There’s a thread that runs quietly through my life and work, one that I haven’t always named out loud.
I live with ADHD and dyslexia.
For a long time, these were things I worked around, compensated for, or kept in the background. Not out of shame exactly, but out of a learned instinct to adapt. To find ways to keep up. To appear as though things came easily, even when they didn’t.
School was often where I felt this most.
I remember sitting in classrooms, aware that my mind didn’t move in straight lines. Thoughts came quickly, but not always in order. Words made sense in my head but could feel slippery on paper. Instructions needed repeating. Time felt inconsistent, sometimes rushing, sometimes dissolving completely.
I also remember how this was reflected back to me. During parents’ evenings, teachers would often describe me as being “away with the clouds” – physically present, but not always engaged in the way that was expected. At the time, my parents sought support and I was taken for various assessments, including medical tests and psychological input, yet nothing “wrong” was ever identified.
There was effort behind everything. And yet, alongside that, there was also something else. A sensitivity.
A way of noticing people, tone, atmosphere. An awareness of what wasn’t being said, even when I struggled to articulate what was.
It wasn’t until much later in life, at the age of 37, that I received a formal diagnosis of ADHD. After recognising ongoing patterns and seeking support alongside my academic training, things began to make a different kind of sense. There was something both reassuring and liberating in being able to name my experience.
Psychosynthesis speaks about the whole person. Not just symptoms or behaviours, but the deeper layers of meaning, identity, and potential.
Living with ADHD and dyslexia has meant that I’ve never experienced myself in a purely linear or structured way. My inner world has always been textured, sometimes chaotic, often rich.
And because of that, I think I’ve developed a different kind of listening. I don’t expect people to present themselves neatly. I don’t need their story to come out in perfect sequence. I’m comfortable sitting in the in-between, in the half-formed, in the “I don’t quite know how to say this.”
Because I know that place.
I’ve lived there.
There have been moments in my work where a client pauses, searching for a word, apologising for losing their thread. And I feel something soften in me. Not because I see it as something to fix, but because I recognise the vulnerability in that moment. The courage it takes to stay with something that doesn’t come easily.
ADHD has also shaped the way I hold energy in the room. I understand restlessness, distraction, the pull of competing thoughts. I know what it’s like to want to stay present and yet feel your mind move elsewhere. So, I don’t meet that with frustration. I meet it with curiosity.
What’s happening right now?
Where did your attention go?
What might that movement be trying to show us?
Sometimes what looks like distraction is protection.
Sometimes what feels like chaos is unprocessed emotion looking for space.
Living with ADHD and dyslexia has meant that I’ve had to do that within myself. To make room for the way my mind works, rather than constantly trying to correct it. And in doing so, I think I’ve become more able to offer that same space to others.
Much of my work now involves supporting clients to move away from self-judgement and concerns about how they are perceived, and instead develop a more compassionate and accepting relationship with themselves. In many ways, this mirrors my own journey – learning not just to manage these parts of myself, but to embrace them as part of my identity.
A space where you don’t have to be organised to be understood.
Where you don’t have to have the right words to be heard.
Where your experience doesn’t need to fit a particular shape to be valid.
Perhaps that’s the quiet gift in all of this. Not the labels themselves, but what they’ve invited me to learn.
About difference.
About compassion.
About the many ways a mind can make sense of the world.
Today, there is greater awareness, which can be incredibly validating, though it also invites us to stay thoughtful about how these labels are used. In my work, I try to move beyond the label itself and focus on the individual experience, how someone understands their mind and how they can relate to themselves with greater compassion.
And maybe the question this opens up is a gentle one.
What parts of yourself have you been trying to work around, rather than listen to? Because sometimes, the very things we’ve learned to compensate for…are the things that allow us to meet others most deeply.
