ADHD & Autism
Have you ever felt like your brain doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to? Do you find yourself unable to finish tasks, so hyperactive you can’t sit down, so impulsive that you can’t resist the fun thing over the work you have to do? Do your special interests switch every other month, sending you down a rabbit hole of obsession that only ends when you burn yourself out? Sounds like you might have ADHD!
Do you struggle with eye contact or sensory overload? Do you find yourself stuck in rituals or routines that you find it impossible to break because you hate change? Was socializing a game that everyone else received the rules on how to play except you? Do you struggle being told what to do? How about those emotional outbursts where you find yourself crashing out of nowhere? It’s possible that you might be on the Autism spectrum!
Most of the people I see arrive with the same story. They’re so bright, but their light has been dimmed by years of feeling betrayed by their own brain. They’ve been told they’re “Too much”, “Too loud”, “Not Capable”. Some of them have learned to compensate, to mask their struggles. Then some of you never learned at all, and struggled immensely as a result. Whether you’re someone who has always hidden their ADHD/Autism from others, never knew it existed at all, or had no other choice but to wear it on your sleeve, there is work for us to do together.
We start somewhere else. We get curious about how your brain is actually wired, what it’s great at, and what it needs to get into a flow state. Some of that is practical, like building structures that survive a bad week, or learning how to push yourself through work when you’re unmotivated. Or maybe you just need to learn how to ground your nervous system and regulate your emotions so that you can think. We figure out how your brain functions by mapping it out, one week at a time.
What this looks like in practice
Next, we talk about the tools and strategies that you can use to work with your brain instead of against it. This is where we really start building the skills that help you manage an outburst, get out of thought paralysis, or teach you how to continue to complete tasks even when your brain feels like it’s fighting you.
IFS (Parts work) shows up throughout our sessions. The harshest voice in a neurodivergent adult’s head is usually a part that learned early on that getting caught unmasked was dangerous. That part of your mind has stuck around all these years, to yell at you when you don’t do “Good enough”. It’s just exhausted, and it’s still running your life on rules it picked up in third grade. Let’s learn how to give it a rest. If you want to learn more about IFS, check out the specialties tab on this website!
Over time, the goal is a life with less friction in it and a lot less shame. You get to be yourself fully, while also learning how to thrive in a society that never fit you before.
Do I diagnose this?
I can tell you whether your experiences line up with Autism or ADHD. But I don’t do formal ADHD or autism testing here. If you want an official evaluation, I can point you toward people who do that work well. Plenty of the adults I see never pursue formal testing at all, and that’s fine too.