I left high school at 18 and went straight into early childhood education. I loved children, I loved learning, and I loved the theory behind teaching, but almost from the beginning, something about it felt harder for me than it seemed to for the people around me. Practicums were exhausting. Staff rooms were intimidating. Feedback felt personal in a way I couldn’t explain. I assumed, like a lot of people do, that if I just tried harder I’d eventually become the teacher everyone wanted me to be.
I built a career anyway, centres, kindergarten, Playcentre, relieving, home based education, and by most measures, I was good at it. Children connected with me. Families trusted me. But underneath it, I was constantly exhausted, anxious before work most days, and quietly convinced there was something wrong with me that I just hadn’t identified yet.
Five years into teaching, I finally got some answers: a diagnosis of both autism and ADHD. AuDHD. It reframed everything, not as a flaw I needed to keep hiding, but as a different way of experiencing a job (and a life) that was never really designed with me in mind.
I eventually had to step off the classroom floor and into a visiting teacher role, a change that’s given me more sustainability, even as it’s brought its own challenges, including financial ones that a lot of people in this field will recognise.
What this space is for
That AuDHD Teacher isn’t really about early childhood education, even though that’s the world I know best. It’s about being AuDHD, late diagnosed, a woman, and still figuring out what that means for how I work, live, and relate to people. You’ll find personal reflections here, plain language explainers for anyone trying to understand AuDHD (for themselves or someone they care about), and posts that go alongside episodes of the podcast for anyone who’d rather read than listen.
I’m not writing from the outside, as an expert or a clinician. I’m writing from inside it, still working a lot of this out as I go.
Where else to find me
[Instagram] · [TikTok] · [Threads] · [Podcast]
If any of this sounds familiar, the exhaustion, the sense of missing some handbook everyone else got, the late realisation that explains a lot, I’m glad you’re here
that audhd teacher 