Honest writing about neurodivergence, ADHD, burnout, hormones, self-employment, workplace adjustments and supporting young people. No jargon. No gatekeeping. Just real conversations.
Understanding
The 30% rule.
Where the number comes from, and what the research shows.
You may have heard that people with ADHD are about 30% behind their peers in emotional maturity. A 30-year-old functioning like a 21-year-old, that kind of thing.
The figure comes from Russell Barkley, a leading ADHD researcher, who used it in talks and writing as a rough guide. I went looking for the study behind it and couldn't find one. Even sites that repeat it admit that not all scientists agree the gap is precisely 30%.
What the research does support is real executive function differences. A 2024 review in Nature Human Behaviour pulled together 180 studies spanning 45 years and confirmed these difficulties are substantial. It didn't put a percentage on them. It also found the delays looked much the same across ADHD, autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions.
So if you've always felt a step behind with planning or keeping emotions steady, that feeling has research behind it. The neat number doesn't. Treat 30% as clinical shorthand, and be wary of anyone using it to put a ceiling on what you can do.
Standards, expectations and boundaries get used as if they mean the same thing. Mixing them up causes a lot of hurt.
A standard is what you hold yourself to. It's about your own behaviour, like being honest or turning up when you said you would. You can only set standards for yourself.
An expectation is what you hope or assume someone else will do. Expectations tend to go unspoken, and plenty of neurodivergent people have spent years missing ones nobody explained. Saying them out loud gives the other person a fair chance.
A boundary is what you will do to look after yourself if something keeps happening. "If the conversation turns to shouting, I'll leave and we can pick it up tomorrow." It rests on your own action, so it works whether or not the other person changes.
For people who mask or people-please, boundaries can feel almost impossible at first. A 2026 study of autistic adults learning to unmask described over-apologising and people-pleasing as part of what they were working to change. Start small with one boundary, said calmly and then kept.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
Plenty of neurodivergent people end up self-employed. Flexible hours and work built around their strengths can make a huge difference. Research from Durham University in 2026 suggests ADHD traits such as novelty-seeking can help people spot opportunities and start a business, while keeping it going can be harder.
Self-employment also brings admin and isolation, with nobody else setting the structure. The freedom that suits you can let deadlines drift and invoices go unsent.
Knowing that in advance helps it last. Build in the support you'd have had in a job, such as someone to check in with and systems for the boring bits. As a neurodivergent business owner myself, those are what keep me going.
Networking events can be exhausting for neurodivergent people, with the noise and the endless small talk.
Some people struggle in the room. Others are brilliant at it. They remember names and come away with good contacts, then spend the next day or two wiped out, going back over every conversation. Research on masking describes this pattern well: performing socially uses energy that has to be paid back later.
If that's you, plan for the recovery as well as the event, and keep the next morning clear if you can. One-to-one coffees and online groups built around shared interests can also cost far less energy.
Children of neurodivergent parents can grow up with a lot of honesty, and with a parent who knows what it's like to be different. In a 2025 study of autistic and non-autistic parents, both groups described joyful, loving relationships with their autistic children.
There can be harder days too, with routines that slip or a parent who needs quiet at the same moment the child needs noise.
Being open with children about how your brain works helps them make sense of those days. It also shows them that different is fine, which matters all the more if they turn out to be neurodivergent themselves.
We're here for the young person, not the attendance target.
When one or both partners are neurodivergent, a lot of misunderstandings come from different wiring, even where there's real love.
A missed message or a need for quiet after work can feel personal. So can a blunt reply or a forgotten plan, and over time the hurt builds up on both sides.
Talking about how each of you works, as well as what went wrong, takes the heat out of things. That includes what drains you and how you each show care. Couples who understand each other's brains usually argue less about the same things.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
Honesty, directness and the double empathy problem.
Some social rules are hard for neurodivergent people to follow because they feel dishonest. Saying "fine" when you're not, or praising something you don't like.
That directness can be read as rude. Often it comes from valuing honesty and meaning what you say.
This is the double empathy problem in everyday life. Each side is working to different rules, and both are valid. A 2025 study in Nature Human Behaviour found mixed groups of autistic and non-autistic people passed on information just as accurately as matched groups, though rapport was lower. Knowing where the other person is coming from helps both sides meet in the middle.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Tics are sudden movements or sounds that are hard to control, and they're more common in people with ADHD and autism.
They tend to increase with stress, tiredness or excitement, and drawing attention to them usually makes them worse. Most of the time the kindest response is no response at all.
What if a tic makes you laugh? It happens, especially with vocal tics that come out as unexpected words. Lots of people with tics find them funny too, and some use humour to get through awkward moments, so take your lead from them. A quick "sorry, that caught me off guard" and carrying on is fine. What hurts is being made the joke, again and again. A 2026 study found other people's misunderstanding could be harder to live with than the tics themselves.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
For many neurodivergent people, trauma builds from years of smaller things: being corrected, left out, misunderstood and pushed through overwhelm again and again.
It can be hard to name because no single moment stands out. People will say "nothing bad happened to me" while describing a childhood of constantly feeling wrong. A 2025 analysis led by UCL found that 44% of autistic people screened as having probable PTSD, while only around 2% had a diagnosis.
