About Me

You can visit my LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/saffronbaldoza/ and my Instagram at @sunflower_saff .

(To see my professional bio, click this dropdown, otherwise ignore!)

Passionate, responsible and hardworking, I am a creative individual dedicated to using my lived experience to advocate for autistic womens rights and better mental health and social services support. While I am determined to drive social change and fight for true health and social equality, and particularly enjoy creative approaches and encouraging self expression, I also have a strong technical skillset and a love of science and statistics. I am currently pursuing a masters in mental health nursing, and am always interested in opportunities to participate in research activities.

Previously, I worked as an accountant, following my undergraduate degree at Cardiff University. My experience at Deloitte is a testament to my strong work ethic, ability to manage my time and numerical and IT skills. During my final year at Cardiff University, I volunteered as Lead Student Mentor Consultant, a Happiness Mentor (as part of the University’s trial run of the Science of Happiness), and am proud to have been founder and president of NOVIS, a society for Neurodiverse Students, which won Best Newcomer Society in the Student Union Awards.
I have also previously worked as a healthcare assistant for the NHS Buckinghamshire Trust, where I thrived in a position of being able to offer direct support.

Currently, I use my freetime to pursue lived experience opportunities. My history with OCD, an eating disorder, autism, ADHD, and abuse is what motivates me in life and in my career journey. I am a Youth Council Patron with the charity Ambitious About Autism; part of Scope’s Young Members Assembly; part of Think Ahead’s Service User Reference Group; a peer reseacher with Young Womens Trust; part of Future Voices Group within the Young Futures Foundation; a young leader with Peer Power; leader of National Autistic Society’s online arts and crafts branch; a co-founder and member of a lived experience research collective called REBLE; a young leader with Peer Power; and sit on multiple research panels representing people with autism and complex mental health issues.

My previous positions include involvement with:
– Mind
– Samaritans
– GOSH
– Bank of England Youth Forum
– Socialworkvoices
– Hearts & Minds
– Autistica

I am also always interested in furthering my personal interests, including art and music. I have enjoyed an appreciation of the arts since childhood, actively engaging in many different projects, competitions and groups. I use spoken word, traditional poetry, digital art and traditional art to share my advocacy messages and work through my own recovery.

I’m a budding artist and writer with a passion for improving the lives of young autistic women, particularly regarding abuse/trauma, mental health and ARFID (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder). As someone with lived experience, I am passionate about using my own knowledge and understanding to change the way society views and supports those who are neurodiverse, and believe I have valuable insight into my conditions. I feel strongly that a future in which autistic individuals are able to fully achieve their potential and share the unique qualities and skills they have to offer, is possible, if we can change the world’s approach to disabilities. I am dedicated to ensuring the term ‘equal opportunity’ really does apply to the neurodiverse community.

Prior to pursuing advocacy I studied accounting. I previously worked as an accountant, before deciding to switch career – I then worked as a healthcare assistnat, and am currently planning to pursue a masters in mental health nursing. I have a strong aptitude for numbers and maths, which is also evident in my freelance work as a private GCSE and A Level maths tutor. I am also proficient with Microsoft Office and am a certified Excel specialist. I believe my time at university is a reflection on my determination and responsible, self-motivated attitude, as well as my thorough and conscientious nature. It has led me to also dedicate some of my time for research, and I am a published co author as well as being part of advisory panels for different studies, one of which was published in the summer of 2023.

In addition, there is a very creative side to my personality. I studied both Art and History of Art at A level, and in my freetime continue to enjoy these interests. I have recently begun exploring digital art and painting, and writing poetry. My spoken word poems have led to achieving the Highly Commended award in the SLAMbassadors competition 2016, and have performed my spoken word to various audiences in the last few years. I also recently wrote two pieces of poetry, and created two accompanying pieces of artwork, for 4M’s (menstruation, mental health, marche, menopause) 2024 Conference Zine, which was compiled by Hat Porter. I hope to use more of my creative skills to help explain my conditions and express some of the emotions relating to these.

I currently spend a lot of my time using my lived experience to volunteer. I have supported with research, written blogs, been part of different charity campaigns, co produced and co delivered webinars and workshops, among many other activities.

If you would like to learn more about what I do in my freetime, please consider visiting my personal blog, here.
If you would like to read a more detailed history of my experiences with mental health and as an autistic individual, please read below.

My Mental Health History

I was first diagnosed with anorexia at the age of 9 and was treated as an outpatient, though I didn’t receive any therapy, and got better very quickly. I was discharged from services completely aged 10 – because I ‘did as I was told’. I personally feel this was because I wasn’t actually suffering with anorexia but had been struggling with sensory issues and being indecisive, so being put on a meal plan made things a lot simpler for me. I had so many rules in my head, which protected me from the confusing world I lived in.

As I got older, I began to find life very difficult, due to the pressures of school, adolescence, and life in general, and returned to services, at which point, aged 13, I was diagnosed formally with depression, and a year later, autism. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was, for the most part, ignored by my team.
Around this time I started to restrict my eating again, and from what I can remember, this was quite purposeful. Eventually my weight became too low to be treated in the community, and I was admitted to an eating disorder unit.

Between the ages of 14 and 21 I had eight inpatient admissions, including multiple of over 6 months, with periods inbetween of outpatient treatment (all under the mental health act), as well as countless hospitalisations. I was diagnosed with OCD and my problems became much more complex. I am definite that one key factor in my mental state never improving is that, in every hospital, my autism was ignored, and treatment was not adapted.
Furthermore, the lack of understanding of the root cause of my problems (not body image, but difficulties with anxiety, rigidity, and sensory problems) is what I believe led me to ending up a ‘revolving door’ patient (constantly being readmitted). Even though I found some elements of inpatient admissions distressing, I also found some comforting and rewarding.
I also recieved support from social services, as a Child in Need.

When I began to approach adulthood, during another admission, I met a fellow autistic patient. She helped me to accept and understand my diagnosis more, and subsequently I discovered more about how my Autism presents itself. I began to realise who I was without a unit and the label ‘anorexic’. I then found out about ‘ARFID’, which I now identify with, rather than anorexia. I developed my own strategies to cope, including using ‘life pies’ to help me figure out my identity.

I then left home to study at university (throughout my admissions, I had studied independently, and through a lot of hard work, continued to achieve academically). I managed to gain a place at university, where I experienced sexual abuse. This is something I am still coming to terms with and processing. It did however lead to my final admission to an eating disorder unit. I self studied my first year of university from hospital.

When I returned to university in my second year, I was determined to stay well and to not let everything that has happened to me dictate my future. I joined Ambitious About Autism, and volunteered as a student mentor, and in my final year of university, founded NOVIS (a society for neurodiverse students), was lead business school mentor, and became extremely passionate about becoming an advocate for autistic individuals. My journey has been very tough, and I do not want to see it echoed in the lives of others. I have also come across so many amazing people with disabilities, whose talents have been ignored and overlooked – the injustice of this is, to me, unbearable.

At present I am recieving support for my mental health from an outpatient team, and feel confident I will be able to fully recover.