Everything began to work when she stopped trying to fix her family and started loving them as they were. Zoe Martin tells her story with equal parts humor and honesty. She is a wife and a mother of two, and those roles are the heart of her life. When she uses the word neurodivergent, she is talking about natural differences in how brains work, including autism and ADHD. The word gives her hope and a way to describe her family with pride instead of fear.
Her path began with questions about her eldest, Billy. At three, he wanted to be first, needed considerable attention, and tried to keep everyone in line. Teachers later called it policing. At home, Zoe and her husband, Scott, felt like they were failing. When their daughter, Zhema, started school, teachers said she seemed far away, what the family jokingly called unicorn land. The jokes covered a growing worry.
Things got hard. Marriage got tense. Home felt like confusion with short bursts of joy. Then came answers. At seven, Billy was diagnosed as autistic, and later, with ADHD and PDA. The news felt like a door opening and a punch to the stomach simultaneously. Scott began to see himself in Billy’s traits. After years of living with strong opinions, black and white thinking, and a fierce sense of justice, he asked the question aloud. Is this me? At forty-six, he was diagnosed as autistic too. Soon after, Zoe took Zhema to be assessed. Their daughter was also autistic, with ADHD and PDA. Zoe kept saying she was the only neurotypical person in the house, but the pattern made her look inward. As a kid, friendships were confusing. She copied the other girls to blend in. Teachers said she talked too much, distracted others, and did not reach her potential. Neurodiversity was not a word anyone used then. When she finally sought answers, the diagnoses matched her memories. Autism. ADHD. PDA. It stung and it made sense.
At first, Zoe tried to fix autism. She chased therapies, stacked appointments, spent money and energy, and wore herself down. She even asked Scott to leave, then realized that was pain talking. The old parenting books could not help here. She had to unlearn almost everything and rebuild from the ground up. She learned that making her children wrong would never make life right. She learned that she could not lead her family from a state of exhaustion. Radical responsibility meant starting with herself.
She stepped away from online spaces filled with doom. She stopped eating what she called the fear sandwich. She focused on love, got help for her marriage, and began to build what she calls Team Martin. She left a long career in finance to do work that matched her lived experience. She trained in coaching, communication, fitness, epigenetics, meditation, and a modality called Futuring.
She became Australia’s only Transcendental Rebirth facilitator. She created the Sovereign Mother’s Circle, an online space where mothers of neurodivergent kids do motherhood their own way, with acceptance, truth telling, and community. Zoe also wrote a memoir, Making Peace with Autism. It is her family’s story and a message that autism is not a medical disorder to be erased but a difference to be understood. She is building a course to guide mothers through Futuring, helping them make peace with the past, keep what is theirs, and let go of what is not. She believes there is a wide opening for forgiveness and responsibility, and that the future can be shaped from the present with love.
Through all of this, she stays grounded in simple truths. She laughs a lot. She loves a lot. She remembers the lonely girl who tried to be anyone but herself and is careful never to abandon that child again. She knows there will constantly be unlearning and relearning. She knows families like hers need less shame and more support. Most of all, she knows that telling the truth about who they are brings relief.