That still counts, and it can be worked with. Recognising the pattern is usually the first step, and it can bring real relief: there was a reason it felt that hard.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Many autistic and ADHD adults, especially women, were first diagnosed with something else, most often anxiety, depression or a personality disorder.
Sometimes those diagnoses were also right, as anxiety and depression can sit alongside neurodivergence. In other cases they described only part of the picture, and the support that followed never quite fitted. Cardiff University research published in 2026 linked later ADHD diagnosis with poorer mental health, and the links were stronger for women and girls.
If you've spent years in services feeling that something was being missed, it's reasonable to ask the question. I don't diagnose, but I can help you make sense of your experience and think about whether an assessment is the right next step.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
ADHD and bipolar disorder can look alike. Both can involve restlessness, racing thoughts, impulsive decisions and disrupted sleep.
A key difference is pattern. ADHD is lifelong and fairly constant, traceable back to childhood, and emotions can swing fast, sometimes several times in one day and in response to something. Bipolar tends to come in distinct episodes of low or high mood lasting days or weeks, which can feel quite different from how the person usually is.
The two also occur together far more often than chance would predict. Treatment differs, so getting it right matters. If something doesn't fit, a proper psychiatric assessment is worth pushing for, and a simple mood and sleep diary kept for a few weeks can help that conversation.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Remembers every film quote. Forgets why they walked into the room.
Working memory, and when it leads to serious mistakes.
Working memory difficulties are common with ADHD and autism. Holding several things in mind at once can be hard, even when long-term memory is excellent.
For some people the problem goes much further than forgetting why you walked into a room. Severe memory difficulties can mean a missed medication dose, a forgotten pick-up or a mistake at work with serious consequences. The shame afterwards can be heavy, and shame rarely helps anyone remember next time.
Written lists and phone reminders, with a second check for anything important, are how a lot of people get through the day safely. If memory problems are leading to serious mistakes, raise it with your GP and ask about adjustments at work.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Whether neurodivergence is disabling depends on the setting as much as the person.
The same person can thrive in a quiet, flexible job with clear instructions and struggle badly in an open-plan office with rigid hours and unwritten rules. The brain stays the same. The demands on it change.
That's why the environment is always part of the conversation. Sometimes the most effective change is to the room or the timetable, and the person can stay exactly as they are.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Two neurodivergent people. Two completely different minds.
The label tells you where to start listening.
ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia and more overlap a lot, and each shows up differently in each person.
One autistic person loves routine while another craves novelty. One person with ADHD talks fast and fills every silence, and another goes quiet and drifts inward. Two people with the same diagnosis can need opposite adjustments.
A label tells you where to start listening. What you hear still has to come from the person. That's why I don't work from a checklist, and why the person in front of me is treated as the expert on their own mind.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
What changes when you stop fighting your own wiring.
Accepting that your brain works differently still leaves room to work on the parts that are hard.
What acceptance changes is where your energy goes. People stop forcing routines that never stick. They stop apologising for needs they can't change, or measuring themselves against people wired another way.
That energy can then go on what helps. For many people I work with, acceptance is where things finally start to shift, because they're working with their brain at last.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Neurodivergent people tend to withdraw after too much noise or too many demands. Some of that is rest, and rest is needed.
The difficulty comes when rest turns into isolation and reaching out feels harder each week. Messages go unanswered, then it feels too late to answer them, and the silence becomes its own problem.
If you're there right now, a small message to one person is enough of a start. You don't owe an explanation or an apology. "Thinking of you" counts.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
Loneliness has less to do with how many people are around you and more to do with whether anyone understands you.
Neurodivergent people can spend years in company without feeling understood. They join in and say the right things, then go home feeling further away than ever. In a Dutch study of 381 autistic adults, about one in ten had nobody they felt close to.
Finding even one person who gets how your mind works can change a lot. That might be a friend or a peer group, or an online community built around a shared interest. Autistic adults have described time with other autistic people as needing less effort and less masking.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
A good number of neurodivergent people are carers, sometimes for someone who is neurodivergent too.
Caring while managing your own sensory load and energy takes a lot. There are appointments to remember and meltdowns to hold, all while your own tank runs low.
Needing help with that means you're doing two demanding jobs at once. Time for your own support is part of caring well.
We're here for the young person, not the attendance target.
It's common for a parent to recognise themselves while their child is being assessed. Reading the forms and hearing the traits described, the thought arrives: "wait, that's me."
A 2025 King's College London review estimated that most autistic adults over 40 in the UK have never been diagnosed, so this happens a lot. It can bring relief and grief at the same time. Relief at finally having an explanation. Grief for the support they never had, and a lot of rethinking about the years that came before.
Parents deserve support with that as well. Understanding your own brain can make you a stronger advocate for your child's.
We're here for the young person, not the attendance target.
Parenting a neurodivergent child means making a lot of calls about what matters today.
Clean teeth? Probably yes. Matching socks? Probably not. Eating dinner at the table, or eating dinner at all? That one depends on the day.
Choosing a few things that really count, and letting the rest go, lowers the pressure for everyone. It saves your energy, and your child's, for the connection underneath, which is what gets you both through the hard days.
We're here for the young person, not the attendance target.
