It’s the eve before we move house. It’s late and my daughter wakes to come into our bedroom. She nestles down with me and my husband knowingly moves down to the floor mattress. It feels apt that she should be here with me tonight. This house has many strong memories, perhaps the strongest being her tiny baby body nestled in my armpit in that same bed at 4am, watching the summer sun rise through the white slat blinds, as she fed and buried into me as though trying to get inside my skin.

It’s also the night before her third birthday. Three years ago I went into labour on the night of the snow moon and brought to the world a moon child so radiant and inspiring I have been changed forever since that moment. It was the birth that started it all. My first words on her arrival were “you’ve just been born to a goddess”. I felt fully alive and unstoppable. I worked hard for that experience. At the foot of the bed in our bedroom at home, she arrived pink and beautiful and I was in awe of myself for what I had done. The hard work and energy that I put in, spurred on by healing the trauma etched into my body-mind from the birth and subsequent cracking open of my whole world, when my son came along three years previously. I didn’t want to repeat that experience and I had been dedicated to the hypnotherapy process for months. I made birthing my special interest, prepared my senses with scents, vision board, plants to soften my space and bring nature in. In the end I didn’t want any of the sensory supports I had in place (I remember being so offended by the sounds and smells). I just needed quiet, calm, to listen to myself and feel totally safe. I poured attention into my body, turned up the dial on my interoception, and reclaimed my autonomy.

I didn’t know though, that the birth was only the beginning. This depth of healing has continued long after that incredible night of my daughter’s arrival. My understanding of who I am starting with unravelling the generational trauma and wounding that I still carry. The realisation of who we are, as a neurodivergent family of brilliantly different, complex minds. She taught me that there was so much complexity that I was not seeing. In the breakdown of our first six months together, she showed me that I was being called to make change.

It was in the contrast between my two children that I started to recognise need in ways that I had not been clear of before. With my autistic-PDA son, who has an internalised and anxious presentation, I had diligently attended to him and supported him through his sensory sensitivity, sleepless nights, and frequent meltdowns. I had nothing to compare this to and so I gave the entirety of myself to support him and had no way of knowing that this might be different to other mothers’ experiences. But the interrelational learning could only take place through the entangled dynamics between us as a family. My daughter was different, and helped me see things differently. Independent, clear of her needs, strong and determined in her requests even as a newborn, she knew how to connect with me and we had a very strong and clear line of communication. Even before she was verbal she was incredibly clear, and this was very interesting for me as a dancer with my deep interest in non linguistic ways of being. My son was hyper verbal, very bright, anxious and highly masked, but my daughter was quiet, observant, cautious and direct.

Her quiet and selective words only shared with those who are absolutely safe, showed me how to be more careful, and threw light on the deep masking nature of my existence before her. I recognised how hard I had been trying to be ok for my son, when I needed to give in to the exhaustion and stop.

Her explosive and physical expressions of nervous system overwhelm lit a fire in me and brought out memories of my emotional needs. I have had more insights and realisations about myself since she was born and have recognised my internalised PDA, highly masked OCD, and the neurodivergent trauma of not being seen for the wholeness of myself.

My fierce protection of her essence brought into full view how lacking in any kind of true champion I have been. Even as a mother, I have been fighting a battle supporting myself alone, I had no guide, no ally, I had lost friends, family, and home since my son’s arrival in 2019. But it was her fragility, her strength, this dichotomy, that I needed to show me how powerful I was, and how important it was to protect that power through rest and recognition.

The way others try to put their labels on her as behaviour and not as a whole human, reminded me that I have never been truly seen as my whole self. The essence of me has always been hidden in other people’s expectations. I began a three year (and counting) process of dismantling. The positive disintegration process that has me here now on her third birthday, wondering where the next three years might take me.

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I continue to watch her with eager curiosity and awe. She has a fire that rages and a quiet detailed mind that searches and questions. She does not mask and prefers to be silent. She calls me to ask why…

• Why is darkness and subtlety in children feared?

• Why must we place our saccharine expectations on children?

• Why can’t we place anger on the step next to joy, and observe them both as part of our complex fabric?

• Why do we make children in an image that does them no justice as unique beings?

