Have you ever tried explaining something about yourself to someone, only to realize that they’re looking at you as though you’re speaking an entirely different language?
Maybe you’re describing why going to the grocery store can be utterly exhausting, even though you can manage complicated things that other people find overwhelming.
Or why you genuinely love spending time alone and don’t particularly want a bigger social circle.
Or why you can spend six hours completely absorbed in something you love but can’t seem to make yourself spend six minutes doing something you desperately need to get done.
And instead of feeling understood, you’re met with suggestions like:
Have you tried making yourself do it?
Maybe you just need to get out more.
ou should really work on making more friends.
Sigh.
Now imagine having that experience with your therapist - someone you’ve specifically sought out because you’re hoping they’ll help you understand yourself and navigate the things that are genuinely difficult.
For neurodivergent people, particularly women who have spent years or decades feeling misunderstood, finding a therapist who really understands neurodivergence can be an extraordinary experience.
And when that therapist is neurodivergent, too?
Sometimes there’s a particular kind of magic.
I’m a neurodivergent therapist, and working with neurodivergent people - particularly women - is one of my absolute favourite parts of my practice.
There’s something that happens sometimes when two neurodivergent people connect.
It’s almost palpable.
One person starts describing something, and the other person’s brain lights up.YES! I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN!
Suddenly, the conversation takes off. There are connections, tangents, unexpected insights, and those wonderful moments when someone says something that makes the other person feel completely seen.
It’s a little like discovering that someone else speaks a language you didn’t even realize you’d been speaking.
Or hearing the song of your people.
Oh, THERE you are...
Many neurodivergent people recognize this feeling from friendships with other neurodivergent people. There can be a shared language and experience that make communication feel remarkably easy, even when the ways our neurodivergence shows up are quite different.
I’ve experienced that same kind of connection in my work as a therapist.
Sometimes a new client will begin explaining something they’ve struggled to communicate to other people for years. They’ll start describing an experience, and I’ll make a connection before they’ve even finished.
Then I see it: that mixture of surprise, wonder, and relief.
Wait. You actually understand what I’m talking about?
I love those moments.
Instead of spending half the session trying to translate their experience into something I can understand, we can explore it together.
Of course, sharing a neurodivergent identity doesn’t guarantee that two people will connect this way. Neurodivergent people aren’t all alike, and lived experience alone doesn’t make someone an effective therapist. Training, clinical skill, curiosity, flexibility, and the therapeutic relationship all matter.
But when that connection happens, it can be pretty wonderful.
For someone who has spent much of their life feeling misunderstood, it can also be enormously meaningful.
Unfortunately, not every neurodivergent person has a positive experience in therapy.
Imagine seeking help because you’re overwhelmed, exhausted, or struggling to manage everyday life.
You explain that social situations are difficult, that you don’t have many friends, and that leaving the house can sometimes feel like an enormous undertaking.
Your therapist encourages you to socialize more, push yourself to go out, and challenge your avoidance.
Perhaps they insist that you keep your camera on throughout online sessions, even though being watched makes it harder for you to think, process, or talk.
Maybe they interpret your discomfort as resistance.
The therapist may genuinely believe they’re helping. But what if they’re misunderstanding what’s happening?
What if the difficulty leaving the house isn’t primarily anxiety?
What if it involves sensory overwhelm, executive functioning difficulties, autistic burnout, trauma, or several of those things interacting?
What if you don’t actually want more friends?
What if eye contact makes it harder for you to process information?
And what if you’ve spent your entire life pushing yourself to do things that other people think you should be able to do?
The last thing you need is for therapy to become another place where you’re expected to mask.
A therapist who understands neurodivergence is more likely to recognize that the same outward behaviour can have very different explanations. Understanding why something is happening matters enormously when deciding what might help.
Autistic burnout is a particularly important example.
Many autistic adults, especially those who have spent years masking their differences and trying to meet expectations that don’t fit them, describe periods of profound exhaustion and reduced capacity.
Things they could previously manage may suddenly become extraordinarily difficult. Social interactions can feel unbearable. Sensory sensitivities may become more intense. Executive functioning can deteriorate. Even ordinary daily activities may require more energy than someone has available.
Because autistic burnout can overlap with depression, anxiety, trauma responses, physical illness, and other difficulties, it isn’t always recognized for what it is. A careful therapist doesn’t assume that every period of exhaustion in an autistic person is burnout - but they understand that burnout needs to be considered.
Now imagine someone in that state being told that they need to push themselves harder.
Get out more.
Socialize more.
Stop avoiding things.
For someone already struggling under overwhelming demands, that approach may make things worse.
