About Me
I’m Joan O’Sullivan
I’ve struggled my whole life with ADHD, only getting a diagnosis and meds in 2020. I discovered in 2023 that I’m transgender and queer. In 2025, I self-diagnosed as Autistic. Finally, my life made sense.
A child of the 60s, the world I grew up in had no room for AHDH, Autism, gender non-conformity or the LGTBQ2A+. Society was narrower then. One had to fit into the few roles available. Masking was the norm for everyone who couldn’t fit. I was masking on so many levels that daily life was exhausting. I thought I was broken beyond repair. Smart, but chronically underachieving. Lazy, crazy and stupid were words I heard often and I believed them.
I tried so hard to conform, but things always fell apart. I couldn’t conform no matter matter how much I wanted to. I tried for decades to be someone I’m not. Tough, capable, focused, practical, heterosexual, male. I wasn’t very good at being any of those things. In particular, I couldn’t understand why I liked women and not men but still felt queer. How can that be a thing?
Starting out as a photographer in the 1980s, I took good photos, but was not very successful. Now I know it was Autism, but at the time I just felt broken and incapable. After my kids were born, I went to University for the first time in 1990 to get an MBA. After that I worked as a very successful marketing executive for almost 20 years on high-tech products. Those years were an agony of exhaustion, stress and depression. I had major breakdowns and once spent a month in hospital for depression. I had a dozen sessions of ECT which broke the spiral. I was off work for 2 years and never managed to get back to full-time work. Eventually, I was laid off and could not find another job.
For the last 13 years, I’ve taken photographs and made maps.
I’ve learned so much about depression and ADHD since. Having someone to talk to about ADHD would have made a huge difference in my life. I want to be that person for others. I can draw on a lifetime of successes and failures to understand what will make a difference for you.
My coaching practice is based on the idea that ADHD is a condition, not a sentence. The worst thing about having it is how we blame and denigrate ourselves. Negative reinforcement doesn’t work and doesn’t help. Accept, affirm, adapt is a better way. I want to help you live with yourself the way you are.
Together, we can craft a set of tools and systems to help you adapt and make progress towards your goals. Short or long term.
But the most important thing is to change our thinking. We are not broken or lacking. We are different. Changing our thinking changes our lives. Especially true for gender non conforming and LGBTQA+ people.
I want to encourage you to be who you are. To live authentically. Only by embracing our true selves can we hope to transcend.
Contact Joan
joan@riverrunadhd.com
Joan on Whatsapp
