22/01/2026
Today I wanted to share something hopeful.
After a very long, very exhausting, 2yr road, my TPD claim has been approved. I’m sharing this not to celebrate money, but to acknowledge recognition. Someone finally looked at my medical history, my functional capacity, and the reality of living with POTS and Long COVID, and said yes, this is real, this is permanent, and this person deserves support.
For years many of us have lived in limbo. Too sick to work. Too “functional” to be believed. Explaining ourselves over and over while our bodies keep changing the rules. This outcome felt like validation after a lot of invisible suffering.
If you are in the middle of assessments, applications, or feeling like you are screaming into the void, please know this. These conditions are being recognised. Slowly, imperfectly, but genuinely. The medical evidence is catching up to lived experience.
I am deeply grateful to my fiance and carer, my incredibly supportive family an friends, my specialists and my GP, who supported me when I could barely advocate for myself. This decision has given me something I haven’t had in a long time. Breathing room. Safety. A sense that my future is allowed to exist again.
If you are walking this road too, please don’t give up. Your symptoms are real. Your limitations are real. And your life still has value, even if it looks nothing like you planned.
Holding hope for all of us.
In love and spoons xx
