Surviving Chaos: Vomit, No Sleep, and an Exam at 7 AM (ADHD Mom Life!)

Feeling like life’s chaos is winning? Welcome to my world! In this episode, I’m sharing a brutally honest look at how I handled one of the craziest weeks of my life—cleaning up midnight vomit, running on zero sleep, and still somehow managing to pass a professional exam (with no revision, mind you!) all before 7 AM. 😵‍💫

As an ADHD mom juggling parenthood, work, and the rollercoaster of daily life, things don’t always go to plan. From the stress of a new job, work deadlines piling up, to battling the inevitable shame spirals that come with ADHD, this week pushed me to the edge. But guess what? I survived—and you can too!

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• My real-life struggles of balancing motherhood and work with ADHD
• How I navigate those all-too-familiar shame spirals and self-doubt
• The importance of self-compassion and giving yourself grace when life gets messy
• Practical tips for getting through those days (or weeks) when everything seems to go wrong

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or like you’re barely holding it together, this episode is for you. I’m here to remind you that even when life is chaos, you’ve got this—and so do I.

Bonus: I’m also sharing a special announcement about my brand-new guide Corporate Chaos: Thriving at Work with ADHD and Autism (While Keeping Your Sanity!) for just $5. If you’re navigating the corporate world with ADHD or Autism and need practical advice on avoiding burnout, landing jobs, and thriving, this guide is for you!

Tune in, breathe deep, and let’s survive this chaos together. 🎧

🔗 Get your copy of Corporate Chaos here for $5! 

Transcript

  Can we just talk about the fact that my week has just been absolutely bonkers.  So. Let me think on. Ah, yes. So originally I was supposed to do an exam Saturday morning.  And I changed it just because.  I my partner, wasn't going to be around. So I was like, oh, I'll change it to Sunday morning.  Um, Went to bed really early thought. 

Brilliant. I'll get up earlier in the morning. So I can do a bit of revision because I hadn't really done much revision.  This is like, Retaking a professional qualification. I need.  So Sunday morning.  Rolls around.  But let me go back a bit, maybe. 

I went to bed. About 10:00 PM. By 11:00 PM. My son was screaming in pain because he had a stomachache and I thought, oh my God.   And then he was violently sick basically throughout the night. I'll spare you the details, but I, because he's. Quite young. He's like five and he is not very good at being sick. 

He like leans back and things. I just couldn't get any sleep all night because I was so nervous about that.  Basically I had zero sleep and my exam was at 7 45 in the morning and it wouldn't be so bad if it was just an exam. You could kind of do the exam in peace, but , this exam you had to like log in half an hour before you had to like, test the system. You had to clear your desk completely. Then you had to speak to human being just to show that you'd like, cleared your desk basically. And yeah, so.  Not only did I have an exam, but I had to interact with a human before coffee. At 7 45. In the morning and do probably one of the world's most boring exams, because it's one of those exams where you have to read loads of like,  SOP type guidelines, you know? And things like that. 

Memorize them. And then yeah, just answer loads of really tedious questions. So, yeah. Horrible, horrible weekend.  And anyway, I knew, um, Monday afternoon, say.  I was, I had to, go to Brussels because we had a face-to-face. Team meeting.  So I did.  No, basically. Revising stroke, no sleep things. at, the weekend.  Monday, I have to kind of prepare the house. 

So like do all of the meal prep, things like that. Um, take a flight a Monday, then my flight on Tuesday on the way back was canceled. So I had to stay an extra night. And then flew back super early  on Wednesday. So I was up at like five 30. 

And yeah. Um, I was back home on Wednesday morning by like 9:00 AM or something crazy like that. 

And of course business as usual, you've still got to do all of your work. So, it's been pretty chaotic lately because I've had like couple of conferences as well in September.  And I've been , really struggling, but really struggling to juggle sort of like parenthood. Um,  All of my tasks that I have because I have really quite a lot going on at the moment. 

And.  Working in corporate and working in a relatively new job to me.  Um, so I'm still learning things, you know? And obviously, as you can imagine, onboarding is not, not brilliant. You normally just get thrown in that's the same as many corporate companies. So all of this is going on. Um, I've been having like.  Like a lot of stress at work and yeah, it's just culminated in like this crazy.  Sensation that I can't do my job. Um,  You know, um, I'm not very good and not very talented. 

