It’s undoubtedly been a long time since I last posted on my blog or any of my social media accounts. Some of you may have been wondering where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing, and others may not have even noticed my absence at all. Honestly, if the shoe were on the other foot, I can’t say I would have noticed because the passing of time doesn’t necessarily compute with me the way it does for others. It feels almost like yesterday that I last posted, but also like I haven’t posted in years. So much has happened, and me being me, I wanted to share my story.

Before I get into things, I do want to let you know that I will be talking about loss and grief, mental health, and neurodivergence. If any of these topics are not safe for you, I understand and encourage you to do what’s best for you at this time. Those of you who have been following me for a while will know that I occasionally talk about these kinds of things, but most of my content is related to my professional life. I am not sure what’s next in terms of this balance, because the more I learn about my personal life, the more I learn about my professional life… but, I can promise to provide content warnings where needed. 

So, what happened? Well, it’s been coming on for a while but it truly ramped up in the early months of 2024, when I started to question the way I engaged with and experienced the world. It was the start of a long, winding, and exhausting road, but I am proud of myself for taking the first step.

There’s been a lot of discussion in the media about neurodiversity and the rise of diagnoses over the past 12 months. I’ve seen and heard people I know and love dearly make comments about this phenomenon that have made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I also know that many of these comments are made without a full understanding of what they’re commenting on. This isn’t necessarily any one individual’s fault, because we as a society have been fed a certain narrative about neurodivergence and mental health that isn’t always (if ever) accurate. I have always tried to have an open mind about these things. Deep down, I’ve always felt that I was missing a couple of puzzle pieces to truly understand myself, but the conversations I’ve been part of with people in my life haven’t really given me any clarity or direction to better understand why I feel this way. This is because the conversations I was having were based on information that wasn’t true, it was speculative or, despite being well meaning, it was ableist. My own internalised ableism meant that I was even part of the problem.

In the beginning of 2024, I was grappling with new information about a person whom I love dearly. They had recently received a diagnosis of autism and ADHD in their 30s and were going through the process of working out medication. To support them, I did what I always do when I don’t know enough about something and threw myself into reading and reading and reading about neurodiversity. I learnt a lot that would help me to support my loved one, but it also unlocked thoughts I had kept in a vault to protect myself since I was a teenager. The more I learnt, the more I questioned things, and the more I questioned meant that the vault was cracked open. Before I knew it, I was grappling with my sense of self and my understanding of the world. When I ended up mentioning this to my psychologist, she helped me untangle my thoughts and work out why I was reacting so strongly to this new information that I had learnt to support my loved one. It turns out that in my attempt to learn as much as I could to understand them, I had inadvertently started learning about myself and my brain was trying to tell me that THIS IS IT! This is the missing puzzle piece to understanding myself. This is the reason why, at 13 years old, I created a personal motto in response to school activity that proudly proclaimed “Never be normal.” 

Maybe I had ADHD, too?

Fast forward a few months and a few doctors’ appointments and tests and referrals later, I was sitting in a room with a psychiatrist who handed me a script for ADHD medication and was giving me some instructions on what to do next. I walked out of that appointment feeling validated, but it also sent me into a bit of a grief spiral. 

• Who was I, really?
• What parts of me were because of my ADHD and what parts were me?
• Who was I under the mask?
• What might have happened if I’d known earlier?
• Who might I have been if I’d known earlier?

Anyone who has received information about themselves that alters the way they see and understand who they are will know this feeling. It’s bitter sweet. There is joy in knowing, but there is grief in wondering what might have been.

Meanwhile, this new diagnosis helped me understand so many of the other diagnoses I’ve received in my life – the hypermobility, the autoimmune disorder, the mental health issues – all of these, and more, are considered comorbidities for neurodivergent people and the minute I was officially labelled as ADHD, I was able to claim the neurodivergent label in the eyes of the Australian medical system and every single one of my doctors started viewing me in a more holistic way. Progress was certainly made in helping me streamline some things and better understand others, but there remained this sense that I was still missing a puzzle piece. 

I spent the majority of 2024 experimenting with the ADHD medication to figure out what the best option was for me. I am grateful to my doctors for their support and their understanding. I’ve ended up on a bit of a unique schedule, but it works for me. The medication has certainly been incredibly helpful in managing my ADHD symptoms; however, I was starting to experience some new challenges. Challenges that I had been able to ignore or mask because of my ADHD. These things were becoming even clearer and clearer when I started working with a coach for my ADHD. The information I gained from my coach had the same effect on the vault in my brain that learning about ADHD to support my loved one had. I This time, I was not afraid to reopen the vault, but then the worst thing that I’ve had to deal with in my adult life happened, and everything I was learning about myself had to be put on hold. 