Neurodivergent teenagers get spoken to as if they were much younger. Adults slow their words down and make decisions about them while they're sitting in the room.
They notice. It teaches them their views don't count, at exactly the age they're working out who they are.
Speak to them at their age and explain your reasoning. Offer real choices, even small ones, and let them disagree with you. In my work with young people, the moment they realise they're being taken seriously is usually when things start to move.
We're here for the young person, not the attendance target.
Most of us heard it growing up. Most parents say it with good intentions, to comfort or simply to get out of the supermarket.
When children keep learning that feelings should be hidden, some grow into adults who struggle to notice or name what they feel. The feeling is still there. It shows up later, sometimes as a headache, sometimes as an explosion that seems to come from nowhere.
Naming it instead ("you're upset, that makes sense") teaches children that feelings carry useful information. It takes a few seconds longer, and it can save years of unpicking later.
We're here for the young person, not the attendance target.
A legacy project can be almost anything: a recipe book, a voice recording, a letter to be opened later, a playlist.
For people facing a loss, or thinking about their own story, making something gives shape to feelings that are hard to put into words. It turns helplessness into something your hands can do.
Making things is how a lot of neurodivergent people process best. A shared project can also help a family grieve together, with each person contributing in whatever way suits them.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
A memory box gives grief a physical home. It might hold a scarf, or the aftershave they always wore.
For neurodivergent children and adults, something concrete and sensory can be far easier to connect with than talking about feelings. Choosing what goes in is part of the process, deciding what mattered and what to keep.
Some people add writing paper and a few photos, so on a sad day they can write to the person and tell them anything, even the most ordinary news. Others keep laminated memory cards, each with a funny story or a favourite saying, to read on low days and laugh along with them.
The box can be opened when they choose and closed when it's too much. That control matters when so much about a loss feels out of their hands.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
For a long time, grief was treated as a process of letting go. The goal was closure.
The continuing bonds model, from Klass, Silverman and Nickman, describes staying connected to the person who died as a normal, healthy part of grief. People talk to them, keep their things, mark their dates and carry on traditions they loved.
For many neurodivergent people, that ongoing connection makes far more sense than closure, which can feel like being asked to switch off something that still matters.
Rejection sensitivity can shape grief too. For people with ADHD who experience rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), a death can feel like being left. The pain may come with guilt or anger that's hard to admit to. Those feelings make sense and deserve room. Grief work can hold them alongside the love, and help the relationship continue in a new form.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
Neurodivergent grief doesn't always look the way others expect. It might arrive weeks or months later. On the surface it can seem flat, or busy and practical, and it can sit in routines and objects more than in tears.
People sometimes read that as not caring, and occasionally the grieving person believes it too. A 2026 review found autistic grief can be delayed, or expressed through rituals and practical action. The processing is happening, on its own timescale.
There's no correct way to grieve. Good support follows the person, and it's never too late to start working through a loss you couldn't take in at the time.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
The same brain that struggles is the one that shines.
Strengths and struggles come from the same wiring.
Pattern spotting. Deep focus on the things that matter to you. Honesty. Noticing what other people miss.
These strengths come from the same wiring as the difficulties. The attention that drifts in a dull meeting can lock on hard to something that matters. The sensitivity that makes a supermarket overwhelming also picks up that a friend is struggling.
A University of Bath study of 400 adults found that people with ADHD who knew and used their strengths had better wellbeing and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. In my work, strengths go into the formulation from the very first session.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Lying on the sofa knowing exactly what needs doing, and being unable to begin, is one of the most misread parts of neurodivergence.
Sometimes it's executive dysfunction, where the bridge between deciding and doing won't hold. Sometimes it's burnout after months of running on empty, or the body asking for rest in the only way it has left.
Calling it lazy adds shame and changes nothing. What helps depends on the cause. A tiny first step might be enough, or someone working alongside you. Some days the right answer is permission to stop.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
Some neurodivergent people lose the ability to speak when stressed or overloaded. The words are there, and they can't get out.
Pushing for a spoken answer usually makes it harder. Offering paper or a phone helps, and so does simply waiting. Speech tends to come back once the pressure drops.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Masking at work means doing your job while also playing the expected version of yourself, holding eye contact and keeping a calm face in a loud office.
The effort doesn't show on a timesheet. A lot of people hold it together all day and fall apart at home, then wonder why a job they're good at leaves them so drained. A 2026 review of 14 studies described camouflaging wearing people down until they had nothing left to mask with.
When I work with someone on this, we start by noticing when the mask goes on and what it costs. Letting it slip comes later, in places where that feels safe. The energy you get back tends to build over time.
For many people with ADHD, time comes in two settings: now, and not now.
Next week's deadline sits in "not now" until suddenly it's here. The research backs this up. A review of 55 studies found people with ADHD judge the passing of time less accurately.
Visible clocks and working backwards from the deadline help turn "not now" into something you can see.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Plenty of neurodivergent people wake up irritable and then feel guilty about it for the rest of the day.
Sleep problems are very common with ADHD. A 2025 review found body clocks tend to run late, with the evening rise in melatonin arriving around 90 minutes later than average. Waking also means going from quiet to noise and demands in seconds.
A slower start, with low light and no questions for the first half hour, can make a big difference.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Most neurodivergence can't be seen. The same goes for chronic pain, fatigue and many mental health conditions.
