On Neurodivergence, Motherhood, and Blowing Up My Career

In 2019, when I was childfree and didn’t know I was neurodivergent, a Tuesday morning looked very different than they do these days. I slept in until 9, 10, maybe even 11 am. I often moved just one room over to my office and hyperfocused on one task—either work or writing for hours—until I remembered to eat. I would take Zoom calls, lead projects, and except for that short stint where I used an elliptical bike and tried Tai Chi, I rarely carved out space for any self care.

At the time, building a career was the utmost priority.

But, of course, life had other plans.

Since then, I’ve worked for book coaching and publishing startups, and I’ve had many freelance creative side jobs. I also became an indie author and hustled my ass off marketing while building an oh-so-modest-by-today’s-standards social media following.

No matter how much I gave to my career, I really wanted to be a mom. I made the radical decision, despite my body’s protests, to give birth in 2021 at age 39. I knew that things would change, but I naively thought they would only get better. I saw other moms making their careers work. I also had the privilege of working from home, so I felt I was finally achieving my dream.

I had this in the bag.

My Daughter’s Diagnosis

When she was two, the pediatrician thought nothing of the fact that my daughter wasn’t saying full sentences yet.

“Nothing to be concerned about. It’s just on a lower part of the curve. Check back in six months, and we’ll see where she is.”

“And the screaming during appointments? That’s not a cause for concern?”

“Not at all. Most children don’t like coming to the doctor, especially toddlers. We promise all of this is perfectly normal. But how about you? Are you doing okay? Getting enough sleep? It says here on your chart you were very anxious throughout your pregnancy and early postpartum.”

Six very short months later, when my daughter still had yet to complete a sentence, the doctor started to sing a different tune.

It was so cool that after that sixth-month period, when she was still mostly babbling with occasional phrases like “Mama, outside” and “Eat sandwich,” I was meant to go from easy-breezy mom to full-on panic mode about her lack of language, while still having none of my anxieties show up.

There is apparently an incredibly thin line between anxiety around my daughter’s well-being and a negative reflection of my tendency to overthink, my mental health, and lack of self-care postpartum.

For example, it was normal to be concerned about whether or not she was getting enough to eat, but I was overthinking when I asked about her social anxiety, toe-walking, and hand-flapping.

“All kids do that,” I was told. “Stop worrying.”

Still, I wasn’t sure how to be anxious and also… not. That’s apparently a thing?

The next few months revolved around carrying the invisible load of navigating my daughter’s eventual diagnosis and the increasingly immense expectations of those around me. Not only was I shuttling my daughter to preschool, scheduling evaluations and appointments, and constantly filling out forms, but the work stress was piling up too.

From Dream Job to Nightmare Client

Slack notifications from my biggest client started to give me heart palpitations.  Even in these creative, remote, freelance startups that claimed to be “flexible,” I felt punished when I didn’t meet the expectation to always be at the top of my game. If I wasn’t constantly proving myself, I was left out of decision-making meetings (which, by the way, could have been emails).

One exciting example: I didn’t fly to Vegas on a whim to meet with a client at a conference. Someone else on the team did and was rewarded with a podcast spot, and some added visibility as well as the skinny on some projects I didn’t know about yet.

My part-time contract included being available and on-call to pop in and work at any given moment, which was the major stressor in my new life as a special needs parent slash freelancer.

I scheduled a meeting with the client and requested a more specific schedule so I could manage my time. Specific terms like: I would work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then have Thursday and Friday off. We had multiple conversations in which I made multiple accommodations on my end to ensure this was possible. The client agreed to my new schedule but then hired new people and gave my projects to them. I was immediately a mix of disgusted, disappointed, and hurt, but I put on my professional face and welcomed the new people.

