, and a job where people are gonna listen to me. And I'm going to be able to impact other people's lives and make a difference and make a change.

Alex: The interviewers were listening to Issy really closely. They were making eye contact, nodding, taking notes.

Issy: They looked at me with so much… just, I can't describe the way that they made me feel. They made me feel so welcome. And they made me feel so good about myself. And they made me feel confident in what I was saying.

Alex: When the interview was over, Issy left the room. She walked out of the office and down to the nearby beach. She stood on the shoreline.

Issy: And I rang my partner to come and collect me and I sobbed. And I said, for the first time in my life, that is when somebody has made me feel so valued as a person, and so good, and listened to the passion that I had.

Alex: Less than an hour later, Issy’s phone rang. She got the job.

Alex: Issy’s experiences demonstrate that it’s sometimes the disabilities that are not recognised which cause the most stigma. Words such as “weird”, “different”, and “eccentric” can be used by others to describe those whose deepest desire is to fit in. It was clear as a child that Issy was different to many of her peers but she lacked support in understanding why. There was also no attempt made to accommodate her differences, leading her to feeling marginalised and isolated. It took an extremely dark moment for those around her to begin to take her situation seriously. And Issy has had to do much of the heavy-lifting in terms of working out her conditions and the best way for them to be managed. Now that she finally has a role in which people are willing to listen to her, let’s hope that the opportunity will be taken to learn from her story.