So the adjustments people need stay hidden until someone asks. The person who needs a quieter desk or written instructions may never mention it, because experience has taught them that asking makes them look difficult.
The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower turned ten in 2026 and helps in some places. A simple "is there anything that would make this easier?" helps everywhere. Ask it privately, and believe the answer.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
From 30 October, union equality reps get statutory paid time off for the first time, under the Employment Rights Act 2025.
That matters for neurodivergent staff. Unmet needs at work rarely arrive labelled. They tend to surface as capability reviews, conduct issues or grievances.
Reps with protected time can spot the pattern earlier and ask a better question: is this a performance problem, or an adjustment that never happened?
Employers can get there first. A conversation about adjustments costs far less than a disciplinary process.
The SEND reforms have raised real questions for families with an EHCP. Here's where things stand.
The Schools White Paper, published in February, sets out a four-tier system of support and new digital Individual Support Plans.
The current system stays in place until September 2029.
No changes to EHCP-based support before September 2030 at the earliest.
The Education for All Bill, announced in May's King's Speech, will carry the changes into law.
So nothing changes for an existing EHCP in 2026. The question worth asking now is whether current support still fits your child, especially if getting to school is becoming harder.
In June 2026, 294,792 people in England were waiting for an autism assessment. Around nine in ten had waited longer than 13 weeks. In some areas the wait is three years.
Life carries on during those years. School, work and relationships don't pause for a referral letter.
A diagnosis matters. Support doesn't have to wait for one. My work starts with what someone is living with now: what drains them, what steadies them, and what needs to change around them. None of that needs a label to be useful.
Autistic burnout is usually described as exhaustion. The people going through it describe something more mixed.
In a 2026 study in the journal Autism, Dorota Ali, Will Mandy and Francesca Happé interviewed 20 autistic adults in the UK. Alongside powering down, many described overactivation: more anxious, more sensitive to sound and light, quicker to anger.
Those diagnosed as adults reported longer episodes, lasting months or years rather than days or weeks, and more confusion about what was happening to them.
The study can't prove that understanding shortens burnout. The pattern is still hard to ignore.
ADHD and autism diagnoses have been rising for years, and the headlines keep asking why.
A study published in JAMA Psychiatry in September 2026 followed over 2.1 million children in Denmark. Children diagnosed in 2022 looked far more like the general population than those diagnosed in 2012. Low birth weight, for example, raised the chance of a diagnosis by 54% at the start of the period and by 17% at the end.
The researchers put the rise down to wider identification: more awareness, better access and changing thresholds. They found no evidence that more people are neurodivergent.
Many adults I work with were missed by the old, narrower picture. A wider net catches people who should never have slipped through.
Why I don't ask you to rate your anxiety out of ten.
"How anxious are you, one to ten?"
I don't ask that. I ask what your body feels like when things go wrong, because for most neurodivergent clients, the number is a guess and the sensation is the real data.
A specific fabric. A smell. Fluorescent lighting. Open-plan noise. This is nervous system information, as real and as specific as any other clinical detail, and I take it seriously.
Timing counts too. "I can't do mornings" or "my best thinking happens at night" tells me about regulation. Ignoring it doesn't make someone more capable, only more tired.
Building a Nervous System Map means working out, together, what overwhelms someone, what settles them, their early warning signs, and how long recovery genuinely takes, built through observation and shared activity rather than a rating scale. It's one of the five domains at the centre of Collaborative Identity Formulation, and it's usually the one that surprises people most: how much they already knew about their own body, once someone finally asked the right kind of question.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
"Just do the thing" sounds like a small ask. For someone with a PDA profile, it can trigger the same shutdown as a direct order.
Pathological Demand Avoidance is an anxiety-driven need for autonomy, so intense that even a gentle request can feel like a threat to control, whatever the words used to soften it. It has nothing to do with defiance or the size of the demand. "Could you maybe think about..." can hit exactly as hard as "do this now."
People with a PDA profile spend a lot of their lives being called difficult, non-compliant, or wilful, by systems built entirely on instructions.
My work has to look different as a result. No agendas. No demands dressed up as suggestions. Choice and control stay with the client throughout, always, or the door closes. That's the condition the therapy has to meet before anything else can happen, rather than a technique added on top.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Ask a masked autistic or ADHD client how they're feeling, and you'll get their fastest answer. Not their true one.
Masking means performing the expected response for so long that it stops feeling like performance. Fine when you're asked "how are you," pleasant when you'd rather be left alone, engaged when you're quietly overwhelmed. Not lying. Surviving.
Here's the problem for therapy: most talking therapy runs on direct questions. And a direct question, to someone who's masked for years, gets the rehearsed answer every time, because that's the only one that comes out fast enough to feel safe.
So I don't ask. I build something alongside a client, a walk, a shared activity, a game, anything with room to think sideways instead of straight ahead, and let the real answer surface in its own time, instead of demanding it on the spot.
It's slower. It's also the only way I've found to get past the performance to what's underneath it.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
For decades, autism research asked one question: what's wrong with the autistic person's social skills.
Then in 2012, researcher Damian Milton asked a different one: what if the misunderstanding runs both ways?