In August of 2024, I had to say goodbye to my soulmate – my 14 year old Bichoodle who meant the world to me, Toebee. I will not go into details, because it’s still raw and I know that many will find this hard to read, but I needed to include this part of my story because it was the beginning of the end for how I was treating myself. Saying goodbye to Toebee meant making fast decisions within a 36 hour period. After the whole thing was done and there were no more decisions to make, I ended up waging a war with my brain. Let’s be clear, I have been diagnosed with major depression for a while now, and I’ve had a brain that says horrible things to me for as long as I can remember, but it got significantly worse at this time. It got so bad that my husband had to step in and ask me to go back to my psychologist as quickly as possible. That ended up being the best thing anyone could have offered me at that time. I received some eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) and, I can say this with confidence, without this treatment, I am sure that the nasty part of my brain would have won. EMDR helped me reframe my thinking and start to process this loss in a more healthy way. It wasn’t a silver bullet, and I still have some horrible thoughts about anything and everything, including Toebee’s passing, but I am able to recognise that I am not my thoughts. 

This traumatic event in my year was the straw that made me realise just how broken I was feeling. I was coming up on almost 9 months post ADHD diagnosis, I’d received some great coaching and support, I’d gotten my meds sorted, I’d started being able to process my grief and loss, but I was still tired and overwhelmed and unable to look after myself outside of my work. I was exhausted, and I knew I needed help. That nagging feeling that I was missing something came back stronger than ever, and I started to really listen to it.

As I came to the end of my teaching responsibilities in 2024, I took a month off in November. I had so many things I wanted to do during this time, but the reality was that I ended up being a couch potato with no capacity to do anything. I survived. I slept. I avoided humans as much as possible. Towards the end of the month, I started to feel more capable of doing something for myself. When I ended up back at work in December, I was still exhausted and my capacity to handle stress was still basically non-existent, but I no longer felt like every day was a fight for my life. I even made it through the Christmas period with little incident. Come January though, I was determined to put a name to what I’d been feeling with growing certainty for months now. I was not just combined ADHD. I was autistic and combined ADHD. 

I am AuDHD.

I’ve since had this diagnosis confirmed in the early months of this year (2025) by a variety of doctors and mental health practitioners, but the most important confirmation of this missing puzzle piece came from within myself. This is why, at age 13, my motto for living my best life was “never be normal.” I was finally accepting that which I was trying to understand about myself at 13 – I had always felt different, and now I know why.

This new diagnosis had the same effect on me as the ADHD diagnosis did. The lightbulb moment of understanding, coupled with the overwhelming sense of grief and sadness for my younger self and what might have been. Don’t get me wrong, I am so proud of where I am in my life, who I am, and all that I’ve done, but there is no denying that I still wonder. I’m finding great satisfaction in learning about neurodivergence and having, what feels like, a complete picture of myself for the first time in my life. All the pieces are here, and now I can see how they connect to make me who I am.

So why this post? I’m writing this in an attempt to communicate what I’ve been dealing with and why I’ve been quiet on all fronts lately. Since the beginning of this year (2025), I have come to accept my neurodivergent brain and started learning how to advocate for myself and give myself the best chance at success in every aspect of my life. I’ve had to make adjustments to both my ADHD medication and antidepressants as an essential component of giving myself this chance. I’ve been learning about neurodivergence not just to understand myself better, but to figure out how to advocate for my students and the neurodivergent community in general. I am in no way an expert, but I am learning and sharing what I learn with those who are willing to listen. I am fighting my internalised bias, particularly my internalised ableism, and I’m always working to be a better advocate and ally. It’s an ongoing struggle, and one that is exhausting on a different level, but it also brings me peace.

I have been wanting to share this news with everyone for a while now, but I will admit to feeling a little bit of fear for how this will be received. I am not ready to talk about what neurodivergence is, how it can be experienced, and what my version of neurodiversity is at this time. I’m not shutting the door on this conversation forever, and if you know me, you know I’ll likely start sharing what I’ve learnt in time. I have learnt so much that I know is worth sharing, and that may happen one day, but for now…

I am proud to say that I am AuDHD, and that’s enough.