The Fi(ND)ing Motherhood Journal:
Reflections on Matrescence and Raising Neurodivergent Children
Welcome to The Fi(ND)ing Motherhood Journal — a collection of reflections, insights, and personal stories exploring the transformation of motherhood through the lens of matrescence. Here, I write about what it really means to raise neurodivergent and disabled children in a world that often misunderstands them — and us.
These pieces are adapted from the Fi(ND)ing Motherhood podcast, blending lived experience, research, and heart-led honesty to help you feel seen, grounded, and less alone on this journey. Whether you’re newly navigating a diagnosis or years into parenting a child with additional needs, you’ll find compassion, community, and calm here.
When Control Is Fear in Disguise
When we grip tighter out of fear, we often lose the very peace we’re trying to protect. This post explores how the need for control can mask deep fear — and how learning to soften our hold can help us reconnect with our children, ourselves, and the journey we’re on.
The Care We Carry: What Feminism Forgot About Motherhood
Care isn’t a lifestyle or a love language… it’s invisible infrastructure. This companion post explores Care Feminism, the mental load of parenting a neurodivergent/disabled child, and why naming our labour as work is a feminist act. Love matters. But love alone can’t replace systems.
Let There Be Softness: Reclaiming Strength Without the Armour
You don’t have to earn rest. You don’t have to prove strength.
In this post, we talk about the quiet, healing power of softness — how it helps you breathe again, connect again, and remember that you were never meant to carry it all alone.
Too Strong for Too Long: The Hidden Burnout of Motherhood
There’s a certain kind of strength that isn’t strength at all — it’s survival. In Too Strong for Too Long, I talk about the hidden burnout of motherhood, the rage beneath resilience, and what it means to finally let the cracks show.
Only Half the Story: The Emotional Toll of Proving Your Child’s Needs
So much of parenting a neurodivergent child involves proving what’s “wrong” just to access support. But what happens to us — and to them — when the system only sees half the story? This reflection explores the emotional toll of deficit-based forms and meetings, and the quiet strength it takes to hold on to the rest.
Some Days I Don’t Want to Fight Anymore
Some days, the fight just goes out of you. After yet another school meeting or system battle, you sit in the car and feel… nothing. No anger. No tears. Just the numbness that comes from trying too hard for too long.
This post is about the quiet cost of advocacy — the emotional exhaustion, the nervous system shutdown, and the moments when even the strongest mothers feel like they can’t keep going. Through honesty, science, and self-compassion, we explores what it means to rest without guilt and return to yourself without shame.
Because sometimes, letting go of the fight is how we find our strength again.
This Isn’t What I Expected: Processing the Emotional Highs and Lows of Your Child’s Diagnosis
When your child is diagnosed - with autism, a disability, or anything that changes the path you imagined - the emotions can feel like a storm. One moment there’s relief and clarity; the next, grief and fear. This post explores how to hold those contradictions with compassion, how matrescence shapes your emotional landscape, and how to process it all without guilt or shame. You’re not broken for feeling everything… you’re human, and you’re doing your best.
Who Am I Now? Rediscovering Yourself After Your Child’s Diagnosis
After your child’s diagnosis, it’s common to feel like you’ve lost yourself. Explore how to grieve, rediscover, and rebuild your identity as a mother through self-compassion and connection.