Sometimes what a person needs isn’t encouragement to do more. I’ve written before about how rest can lead to more progress than forcing productivity, especially when we begin working with a neurodivergent brain instead of fighting it.
Someone may need help identifying what is depleting their capacity, determining which demands can be reduced, and finding ways to recover.
They may need permission - from themselves, perhaps most of all - to stop trying so hard to meet expectations that aren’t working for them.
They may also need a therapist who understands that rest, accommodations, and reducing demands aren’t necessarily avoidance.
Sometimes they’re exactly what’s needed.
Here’s another experience that can be incredibly difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it.
You have something you need to do.
You know you need to do it.
You genuinely want to do it.
Maybe it’s important. Maybe there will be serious consequences if you don’t do it.
You might even sit there thinking about it for hours.
And yet you can’t seem to get started.
Welcome to what many people with ADHD call ADHD paralysis.
It isn’t a formal diagnosis or a single clinical symptom, but it’s a term that resonates with many people who experience difficulty initiating tasks, prioritizing competing demands, shifting attention, or acting when they feel overwhelmed.
It’s often accompanied by an enormous amount of shame.
Why can’t I just DO it?
What’s wrong with me?
Everyone else seems to manage this.
Now imagine bringing that struggle to therapy and being told that you need more discipline, a better schedule, or a list that breaks the task into smaller steps.
Those strategies can sometimes be useful. But if the therapist doesn’t understand the underlying executive functioning difficulties, their suggestions may feel like yet another reminder of all the things you’ve already tried and haven’t been able to make work consistently.
A neurodivergent-affirming therapist may approach the problem differently.
Rather than assuming that motivation is the issue, we might explore what is making task initiation difficult.
Is the task unclear?
Are there too many steps or competing priorities?
Is there a sensory component?
Is perfectionism getting in the way?
Are you depleted or approaching burnout?
Is your nervous system responding to the task as though it’s threatening?
And perhaps most importantly: what has actually worked for your brain before?
Sometimes the answer is a conventional strategy. Sometimes it’s something wonderfully unconventional. And sometimes we need to experiment.
I have what feels like an enormous mental Rolodex of strategies I’ve collected through professional training, working with clients, and navigating my own neurodivergent brain.
Some have worked beautifully for me. Others haven’t helped me at all but might be exactly what someone else needs.
I love the process of figuring that out together.
We’re not trying to force your brain to work like someone else’s. We’re together solving the puzzle of what works for you. The nice thing is that solving puzzles is often what neurodivergent brains do best when the right conditions are present.
A while ago, I was being interviewed on a webinar about anxiety and the Safe and Sound Protocol, or SSP.
We were discussing how SSP may help some people feel more comfortable in social situations. The interviewer kept returning to the idea that this could help people want to socialize more.
Which, of course, it sometimes does!
But I found myself making the same point two or three times:
Or perhaps someone becomes much more comfortable and content about NOT wanting to socialize.
Perhaps they stop feeling guilty about preferring time alone.
Perhaps they become more confident in recognizing that they don’t actually want a large social circle.
Perhaps they realize that their preferred way of connecting with other people is perfectly valid.
That is an equally happy and healthy outcome.
The goal isn’t to make neurodivergent people less neurodivergent. It isn’t to make everyone more outgoing, more social, or more comfortable doing things that society considers "normal".
The goal is to help people feel more comfortable being themselves.
For one person, that might mean discovering that they genuinely enjoy socializing once they feel safer in the world and it no longer feels so overwhelming.
For another, it might mean realizing that they’re happiest with a few close relationships and plenty of time alone.
Neither outcome is inherently better.
What matters is that the person has more choice, more flexibility, and more freedom to discover what actually feels right for them.
And they’re the one who gets to decide.
For many women, understanding their neurodivergence comes after decades of trying to make sense of experiences that never quite added up.
Perhaps they were the quiet, sensitive child who did well academically but struggled socially.
Or the exceptionally capable adult who could manage complicated professional responsibilities but found ordinary household tasks overwhelming.
Perhaps they were diagnosed with anxiety or depression, but those diagnoses never seemed to explain everything.
Some have spent years in therapy without anyone recognizing the possibility of autism or ADHD. Others have suspected for a long time but haven’t known where to turn for an assessment.
And some have encountered professionals whose understanding of neurodivergence is based on outdated stereotypes.
When someone finally begins to recognize themselves through a neurodivergent lens, it can be an extraordinary experience.
Suddenly, things that seemed unrelated begin to connect:
The sensory sensitivities.
The exhaustion after socializing.
The intense interests.
The difficulty switching tasks.
The need for predictability.
The feeling of being different, even when nobody else seemed to notice.
For some women, it brings enormous relief.
For others, there is grief, anger, confusion, or a sense of having lost years trying to become someone they were never going to be.
