Finding Your Tribe (Even If It Takes Until Your 40s and beyond)

Wednesday wellbeing got me thinking about tribe. About the people who get you. The ones who don’t try to sand you down into something more convenient.

My brain runs at a million miles an hour. Always has.

I juggle multiple projects and love the buzz of it, yet sitting doing nothing can cause me physical and mental discomfort. Then, out of nowhere, I’ll crash and sleep for 15 hours. Or take a three-hour daytime nap like my body has just pulled the plug. Then live on 4-6 hours sleep like i’ve had the best rest ever.

Some days sound feels unbearable. Other days I want music loud and immersive.

I get overwhelmed by the smallest admin task, yet happily hold multiple projects complex emotional work with clients all day long.

I am a walking contradiction.

And for years, I felt shame about that.

I felt shame for being super capable in some areas and completely stuck in others. For thinking fast. For talking fast. For jumping to step 22 when someone else is still working out step one.

Joe Bloggs is carefully reading the instructions. I’ve already reorganised the system and colour-coded it.

That didn’t always go down well.

At school, my ADHD was obvious, but not obvious enough. I talked too much. I “wasn’t applying myself.” I needed to try harder.

Maths? Hard. So I learned by rote. Then one teacher showed me visual ways to break things down and something clicked. Mental arithmetic? My thing. Numbers neatly lined up in a spreadsheet with symbols? Absolutely not.

Contradiction again.

And then there was Mr Short, my science teacher when I was 11–14. He demonstrated everything visually. Colours. Diagrams. Experiments. He saw how I learned. He adjusted. And I thrived.

That’s what being seen does.

But there were plenty who didn’t see me. Who criticised. Who tried to mould me into something more “neurotypical,” more compliant, less intense. The criticism over the years nearly broke me. Very nearly killed me.

Now?

Bollocks to the lot of them.

And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to the ones who saw my worth before I could and when i couldn’t. The ones who encouraged, championed, and stayed when I was chaotic, messy, growing when i felt like chucking in the towel.

Because finding your tribe changes everything.

I didn’t find mine until my 40s. A creative community of incredible women and some men too!! who love deeply, challenge kindly, and celebrate wins like they’re their own. They held me through the darkest days and clapped the loudest when things went right.

It’s never too late to find your people.

I am a round peg in a square world, and I’m completely okay with that now.

I feel emotion deeply. I work on myself constantly. I evolve. I question. I grow. And none of that would have happened without relationship.

That’s why I work the way I do.

I’m passionate about what I do, and I’m bloody good at it too. However, not every counsellor is for every client. And that’s okay.

Choice matters.

I didn’t feel like I had choice once, and the pain that caused is indescribable. So I want people to know they do. You get to decide who sits opposite you. You get to decide what feels safe.

My clients mean the world to me. I feel their pain. I celebrate their breakthroughs. Sometimes my heart feels like it might burst when they realise their own strength.

And I also know autonomy matters. They have to get there themselves. I can walk alongside, guide, reflect, yet I don’t take over. That’s respect.

The same goes for supervision. It isn’t a tick box. It’s support for all of you, your work, your doubts, your business, your ambition. A space to grow, not perform.

I want people to succeed. I want them to expand. I want to give what was given to me, belief, encouragement, space to be different without being diminished.

If you’re still looking for your tribe, still feeling like the odd one out, still wondering why you can do some things brilliantly and others feel impossible, you’re not broken.

You might just be wired differently.

And there are people out there who will get you.

Therapy can help you hold the dark days while you search. It can help you shed the shame that was never yours. It can help you stand solid in who you are so that when your tribe appears, and it will, you recognise them.

Stay safe.
Stay connected.
Take gentle care.

Louise

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