I've lost a bit of confidence and things like that.  And it's largely like unfounded, but it's just really crazy how we have these kind of like shame spirals and kind of like, um, Spirals where we just think we're not good enough. We think we can't handle the things. And.  Actually for me, this spiral started. It was triggered by sort of like having an interaction with somebody who was really.  Negative. At snobby. I normally kind of try and avoid those people, but it wasn't possible in this case.  So I had this weird kind of vibe going on with this person. 

Shall we say?  And then.  Coupled with that.  I started taking this new contraceptive pills. So like,  All of this has been happening.  I've had a really tough time with my job. Um, it's been super busy. I've had loads of traveling.  My son started school. You know,  all of this has happening and I'm. , and in the meantime I had this kind of like side effects from basically new. The new pill I'm taking. 

So all of this has been going on. Hence why I haven't really been around very much because I've kind of been.  Really sticking to like what I can stick to at the moment, like just, and I'm quite good like that I can kind of just go.  Not beat myself up about not being able to kind of. Keep commitments and things like that because sometimes just life. Just happens, you know, so.  A few years ago. 

I wouldn't have, I would've really liked. Beating myself up for that, but I don't anymore. I'm quite kind to myself because,  life can be shit sometimes, you know, um, stuff happens and you can't control that. So you just have to be quite flexible and quite forgiving with yourself.  So, yeah.  That's my bunkers life. So I was kind of like, why am I so stressed out at the moment? 

I really couldn't understand it. And I figured it out. So. 

I used to, I used to be like probably one of the top performers in my old company, my old job, but, you know, ADHD in that was kind of like,  You know, I.  I'm quite good at this job. I'm not really challenged. Like I need a new job.  Sometimes I really regret that.  So I then went for this new job. And everything. Is, I wouldn't say new, not, not everything's new, but of course, whenever you start a new corporate company, there's new regulations, new ways of doing things. 

And that takes quite a long time to. Get used to, I think, and there's, you know, new people that you need to learn their names and things like that. And understand kind of like, who's your stakeholder? Who do I need to speak to?  So. It's quite exhausting when you start a new job. But what I've realized is I'm in an I'm now in like quite a leadership role.  Whereas before. I would execute on projects. 

I would still do strategy and things like that. Because that's one of my strengths. But I would have agency helping me out or I'd have like other colleagues and things like that. And what I've realized since I started this job. Is it all on me? 

Yeah,   so normally I would have an agency. In lockstep, I would be able to tell them. I would almost be able to download my brain and say, Hey, look, um, these are the comments like let's, let's create a brief together.  They would then work on the project.  Or I had like other people who I could kind of work really well with and, you know, I would do some bits. 

Someone else would do another, but I've realized that I'm working on a lot on my own.  I'm working a lot on internal things. And when you're working on those kinds of internal things, you're having to do really a lot. And there's a limit to how many presentations I can work on at the same time with the same deadline. So I've just been absolutely losing my mind quite frankly. 

And I think anyone would be losing their mind whether or not they had ADHD or not. So, yeah. That is my life at the moment, but things are going to change. I've now that I've identified the issue, I'm going to fix it.  So that's where we are and it's no one's fault. It's just. It just so happens, be like that because. I started in a job. 

Well, after all the budgets had been set and I don't think anyone had accounted for like a lot of the new work that would be coming in.  So that's where we are.  Welcome to my life. So if anyone thinks they're having a really shitty life at the moment, just think of me and managing to clean up vomit. And managing to do my exam. 

Anything is possible. Believe me. Before I go, I just wanted to let you know that I've written a guide. Now, this guide is designed for people who are working in corporate. Who.  Basically are struggling like me. And the guide is called corporate chaos. Thriving at work with ADHD and autism while keeping your sanity.  And this guide contains things like, tips on how to find jobs like, um, interviewing success. I've also got a little bit of background about, some of the challenges that people with ADHD and autism face in the workplace.  I've got a list of companies that have good diversity. Equity and inclusion programs.   Tips for how to onboard. Checking out though, the company aligns your culture, things like that. So, if you want a copy of this, like I'll pop the link on the video description. 

And.  Have a wonderful.  

rest of your week.