Practical tools for neurodivergent study, work, and life.
Everyday life with a neurodivergent brain: planning weeks that don’t collapse, managing energy, recognising shutdowns and overload, and building “good enough” routines. Practical ideas for making daily life a bit less exhausting and more predictable, without pretending everything can be optimised.
If your partner comes home from work exhausted, quiet or shut down while everyone else sees them “coping fine”, it can really hurt. This guide explains what masking is, why home becomes the crash site, and how you can support them with decompression time, low-pressure evenings and kinder language – without ignoring your own needs.
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Many autistic and ADHD people don’t just “dislike” phone and video calls – they find them genuinely exhausting. Real-time processing, unspoken social cues and the pressure to respond quickly can leave you anxious before the call and wiped out afterwards. This article explores why calls are so hard, why preferring text, IM or email is a valid access need, and offers gentle scripts and small strategies for coping when calls are unavoidable and for asking for alternatives when that’s possible.
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Headlines about “overdiagnosis” and people gaming the system can make it harder to take your own struggles seriously. This article offers a quiet counterpoint: why many of us seek autism or ADHD assessment for clarity, self-understanding and fair support rather than money, how minimising phrases like “we’re all on the spectrum somewhere” miss the point, and why you’re allowed to ask questions about your own brain even in a hostile political climate.
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Around Christmas, New Year and other busy seasons, social invitations can pile up fast. For many autistic and ADHD people, every event carries hidden costs in energy, masking and recovery time. This article explores why invitations can feel so heavy, how to get honest about your social capacity, and offers gentle scripts for saying no – or “yes, but differently” – without burning your relationships or yourself out.
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Time blindness isn’t about not caring; it’s about time feeling slippery, even when you want to be organised. In this article I share how planning actually works for me as an autistic adult juggling work, part-time PhD study, family life and volunteering, and offer small, realistic tools to make deadlines, projects and weekday mornings a little less chaotic.
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Some days it feels like you wake up with no batteries and almost no spoons. This article looks at what “low-spoon” days are, how they show up in everyday life, and offers tiny, realistic tools and routines to help autistic and ADHD adults get through the essentials without burning out completely.
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From the outside you might look calm and capable; at home you’re collapsing on the sofa, forgetting to eat and avoiding people. This article explores how long-term masking can feed into autistic burnout, what “quietly falling apart” can look like in everyday life, and offers small, realistic ways to unmask safely and protect your limited energy.
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Background noise doesn’t have to be painful to be exhausting. In this article I share how I use noise-reducing ear plugs and earbuds as an autistic adult in open-plan offices, at Beavers and in everyday life, and offer practical, safety-aware ideas you can adapt to find what works for your own sensory system.
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Deciding whether to tell people you’re neurodivergent can feel huge. This article explores the pros and cons of disclosure with family, at work and in community roles, and shares how I’ve handled it so far as an autistic adult, employee, PhD student, parent and Beaver Scout Leader.
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Many autistic and ADHD students care deeply about their work but still feel unable to start. Drawing on my own experience of working full time, studying part time and raising a family, this article explains why studying can feel impossible and offers tiny, realistic ways to move forward without expecting a perfect student brain.
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