The double empathy problem says exactly that. When an autistic and a non-autistic person struggle to understand each other, neither of them is failing at communication. Two different ways of making meaning meet in the middle and get lost in translation, on both sides.
This changes everything about how I work. If understanding is a two-way gap rather than a one-way deficit, my job is to close the gap through something we build together. Asking a client to explain themselves more clearly in my language won't get us there.
That's the whole starting point of Collaborative Identity Formulation, the framework I use with every client. We don't talk about who you are. We do something together, and let who you are turn up in it.
If you've ever been told you're "hard to read" by people who never learned to read you, this is why.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
ADHD TikTok isn't wrong about everything. But it isn't right about everything either.
If a 60-second video made you think "that's me" for the first time, that matters. But what you do next matters more.
We are not going to tell you to stop scrolling. Social media did something that decades of clinical research failed to do: it made people notice themselves. Research suggests ADHD-related content on TikTok has reached millions of people who had never come across the idea of neurodivergence before. For a lot of people, one video was the first time anyone had ever put language to what they were living through.
And that matters, because when you have spent your whole life believing you are lazy, or scattered, or broken, and someone on a screen names exactly what you have been doing to yourself for years, that is powerful. We are not dismissing that.
What social media gets right
The best ADHD creators online are doing genuinely important work, naming experiences people cannot explain. "You don't have a motivation problem, you have a dopamine problem" hits different when you have been called lazy your entire life, and they are reducing shame. When thousands of people comment "this is literally me," something loosens. You are not the only one who loses their keys three times a day. You are not the only one who starts seven projects and finishes none of them.
They are also pushing back against outdated ideas. ADHD is not just a childhood diagnosis for hyperactive boys. That conversation has moved forward, and social media led it. A lot of creators actively encourage professional evaluation rather than self-diagnosis, which is responsible and matters.
Where it starts to go wrong
The problem is not that people are learning about ADHD online. The problem is that algorithms are designed for engagement, not accuracy. And nuance is not engaging. A carefully qualified paragraph does not get shared. A 30-second clip that says "if you do this one thing you probably have ADHD" does.
So you end up with everyday traits being framed as diagnostic. Losing your keys is relatable. Losing your keys every single day, despite multiple systems, and feeling genuine distress about it. That is a different experience. But in a 15-second video, those two things look the same.
You end up with treatment being simplified. "Just take medication" or "you don't need medication, just do these five things". Neither is honest. Medication works for a lot of people but it is not magic, and it is not the only option. The right support is individual and it takes time to figure out.
And you end up with something we privately call the identity trap: where ADHD becomes your entire personality online. In real life it is one part of who you are. It shapes your experience, it explains a lot, but it does not define your worth or your future. When everything you see online confirms the diagnosis, it becomes very hard to hold the question open long enough to find out properly.
What actually helps
If a video made you think you might have ADHD, that is worth exploring, and it is worth doing properly.
Notice the pattern, not just the moment. ADHD is not something you have on Tuesday afternoons. It is there in your work, your relationships, your sleep, your sense of self, your bank account, your kitchen drawer full of half-started things. If the pattern shows up across your life, that is worth investigating.
And seek proper assessment, not because social media is wrong, but because you deserve clarity. A good assessment looks at your whole history, not a 60-second clip.
Find support that is actually trained. ADHD coaching, counselling, and mentoring are not the same thing. Anyone can call themselves an ADHD coach. Look for someone who understands the clinical picture, not just the hashtags.
What we think, honestly
We are glad people are talking about ADHD. We are glad the silence has broken. But we have sat with someone who spent two years believing they had ADHD because of TikTok, only to discover it was complex trauma with overlapping features. We have also sat with someone who knew something was wrong for decades and finally had language for it because of a social media post. They cried in the session. Not because it was sad, but because someone finally named it.
Both of those people deserve care. The difference is what happens next: whether you take that moment of recognition and build on it with proper support, or stay in the loop of relatable content and unanswered questions.
We are here for the people who are ready to find out.
Not sure where to start? A free 15-minute consultation can help you work out what kind of support fits.
"It got worse in my 40s": ADHD, hormones, and the conversation nobody is having
If your ADHD seemed manageable until your mid-30s or 40s, and then everything fell apart, you are not imagining it. Hormones are part of the picture, and most clinicians are not asking about them.
We hear this all the time. Women who coped, adapted, built systems that worked, until they didn't. The strategies that had carried them for years suddenly stopped functioning. The masking got harder. The emotional regulation vanished. The executive function that was already running on low became completely non-existent.
The question is always: "What changed?" And the answer, more often than anyone is talking about, is perimenopause.
The oestrogen connection
Here is what the research is telling us, and it is not subtle. Oestrogen directly affects dopamine function. ADHD is fundamentally a dopamine-related condition. When oestrogen drops during perimenopause (which can start in your mid-30s and last a decade) dopamine regulation shifts. For someone who was already running on a dopamine deficit, that is not a minor change. It is the difference between coping and drowning.
Research published in the last couple of years has been building this picture steadily. Women with ADHD experience worse perimenopausal symptoms: not just the standard hot flushes and sleep disruption, but more intense mood swings, greater cognitive fog, and significantly worsened executive function. Some early studies suggest women with ADHD may reach menopause earlier. The hormonal timeline is different, and it matters.
