Honest, practical support for quietly neurodivergent people
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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“Can you just pull something together?” can feel like a small request, but for many autistic and ADHD people it creates a huge amount of hidden work. This article looks at why vague instructions are an access issue, how our brains juggle multiple interpretations at once, and offers simple, kind scripts and questions to get clearer outcomes, deadlines and formats without feeling difficult.
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Knowing you’re neurodivergent is one thing; explaining it to managers, tutors or coordinators is another. This article walks through how to write a short “how I work” neurodiversity statement, using a simple structure, example sentences based on my own statement, and ideas for adapting it to work, study and volunteering while still protecting your privacy.
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Meetings can look like “where the real work happens” from the outside and like sensory and cognitive overload from the inside. This article explores why meetings are so tiring for autistic and ADHD people, shares how I cope with agendas, notes, quiet fidgets and reset time, and offers small, realistic tweaks that can make your next meeting a little less overwhelming.
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Many autistic and ADHD people naturally “go quiet and deliver”: we disappear into the work and only update when there’s something concrete to show. This article explores why that happens, how it can worry managers who can’t see what’s going on, and offers tiny, realistic ways to agree check-ins and send short updates without turning into someone who lives in email.
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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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