My whole life I’ve always felt ‘different’. Like the rest of the female population - “I’m just not like other girls” (which is more the internalised misogyny, but that’s another story). I just knew I felt, processed, perceived things differently than most people around me.

As a kid, I was like some sort of golden retriever on speed; playing football, biking, running, netball, basketball, martial arts, tennis, skateboarding (terrible), singing (also terrible), insert every other physical pursuit. I was never still, nor was my mind ever still. I found school hard, overwhelming, confusing, pressure filled. I grew into a very anxious, sad teenager. The whole world felt like it was collapsing in on me. Hormones, secondary school, routine changes, the fact nothing ever stayed in my brain and every part of me felt scattered over the universe - lead to a series of anxiety fuelled years that grew worse and worse.

My creative mind could and did conjure every possible bad thing that could ever happen, my skin buzzed from sensory overload and even sleeping was filled with the type of dread you don’t share over breakfast. I felt so deeply wrong and bad, and the phrase would circle in my mind on repeat “what on earth is wrong with me?”. I kept it all very quiet, far too ashamed and afraid to ever admit to myself I needed support. But it had been reiterated to me, numerous times - I was just wrong. And I needed to stop being wrong. But I couldn’t find the answer.

I gritted my way through school, college. Dropped out of university 3 times. Many mental breakdowns, these ongoing burnouts, all I wanted to do was eject from my body. For years, I tried to fix myself. Through therapy, coaching, control, performance, and pushing myself harder — physically, mentally, emotionally. I tried to out-discipline my own brain. I hoped self-help would fix it. Journalling, reframing, cold showers, becoming a gym obsessive, thousands (thousands) of pounds on therapy running ultramarathons, writing my god-damn gratitude list.

But nothing seemed to get rid of this ongoing overwhelm of life, this perpetual confusion with how on earth I’m meant to be; what I’m meant to say, act, do, feel. Nothing seemed to make supermarkets less bright and painful. I tried to get rid of my neurodivergence by exposure - maybe if I just put myself in situations I hate, ignore what my body is telling me, tell myself to stop being so stupid, then I’d get rid of these things I hated about myself. Surprise surprise, nothing changed.

Turns out - treating your neurodivergence like some mental illness actually doesn’t work. Because that’s not what it is. It’s a wiring difference.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in my early twenties. It was a lightbulb moment, and also a very painful process of grieving the time I’d spent so long trying to fix myself. I went through the arduous process of denying it, ignoring it, becoming it, blaming myself, hating myself. Women have a hard time being acknowledged or understood in the medical system, and this is just one example.

But ADHD doesn’t need to be fixed. ADHD doesn’t need to be ‘treated’. ADHD needs to be understood - accepted, made room for. What if it wasn’t another thing ‘wrong’ with you that you have to fix? What if this simple wiring difference gives you access to higher creative wisdom, intuition? What if you could simply allow yourself to take a break when you need, go all in when you feel like it and stop forcing yourself to do those god damn ‘catch ups’ that you resent? What if you could finally stop thinking about how you’re being? What if you could stop trying to constantly fight how you feel? What if you could make total peace with the millions of thoughts in your head?

I’ve worked with over 200 women in the last 5 years in my Personal Training & Coaching business. Women who, like me, have lived in the shadows of shame, anxiety, burnout, guilt, and the constant, low-level ache of “not good enough.” Many of them now call me their coach. Some have become my closest friends.

That’s why I do this.

I’m now a fully qualified ADHD Coach & Practitioner, and an ICP&M Certified Life Transformation Coach. I work with brilliant, overwhelmed women who are ready to stop masking, stop spiralling, and start creating a life that works with their brain, not against it.

Because change needs to happen. And I’m not going to wait for someone else to do it.