Some women report that HRT eased their ADHD symptoms alongside the menopausal ones. That is not yet well-studied but the signal is there, and it is worth discussing with your GP.
And here is the part that makes us angry: a lot of women in this position get misdiagnosed. Perimenopause plus unrecognised ADHD looks a lot like late-onset anxiety or depression. The ADHD gets missed because nobody thinks to ask. They get offered antidepressants when what they actually need is someone to connect the dots.
Why this matters
If you are a woman in your late 30s, 40s, or 50s and things are getting harder rather than easier, there are a few things worth sitting with.
Your ADHD did not get worse, your hormones shifted. The ADHD was always there, and the oestrogen that was helping you compensate has changed. That is not a failure, it is biology. You are not falling apart.
"I coped before" is not evidence that you do not need help now. You coped differently then, but the circumstances and your needs have both changed.
Workplace and relationship patterns shift during this period too. Things that were manageable become unmanageable. This is the time to reassess, not to push through harder.
What we see in our practice
We work with a lot of women in this exact position. They come to us because something shifted and they cannot explain why. Some have been recently diagnosed with ADHD in their 40s and are sitting with a lifetime of "why did nobody see this?" Some are still waiting for assessment. Some were diagnosed younger but their experience of ADHD changed dramatically during perimenopause and nobody warned them it could happen.
One woman told us: "I thought I was losing my mind. I had been fine (not great, but fine) and then suddenly I couldn't do anything. I couldn't organise dinner. I couldn't remember what I walked into a room for. My kids thought I was falling apart. I thought I was falling apart."
She was not falling apart, her oestrogen had dropped and the coping strategies she had built over 40 years stopped working because they depended on a hormonal support that was no longer there.
We help people understand what is happening. Not as a clinical lecture, but as a framework that makes sense of their experience. "Your brain already worked differently. Now your hormones have shifted too. Both of those things are real, and both of them deserve support."
It is not a diagnosis, it is validation. And for a lot of women, it is the first time anyone has connected the dots.
If this sounds like your experience, you don't have to navigate it alone.
Why we work for ourselves. And why it's more complicated than "just start a business."
Self-employment is not a magic fix for neurodivergent people. It can be transformative, but it can also surface the exact traits you were hoping to escape.
There is a popular narrative in neurodivergent spaces: if the traditional workplace doesn't work for your brain, just work for yourself, build your own business, set your own hours, design your own environment.
We understand the appeal. We did it, and we would do it again, but we would do it with our eyes more open.
What self-employment actually gave us
The benefits are real and we will not pretend otherwise. Control over your sensory environment: no open-plan office, no fluorescent lights you cannot turn off, no background noise you have no say over. Flexible scheduling: if your brain works best from 10am, you start at 10am. If you need a two-hour break at 3pm, you take it. Nobody pulls you into a performance management meeting about your "attendance."
Work that matches your interests. ADHD brains thrive on novelty and passion. When you build a business around what genuinely interests you, the motivation follows. That is not a luxury. It is how your brain works. No masking requirement. You do not have to perform "professional" in the neurotypical sense. Clients hire you for what you know, not how well you simulate being someone else.
And permission to hyperfocus. When you find your thing, you can go deep, really deep. That is a strength in business, not a distraction to manage.
What nobody warns you about
Here is where it gets honest. Self-employment also brings you face-to-face with every trait you were hoping to leave behind.
Executive function demands increase massively. Nobody is telling you what to do or when. There is no manager setting deadlines, no structure, no one checking in. For someone with ADHD, that can be paralysing. The work you are good at happens. The invoicing, the admin, the tax returns, the emails you have been meaning to reply to for three weeks, those pile up silently until they become crises.
Emotional regulation is entirely on you. There is no colleague to grab a coffee with, no HR department. When something goes wrong with a client, you carry it home and it follows you to bed.
Income instability hits differently when you have ADHD. The money patterns that already made life difficult (impulsive spending, forgetting to invoice, difficulty planning financially) get amplified when your income is variable. One bad month can spiral fast.
And the isolation is real. You left the office that drained you, but you also left the people. Working alone from home is great until it is not. Loneliness is not a personality flaw, it is a structural problem with being self-employed.
The honest version
What we have learned (from running our own business and from working with neurodivergent people who are building theirs) is that self-employment requires you to offset the traits that get in the way. You cannot just power through them. We have tried, and it does not work.
That might look like an accountant who understands ADHD money patterns, not a nice-to-have, essential. Someone who actually chases you for receipts and files things on time. It might look like a virtual assistant or bookkeeper. Outsourcing the tasks that drain you is not lazy, it is strategic, because you are not built for every part of running a business and that is fine.
It might look like a peer group or co-working arrangement. Other self-employed people who get the loneliness. Regular check-ins. Body-doubling sessions. External structure where your own falls short. And regular supervision or mentoring: we provide this for our clients and we use it ourselves. Having someone outside your business who you can be honest with is not a luxury, it keeps you functional.
Boundaries around work hours matter too. If you do not set them, the work will fill every available space. Your brain will let it. We know because we have been there: checking emails at midnight, working through weekends, forgetting to eat because we were deep in a project. That is not dedication, it is your brain deprioritising everything that is not the current obsession.
