🧭 Freelancing as a Neurodivergent: What I’ve Learned

For me, freelancing has never been just a career choice.

It has been survival, agency, and sometimes, slavery.

I’ve lived with paranoid schizophrenia for nearly twenty years, and freelanced for more than ten.

The two stories have run in parallel — sometimes colliding, sometimes lifting me up, sometimes dragging me into the abyss.

What I’ve learned isn’t in textbooks.

It’s in scars, small victories, and lessons carved deep into my mind.

From Promise to Breakdown — My Origin Story🎓➡️🧠

In 2005, I was on top of the world.

I’d managed what felt like a miracle — after earning a C+ in my KCSE exams, I was accepted to pursue a BSc in Computer Science at Covenant University in Nigeria.

My peers were retaking exams; I had a head start in tech, a future full of possibility.

But two weeks into a holiday back home in Kenya, everything cracked.

Voices — persecutory, relentless — invaded my mind.

With my Christian upbringing, I thought it was a demonic attack.

My mother, a devout believer, prayed over me, took me to deliverance sessions.

Nothing worked.

The paranoia grew until I was convinced even she wanted to kill me.

Portreiz Mental Hospital became my second home.

The first admission stripped me bare — literally — locked naked in a tiled room with only a lightbulb and a hole in the corner.

That was the beginning of a cycle: paranoia, forced medication, brief stability, then relapse.

Meanwhile, my peers graduated, found jobs, and started families.

I was holed up at home, bitter, angry, and left behind.

Denial, Addiction, and the Loop I Had to Break 🔄

I smoked bhang, chewed muguka, and drank cheap liqueurs heavily.

My meds left me drowsy and detached, and my life shrank into a loop of voices, substances, and fleeting stability.

Twice or thrice a year, the demons returned full force.

Each episode ended in more meds, more fatigue, more shame.

Rediscovering Tech and Writing — Finding Agency Again💻✍🏽

In 2011, a spark returned.

My mother bought me a refurbished desktop, and I began self-studying programming again. Java, PHP, VB6, Dreamweaver — slowly, I found joy in code.

I still remember the thrill of reverse-engineering a VB search engine and hooking it to a simple SQL database.

It felt like resurrection.

That same year, I stumbled into content writing.

I had always had a flair for words, and SEO was becoming “the next big thing.”

I landed work with Veritable Writers, then E-Writers, where I became one of their strongest SEO writers — back in the days when keyword stuffing ruled.

For the first time in years, I was productive, useful.

But even then, the voices returned — and this time, they stayed.

The taunts and threats became constant companions.

I often shouted back at them in frustration, sometimes in public, branded a madman.

Yet somehow, the writing never stopped.

If anything, freelancing became both my shield and my therapy.

Schizophrenia Meets the Gig Economy — Pros & Pitfalls 🧠💼

Freelancing and schizophrenia make an odd pair.

On one hand, freelancing gave me agency — no boss to fire me for shouting at unseen enemies, no office politics to trigger paranoia.

On the other hand, it amplified my instability: income swings, relentless deadlines, clients ghosting. Most of my earnings went straight into meds.

Stability always felt temporary.

New Chances, Big Breaks 🌐

When despair loomed again, my brother encouraged me to enroll in Treehouse coding courses.

After a decade away from structured learning, I surprised myself — a GPA of 4.5 in HTML, CSS, and JS.

It reminded me: I could still learn, still achieve.

Then came a lifeline: Margo White of Birk Digital Group in Raleigh hired me as a Senior Copywriter.

For almost three years, I had stability, steady income, and confidence.

But when the contract ended in early 2020, I crashed again — savings gone, unemployment back, demons roaring.

And then, another twist: iWorker. A random LinkedIn DM led to an application, interviews, and acceptance.

For the first time, I had to pitch myself live on Zoom to clients.

Awkward at first, but I got the hang of it, securing clients within weeks.

Each year brought growth, end-of-year bonuses, and a sense of progress.

Highs, Lows, and Burnout What 2024 Taught Me 🌺🔥

My biggest high came in 2024. Tanya Goodwin of Botanical Chemist entrusted me with a ten-month ghostwriting campaign, including daily deliverables and an ESG white paper.

It was the pinnacle of my freelance career — purposeful work, meaningful pay.

But I pushed too hard.

The paranoia came back stronger than ever.

By December, I was back at Portreiz as an in-patient.

When I was discharged, all my clients were gone.

Ghosted.

Just like that, my momentum vanished.

Now in 2025, I’m piecing things back together.

Building my own website.

Pouring energy into Echoes of Valor, my debut historical fiction novel.

Freelancing remains a lifeline, but fiction writing feels like a legacy.

Lessons Learned — What Actually Works 🧭

Looking back, here’s what I know for sure:

• Health First 🧠 — Without stability, there’s no freelancing career. Period.
• Burnout Is Real🔥 — Overcommitment always ends in collapse.
• Save Relentlessly 💰 — Lean periods strike without warning.
• Adaptability Wins 🌀 — From coding to SEO to fiction, flexibility kept me alive in this gig economy.
• Community Matters 🤝 — My mother, my brother, my networks — freelancing is never truly solo.
• Meaning > Money 📖 — Writing for survival got me by. Writing for meaning keeps me alive.

A Practical Advice for Neurodivergent Freelancers 📌

1. Build routines that bend, not break.
2. Keep a financial cushion for the dry spells.
3. Be honest about your limits — don’t chase every client.
4. Guard your health like your most important contract.
5. Seek work that aligns with your humanity, not just your wallet.

Conclusion: Freelancing as Mirror and Teacher ✨

Freelancing has been my curse and my cure, my cage and my canvas.

It mirrored my schizophrenia — unpredictable, chaotic, often brutal.

But it also taught me resilience, adaptability, and the power of carving a life on my own terms.

I won’t romanticize it: freelancing is hard, especially with a mental condition.

But it’s also where I’ve discovered who I am — not just a patient, not just a freelancer, but a writer with stories worth telling.

And that, for me, is the most important lesson of all.