Welcome

Throughout my adult life, I have had some incredible “pinch me” experiences that have given me memories for life, but these have been mixed with (and sometimes happened in parallel with) tough periods in life and experiences that have challenged me to my core. I have struggled to manage these experiences comfortably and spent much of my adult life blocking out positive memories while clinging on and defining myself by negative experiences. This is something many people do and, while I know I am not alone, it has had a massive impact on what I have (or feel I have) achieved and made me hold myself back from doing some of the things I have really wanted to do. I have also viewed positive things quite negatively and hidden away from challenging myself in different ways to get some of the better aspects of me, out of me.
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Welcome to the “Turtle in the Room” blog. This is a blog exploring the varied (good and challenging) experiences throughout adulthood and how they have helped to shape me as a person. I will be telling stories of experiences from the good to the crazy to the unbelievable, and showing how things won’t always go to plan, we can look really negatively at something, yet there can be a lot to learn positively from everything we do and there are positives within everything we do.

About me

I am Stephen. After struggling through much of my adult life and finding it hard to understand why, I got a diagnosis of being Autistic in 2025 and it has explained so much. While being able to see the logic in many things and yet been completely illogical in what I have actually done, mainly through fear of failure and letting people down but also fear of being different, weird and unable to cope in different situations, I have held myself back and run away from people and situations, not wanting to hurt people but equally not wanting to put myself into situations outside of my comfort zone for fear of putting other people out. 
Even with this fear, I have still accomplished quite a lot and had some incredible experiences. I have worked in a number of sectors (sports industry, retail, education and recruitment), travelled to different places around the world and been a runner for 20 years, completing marathons, half marathons and a triathlon along the way. These experiences have given me some of the stories I will be telling, offering moments of joy and challenge with everything in between. 

Why “The Turtle in the Room”?

Have you ever been asked, “if you were an animal, what would you be?” For a long time, I could never answer that question and, under pressure, I would say “Penguin” because I spent a long time drawing penguins and colouring them in. After spending a lot of time reflecting over the last few months and with a new found understanding of myself, I realised that, if I was to be an animal, it would be a turtle. I try to pretend I have a hard shell on the outside but I am very soft on the inside. I like to think I am fast but I am actually quite slow. I like to swim but am on land a lot. People think I am different to how people think I am. I find myself retreating into my “shell” when nervous and stressed. And on, and on, and on. The more I thought about it, it made more and more sense to say that, if I was an animal, I would be a turtle!

What to expect from “The Turtle in the Room”

Through the blog, there will be stories of experiences and scenarios from my adult life, showing situations where I have found myself in challenging, funny and strange circumstances and my reflections on these. They will be mixed together, in the same way that events happen in life, and will cover things like difficult marathon experiences, unusual and unbelievable job interviews gone wrong (teaser alert: I got a concussion in a job interview, but more on that at a later date!) and exploring career opportunities that didn’t go to plan.

​As well as stories from the past, I will also show how I have used these challenging and different experiences to shape how I do things now and the positives I have gained from reflecting and trying to change the way I do things now. There will also be support on how to get the most out of life while appreciating and savouring every step, finding what is best for you and working out what makes you content and happy, whatever that means to you.
Whether you want to laugh, find something you can relate to or get inspiration to discover and understand yourself better, I hope that you can find it in some form through this blog and thank you for reading it.