06/12/2025
🏠This is our house.
Not the Instagram version.
Not the curated highlight reel.
Not the Pinterest-ready Christmas aesthetic.
This is the real one.
Flour dusting the counters, floors, and walls.
Kids baking in their pajamas at 1pm because that’s where the day takes us.
A Christmas tree lying sideways in the lounge — not because anyone knocked it over, but because decorating a tree is a recipe for over stimulation.
There is a KFC box in the corner, half-eaten chips still inside.
My son's gaming in a zone overflowing with plates and leftovers because that’s where he feels safe and regulated.
My bedroom a mix of pillows, parcels, laundry piles, and half-finished attempts at “organising” that my brain genuinely intended to complete… just not today.
This is our imperfect.
BUT this is also our perfect.
We recently had our diagnosis confirmed, and slowly, gently, painfully — so many things are starting to make sense.
I’m learning to unhook myself from what “perfect” is supposed to look like, and replace it with what perfect feels like for us, in this season, with whatever resources we have.
Because this is the truth I’m finally learning:
Perfect isn’t outside. Perfect is inside.
It’s not a tidy home.
It’s not well-balanced meals seven days a week.
It’s not being the social butterfly who attends every event and remembers every birthday.
It’s not ticking every box on the checklist the world hands us.
Perfect, for me, is a moment of peace inside my chest where I can look at our chaotic, beautiful, overstimulating, overflowing, neurodivergent life and say:
“We’re okay. We are genuinely doing our very best."
And that — that moment of truth — is enough.
👩🏫 The Principal’s Problem
This week, our son graduated to high school.
We were late.
We were overwhelmed.
We barely made it — but my God, we made it.
We sat down, hearts racing, and the principal began an inspirational talk about our role as parents.
A talk about doing more.
Being more diligent.
Monitoring screen time.
Controlling what our kids access.
Being more present.
More consistent.
More intentional.
Just… more.
I sat there, on the brink of tears.
Because in that moment, his words didn’t inspire me — they pierced me.
They made me feel ashamed.
Like I wasn’t trying hard enough.
Like I wasn’t good enough.
Like I was failing.
Like if I just stretched myself thinner, if I just cared more, if I just pushed harder… things would be different.
But what he couldn’t see were the nights we come home completely drained after work.
The three-hour homework battles that leave every one of us frayed and exhausted.
The dinners we tried to make but burned because someone melted down and needed us.
The sensory overload that ricochets through all five of us.
The constant adjusting, soothing, supporting, holding, redirecting, repairing, explaining…
What he couldn’t see was that by the time the dust settles…
None of us have anything left to give.
And sitting in that hall, listening to that speech, something inside me cracked.
Then I remembered something from the author Brené Brown:
“Do you believe each person is already doing the best they possibly can with the resources they have available?”
At first, I nodded in my mind — of course I believe that. For strangers. For friends. For my kids. For other parents.
But then the hard truth hit me:
**If I can believe that about everyone else…
why can’t I believe that about me?**
Why do I hold myself to superhuman standards that no human — neurodivergent or neurotypical — could maintain?
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🌼 To Our Incredible Principal — Whom I Genuinely Admire
I need you to know:
We are being diligent.
We are trying.
We are doing the absolute best we can with the resources we have left inside us.
Our best might not look like your best.
Our perfect might not look like your perfect.
But it is ours.
And in our world, it is enough.
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💛 Our Perfect Inside the Imperfect
So here it is: the raw photos, the messy rooms, the chaotic kitchen, the undone life.
Something I refuse to hide.
Because I’m finally learning that this is something to be grateful for.
Because this — this right here — is what I should have seen all along:
This is what love looks like in our home because it meant we prioritized our kids.
This is what effort looks like because we tried.
This is what survival looks like because they were fed.
This is sometimes what parenting in a neurodivergent household looks like. — real, lived, exhausted, beautiful and the truth.
I know it wont look like this forever. We will get time to get back up again. It’s just not what we need right now.
And that’s okay.
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🫶 To the people who walk this journey with me:
💛 My husband I am so quick to criticise you for not helping enough, or not doing things the “right” way. You are perfect and I know now you are doing the best you can with what you have today. And I see you.
💛 To Our Families who step in when we have nothing left to give. You are so lived and we appreciate you more than you could ever know.
💛 My three beautiful Children. You are so often overlooked because you don’t fit the mould. Misunderstood for seeing the world differently.
Criticised for your intensity, your interests, your passions, your sensitivities.
Shaped and labelled by systems not built for you.
But I want you to know:
YOU ARE IMPERFECT — AND THAT IS WHAT MAKES YOU PERFECT.
Exactly
as
you
are.
And I am so deeply sorry that the rest of the world still needs to learn what perfect really means.
💛 Lastly, to the neurodivergent families out there — diagnosed or undiagnosed:
I see you.
This is hard.
This is brave.
This is overwhelming and beautiful and chaotic and real.
Please don’t hide your imperfect.
Share it.
Show it.
Let others witness what perfect truly is:
Not the spotless house.
Not the perfect schedules.
Not the tidy emotions.
Perfect is surviving together.
Perfect is loving each other fiercely.
Perfect is doing your best with whatever you have left.
Your imperfect might be exactly what someone else needs to feel less alone —
and finally understand what perfect has meant all along.
