17. Designing Life Outside the Lines
We've spent 16 episodes this season digging into specific challenges - masking exhaustion, executive function struggles, burnout patterns, all of it. And those episodes each gave you a piece of the puzzle.
In this season finale, I zoom out and show you how all those pieces fit together.
This episode is about becoming the architect of your AuDHD life, when no blueprint exists. It's about taking everything you've learned about your brain this season and weaving it into an actual life that works.
In This Episode:
Ecosystem design isn't one thing—it's weaving every part of your life to support your actual brain
You have to design for your real capacity, not your wished-for capacity
When no model exists, you become the architect through following sparks
Your data comes from working backwards through burnout patterns
Permission to need different things is the hardest and most essential piece
Connect With Me:
THE STARTING POINT: ACKNOWLEDGING WHAT ISN'T WORKING
At 40, living what looked like freedom—nomadic life, traveling between states. But the reality? Two-day drives every month. Living in a spare bedroom with 8-person family dinners three times a week. Daily shutdowns from visual hypersensitivity.
I knew exactly what I needed. A stable home base. Land to plant on. Space from neighbors. But housing prices had shot up, everything was out of budget, and nobody in my life really understood.
When you're alone without distractions and hopelessness rushes in—that fear that there IS no answer and this is just how it will always be—that's when you know something fundamental has to change.
The question becomes: How do you design a life that doesn't exist yet when you have no model to follow?
FIVE PRINCIPLES of AuDHD ECOSYSTEM DESIGN
Principle 1: Design for Your Actual Brain
My husband's routines stabilize me—morning dog walk together, dinner prep side by side, watching shows before bed. These are rituals I can depend on.
But my own routines? My brain rebels against regular structure. I've tried. It doesn't work.
So instead of forcing routines, I design for flexibility within structure. Anchor points like Pilates three times a week at set times. Someone else guides me through it—I just get myself out the door.
Your design has to work for your ACTUAL brain, not the brain you think you should have.
Principle 2: Gather Your Data (Even Working Backwards)
Before you can design anything, you need to know what you're working with. What's actually hard? What's actually easy? Who and what are already in your ecosystem?
Sometimes you can't track this in real time—just like processing emotions, sometimes you have to work backwards to understand patterns.
I didn't know what tipped me into burnout until afterwards. Then I could look back and say "oh, THAT's the pattern. THAT's where my limit is."
Over episodes 14-16, I tracked: 8 client sessions a week is sustainable. 12 tips me into danger. That specific data lets me make specific design choices now.
Principle 3: Give Yourself Permission to Need Different Things
This is the hardest part. Forty years of pushing through. A decade in coaching/business worlds that encourage being your best self and “stretching your comfort zone”.
Permission looked like:
Needing land for a garden wasn't frivolous—it was survival based on data from years of coming alive working with plants
Needing to work part-time wasn't lack of ambition—it was designing for actual capacity based on burnout patterns
Needing to eat alone sometimes wasn't antisocial—it was honoring nervous system limits
Your struggles are real even when people can't see them. Even when you're carrying things alone because you don't know how to make others understand.
Principle 4: Get Creative When No Model Exists
Standard housing wasn't working. Standard work schedules weren't working. Standard family structures weren't working.
So I became the architect of something new:
Intergenerational living wasn't in any lifestyle blog
Seasonal homes plus a campervan wasn't a template I found anywhere
Hybrid contract work plus my own coaching was created for my specific needs
When there's no model, you have to build it yourself. Scary. Also liberating.
Principle 5: Build in Ongoing Adjustment
You don't redesign once and you're set forever. You keep following sparks as you learn more. You keep adjusting as needs change or as you discover needs you didn't know you had.
Recent discovery: I need to stay in one place for an entire day when we're in the van—wake up there, sleep there, no driving—or it's just transitions strung together and my nervous system never settles.
That's new information. That changes how I design van trips going forward.
