Kimberley Nixon feels 'lighter' after ADHD and autism diagnosis

A Welsh actress says a "huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders" after being diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Kimberley Nixon, star of Channel 4's Fresh Meat, developed perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), after giving birth to her son during the 2020 pandemic.She said her worries about her baby's well-being escalated into intense anxiety, with symptoms lasting around two and a half years. As she began to recover, other lifelong patterns started to make sense, prompting her to seek a diagnosis.
Following a series of in-depth assessments and standard diagnostic tests, she was formally diagnosed with autism and ADHD on Wednesday.In an interview with BBC Radio Wales, Nixon told presenter Behnaz Akhgar: "We all know what the NHS is like when it comes to waiting lists, so it's taken a while. "The assessments are incredibly thorough - they dig into every little nook and cranny of your life and your past."The actress, from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, known for her roles in Wild Child and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, said she now feels "lighter" and is "kinder" to herself, which she described as "really lovely."Reflecting on the diagnosis, she said: "It's that square peg in a round hole feeling. "I've realised it's not that my brain is wrong - it's just different. "I don't process or interpret things the same way others do. "That always felt like a problem. "But now, it just feels like a difference."
Nixon also spoke about her experience of being diagnosed with perinatal OCD, which is when you experience OCD during pregnancy or in the first year after giving birth.OCD is a mental health condition characterised by intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours.After years of IVF, she gave birth to her son during the 2020 pandemic, which she described as the "big catalyst" for her struggles."I went through a really tough time postpartum," she said. "Eventually, I was diagnosed with perinatal OCD - which I didn't even know was a thing. "Once you start looking into it, you realise it's actually quite common."Nixon said the condition did not present in the typical ways people associate with OCD. "I'm not a neat freak, I don't tick the usual boxes - but with perinatal OCD, I absolutely did," she said. "It involved really distressing intrusive thoughts, repetitive thinking, and punishing compulsions - just to relieve the anxiety."Last year, she told BBC Radio Wales' Books That Made Me with Lucy Owen: "I was just convinced that I wasn't doing things right. "I wasn't feeding him right. What temperature is he supposed to be?"Every time he cried I was just sort of shaking - I just got really hyper vigilant and terrified."Since learning more about the condition, Nixon has made it a priority to speak openly about it, saying it's "not as widely recognised as postnatal depression".
In Thursday's interview, Nixon also spoke about her latest role in the ITV series Shardlake. She plays the character Joan in the four-part drama, which is based on CJ Sansom's historical mystery novels.The first season adapts the book Dissolution. The story follows lawyer Matthew Shardlake as he investigates a murder at a remote monastery during the reign of Henry VIII.Nixon, a graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, said the series was filmed in Budapest and it felt like "a little Hungarian Welsh college reunion", as fellow cast members Arthur Hughes and Anthony Boyle also trained at the same institution.

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MPs back legalising assisted dying in England and Wales after historic Commons vote

MPs have voted to approve a historic bill that would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. After months of deliberation, the bill - which would give some terminally ill adults the right to end their lives - was approved by 314 votes to 291 - a majority of 23. The controversial legislation passed its third reading in the Commons and will now go to the House of Lords, where it will face further scrutiny. Speaking ahead of the vote, the bill's proponent, the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, said she was "confident" the bill would pass, despite the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Physicians all raising concerns about the proposals. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its first parliamentary hurdle in November by a majority of 55 votes. It would allow terminally ill adults with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. MPs have brought about historic societal change A chain of events that started with the brutal murder of an MP almost 10 years ago has today lead to historic societal change. The like of which many of us will never see again. Assisted Dying will be legalised in England and Wales. In four years' time adults with six months or less to live and who can prove their mental capacity will be allowed to choose to die. Kim Leadbeater, the MP who has made this possible, never held political aspirations. Previously a lecturer in health, Ms Leadbeater reluctantly stood for election after her sister Jo Cox was fatally stabbed and shot to death in a politically motivated attack in 2016. And this is when, Ms Leadbeater says, she was forced to engage with the assisted dying debate. Because of the sheer volume of correspondence from constituents asking her to champion the cause. Polls have consistently shown some 70% of people support assisted dying. And ultimately it is this seismic shift in public opinion that has carried the now follows Canada, the USA, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Australia. All countries with sophisticated health systems. Nowhere has assisted dying been reversed, once introduced. The relationship between doctor and patient will now also change. The question is being asked: Is an assisted death a treatment? There is no decisive answer. But it is a conversation that will now take place. The final answer could have significant consequences, especially in mental health settings. There are still many unknowns. Who will be responsible for providing the service? The NHS? There is a strong emotional connection to the health service and many would oppose the move. But others will argue that patients trust the institution and would want to die in its arms. The challenge for health leaders will be to try and reconcile the bitter divisions that now exist within the medical community. The Royal Colleges have tried to remain neutral on the issue but continued to challenge Ms Leadbeater until the very end. Their arguments of a failure of safeguards and scrutiny did not resonate with MPs. And nor did concerns over the further erosion of palliative care. Ms Leadbeater's much repeated insistence that "this is the most scrutinized legislation anywhere in the world" carried the most weight. Her argument that patients should not have to fear prolonged, agonising deaths or plan trips to a Dignitas clinic to die scared and alone, or be forced to take their own lives and have their bodies discovered by sons, daughters, husbands and wives because they could not endure the pain any longer was compelling. The country believed her. Since then, it has undergone some significant changes - the most notable being the requirement for a High Court judge to approve assisted dying applications, which was replaced by the expert panel. Please refresh the page for the latest version.

BBC News

42 minutes ago

• BBC News

Assisted dying bill: what happens next?

