Description: Anna Lyndsey worked for several years as a civil servant in Whitehall until she became ill. Her light sensitivity became so extreme that she had to spend most of her time in a totally blacked-out room. Desperate to stop her brain exploding from boredom, she started scribbling in the darkness, and her book Girl in
Anna Lyndsey worked for several years as a civil servant in Whitehall until she became ill. Her light sensitivity became so extreme that she had to spend most of her time in a totally blacked-out room. Desperate to stop her brain exploding from boredom, she started scribbling in the darkness, and her book Girl in the Dark was published in 2015.
Like many people who suffer from chronic illness, Anna Lyndsey found her physical condition frequently dismissed as “all in the mind”, despite clear evidence that it wasn’t. Her journey out of the dark began when a nutritional therapist identified histamine intolerance as the underlying cause of her light sensitivity. And in 2020, she was formally diagnosed with a related condition, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), a recently recognised immune system disorder which causes severe reactions to a range o
As a writer, because of her own experience, Anna Lyndsey has become fascinated by the way establishments of all kinds – corporate, political, scientific – react to new uncomfortable truths, and how often they reach for “psychological” labels to keep those truths at bay. This is the subject of her next book, Impossible People .