Eva Aldea

A book cover with a bright yellow background. The title, Forced Swimming Test, appears at the top in bold magenta serif font, with the author’s name, Eva Aldea, beneath it in the same colour but smaller. The central design features a 3x3 grid of nine swirling circular patterns in pink and orange, creating a psychedelic, optical illusion effect. At the bottom, the publisher’s name, Broken Sleep Books, is displayed in magenta serif font.

The four essays in Forced Swimming Test were written over the span of several years, two essays before and two after my neurodivergence assessment and diagnosis. Like a ruminating mind they loop around, returning to the same topics over and over. But by way of this repetition, they also progress towards an acceptance of being someone that “definitely approaches the world differently than others,” as my diagnosing psychiatrist put it. Perhaps I am, but there are enough people that, like me, think and feel differently about the world to make me wonder at the usefulness of calling us divergent. Those people who approach the world differently have always been around me and finding a new language to explain and to share our experiences has been a revelation and a relief. Sometimes it has been a way to articulate our profound differences and coming to terms with the misunderstandings and hurt these have caused.

I am immensely grateful to those of you who have been there, even when I have not, and that have always stayed ready to listen to me, to comfort me, to discuss and disagree, and to cry and to laugh with me. This is for you. I hope that both those with a mind like mine and “others” find a point of connection in these essays, whether that is a recognition of having struggled through some of the same things, a better understanding of those who have, or an insight into the philosophical and political implications of how we approach mental health in our society. TL;DR: You will never be happy. But you will feel happiness again. — London, 2025

PREORDER (30.06.2025):

Eva Aldea’s (@towritelikeadog.bsky.social) Forced Swimming Test is a fiercely intelligent, unflinchingly honest meditation on mental health, neurodivergence, and the uneasy interplay between personal distress and systemic forces.

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I have little wish to get embroiled in discussion. I just want to show my art and share my love for books.

I’m finding it hard to go back to a mainly word-based feed here.

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Channel crossing: One person dead, another critical, says French coastguard There were 66 people on board the boat, which got into trouble near the French coast.

You can put money on it that politicians will use yet another loss of life in the channel to push yet more of the same hostile rhetoric and harsher anti-asylum policies which force people into making ever more dangerous journeys to seek safety in the first place.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-6772...

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In Conversation Stuart McPherson | Dxandwriting A conversation with poet Stuart McPherson on beind diagnosed with ADHD in his 40s, writing, rejection and medication and hyper fixation.

Dx: Diagnosis and Writing Podcast
I talk to poet Stu McPherson about being diagnosed with ADHD, our writing practice, experiences with medication, and how we deal with emotions dysphoria, rejection and hyperfixation as neurodivergent writers.

www.dxandwriting.com/in-conversat...

He does not like being tucked in.

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"How Britain became a migration magnet" A potted history of migration to the UK in numbers and headlines.

The rhetoric on what kind of migration - EU, non-EU, asylum seekers, “illegal migrants”- is out of control and needs to be cut often misrepresents the actual numbers involved.

open.substack.com/pub/evaldea/...