Why Self-Care is Complicated for Neurodiverse Moms

Over the past few months, I’ve been talking with many parents raising highly sensitive, fiery, and/or neurodiverse children. What breaks my heart again and again is the isolation, shame, guilt, fear, and deep burnout I hear from the mothers I meet.

Like many of these moms, I have felt—and continue to feel—this way in my own parenting. While this experience seems almost normalized among neurodiverse moms raising neurodiverse children, I don’t believe it has to be this way.

This is a blog post that moves beyond the individual mom and looks at the system she is living inside.

Most days, as I drive my children to their many activities, I listen to podcasts. It probably won’t surprise you that they’re usually focused on self-growth or neurodiversity. And while I genuinely enjoy them, I can’t help but notice what’s missing: the voices of neurodiverse mothers raising neurodiverse children.

We hear from men and dads. We hear from women without children. But we rarely hear from women who are living this reality every single day—navigating school systems, therapies, emotional regulation, executive functioning challenges, and their own nervous systems at the same time.

This matters because the message mothers receive, over and over again, is that we are not doing enough.

Not doing enough for our kids.
Not advocating enough.
Not providing enough structure.
Not staying calm enough.
Not spending enough time with our children.
Not playing enough.
Not taking care of ourselves enough.

That last one is especially important. I absolutely believe that moms need time and space for themselves. But when self-care is presented without acknowledging the system surrounding mothers—particularly neurodiverse mothers—it often creates more guilt and shame. Not because they don’t value self-care, but because the system they are parenting within doesn’t allow for it.

Just this week alone, I’ve had to cancel my own “self-care” plans because of a combination of normal parenting things and ADHD-related chaos: keys locked in the car, a broken phone, last-minute hockey sessions, schedule changes, emergency dance choreography bookings, a sick child, a snow day—and it’s only Thursday.

Any one of these things could happen to anyone. But for a neurodiverse mom raising neurodiverse children (and often partnered with someone who is also neurodiverse), these moments require a huge amount of executive functioning—much of which is already being borrowed by everyone else in the family.

That looks like searching for the spare key (never found), arranging rides with only one car, tracking down the CAA card, taking photos of the card and number, managing last-minute logistics, and keeping everything moving forward. On their own, these tasks may not seem like a big deal. But when a mother who already has her own executive functioning challenges has her executive functioning borrowed all day long by others—planning, organizing, paying bills, remembering passwords, finding lost items, tracking appointments, filling out forms—it adds up quickly.

Then there are the unexpected emotional needs: a child who refuses school, a meltdown that causes you to miss an appointment, the aftermath that still needs tending to once the crisis has passed.

And then there are the self-help gurus—often men—talking about morning routines.

Now, I’m not saying morning routines aren’t helpful. They can be. But when the advice is “just wake up at 5 or 6 a.m.,” I have questions.

Who was up with the baby in the middle of the night?
Who got up for the nightmares?
Who lay with a child until they fell asleep?
Who had a child crawl into their bed because they were scared?

Maybe it was their partner—but then I ask this: who is with the kids while you meditate, journal, work out, shower, and get ready for work?

Someone stays home to make that routine possible.

And more often than not, it’s the mom.

So when exactly is a mother supposed to have her uninterrupted morning routine? Where is the conversation about shared responsibility, or modifications, or how partners can support this? The lack of perspective—and frankly, the lack of curiosity—around this is astounding to me. It’s rarely even acknowledged.

On top of all of this, I hear women talk about going to healthcare providers and not being taken seriously. When they do receive help from family or friends, they worry about how their child will behave, the judgment they’ll receive, or having to explain their child’s needs, preferences, and differences.

Often, it feels easier not to ask for help at all.

Friends don’t get it. Family members suggest stricter discipline. Schools call multiple times a day because your child forgot something, got in trouble, is overwhelmed, is panicking, or has a tummy ache.

So while self-care is a meaningful and necessary concept—and one that moms of neurodiverse kids need more than most—the system around them makes it incredibly hard to access. Worse, it often leaves them feeling ashamed for not being able to do it “properly.”

This isn’t a failure of mothers.

It’s a failure of the systems we expect them to survive within.

If you’re a mom reading this and quietly thinking, “This is me,” I want you to know you’re not alone—and you’re not failing.

Nothing is wrong with you for feeling exhausted, resentful, overwhelmed, or stuck. Your nervous system is responding exactly as it should to the amount of load you’re carrying.

My hope is that we begin talking more openly about this—not just at the level of individual coping strategies, but at the level of systems, expectations, and shared responsibility. That we make space for the voices of neurodiverse mothers raising neurodiverse children, and that we stop measuring ourselves against advice that was never designed with our realities in mind.

If this resonated, I invite you to share it with another parent who might feel alone, or to simply let yourself pause and offer compassion to the version of you doing the best she can today.

You don’t need to fix yourself.

You deserve support.