Meanwhile, I was chasing an autism diagnosis around in circles. Depending on who I talked to, professionals were either avoiding my daughter’s diagnosis, in complete denial, or opening up my eyes to all the possibilities for her. I couldn’t get anyone to say the dreaded “A” word until she got her IEP. And I have yet to have a pediatrician say the word to my face, as they only said it one time when my husband took her in for an appointment.

Her preschool brought me in for a meeting and asked that she be removed and put in a “special school.” When I got upset, they offered to keep her part-time, but the damage was done. I pulled her out and did as they suggested. She is thriving there and getting lots of occupational therapy, but I didn’t know these resources existed until I went through the harrowing process all alone, with no guidance.

To recap, my two and a half year old daughter has been effectively kicked out of school, my biggest client responded to my request for accommodations by giving my work away, and doctors will barely discuss my daughter’s diagnosis with me.

Naturally, I entered therapy.

The Reality Check

My therapist just happened to be a woman who had raised a special needs child into adulthood, who was also able to hang onto her career by the skin of her teeth. Her reassurance was invaluable, and she gave me the insight I needed, which was that they were in the wrong and what they were doing to me was unfair.

We went around in circles for almost a year, until I could finally see that there was no way I could fix the problem just by working harder.

The problem wasn’t me, the accommodations I needed, or the number of hours I put in.

One thing I learned about self-advocacy is that, unfortunately, no matter what you do and say, some people just won’t listen. You have to take these red flags for what they are, and keep your eyes open for what feels more equitable and fair. It might feel like an ongoing battle, but unfortunately that seems to be how the system is set up.

Having to say no to and walk away from what I thought was a dream gig was not on my bingo card. Neither was being ghosted by the other opportunity I had lined up during contract negotiations.

But hey, c'est la vie?

A Typical Tuesday

Now, a typical Tuesday morning is strategically planned to make time for the accommodations and self-care we need, almost down to the minute.

I wake up at 7 am. Shower, dress, make herbal tea, grab the clothes I left out for my daughter the night before, get her up, cleaned, fed, and watching something on her iPad so that I get a few sips of tea, set the GPS to ensure we are in the drop-off line roughly between 8:07 and 8:10.

(Try the GPS hack — plug in your destination while you’re getting ready! The ETA countdown gets us out the door faster and ensures that I have a margin for lateness, which is always fun for a neurodivergent person).

Start the car, throw in her (hopefully packed) backpack and my tea, come back in, clean her plate, get her dressed, help her with her shoes and socks, put on my shoes.

Put on our jackets if it’s rainy or cold (the weather this year, dude) and out the door with enough time to get her buckled in and pull out of our driveway while the GPS is still saying we will be there around 8:08 am.

Now that I know I’m AuDHD, I can appeal to both of my sensibilities. The ADHD side craves the dopamine hit of a new project, a fun collaboration, maybe even a walk around town listening to a friend’s podcast, while daydreaming about life’s possibilities. The Autism wants me to make money, be good at what I do, and face as little rejection as possible.

Now, the rest of my Tuesday morning involves the drive back to the pick-up line between 11:07 and 11:12, eating breakfast, working out, doing some meditation, doing something artistic like doodling, embroidery, or editing a manuscript, maybe having a support Zoom or a meeting with coaching client, writing a blog post, a Substack article, an email, an Instagram post, working on a collaboration, leaving a Telegram voice note for coaching clients, whatever my Asana suggests I could be doing, and maybe even some dishes, laundry, or errands in there.

Either way, I’m now making sure I do self care, working on my coaching business, and getting one step closer to being financially independent enough to make decisions about my time and activities.

I learned that self-care was the key to maintaining my sanity, the one thing that my daughter’s advocacy relied on the most.

Were career lessons learned? Certainly, but I’m actually not really a fan of how the goal posts have moved. I had no idea being a busy parent of a special needs child would completely limit my access to so many things that I didn’t even know were opportunities when I was childfree.

I'm hoping that one day the playing field might level out again, but so far, I’m not optimistic.

In this economy? Please.