I was diagnosed with ADHD at 31, at an appointment I had rescheduled three times, which the assessor kindly agreed was on-theme. Before that I was a project manager, and I was good at it in the way undiagnosed ADHD women are often good: astonishing in a crisis, hopeless at expenses, promoted for the firefighting, quietly drowning in the follow-up emails. I could run a forty-person project plan beautifully and could not reliably get my own washing from machine to dry.
The diagnosis explained thirty years in about forty minutes. The relief was enormous. So, honestly, was the anger: at the school reports full of 'so much potential', at every planner I'd bought as an apology to myself, and at how long a girl who masks well can go unnoticed. I was the chatty one, the too-much one, and 'disruptive' got written in my file years before anyone thought to write 'bright'. Girls, and especially Black and brown girls, still get missed like this every day. It's a big part of why this practice exists.
From project plans to people
Once my own systems started working, I couldn't shut up about it, which regular readers of my brain will recognise as standard behaviour. I retrained properly: the ADD Coach Academy's ICF-accredited coach training, ongoing supervision, insurance, the lot. Then I built the practice I couldn't find at 31. One where the booking system assumes you'll need a reminder, the recaps arrive in writing, and nobody ever suggests you simply try harder.
Coaching, not treatment, and why I keep saying it
There is no UK statutory register for ADHD coaching, which means anyone can use the title. So instead of a vague badge, here are my exact edges. I don't diagnose, and I never will. I don't prescribe, adjust or advise on medication. I don't treat mental-health conditions. If you want an assessment, that conversation starts with your GP, and if you're in England it's worth asking about NHS right to choose, which can shorten the wait considerably. If a session tells me therapy is what you actually need, I'll say so in plain words and help you find it. Being clear about what I'm not is precisely what lets me be good at what I am.
What the work is actually like
Practical, specific, and quite often funny, though never at your expense. The jokes in this room are aimed at the systems that failed you, the planner industry, and occasionally my own brain, which once put my passport in the freezer for safekeeping. The struggle itself is never the punchline, because I know from the inside that it isn't one. We work in small experiments, we measure against real weeks, and we treat every abandoned system as data rather than evidence for the prosecution.
Sessions run online across the UK. I work from a studio at Mabgate Mills in Leeds, in front of a wall planner that is, I want it noted for the record, in genuine daily use.