The draft law that would legalise assisted dying in some circumstances in England and Wales has cleared all of its initial stages in the House of voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in principle back in November by a majority of after many hours of sometimes fractious debate about the details of the bill, it has been passed by 314 votes to 291, a majority of 23. But that does not mean it will immediately become now has to go through all the stages it went through in the Commons in the House of Lords - and then MPs will get a final say when they have looked at any changes suggested by peers. This is the point the bill will officially become law - unless it runs out of Parliamentary time or peers opposed to it find a way of blocking it. Will peers vote in favour of the bill? Like MPs, peers will get a free vote, meaning they are allowed to follow their conscience rather than orders from party BBC understands supporters of the bill feel there's a majority in favour in the Lords. But until peers actually vote, that's just an informed is certain that the many experts on the Lords benches, which includes doctors, lawyers, disability rights activists and Bishops, will want to have their say on it - both for and against. Could peers block the bill altogether? The House of Lords does not normally block government bills from becoming law - but assisted dying is not a government is a private members' bill, sponsored by a backbench Labour MP, Kim Leadbeater. The government is officially neutral on the bill, although it will try to ensure Parliamentary time is made available to debate Falconer, a long time campaigner for assisted dying who was justice secretary under Tony Blair, is hoping to shepherd the bill through the says he is sure peers will "respect the views taken by the Commons on this"."Ultimately it is for the Commons to decide on whether we should have an assisted dying law, and what its shape will be," he told a press conference on Thursday. "And we in the Lords will do what we do best, which is scrutinise the details, but leave the main decisions to the Commons."Baroness Finlay, who is a palliative care doctor and who is against the Bill, told the BBC that "our role is not to rubber stamp whatever has happened in the Commons, particularly when we know that so many amendments put down in the Commons that would have improved the Bill have gone undebated." Could the bill run out of time? One of the biggest worries, for supporters of assisted dying, is that the Bill could run out of time is divided into what are known as sessions. These tend to be around a year long - although this can vary greatly. Bills generally have to complete all their stages within one session. Government bills can be "carried over" to a second session, but because the assisted dying bill is a private members' bill it can't bill took almost seven months from its first debate to completing its steps in the Commons. Supporters of the Bill expect it to take several months to pass the current session began 11 months ago, which would suggest there won't be enough time to get the bill through the Lords and it would "fall" before becoming doesn't look like the current session is ending any time soon however. It's the government's choice when to start a new session and it still has lots of its own legislation to get supporters of the bill believe the new session will start in December at the earliest, which would provide more than enough time for it to pass both Houses of Parliament. Alternatively, if the next session were to begin in the autumn, that would give the bill a few weeks after the summer recess to get through the Lords - although it would be tight. Could too much disagreement stop it? Peers who are strongly against assisted dying could try and stop it through tabling lots of the Commons, a hundred MPs can over-ride such tactics, if they support a "closure motion" which allows a bill to be forced to a vote - but it doesn't work like that in the could also decide to reject any amendments peers make to the Bill. That would see it go back and forth between the two Houses of Parliament, known as ping MPs and peers keep disagreeing this would mean it takes the Bill even longer to become law, and a much greater chance of it running out of rules dictate that private members' bills are only debated on a Friday. There are currently only two Fridays left to debate them, meaning the government would have to schedule more. When could we see the first legal assisted deaths? The bill says that the implementation of assisted dying will take up to four years. Depending on how long the Lords takes to pass the bill (if they do at all), that means it could be late 2029 by the time a terminally ill person would be able to legally access an assisted initial plan was that the bill would take two years to implement, which would have put the first potential legal assisted deaths in late changes made to the bill during committee stage will take longer to put into place in practice, according it sponsor is most notably the replacement of the role of a high court judge with a panel of experts in signing off an assisted possible the bill could be implemented more quickly than four years. A spokesperson for Leadbeater has previously said that "the four year limit is not a target, it's a backstop".

The Guardian

an hour ago

• The Guardian

Assisted dying set to become law in England and Wales after bill passed by MPs

Assisted dying is set to become law after a historic vote in parliament, as MPs passed Kim Leadbeater's bill by 314 to 291 votes, a majority of 23, to legalise the procedure for terminally ill people. Keir Starmer backed the bill which will now head to the House of Lords, though peers are not expected to block its progress. It will give those with less than six months to live in England and Wales the right to an assisted death, after approval from two doctors and a panel including a psychiatrist, social worker and senior lawyer. Opening the debate, Leadbeater said that now was the moment to seize, to 'correct the profound injustices of the status quo and to offer a compassionate and safe choice to terminally ill people who want to make it'. The Labour MP for Spen Valley said it was 'not a choice between living and dying – it is a choice for terminally ill people about how they die'. She said rejecting the bill was 'not a neutral act, it is a vote for the status quo … and it fills me with despair to think MPs could be here in another 10 years' time hearing the same stories'. Terminally ill people and families were in the public galleries watching the debate and at a rally in Parliament Square. But considerable concerns were raised by disability activists, who held a protest outside parliament, and MPs opposed to the bill made passionate pleas that it would lead to people being coerced into ending their lives early. The former foreign secretary James Cleverly, who had opened the debate for opponents of the measure, said he was an atheist but had rejected the bill because, he said, the right safeguards were not in place. 'We were promised the gold standard, a judicially underpinned set of protections and safeguards,' he said, citing concerns from professional bodies including the Royal College of Psychiatrists. 'I disagree with [Leadbeater's] assessment that it is now or never, and it is this bill or no bill, and that to vote against this at third reading is a vote to maintain the status quo. None of those things are true.'