Is it worth it?
For us, yes, unquestionably, but not because it is easier. It is worth it because the trade-offs are ones we chose, not ones imposed on us. The autonomy, the alignment with our values, the ability to build something that works with our brains rather than against them, that matters more than the security we gave up.
But it is not for everyone, and it is not a sign of failure if the traditional workplace is where you thrive. Some neurodivergent people need structure, colleagues, and external accountability, and that is not weakness, it is self-knowledge.
The goal is not to work for yourself. The goal is to work in a way that fits your brain. Sometimes that means a business. Sometimes it means a workplace that actually makes adjustments. Both are valid.
Whether you are building a business or trying to survive in one, support makes the difference.
Executive function training doesn't work. We know because we've tried everything.
Research backs up what we suspected from lived experience: structured executive function training does not produce lasting improvement. Here is what that means, and what actually helps instead.
Recent research has looked at whether structured executive function training programmes, the kind sold as "brain training", actually work. The evidence for lasting, everyday improvement is weak.
We read that research and felt something between relief and fury. Relief because it names what we have observed in ourselves and in our clients for years. Fury because thousands of people are still being sold these programmes as if they are the answer.
What executive function actually is
Quick version: executive function is the set of cognitive skills that help you manage yourself and get things done. Working memory: holding information in your mind while you use it. Task initiation: actually starting things, not just thinking about starting them. Planning and prioritising. Inhibitory control. Time perception: sensing how long things take and how time is passing.
In ADHD, these skills are consistently impaired, not because the brain is broken, but because the neural pathways that support them work differently, and that is well-established neuroscience.
Why brain training keeps getting sold
The appeal is obvious and it sounds logical, and there is a kernel of truth: targeted practice can improve specific, trained tasks. You get better at the exercises.
But getting better at the exercises does not translate to better functioning in daily life. You can ace the app and still forget to pay your tax return. The improvements do not generalise, and even when gains are measured, they tend to fade once the training stops. You are not building permanent capacity, you are temporarily practising a skill that does not transfer.
And a 20-minute daily session cannot undo a lifetime of neurological difference. The gap between the training and the real-world demand is too large. Executive function does not exist in a vacuum either. You might have excellent planning skills on a good day, and zero capacity during burnout, sensory overload, or emotional distress, and the training does not account for that, and it cannot.
We know this because we have tried
This is not abstract for us. We have been the people downloading the apps. Buying the planners. Taking the courses. Setting up the colour-coded systems. Doing the exercises. And then watching them fall apart when life gets demanding.
We have tried every productivity system going, pomodoro timers, time-blocking, bullet journals, habit trackers, body-doubling, accountability partners. We have spent actual money on courses that promised to rewire our executive function. Some of them helped temporarily. None of them fixed the underlying difficulty.
What we learned is that the difficulty was never about knowing what to do. We know what to do. We can write you a perfect plan. We can design a beautiful system. The difficulty is in the doing, and that gap is neurological, not motivational.
Every time a new programme promised it would "retrain your brain," we believed it. Because we wanted it to be true. And every time, the same pattern: initial progress, creeping difficulty, eventual collapse, and the quiet shame of "why can't I make this work?"
That shame is the part that makes us angry. Because it is not a willpower failure. It never was. The programmes are built on a model that assumes executive function is a muscle you can strengthen through repetition. For ADHD brains, that model does not hold.
What actually helps
The difference between executive function training and real support is the difference between "fix your brain" and "work with your brain."
External structure works better than internal willpower. ADHD brains respond to external cues, deadlines, and accountability. Building systems that provide those cues (rather than trying to generate them internally) actually moves the needle. Medication, for those who choose it, changes the dopamine picture enough that executive function improves naturally for a lot of people. It is not the only answer, but it is a valid one.
Environmental design matters more than brain training. Reducing demand rather than increasing capacity, less clutter, fewer decisions, simpler systems. The goal is not to think better under pressure. It is to create conditions where less pressure exists. Understanding your own patterns helps too. Knowing when your executive function is at its best and worst. Scheduling important tasks for your peak windows. Accepting that low-capacity days are part of the picture, not a personal failure.
And coaching or mentoring that addresses real life, not a worksheet, not an app, but a person who knows what it actually feels like to live with executive function difficulties and can help you build strategies that hold up under real conditions, not just in a classroom.
The honest take
If executive function training worked, we would recommend it. We have no interest in dismissing something that helps people just because it does not fit our narrative. The research matters, and so does lived experience, and in this case, both point in the same direction.
Executive function difficulties are real, persistent, and neurological. They deserve support that is honest about what works and what does not, not another app or course, just someone who gets it, and a plan that actually fits your life.
If you are tired of systems that don't stick, we understand. Let's find something that works with your brain.
Neurodivergent burnout is not the same as being tired
If you've ever been told to "just take a weekend off" when your entire nervous system has been running on fumes for months, this is for you.
Neurodivergent burnout looks nothing like the kind most people recognise. It doesn't always come after a big project or a stressful week. Sometimes it arrives after something that looks, from the outside, like nothing at all. A quiet Tuesday. A routine that hasn't changed. But underneath, the cost of navigating a world not built for your brain has finally caught up.
