Why we built Divergently Being

Divergently Being grew out of our life together as a neurodivergent couple.

We created Divergently Married because we couldn’t find many conversations that reflected what our relationship actually looked like: two neurodivergent people trying to navigate work, emotions, sensory needs, communication and everyday life together.

But over time, our lives changed. And so did Divergently Being.

Sonay trained as an ADHD coach and began working with neurodivergent adults who were often trying incredibly hard to make themselves fit ways of working and living that didn’t fit them.

Then we became parents.

While Sonay was pregnant, James was made redundant from the job he had expected to continue in while we started our family.

Suddenly, a lot was changing at once.

Sonay was navigating pregnancy, a changing capacity and eventually the enormous transition into motherhood. James was navigating redundancy, uncertainty and a completely different relationship with work. We were preparing to become parents while trying to work out what our family and working lives were going to look like.

James joined Divergently Being, bringing more than 20 years of IT experience and a very different but complementary perspective to Sonay’s coaching work.

And something became increasingly obvious to us.

Support often becomes least useful at the point people need it most. Someone can understand what they need to do and still be unable to get started. They can be given assistive technology without being shown how to make it useful in their actual work. A strategy that worked brilliantly can stop working when pregnancy, parenthood, burnout, redundancy or another major change alters the conditions around them.

People can understand their neurodivergence and still be left wondering, “Okay. What do I actually do with that?” That is the gap Divergently Being is interested in: the space between knowing what might help and being able to make it work in everyday life.

We bring together ADHD coaching, assistive technology training, practical support, speaking and lived experience to explore what better support can look like. Some of that already exists. Some of it we’re still building.