Ok, a little bit more about us, to give some background on this website and its social media profiles. We are a family of five from Germany, although we don’t really feel at home there. My wife Heidi and I both worked (and I still do) in an English-speaking environment when we met, and we’ve travelled to many countries and lived abroad for extensive periods of our lives. So when we had kids, we decided to raise them bilingually, and as a result English is our main family language at this point.
Heidi works as a coach for Intuitive Eating and is currentky studying psychology on the side. She has her own website in German at einfachmalessen.de, where she talks about Intuitive Eating and related topics such as stress management and thought management. She was diagnosed with adult ADHD last year, and has also been discovering a number of traits that point to her being on the autism spectrum.
I work, in my main job, as an IT manager for a large non-profit organisation based in the United Kingdom. In my spare time, I also run the administrative side of our fledgling little company, that mainly exists to promote and sell Heidi’s courses, as well as operating two ad-supported blogs. And since that’s not enough to keep my ADHD mind busy, last year I started studying for a combined MBA/DBA degree and will soon be writing my Masters dissertation. Like Heidi, I was diagnosed with adult ADHD last year, and wouldn’t rule out some autistic traits as well.
Our three kids – two girls and a boy – were born in 2011, 2013, and 2015. We respect their privacy and won’t be showing them here or referring to them by name, unless they specifically ask us to and we think they are old enough to make that decision. But we will talk about them a lot. All three of them have an IQ above 145, which has led to both girls jumping a grade in school, while we felt that for our youngest, it was better to stay with his primary school teacher for as long as possible.
Both girls got an ADHD diagnosis within the last year, and have been benefitting immensely from medication that helps them focus and improve their grades in school. We’ll talk more about how we found out, and why girls are still massively under-diagnosed when it comes to ADHD, in an upcoming post. Or 9-year-old boy is currently going through the process of diagnosing an autism spectrum disorder. If diagnosed, it’s a high-functioning autism that can certainly be managed very well, but anyone who’s ever heard him talk for hours and hours, with no regard for appropriateness, about his favorite topics – Minecraft and Warrior Cats – will understand that as parents, we’re hoping to get some tools that will help him function better in a neurotypical environment, especially since he will be starting secondary school this summer.
I, Holger, will be the main author of posts and videos across our platforms. Heidi will probably join me occasionally for a discussion or some in-depths insights. We both enjoy the scientific principle and don’t just go by anecdotes, but like to dive deeper. The fact that adult ADHD, ADHD in girls and women, and female autism, are all areas that have only fairly recently begun being areas of intensified scientific research, should provide a lot of topics to talk about and explore. We hope to make the science interesting with our personal experience.
We’re not here to sell anything. We have no courses, books (who know, maybe some day), or coaching to offer on the subject of neurodivergence. This is more of an outlet for our creativity and to share our insights with others who may be in similar situations and enjoy our particular style. Over time we may add some product links to things that have helped us, but that will never be the main objective.
Oh, the dog… I’ve been teasing pictures of him and alluded to the fact that he may also be neurodiverse. So here’s the picture – the story of his neurodiversity will have to wait for another occasion.