We seem to have socially constructed childhood to be something that looks pleasing for adults. But with both my children I have seen the price of this in different ways. My son has worked so hard to try to meet that demand that he entered burnout from masking his true nature by the time he turned six years old. My daughter in her wild and wondrous darkness is misunderstood and criticised by other adults for her few words and the rage in her expression. But she shares a truth about how adult led demands on her to “perform childhood” in a way that is palatable to adults, are affecting her spirit and ability to be free.

I continue the journey of being her mother and exploring the difference between my two autistic children. Both PDA, one highly masked and anxious, one externalised and full of fire. I wonder how these two brilliant and complex beings have come into the world so different and yet so similar. Both teaching me things I never thought I needed. Both cracking me open so that the light can get in.

Every year as imbolc arrives, with it the snow moon paving the way for my moon child’s arrival, I will be drawn to reflect on the years of unravelling and the deep learning that she has given me.

I have brought the sun and the moon to the earth and they have made me a goddess among men. Now I must tend their path into the universe, so that I might continue to uncover my own light buried deep under 40 years of other peoples expectations.

Happy 3rd birthday to my daughter, my moon of truth, the most inspiring girl I know.

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This is the year that I will be gentle…

This year I will be my own light…

This is the year I will be reborn.

In the holidays I really slowed down. I let myself rest, fully. This is not something I do much but I could see that our family needed us to do nothing. My son has been in burnout since October and this was the first time all four of us were able to settle in at home together and winter.

I recognise that as an individual I prefer one to one company and I prefer intimacy over big social gatherings. I do not like the sense of being perceived by others, I rarely let others in to allow that to happen, and I am very aware of how much I give away of my energy. Right now, I can see that my family need me to retain all my energy for just us. So this is how it was this over the festive period, and this is how it will remain.

New Year does not feel a significant rebirth moment for me any more. Past versions of me loved the opportunity to reflect and make promises to myself for change. But the me of this current life stage prefers to live seasonally. We are in deep winter, and as a family we are still in a season of deep rest. Nothing has changed much or moved forward for us just because it is January. My son is still not attending school. We are not rushing out in the snow, planning playdates, or organising the house for a “fresh start”. We are simply continuing to live softly under blankets, in pyjamas, with plenty of left over mince pies!

I am sharing this, as over the recent break I spent time attending to my vision for the life I want and need for myself and my children, and set some intentions for how I will live for the year and beyond. One of the main intentions for this Substack was to share my artistic process. Whether that is work in progress or thoughts in formation. Part of that is sharing my continual sense of ‘becoming’. In life I am always in process—learning how to be a mother, friend, partner—learning what it means to feel safe and live intentionally. People don’t share much about how they are constantly in process. For me this feels vital to who I am as an artist and therefore in my life more broadly. I cannot come fully formed to any occasion. I am always in an active state of learning. So sharing my intentions in this post feels like part of my commitment to sharing my process of growth, of waking up, and of becoming.

Take my weary bones to the earth,

Soak myself in the soil of rest.

In the process of exploring my poetic voice, I have noticed that much of my writing and thinking comes from reflecting on my need to return to nature. To strip away layers of conformity and expectation and find a simpler more autonomous and self reliant way of living. As I write poetry, the most pressing thoughts and images that flow to mind are of the earth, moss, fungi, the softness of the ground, the slowness of trees. I intend to allow this imagery to guide my energy, decisions, and actions towards a more gentle, slower, and more intentional way of being. Throughout last year I noticed that deep growth comes about when I have had the courage to slow right down and accept the stillness that can exist when I am not allowing fear to lead me into future projecting, comparison, and self criticism. Being with my son through burnout taught me that this is the best way I can be for my children too. In an open state of gentle listening and reflection with them.

So, I intend to be gentle. I intend to live slowly. I intend to allow my own light to ebb and flow without judgement. I intend to allow myself to renew again in the season of rebirth, when I am nourished by winters’ rest, and I can bask in the vigour of springtime. I hope that many others are doing the same, and for now you are spending time in winter hibernation.

Rest well.

