I spent too many years apologising for who I was.
I apologised for….talking too much, forgetting things, changing careers
too often, and for changing my mind about just about everything.
I was told I was anxious, disorganised, fickle, sensitive.
Once I started working with young people with ADHD and understood them….
I saw myself in them.
All of my own school reports finally made sense.
My lifetime of comparing myself to others and always falling short made sense.
The wanting more of everything made sense.
The risk-taking and overdoing things made sense.
What I had identified as character flaws had a new explanation.
And that changed everything.
THE RELIEF I FELT AT FINALLY MAKING SENSE TO MYSELF WAS IMMENSE.
When I looked back over my life, I realised something else.
I have always been drawn to the outsiders - children who were traumatised, struggling families, refugees I worked with as a community language teacher, AIDS patients and drug addicts when I did work experience as a social worker.
It wasn’t just because that work was meaningful, but I was DRAWN to those people for a reason.
Back then, I didn't have the language for it yet.
Once I understood neurodivergence, it all fell into place. I belong WITH them. I like to call them the misfits, and weirdos. Just like me.
It has become MY story.
Why this work is different.
The Woman
I know what it feels like to spend decades believing you were the problem.
The parent
I've sat in that school meeting.
I've fought for a child while still trying to understand myself.
The teacher
For more than thirty years I've worked with children who didn't fit the systems around them.
Long before I knew I was one of them.
The researcher
Everything I teach is grounded in lived experience and rigorous study.
Warmth and evidence belong together.
What i believe
I believe understanding yourself changes everything.
I believe diagnosis is the beginning, not the destination.
I believe self-trust is built through experimenting and creating evidence of who you are.
I believe women have spent far too long apologising for brains that were never broken.
I believe the life you're trying to build should fit your brain and NOT the other way around.