Who is the fictional character you relate to the most?
There are quite a few fictional characters I’ve admired over the years.
Batman for his determination.
Samwise Gamgee for his loyalty.
Dave Lister from Red Dwarf because, despite the chaos around him, he somehow muddles through with humour intact.
But if I’m being asked which fictional character I actually relate to the most…
It has to be Bilbo Baggins.
Not because I dream of fighting dragons or stumbling across magical rings. In fact, given the choice, I’d much rather leave the dragon to someone considerably younger and fitter.
It’s because Bilbo never quite feels like he belongs in the adventure he’s been thrown into.
He’d rather be home.
Tea brewing.
Book in hand.
Knowing exactly where everything is.
That resonates with me more than I’d care to admit.
As an autistic man, I’ve often felt as though the world handed everyone else an instruction manual and that somehow mine got lost in the post. Social situations can be exhausting. Change isn’t always exciting. Crowds, noise and unpredictability can drain me long before anyone else notices there’s anything to be drained by. I’ve spent much of my life trying to understand rules that other people seem to absorb without even thinking about them.
And yet…
Like Bilbo, life has repeatedly nudged me out of my comfortable little hobbit hole.
Moving across the country.
Changing careers.
Standing in front of audiences.
Publishing poetry.
Talking openly about autism and mental health.
None of those things were part of some grand master plan. They simply became the next step along the path. Looking back, many of the moments that felt most uncomfortable at the time became the ones that shaped me the most.
What I also admire about Bilbo is that he isn’t driven by power.
He’s driven by curiosity.
Kindness.
Common sense.
He solves as many problems with compassion and wit as he does with courage.
Those are qualities I value far more than brute strength.
I also suspect we’d get on rather well over a meal.
Anyone capable of appreciating breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper clearly has their priorities in order. In a world that insists on rushing everything, there’s something wonderfully comforting about someone who understands that conversations should never be hurried.
Perhaps that’s why Bilbo continues to endure as a character.
He reminds us that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things without ever losing sight of who they are.
You don’t have to be fearless.
You don’t have to be the strongest person in the room.
Sometimes it’s enough simply to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when every instinct is telling you to turn around and head home.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve realised that courage rarely looks like Hollywood tells us it should.
More often, it looks like showing up.
Being kind.
Admitting when you’re wrong.
Learning something new.
Writing another poem.
Helping another person.
Or simply choosing to keep going when life would give you every excuse not to.
Bilbo would probably say he was never really a hero.
I suspect that’s exactly why so many of us see one in him.
If you had to give one life-changing tip, what would it be?
If I had to give just one life-changing tip, it would be this:
Look after your mental health just as much as your physical health.
We spend hours thinking about our bodies. We count our steps, join gyms, watch what we eat, and book check-ups when something doesn’t feel right. Yet when it comes to our minds, many of us simply hope we’ll be okay.
Hope isn’t a strategy.
The truth is, your mind is involved in every decision you make, every relationship you build, every challenge you face, and every dream you pursue. If your mental wellbeing is neglected, everything else eventually feels harder. Stress becomes overwhelming. Small problems become mountains. Joy becomes difficult to recognise.
For far too long, we’ve been taught to “keep going,” “man up,” or “just get on with it.” Those phrases have probably caused more harm than they’ll ever receive credit for. Strength isn’t found in suffering silently. Real strength is recognising when you’re struggling and having the courage to speak up.
Looking after your mental health doesn’t always mean counselling or medication, although both can be life-changing for many people. Sometimes it means getting enough sleep. Sometimes it means putting your phone down and taking a walk. Sometimes it’s saying “no” without feeling guilty. Sometimes it’s talking honestly with a friend over a cup of tea.
And sometimes it’s simply admitting, “I’m not okay today.”
There’s no shame in that.
We service our cars before they break down. We charge our phones before the battery reaches zero. Yet so many of us wait until we’re completely exhausted before giving ourselves permission to rest.
Imagine if we treated our minds with the same care we treat our bodies.
The world would be a kinder place.
So, if there’s one thing I’d encourage you to do today, it’s this: check in with yourself. Not the automatic “I’m fine” we all give, but a genuine moment of honesty. Ask yourself how you’re really doing.
Because your mental health isn’t a luxury.
It’s the foundation everything else is built upon.