D x

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I am stuck in a groundhog day of emails, advocacy, coregulation with my two children, and meeting our basic human needs inside the home right now, with no way of knowing when it will change. My son is currently in a deep autistic burnout and unable to attend school. Even though this felt like it was coming, and even though I have read everything I can possibly find about neurodivergence and school burnout, it still feels like a huge shock. My nervous system is on alert to threat, and simultaneously I’m looking for ways to alleviate unnecessary stress to reduce the load on all of us.

We are living in an entangled and messy ecosystem of need. In my recent writing (not on Substack, yet!) with the brilliant Rosie Heafford, we moved through conversation around coregulation, through iterative practice and into entanglement as a neurodivergent way of being. Right now I am living this with my children. My skin does not contain me, my perception of the world does not end at my own body limits. I am needed physically - this is our existence - multidimensional, relationally dynamic, entangled.

The house is feeling very small through this experience. It is a container, a safe space, a place for softness and free from judgement. But we can’t leave, and so it also feels like a cage. Too small to contain the ever growing energy of our situation; expanding daily with contributions from advocates, local authority, therapists, and support groups. My body mind feels as though it is bursting at the seems with information, firing across the ever expanding solar system of my brain, whilst I search for meaning, connections, and understanding.

In this scenario, the nervous system entwinement between myself and my children demonstrates a clear and complex enmeshment of life lived in a delicate balance with others. Like the forest floor ‘wood wide web’ - the deeply connected mycelial network - we are in symbiotic existence. I feel with them, feed alongside them, and I need to resource myself in order that they are sustained, and so that we can continue to cope with the situation at hand. A mixture of communication with close and trusted allies, seeking support from groups and networks on social media, reading books by incredible artists like Eliza Fricker, and writing my thoughts down through this platform and poetry are keeping me nourished. In my last post I shared some poetry about this experience:

This realisation that I am no longer a singular being, but part of my own underground network of nervous system connection, was not difficult for me to manage when the children were younger. But the integration of external systems of influence, school as the primary example here, leaves me fending off interruptions to our delicate balance as I would defend against predators in our forest. The feeling of othering, the abelism, the injustice of other people’s behaviour and systems outside of our home feel harsh and destabilising. It can take everything I have to keep my focus on the present, the small things, the things that matter right here, right now.

I am all too aware of the expansion that my brain is trying to initiate, into the multiverse of possible realities outside these walls. It feels too big, as I hold the sensitive minds and bodies of my children in our complex ecosystem, and fend off the human impact on our delicate forest floor. I know that the reality for me will continue to require conversation, existential and philosophical thought, physical regulation, and sensory grounding. I also accept that nervous system overwhelm is inevitable in this situation. So, I watch my daughter eat raisins one at a time; I organise some boxes; watch a robin on the birdfeeder; I listen to the hum of the tumble dryer; I appreciate the light as it fades past the garden hedges, and I’m grateful for our small world keeping us safely supported inside.

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I may well introduce some exciting work with Rosie Heafford in my next post. I may not! But stick around anyway because it’s definitely coming soon! In the meantime thank you for reading and please consider subscribing to get the next piece straight into your inbox.

But I was recently told I was a badass, by a friend! She meant, that she can see me standing strong in the face of judgement as I support my children to navigate this unyeilding world. And if that makes me a badass then I accept the title! Being an outlier, and subsequently a badass, has helped me grow.

So here is a list of things that I think should be universally true for parents, but instead are not, and make me a badass, despite my quest for softness…

• I cuddle my children relentlessly and I do not think that they will be soft

• I tell my children I love them every day and I do not think I am overbearing

• If my children need help, I help them, and I do not think they are lazy

• I am gentle with transitions, I will not drop and run, leaving tears in my wake, assuming, “they’re fine when you’re gone”

• I move to their level to communicate with them, reducing the hierarchy between us

• I listen to their stories and I acknowledge the fullness of their reality in their small yet growing worlds, I don’t reduce the importance of their experiences

• I answer their questions honestly, I don’t assume they will not understand

• I share my feelings and opinions openly, I do not think they should be shielded from truth

• I put their needs before work, because capitalism has us believing that money is more important than care, but it is not

• I will stand up for them if they are disparaged by others who do not know, because they are pure light and other people’s judgements are not welcome here

• I will fight for their needs to be met, because blindly following others is just another way of placing the care of my children in the hands of people who do not know them, and will treat them as a number in a system not as a unique being

• I will never act in a way that leaves my children thinking they are less important than another person, adult, job, possession, opinion, or social expectation

So perhaps you resonate, and you are in fact a badass too! I’d love to hear from you if you are.