What it actually feels like
It's not just being tired. It's the kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix. You might notice:
Complete loss of skills you normally have. Things you can usually do without thinking suddenly feel impossible, reading a recipe, making a phone call, responding to a text.
Increased sensory sensitivity. Sounds are louder, lights are brighter, clothes feel wrong. The world becomes physically overwhelming in ways it usually isn't.
Difficulty speaking or finding words. You know what you want to say but the connection between thought and language has gone quiet. Conversations feel like translating from a language you don't speak fluently.
Emotional flooding or numbness. Sometimes both in the same day. A small comment tips you over. Then nothing registers at all.
Loss of interest in things you love. Not because you don't care, but because your brain simply doesn't have the bandwidth to engage.
Why rest alone doesn't fix it
The standard advice (take a break, go on holiday, have a lie-in) assumes that burnout is caused by doing too much. For neurodivergent people, burnout is often caused by the gap between what your brain needs and what your environment allows.
A weekend off doesn't undo months of masking. It doesn't reverse the energy cost of processing sensory input that others filter automatically. It doesn't address the emotional labour of translating your experience into language that neurotypical people understand.
Real recovery from neurodivergent burnout usually involves:
Reducing demand: not just resting, but actively removing expectations, saying no, letting things slide that don't actually matter.
Unmasking: allowing yourself to stim, to be quiet, to not perform the social version of yourself. This is exhausting to maintain and takes more energy than most people realise.
Sensory management: proactively creating an environment that works for your nervous system, not against it. Noise-cancelling headphones, dimmer lights, comfortable clothes.
Being believed: this one sounds simple but it's the hardest. Having someone say "I believe this is real and it makes sense" rather than offering a quick fix.
What we do differently
In our sessions, we don't start by asking what you want to achieve. We start by asking what it costs you to be in the room. We know that neurodivergent burnout is not a motivation problem, it is a capacity problem, and capacity can be rebuilt, but only if you stop spending it on things that don't serve you.
We help you identify where your energy is going, what's negotiable and what isn't, and how to rebuild without forcing yourself back into the patterns that broke you in the first place.
If this sounds familiar, you don't have to figure it out alone.
Reasonable adjustments aren't special treatment. They're the point.
If you've ever arrived 10 minutes late and been pulled up on it (while the colleague who stays 10 minutes late every day gets praised for dedication) you already know what this article is about.
The UK has legal protections for neurodivergent employees under the Equality Act 2010. Employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments. But knowing this and actually getting them are two very different things.
What reasonable adjustments actually look like
Most people think of adjustments as big structural changes. Sometimes they are. But often they're small, practical, and cost nothing:
Flexible start and finish times. Not arriving "late" by neurotypical standards, but arriving at a time that works with your sleep pattern, commute, or morning routine.
Quiet workspace. Open-plan offices are designed for neurotypical brains. A corner desk, noise-cancelling headphones, or permission to work from home isn't a luxury.
Written instructions. Not everyone processes verbal information the same way. Written follow-ups after meetings aren't a sign of incompetence. They're access.
Breaks when needed. Not scheduled breaks, but the ability to step away when sensory or cognitive overload is building.
Clear, direct communication. No implied meanings. No expecting you to read between the lines. Just saying what you mean.
Why it feels like a fight
The friction usually isn't malicious. Most managers don't wake up thinking about how to make life harder for neurodivergent staff. The problem is that the workplace is designed around neurotypical assumptions, and when you ask for something outside those assumptions, it feels like asking for special treatment even when it isn't.
We help both sides understand this. Not by making neurodivergent employees "fit in" better, but by helping teams understand that different brains need different conditions to do their best work.
Your child isn't refusing school. Their nervous system is protecting them.
School avoidance isn't a choice. It's a response. And understanding the difference changes everything.
When a young person stops going to school, the immediate reaction is usually panic, attendance targets, letters home, meetings, and somewhere in all of that, the actual child gets lost.
What's really happening
For neurodivergent young people, school avoidance is often the end result of a long period of accumulated stress. It might look sudden, but the signals were probably there for months:
Complaining of stomach aches or headaches on school mornings
Getting ready, then being unable to leave the house
Crying or having meltdowns at the school gate
Coming home exhausted, then shutting down completely
Withdrawal from friends, hobbies, and things they used to enjoy
These aren't manipulative behaviours. They're signs of a nervous system that has decided that school is no longer a safe place to be.
What we hear from young people
We've had conversations where a young person says something like: "If more lessons felt like that, I'd probably come to school more." They're not asking for special treatment, they're asking for permission to be themselves, to stop masking, to exist in a space without performing.
The young people we work with aren't lazy. They're not defiant. They're often highly intelligent, deeply empathetic young people who have been trying so hard to fit into a system that wasn't designed for them that they've run out of capacity.
What actually helps
Stop making attendance the goal. When the focus is on getting them back in the building, you miss the point. The building is the problem.
Listen without fixing. They don't need solutions. They need someone to hear what they're saying.
Recognise their strengths. Pattern recognition, social awareness, deep thinking. These are strengths, not deficits.
Work alongside, not instead of. We don't replace the school. We work alongside teachers, SENCOs, and attendance officers to create a path that works for the young person.
We're here for the young person, not the attendance target.