A woman with dark hair scratching her head, wearing a beige sweatshirt with 'dopamine' written on it, standing in front of a pink circular banner that reads 'ADHD & AUTISM COACH ANISA AFZAL' on a pink gradient background.

My story…

I was diagnosed with combined type ADHD.

At the age of 31, when I was 3 years into motherhood…

My eldest child was 3 and my youngest was 1; I was struggling with everything that goes into the day-to-day life of being a parent, I felt extremely low, was very anxious and quite often struggled to leave the house. One day my childhood best friend said to me ‘I think you might have ADHD’. When I asked why, she rattled off a list of examples from when I was child right up to my thirties.

The reality is, my struggles had always been there from a very young age. I went through so many phases;

The ‘good girl’ who tried her best to follow the rules but needed to stop being so distractable.

The chatty girl who needed to stop distracting everyone else and apply herself more.
The rebellious class clown who was disruptive and failed all my subjects
The girl who confused everyone by hyper-focusing in my final year of high school and achieved the results I needed to get a place at University (no-one saw this one coming!)
The impulsive girl who ended up in a toxic relationship, getting married and then divorced at the age of 23.
The perfectionist primary school teacher who stayed late and took work home because I always felt behind.
And finally... being the Mum who definitely did not have her **** together because all the coping mechanisms I had down to an art were no longer possible with two young children in tow.

When I got my diagnosis everything about the map of who I was finally made sense. I went through a phase of grief, unpacking the realisation of how different my life could have been, had I and everyone around me understood myself better.

It turns out I wasn’t lazy, I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t scatty and I certainly wasn’t ‘too much’;

I had ADHD.

I then began the process of unlearning everything I thought I knew about life, myself, and the world. In the midst of this process, I realised that my eldest child was Autistic - and that I was Autistic too.

With this lived experience and having a deep passion for supporting, validating and being a general all-round cheerleader for AuDHD-ers (people who are autistic and also have ADHD) and ADHD-ers (people who have ADHD), I trained to be an Advanced AuDHD Life Coach, specialising in supporting and working with late diagnosed women, mothers, parents and families.

Qualifications:

MA in Behavioural Studies - University of Aberdeen

Post-graduate diploma in Education (Primary) - University of Glasgow

Advanced AuDHD Paradox Framework Coaching Certification - ADHD Works