community - 2026-06-13

Narrabeen poet Tom Oliver opens up about social anxiety and life with muscular dystrophy

Source: manlyobserver.com.au

Tom Oliver, a 26-year-old from Narrabeen, is speaking candidly about living with limb girdle muscular dystrophy and social anxiety, saying the mental battle can be harder to manage than the physical one. For Northern Beaches locals, his story matters not only because of the medical challenges he faces, but because it puts a spotlight on a form of mental ill-health that often stays hidden.

Tom Oliver, a 26-year-old from Narrabeen, is speaking candidly about living with limb girdle muscular dystrophy and social anxiety, saying the mental battle can be harder to manage than the physical one. For Northern Beaches locals, his story matters not only because of the medical challenges he faces, but because it puts a spotlight on a form of mental ill-health that often stays hidden. Oliver has used a wheelchair since primary school, but says he has never seen it simply as a limitation. He describes it as a kind of social advantage. "I think the wheelchair makes me less intimidating," he says. "And then when I talk to people I speak with confidence. I think that’s why some call me Therapist Tom." He says the condition affecting him is limb girdle muscular dystrophy, which causes the muscles in his body to deteriorate. "This type predominately affects hips and shoulders," he says. He explains it in starkly simple terms: his body is missing one protein out of the roughly 30,000 people have, and that absence has caused widespread damage. "One protein … crazy isn’t it?" he says. Despite those physical challenges, Oliver says he has spent much of his life at the centre of social...