Go gently

D x

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I recognise now that I have the knowledge of my neurocomplexity, that as an AuDHD-PDAer going against the demand to conform is quite literally written in my skin. So too is existentialism. For me, it shows up as an internal itch that forces me to ask “why?”. Why do I have to do it this way? What is the point of these systems? Why do I have to follow this routine / path / expectation every day?

Sometimes this is very hard, and I am filled with despair at what the world is offering. But I have generally found it is much safer for my nervous system to exist on the fringes, questioning the authority of the path of least resistance, and asking “what alternative might there be?”. This can be tiring, and I am often falling short of my own expectations of myself. I want to live a life filled with love, care, nurture, and compassion, but it is surprisingly challenging in a world that prioritises consumerism, capitalist productivity, and conformity.

I don’t believe my way of seeing the world should be a fringe concept, my position is based on my values as a human centred individual. In a time in which we see activists around the world speaking out about untold horrors and mistreatment of fellow human beings, I reflect on the strength of those people who have chosen to make a difference for good despite the world defining them as outliers. These human beings are people choosing compassion, justice, human-rights, respect, autonomy, and curiosity, to defend our planet and the richness of its offering. Not turn the other way as it descends into egotistical, self seeking, chaotic, consumerism. I would rather stand in gentle activism alongside fellow outliers and say, I choose the path of humanity and justice.

But yet, despite this strength of feeling and the years of my adult life that I’ve spent committed to the ‘outsider’ role, never has it been harder for me to operate on the fringes than it is within the parenting role that I inhabit now. As a mother to neurodivergent children, and a neurocomplex person myself, I recognise a big part of this challenge is the feeling of being perceived. I find it deeply uncomfortable and threatening and it can fray my nervous system daily just walking down the road with my children. Feeling hypervisible is a state that I have to actively work on self regulating in order to continue to operate as a parent making different choices.

I suppose I am sharing this for any parent out there who resonates with the challenge of remaining confident and parenting authentically off the standard path. I’ve seen people talk about the stages from home birth, to cosleeping, to natural term weaning, to home schooling, as though these are easy choices for the outlying, attachment parent. But in my experience this is not an easy path. I find my integrity is tested daily in every small interaction. I am often regulating myself internally, fighting a battle between my values and the outside world, and guarding myself for society’s backlash against my approaches.

Still, I chose to go onward, knowing that I will be questioned in my intelligence, motivations, and viewpoint, every time I do something as small as show extra love and care to my child. I will be curious and non-conformist, and continue to ask “why?” often, and without hesitation if something does not seem suitable for my children. It is natural for me, but is also teaching my children that they can go against the grain, do something different in the world, and stand up for themselves when their approach feels like it doesn’t follow the standard path. I may not change one single mind, but I will certainly stand strong knowing I did everything in my power to support my children.

Go gently outliers. You are doing such important work.

Danielle x

Next up, I’ll be sharing ways that my approach is often radical, and what this looks like as an outlier in parenting. It would be great if you’d consider subscribing here to continue to access these posts sharing insights into neurodivergent parenting life.

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In 2019 I became a mother, and for the first time in my career as a dance leader I opened my eyes to the privilege of having easy access to the working world, and the many scenarios that can sweep in to revoke that access. Motherhood, and for me, single motherhood, was a barrier and reduced my ability to work down to around 30% of my previous capacity (more soon on the motherhood penalty and the dance industry). Mother time, as I call it, required me to slow everything down to a quarter of my original pace, and the dance industry had always expected me to work at 120%, so initially that slowness felt like decay.

However, Covid-19 came at a useful time for me in that sense; everyone was experiencing significant shifts in working patterns and I didn’t feel so unusual to be struggling to work at pre pandemic (and pre motherhood) levels. I was fortunate to be in receipt of a large project grant for work with what is now Luminelle. Plus, in 2021-2022, post pandemic, there was a temporary illusion of funding created by the Covid bottleneck, and it seemed that perhaps normalcy would be restored.

