About us, our mission, and community
About us
We are a Brisbane based professional couple (lawyer and engineer) and first time parents to a loving Dinosaur, Transformer and Lego obsessed autistic and ADHD 4 year old. We are navigating parenthood and advocating to ensure our son has the right supports and accommodations whilst working and running our family business together.
The story behind Subtly Anxious®
Subtly anxious is anxiety meeting elegance. Fidget toys are popular for children, especially with anxiety and ADHD. There was a lack of hypoallergenic adult fidget rings without looking tacky or having your skin react and turning green. This started with a conversation about inclusion - why can't beautifully designed rings also be a sensory product for someone for example who may have ADHD or autism (or both) and needs something to stim or fidget with?
Our Story
We went on the search for high quality sterling silver spinner rings in Australia and quickly found that there weren't any spinner rings for anxiety that were hypoallergenic, subtle, stylish and functional. The rings needed to be high quality and adjustable so that they could fit both adults and kids. The only way we could incorporate hypoallergic and long lasting materials was to use s925 sterling silver. This is how Subtly Anxious® came to life - we are the only Australian business that sells only 925 sterling silver anxiety rings and fidget rings. You know that our rings are unique as they are specially engraved with our brand “Subtly Anxious.”
Empower yourself. Embrace your thoughts.®
The rings are designed as a tool used to empower yourself to manage any symptoms of anxiety. It is one of many tools and strategies that you can use to deregulate and reduce symptoms of anxiety. When you feel like your anxiety is approaching, you don't ignore those thoughts - embrace your thoughts and let them pass like a wave through your mind. Empower yourself. Embrace your thoughts.® It’s a reminder to manage your anxiety.
Our mission
Our mission started by raising awareness about and supporting those touched by anxiety, ADHD, Autism or OCD - diagnosed or not. As we continued to learn more in our journey, our mission evolved as autism advocates because we saw the importance of ensuring autism spectrum disorder is not only understood better in the early years of parenthood but to also advocate for better inclusion and accommodations for the autism community. The more we advocate, the more we are able to increase the understanding of others, which in turn may mean better supports and accommodations.
Our community
As a small business in our first year of business, we donated $850 to Beyond Blue.
Whilst navigating our son’s autism diagnosis and ensuring that he is ready for school, we saw an underwhelming amount of (free) neurodivergent focussed resources available in the community. When we first created a simple social story for use as a template, we didn’t realise how far it would go to help so many others. You can find more of our free anxiety resources including our beautiful social story template here.