Ten years ago, I sat down and started building something from scratch. At the time, it was simply a place to put my thoughts, feelings and experiences into words — a way of making sense of the world around me after being diagnosed as Autistic. (Looking back it makes sense)
I don’t think, even in my wildest dreams, I could have imagined where that small beginning would lead me.
Ten years later, this little corner of the internet has become so much more than a website. It has become a place for connection, understanding and shared experiences. It has allowed me to tell my story, to open conversations, and to hopefully help others feel a little less alone on their own journeys.
When I first started writing, I had no idea who would read my words or where they would take me. I certainly never imagined that so many people would come along for the ride, follow my journey and offer their support along the way.
For that, I am truly grateful.
To everyone who has read a blog post, shared a story, sent a message, offered encouragement or simply taken the time to understand — thank you. Your support has meant more than you probably realise. Every interaction has been a reminder that sharing our experiences can create connections that we never expected.
Of course, there is one person who deserves a very special thank you: Mrs Bob.
Behind the scenes, she has been my constant support throughout this entire journey. She has written, proofread, made phone calls, helped shape my thoughts and, most importantly, been my neurotypical whisperer when I’ve needed someone to help translate my way of seeing the world.
She has worked tirelessly alongside me, often without recognition, and I honestly couldn’t have reached this point without her.
Looking back over these ten years, I realise this website has been a record of growth, discovery and acceptance. It has captured moments of frustration, joy, learning and everything in between.
The journey hasn’t always been straightforward, but it has always been mine.
So, on this tenth birthday, I’m not just celebrating a website. I’m celebrating the conversations started, the friendships made, the lessons learned and the incredible community that has grown around it.
It’s one of those phrases that usually arrives just after something awful has happened.
Someone loses a loved one.
A relationship ends.
A diagnosis turns life upside down.
And almost without thinking, someone says it.
“Everything happens for a reason.”
I know it’s usually meant kindly.
It’s an attempt to comfort.
To make sense of chaos.
To reassure us that the universe hasn’t completely lost the plot.
But I’ve never been entirely comfortable with it.
Not because I think life is meaningless.
Far from it.
I think the problem lies in what we mean by reason.
If by “reason” we mean that every tragedy was deliberately planned by some higher power—that every child who becomes ill, every war, every act of cruelty was intentionally designed as part of some grand blueprint—then I struggle with that idea.
Not because I lack faith in mystery.
But because it asks us to believe that unimaginable suffering was somehow necessary.
I’m not convinced.
There’s another way of looking at it, though.
Perhaps “reason” doesn’t mean purpose.
Perhaps it simply means cause.
Everything that happens has causes and conditions.
A tree doesn’t fall because the universe chose that exact tree.
It falls because roots weaken, soil shifts, fungi grow unseen beneath the surface, and eventually gravity finishes the conversation.
Human lives are much the same.
Who we become isn’t usually shaped by one dramatic moment.
It’s thousands of tiny moments.
The family we’re born into.
The kindnesses we receive.
The wounds we carry.
The books we read.
The strangers we meet.
The mistakes we survive.
Each one nudges us ever so slightly until, years later, we look in the mirror and wonder how on earth we became this particular version of ourselves.
That’s not destiny.
That’s cause and effect.
In many ways it’s far more fascinating.
It also reminds us that our own actions become part of someone else’s chain of causes.
A smile offered to a stranger.
A harsh word spoken in anger, to the driver that cut you up.
A poem that reaches someone on exactly the day they needed it.
None of these things happen in isolation.
They ripple.
Sometimes far further than we’ll ever know.
Perhaps that’s why I try to choose kindness whenever I can.
Not because I think it’ll magically make the universe reward me.
But because every action adds another thread to the web we’re all helping to weave.
Life isn’t always fair.
Bad things happen to good people.
Good things happen to difficult people.
And sometimes there isn’t an answer that satisfies us.
But there are always causes.
Always choices.
Always consequences.
Maybe that’s enough.
So no…
I don’t believe everything happens for a reason.
But I do believe everything happens because of reasons.
And understanding the difference might just change the way we understand ourselves.
When I first started this website and began yelling into the void that is the internet, I had one dream.
Not a book deal.
Not a viral post.
Not thousands of followers hanging on every badly punctuated sentence.
Just one person.
