Hello
Donna Barwald is a professional organizer, author, educator, and recovering perfectionist with over 20 years of experience helping families create calmer, more functional homes. Her books, This Mess Is Making Me Stress! and Improve Your Move, along with her presentations and podcast appearances, offer practical, step‑by‑step guidance for navigating clutter, overwhelm, and life transitions. Conceived in the Bronx and raised in San Jose, she earned her Business/Management degree with a Theatre Arts minor from San Jose State University and built an eclectic career in arts management, sales and marketing, teaching, and performing across Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles. Now launching two neurodivergent young adults — and recently diagnosed ADHD herself — Donna brings lived experience, humor, and authenticity to AuDHD Adulting.
My Story
I was nearly 40, with a career in arts management behind me and about to enter a master's program in education, when my first child was born and I was lost in postpartum depression. I didn't go back to school, but I did go back to work until my second child was born a few years later. As a child of the "Free to Be You and Me" generation, we were told we could have it all - but I discovered, not all at once. I started my own professional organizing company, Neatly Arranged, when my younger, undiagnosed child entered school and it became clear I needed more flexibility. I kept trying to work for someone else - teaching computer skills to K-8 students, designing closets, even performing as a costume character at Universal Studios Hollywood, but I kept getting calls from the school to come get my ADHD kid from the principal's office.
Medication for ADHD and anxiety only solved some problems and uncovered other ones; we didn't know they were autistic until middle school and we didn't know about PDA until high school. By then, they were suffering from chronic PTSD, and spent years in autistic burnout. I spent those years learning all I could about neurodivergence, specifically AuDHD and PDA, and how to give young adults the skills, services, supports and space to leave the nest.
Today, as a Jewish mother launching two neurodivergent young adults — and recently diagnosed ADHD myself (that's another blog post) — my goal is to teach overwhelmed parents what I've learned, what works, and how to avoid the mistakes I've made. When you know better, you do better, and this is my do-over. I'm on the same journey you are - just a little further ahead.
In my spare time, I still love to sing and dance, go to shows, learn and teach, lead Jewish services for seniors, hike, travel, binge‑watch, and do the NY Times puzzles.