When Claire Murphy finally received her autism and ADHD diagnoses in 2018, she expected answers. What she did not expect was grief.
“Imagine if I had the right support in school. Imagine if workplaces had understood me. How different might my life have been?”
For years Claire had battled exhaustion, anxiety and the heavy fog of burnout. She pushed herself through full-time work, relationships and the relentless effort of trying to keep up with a world that was not built for her. Even sleep became unsafe. “I was falling asleep at the wheel,” she recalls. It was her partner who first suggested ADHD. The research led her there, but it was a clinician who saw autism too. At first, she resisted the idea. Then, slowly, it began to make sense.
The grief was real, but it was far from the end of the story.
Acceptance crept in. Kindness grew. Claire began to understand her brain not as broken but as different. She spoke to herself differently, stopped apologising for needing rest and started to imagine a life that worked with her neurodivergence rather than against it.
That realisation became the seed of Beyond NeuroEquity, her coaching and training business. Today she helps autistic and ADHD adults find strategies that work, and she guides workplaces in creating environments where people do not have to mask or burn out just to get through the day. Simple changes, such as natural light, quiet spaces, flexible hours and permission to use noise-cancelling headphones, can transform not just performance but wellbeing.
Burnout remains a central theme in Claire’s story. She describes it vividly: the constant overexertion, the shame of needing sick leave, the cycle of returning too soon and collapsing again. Lockdown became a revelation. “It was like moving from a circus to an oasis,” she says. No commute, no constant interruptions, no fluorescent lights. The absence of strain showed her what life could feel like when sensory overload and constant masking were not part of the daily script.
Now Claire shares the practices that keep her grounded: strict sleep routines, whole foods that stabilise energy, daily exercise, sunlight, meditation, journaling and therapy that reshaped how she speaks to herself. None of these erase her neurodivergence. They help her live with it honestly, with less fight and more compassion. Her story is less about battling diagnoses and more about building a life where she can truly thrive.
“My brain works differently, and that’s okay. What matters is learning how to work with it, not against it.”
Claire’s honesty is a gift. Take a breath and let it remind us that thriving is not about fitting in. Thriving is about finding ways to live fully, without apology.