If something I wrote found its way into the right hands, at the right time, and nudged someone towards hope instead of despair, kindness instead of bitterness, or courage instead of fear, then I reckoned the whole experiment would have been worth it.
That was the dream.
The internet has a funny way of making us believe that numbers are everything. Views. Likes. Shares. Subscribers. As though the value of a thought is measuredby the size of the crowd listening.
I’ve never been convinced.
History is full of quiet conversations that changed lives, while the loudest voices were forgotten before the ink had dried.
Over the years, I’ve had a few messages from strangers. from people who stumbled across a poem, or one of my rambling posts at exactly the moment they needed it.
“Thank you.”
Those messages mean more than you’ll ever know.
Because every single one reminds me that words still matter.
Not because they’re mine, but because honest words have a peculiar habit of finding the people they’re meant to find.
If anything I’ve written has helped you laugh when life felt heavy, think when the world demanded outrage, or believe that tomorrow might just be a little brighter than today, then you’ve given me something far greater than any statistic ever could.
You’ve allowed this grumpy old poet to live beyond his original dream.
So thank you.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for sharing the journey.
And thank you for reminding me that even when it feels like we’re all shouting into the void, sometimes the void quietly whispers back.
The Earth has been writing her story for around four and a half billion years.
Mountains have risen, oceans have learned the language of the moon, forests have breathed in silence, and life has patiently rehearsed every possible way to exist.
Then we arrived.
If all that time were folded neatly into a single year,
humanity wouldn’t appear in January, or July, or even Christmas morning.
We would step onto the stage with barely eighteen minutes until midnight.
Eighteen minutes.
That’s all we’ve needed to crown ourselves kings of a kingdom we didn’t build.
We point at our cities, our satellites, our machines that reach beyond the stars, and call it progress.
Yet somehow, the hands clever enough to map distant galaxies still struggle to protect the soil beneath their own feet.
We’ve spent fortunes looking for another world while treating this one like somewhere we’re only passing through.
In those eighteen minutes, entire voices have fallen silent.
Species that survived ice ages, volcanoes, asteroids, have not survived us.
Every extinction is another verse removed from Earth’s oldest song.
And still, the forests whisper.
The rivers remember.
The wind carries warnings we keep mistaking for background noise.
Hotter summers.
Stronger storms.
Longer droughts.
Skies that burn.
The planet isn’t seeking revenge.
She’s showing us the consequence of forgetting that we belong to her, not the other way around.
But this isn’t the end unless we decide it is.
Because every generation inherits a pen.
Some use it to sign away tomorrow.
Others write a different future.
Every tree planted. Every river restored. Every choice made with something beyond ourselves in mind becomes another sentence in a story worth continuing.
Perhaps our eighteen minutes will not be remembered for how quickly we conquered,
but for the moment we finally understood
that the greatest measure of intelligence was never how far we could travel from Earth—
What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?
f I had to choose just one habit, it would be meditation.
Not because it gives me all the answers, but because it helps me stop fighting battles that only exist in my own mind.
For a long time, I held onto anger. I replayed conversations, revisited old hurts, and carried resentment far longer than I probably should have. I thought holding on somehow made me stronger or somehow proved I was right.
It didn’t.
It only hurt me.
The people or situations I was angry about often carried on with their lives while I carried the weight. Looking back, it seems like such a waste of energy.
Meditation changed that.
It didn’t erase the past. It simply taught me to observe my thoughts without becoming trapped by them. It reminded me that I always have a choice: hold on or let go.
Most of the time, letting go is the better option.
Not because what happened doesn’t matter, but because my peace matters more.
These days, I still get frustrated. I’m only human. But I no longer give anger a permanent home. I acknowledge it, learn what I can from it, and move forward .
That small daily practice has made me calmer, more patient, and far more present.
Funny really. I started meditating to quiet my mind.
What I discovered was that the greatest benefit wasn’t learning how to be still.
It was learning what was never worth carrying in the first place.
Stay Safe
Bc
Ps here’s a scribble I wrote on this subject some time ago
What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?
If you’ve read my books or been following this blog for a while, you’ll probably know the answer before you’ve finished the question.
Roughly twenty years ago.
That was the chapter.
It was the point where it honestly felt like life had looked at me and thought, “Go on then… let’s see how much this bloke can actually take.”