WHAT ECOSYSTEM DESIGN ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
Housing: The Foundation
We co-bought a house with my parents—intergenerational living with our own kitchen, exterior entrance, yard. Land to plant on. Space from neighbors.
This solved: Housing costs. Privacy needs. Family connection without constant overstimulation. Access to land for my special interests.
Family Structure: Childfree
After 20 years as an overqualified underearner, constantly trying to fund a "normal" life while cycling between burnouts, I realized: maybe the way to be healthy was reducing expenses, not making more money.
What if I designed around my actual capacity instead of constantly pushing against limits?
I'm an auntie. Immersed in family life, advocating for my nephews' neurodivergent needs. And I also get the alone time vital to my nervous system.
This complicated decision (that wasn’t without grief) was finally accepting that designing around actual capacity isn't selfish—it's survival.
Work Structure: Hybrid and Sustainable
The hybrid model—contract work for stability, plus my own coaching for meaning and creative expression—emerged from understanding my actual capacity, not wished-for capacity.
During busy season: Mon (easing in), Tues (podcast & private clients), Wed-Thurs (contract clients), Fri (behind the scenes). Off-season has more space.
Part-time and sustainable beats full-time burnout cycles every time. But I had to give myself permission, then build structure and make sacrifices to get there.
The Van and Home Base Together
My ADHD craves stimulation and novelty. My Autistic side needs predictability and routine. Both are real. Both matter.
The solution: Design for both instead of choosing one.
Home base provides the routine and predictability. The van provides adventure and change. Neither one alone would work—together they create balance.
This works because I gave myself permission to need contradictory things and got creative about how to have both.
WHAT BECOMES POSSIBLE
When the ecosystem came together, something shifted.
Making healing tea with real honey, lemon, ginger when I got a cold—instead of just dragging to the pharmacy. Seems small. Was revolutionary. It took me back to pre-burnout, when nourishing myself felt natural.
Planting in my yard. Special interests flourishing. Voice messages with friends where I could hear excitement in my own voice—that energy for connection returned because I wasn't spending it all on survival.
Client sessions lighting me up. Ending on time because I had energy for boundaries. Doing really good work. Mind sharp again.
Moving past survival-level recovery into dreaming about my own creations, supporting other AuDHDers through these same design challenges.
This is survival-level design. Not optional luxury. Creating conditions where you can actually LIVE instead of just survive.
SEASON 1 EPISODE GUIDE
Episodes 1-4: Foundation
Why standard advice doesn't work for AuDHD brains
How to pathfind with sparks when no model exists
Understanding what masking actually costs you
The practical unmasking menu
Episodes 5-9: Understanding Your Patterns
Childhood labels that were actually code for neurodivergence
What sensitivity really means (not what they told you)
Why "simple" things feel impossible
How your processing speed actually works
Why some of your pain doesn't have names others recognize
Episodes 10-13: The AuDHD-Specific Challenges
How accomplishments don't feel real
Why transitions hit us so hard
How environments actively affect your nervous system
The constant tension: ADHD wants stimulation, Autism needs stability
Episodes 14-16: The Burnout Arc
Recognizing your tipping point before you go over
Pulling yourself back from the edge
Giving yourself permission to rest (even when it looks lazy)
Episode 17: Bringing It All Together
How to weave all those pieces into actual ecosystem design
Want to revisit a specific topic? Check out the full episode list at audhdsparks.com
THE KEY INSIGHT
The path forward takes time and trust. Trust in the process, letting things unfold, following sparks that lead to the next step.
It takes building awareness of yourself—your patterns, limits, needs. Not what you wish they were. What they actually are.
We've covered 17 episodes this season—from why standard advice doesn't work to recognizing burnout patterns to giving yourself permission to rest. Each one a piece of the puzzle.
Today shows how those pieces weave into actual ecosystem design.
This is the invitation: Let go of trying to fix yourself to fit the world. Start redesigning your world to fit you.
When no model exists, we become the architects.
You're not alone in this Wild West of neurodivergence. We're all figuring it out together, one spark at a time.