Neurodivergent family life, from lived experience
Hello, I’m Sophie, the writer and founder of Totally Frank.
I’m a late-diagnosed ADHD woman, married to an autistic man and mum to two neurodivergent boys. Neurodivergence isn’t something we simply “accommodate” in our home. It shapes our rhythms, the way we communicate, how we learn, what overwhelms us and what helps each of us feel more like ourselves.
Over the years, our family has navigated school distress, anxiety, shutdowns, overwhelm, burnout and eventually homeschooling. There have been seasons where almost everything seemed to revolve around getting through the next difficult day.
But this isn’t only a story about what was hard. It’s also about what happened when we stopped trying quite so hard to make our family fit the systems and expectations around us, and started paying closer attention to what each of us actually needed.
A moment of truth
behind every late-diagnosed woman
is a little girl
who knew this world
was never made for her
but could never explain why.
– girl (remastered)
When I was diagnosed with ADHD later in life, so many things about my own life began to make sense: the overwhelm, the masking, the burnout and the lifelong feeling that I was somehow both “too much” and “not enough”.
My diagnosis wasn’t a shock so much as an explanation. It helped me make sense of patterns and experiences I had spent years trying to understand, and let me look back at my own life through a very different lens.
Understanding my boys had begun long before that. So much of what we’ve learnt as a family has come through trial and error. We’ve tried things that worked, plenty that didn’t, changed our minds, adjusted our expectations and slowly learnt to pay more attention to what our children were showing us.
That willingness to keep looking beneath the surface — rather than assuming there was one right way to do things – has shaped the way we parent, homeschool and live together as a neurodivergent family.
The truth no one tells you about neurodivergent parenting
People can care deeply about neurodivergent kids and still have no idea what neurodivergent parenting feels like.
“I thought I understood my neurodivergent clients – but after becoming a neurodivergent parent, I realised I had no idea.”
It’s an isolating life.
A misunderstood life.
A life that often gets judged more than supported.
That’s why Totally Frank exists.
Because neurodivergent families don’t need more opinions – we need lived-experience guidance, softness, and safety.
Rebuilding our life through nervous system work
When school stopped being possible and burnout consumed all of us, we didn’t “create a new plan.” We rebuilt a new way of living, slowly and gently:
This wasn’t a wellness experiment – it was survival. And over time, it became healing.
Why I created Totally Frank
During our hardest seasons, I searched everywhere for support that was:
I couldn’t find it. So I built it.
Totally Frank is for parents who feel overwhelmed, misunderstood, or judged.
It’s for families navigating big emotions, sensory overload, complex needs, school refusal, burnout, and the deep emotional labour of ND parenting.
I don’t teach from theory. I teach from a life lived inside ND parenting. You’re not alone here. You’re welcome here. And you don’t have to figure this out by yourself anymore.
Embracing “radical acceptance”
At the centre of our healing was something we now live by:
Radical Acceptance
Letting go of the need to control, judge, or wish things were different than they are.
It doesn’t mean giving up. It means building safety – for our children and for ourselves.
Radical acceptance is what helped our boys’ nervous systems soften. It’s what made homeschooling possible. It’s what pulled us out of burnout.
And it’s what guides every tool, every workshop, and every resource at Totally Frank.