I was on the verge of homelessness.
I was fighting to have a relationship with my daughters.
My PTSD was running riot.
I was autistic but had absolutely no idea at the time.
And my mental health?
Well… “shot to shit” is probably the most accurate medical diagnosis I can give you.
Let’s unpack that.
After a relationship ended, I found myself with nowhere to live. My family couldn’t help, so I ended up sleeping on the sofa of an old wrestling mate. It wasn’t glamorous, but it beat sleeping rough again.
Eventually she moved in with her boyfriend and we came up with what seemed, at the time, like a sensible solution.
I’d stay in her little council house and carry on paying the rent.
Yes.
I know.
Subletting.
Not exactly legal.
But when your choices are breaking the rules or sleeping rough, morality suddenly becomes a luxury.
While all that was going on, my daughters’ mum had started making contact as difficult as humanly possible.
I’d turn up to collect the girls.
“Oh… we’ve gone out.”
“They’re not here.”
“They don’t want to come.”
The excuses changed.
The result didn’t.
Letters from my solicitor about parental responsibility went unanswered.
Phone calls rarely got through.
And when they did, the girls were apparently never available.
It was only last year that I found out some of the things they’d been told about me growing up.
One of them was that I’d wanted my youngest aborted before she was born.
I hadn’t.
But lies have a habit of hanging around long after the people telling them have moved on.
Looking back now, I understand why I was falling apart.
Back then I just thought I was broken.
Everything piled on top of everything else.
The housing.
The court stuff.
Missing my girls.
The PTSD.
Trying to make sense of a brain that worked differently without knowing why.
So I did what a lot of blokes do when they’re drowning.
I reached for anything that promised five minutes of peace.
Drink.
Drugs.
Self-harm.
None of it fixed anything.
It just delayed having to feel it.
Then came the moment that genuinely broke me.
The council discovered I was living in the house.
I was told that if I cleared about £400 of rent arrears I could take over the tenancy.
I worked every bit of overtime I could.
Paid every penny.
Walked into the meeting convinced I’d finally caught a break.
Instead, I was told I had four weeks to move out.
When I reminded them about what I’d been promised, I was told I’d have to bid on the property along with everyone else.
I’d basically paid someone else’s rent arrears for nothing.
That one hurt.
For the next month I bid on every property I could.
Nothing.
That’s when I hit rock bottom.
I tried (for the first time) to end my life.
I woke up in hospital the following day to two police officers asking why I’d done it and telling me how selfish I’d been for upsetting everyone.
Different times.
Thankfully we’ve moved on a bit since then.
Recovery wasn’t some magical Disney montage.
It took years.
Hospital admissions.
Medication.
Counselling.
Learning how to exist without constantly wanting to disappear.
Then, during one of my final stays in hospital, a member of staff suggested I start writing down how I felt.
I nearly laughed.
Writing a diary?
Really?
I’d grown up believing men dealt with problems by getting on with them.
You certainly didn’t write about your feelings.
Still…
I’d tried almost everything else.
What was one more roll of the dice?
Those first pages weren’t poetry.
They were just chaos.
Anger.
Fear.
Grief.
Questions I didn’t know how to answer.
Slowly, without me really noticing, those pages started changing.
Sentences became verses.
Verses became poems.
Poems became something that made sense of everything that didn’t.
People often ask me what saved my life.
It wasn’t poetry.
Not at first.
Poetry came later.
What saved me was finally giving myself permission to be honest.
The poetry simply gave that honesty somewhere to live.
Without those notebooks there probably wouldn’t have been books.
There wouldn’t have been performances.
There wouldn’t have been conversations with complete strangers who’ve quietly said, “I thought I was the only one.”
There probably wouldn’t be this blog.
So what got me through The Hard Years?
My daughters.
Even when I couldn’t see them, they gave me something to keep fighting for.
Pure bloody-minded stubbornness.
I’ve never liked being told I can’t do something.
And somewhere deep down, underneath everything else, there was still a tiny voice saying,
“Don’t let this be how your story ends.”
Turns out that little voice was right.
Life isn’t perfect now.
It never will be.
But I’ve learned that the hardest chapters aren’t always the end of the book.
Sometimes they’re just the part that explains why the rest of the story matters.
The Ramblings of Bob Christian 