Lee Hopkins Counselling

If you're reading this on Facebook, Insta, or Messenger, I'm not here anymore. I left Meta in 2025 after writing publicly about why their business model is incompatible with my professional ethics, and I haven't checked these accounts since. Pokes, pings, comments, tagged posts... none of it reaches me.

I tried to delete the accounts. Meta's process won't let me actually finish the job. So the profile sits here looking active when it isn't, which is its own small case study in why I left.

If you want to reach me, the working channels are email ([email protected]) and my Substack at quiethalf.com—both monitored, both replied to, both human.

For anyone curious about the reasons, I wrote two pieces at the time:
mindblownpsychology.com/goodbye-sh*tty-end-social-media/vietleadershipcoach.com/meta-data-abuse-revealed/

Thanks for the messages you've left. I'm sorry I never saw them.

After weeks of silence, Amazon’s system “fixed itself.” My royalties were released early—but the indifference, stress, and lack of accountability reveal how automation has replaced leadership

https://bit.ly/4hkDUoc

I'm 66, and I've just had my first migraine. Lights too bright, sounds too sharp, brain too loud. Why now? Why ever? Turns out, migraines might be less about pain and more about your brain finally enforcing its boundaries

https://mindblownpsychology.com/first-migraine-at-66/

Moved countries at 66. Everyone said I was brave.

I wasn't brave. I was done.

Done pretending the system that crushed me was somehow my fault for not fitting it better. Sometimes changing your environment isn't running away.

Sometimes it's the sanest thing you can do.

https://a.co/d/8Ufe81f

Neurotypical partner: 'You should know what I need without me having to say it.'

Cross-cultural partner: 'I cannot read your mind. Please tell me.'

One relationship required telepathy.

The other required words.

Guess which one worked.

quiethalf.substack.com

Separate houses three doors apart. Dinner together most evenings. One neurodivergent Australian, one Vietnamese woman, both old enough to know the rules and stubborn enough to ignore them.

https://bit.ly/3W2zxEy

You finally meet someone kind, stable, and consistent.

They don’t disappear mid-conversation. They don’t leave you waiting on read. They don’t start fights to prove affection.

And yet, you can’t feel it.

https://open.substack.com/pub/quiethalf/p/why-safety-feels-boring-to-the-anxious

Therapy can turn curiosity into control. Sometimes growth means letting a pattern be, not breaking it.

Do you ever just watch your habits instead of hacking them?

Quiet Half — calm, sceptical takes on modern psychology. quiethalf.substack.com

Cross-cultural relationships work when both people expect translation.
‘What did you mean by that?’ isn’t an accusation. It’s genuine curiosity.

Neurodivergent people have been asking that question our whole lives.

Nice to finally be with someone who asks it back.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Quiethalf.substack.com

Amazon calls itself “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Perhaps it is time for all of us, as leaders, to ask what happens when “customer-centric” no longer means accountable.

https://bit.ly/4n2J3lU