But as I’m sure many people reading this will know, this was not to be the case. 2022-2025 has seen a huge downturn in available funding. Everyone I have spoken to is struggling more than ever before to keep project work going. By 2025, government funding for the arts per head, is down by 33.3% compared with 2010, and cuts to arts education has seen numbers reduced by 31% at A Level (and a whopping 59% in Dance)*.

My personal situation added to the challenges keeping me from work. No longer a single parent, my daughter arrived in early 2023 and at that time, (my son was 3) we became aware that my son was autistic. The transition to becoming a family of 4; developmental shifts in his sensory profile; and a spell in hospital due to severe pneumonia; left my son totally exhausted, unmasked, and suffering. Everything had to stop. As we made our way out of burnout, into late 2023 and early 2024, I began a process of discovery of my own neurocomplexity, and the subsequent trauma revelations. Next, the navigation of school systems (much more on this another time) left us struggling to cope and at the same time, we were looking around wondering how I might get back to work again. With two children, one with additional needs, a sudden and dramatic realisation of my own reduced capacity, and no workplace infrastructure to support my income, it was starkly obvious to me that my career as a flexible, creative, responsive artist, was teetering on the edge of collapse, which I had been completely unprepared for following the success of the two years previously.

After one failed attempt (my first rejection in 12 years of successful ACE funding), I was able to secure an under £30K Project Grant, and set about trying to make a work that I had been developing conceptually for the last four years; an immersive, moving, and compassionate early years and parents show, which held families gently in empathic and reflective care and said “I see you, this is hard, but it is also beautiful”. Kindred was beautiful and performed to sell out audiences in Oxford, but under the surface I felt like I was crumbling - the failing arts funding landscape a reflection of my downward spiral personally. After the final performances on 29 September 2024 (more soon on this process, and the joyful highs and lows of cocreation with my children), I burnt out. Hit the floor. Could not move. Disappeared.1

My son was also burnt out from school, I was unable to do anything except support him and rest; I had to shut everything down. People talk about burn out like it’s a small thing that knocks you off your game for a week or so. But this was chronic, long term, deep physical and mental fatigue that left me unable to access anything to do with my work in the arts for six months.

Motherhood, being a parent carer, coming to terms with my own disabilities… my privilege in having existed somewhat in a masked bubble of ‘coping’ for most of my adult life was finally burst entirely. Access to work was now impossible. Realising I was neurodivergent and trying to integrate the positive disintegration process, with the recognition of my sensory access needs and imagining myself as an artistic director, producer, facilitator of others… nope! It was not an option. Plus, the pace and energy of my life had changed so significantly in the time that I was working on Kindred, and the needs of my children got more and more complex.

I shut down my relationship with dance for the most part because I felt I could no longer keep up. Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria was loud, convincing me that I was not capable any more. Prior to this, I had been thinking a lot about the people that disappear from the dance landscape - the mothers, the mid-career women who burn out, become less flexible with their time, and drop off the radar of all the large organisations that they once toiled for. There is, in my opinion, a dearth of knowledge transfer from middle to later stage career women in dance in how to navigate this career shift with integrity whilst remaining relevant and present in the sector. I think this is an important point to come back to another time.

I decided to take a long break to recover from burn out, and from September 2024 I turned off my social media access to dance content, closed my email, and stopped. It was essential, and it felt vital at a time when my family was all I could attend to. They needed me and I needed myself.

So, I find myself here now, a year after I hit total burn out, among the writers of Substack, with a different offering. For some time I have been contemplating writing as an outlet for the things that I was (perhaps temporarily) unable to say through dance. With great determination to share and keep growing, I have started this Substack as a new home for my creative thought making, for poetic and expressive writing which has become a lifeline for me in the last 5 years, and to support me in the process of transition back to dance again. It will look different this time. I am softer, the world is harder.

Think of this as an introduction to the Care Collective, a vulnerable space for sharing on life, art, motherhood, neurodivergence, positive disintegration, identity, and so much more. If any of it has struck you or feels relevant, please consider subscribing and becoming a supporter of my work. This is a new frontier and I’d love to have you on board.

Thank you.

Go Gently.

Danielle x