Often, all of those feelings coexist.
There is also the complicated process of looking back and wondering how life might have been different if someone had understood sooner.
Therapy can provide a place to explore those experiences without pressure to arrive at a particular conclusion.
You don’t need a formal diagnosis to deserve understanding, accommodations, or support. And you don’t need to have everything figured out before you begin.
Being intellectually gifted can make it even more difficult for a neurodivergent woman to receive an accurate diagnosis.
From the outside, everything may look wonderful.
Excellent grades. Advanced degrees. A successful career. Impressive accomplishments.
Surely someone who has achieved all that couldn’t possibly have ADHD?
Well, let me tell you a story.
When I was 36, I saw a psychiatrist for an ADHD assessment. He didn't tell me this but the report he later sent my family doctor explained that he wasn’t sure I could have ADHD because I enjoyed reading and had graduated from university magna cum laude.
Apparently, those facts were enough to make him question the possibility.
But he didn’t ask the right questions.
If he had, I could have told him about my university statistics course.
I was a very serious student. I loved learning, was intensely interested in many of my classes, and was determined to earn excellent grades.
In fact, between my anxiety, trauma history, and perfectionism, I was probably a little too determined. My achievement wasn’t driven by intellectual ability alone. It also reflected an intense and not entirely healthy need to succeed.
But statistics?
Oh, statistics.
At the beginning of the course, I would show up to every class fully intending to pay attention.
I’d sit there promising myself that THIS time I was going to listen.
About half an hour into the lecture, I’d suddenly realize that I hadn’t heard a single thing the professor had said.
Not one thing.
I had been physically present, but my attention had apparently gone somewhere else entirely.
I kept trying, and I kept having the same experience.
Eventually, I decided that spending two hours several times a week sitting in a classroom without absorbing anything was a spectacular waste of time. I had plenty of other reading and studying to do!
So I stopped attending.
I would show up a couple of weeks before each exam, mainly to make sure that the date and location hadn’t changed.
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t make sense of the textbook, either.
Until the night before the exam.
Suddenly, with the deadline looming, everything would click.
I would somehow pull together an entire unit’s worth of material in one frantic burst of understanding.
ADHD loves a deadline!
And the result?
I got an A in statistics.
I got an A in a course I barely attended, couldn’t pay attention to when I did attend, and didn’t understand until the night before each exam.
The psychiatrist saw the A.
He didn’t investigate what it had taken to get there.
He didn’t ask about the enormous differences in my attention depending on my interest in a subject. He didn’t ask about running late, missing classes, handing assignments in at the last possible moment, or relying on urgency, anxiety, and perfectionism to make everything come together.
He looked at what I had accomplished rather than how I had accomplished it.
Having ADHD doesn’t necessarily mean that someone can’t concentrate, succeed academically, or accomplish complicated things.
Attention can vary enormously depending on interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, environment, and other factors.
Someone might spend hours completely absorbed in a subject they love while struggling to sustain attention for ten minutes on something less engaging.
They might produce extraordinary work under deadline pressure while finding it almost impossible to begin the same work weeks earlier.
They might be highly capable, creative, and insightful while struggling with time management, organization, task initiation, or everyday routines.
If they’re intellectually gifted, they may be able to compensate for some of those difficulties so effectively that other people never recognize how much they’re struggling.
Sometimes they don’t recognize it themselves.
When you keep achieving the expected results, it’s easy to assume that the process must be working - even when the process is exhausting, fueled by anxiety, or dependent on repeated last-minute bursts of effort.
There’s a term sometimes used for people who are both intellectually gifted and neurodivergent: twice exceptional, or 2e.
For some people, giftedness helps conceal neurodevelopmental difficulties. For others, those difficulties prevent their intellectual abilities from being recognized. Sometimes both things happen.
Someone may be exceptionally capable in one area and struggle significantly in another. They may be articulate and insightful while having enormous difficulty managing ordinary daily activities. They may have become so skilled at devising creative workarounds that nobody - including the person themselves - realizes how much effort they’re expending.
Then, when they finally seek help, their strengths become the very reason their difficulties are dismissed.
But you’re so successful!But you’re so intelligent!
But you’ve accomplished so much!
Yes.
And perhaps it would be worth asking what it took to accomplish those things.
You might hope my experience was simply a reflection of how ADHD was understood almost twenty years ago.
Unfortunately, I’ve encountered remarkably similar misunderstandings much more recently.
I worked with a gifted woman who was seeking an ADHD assessment. The professional assessing her initially didn’t believe that she had ADHD.
My client even raised the relevant question herself: could her giftedness be compensating for some of her difficulties and making the ADHD less obvious?
It was an excellent question, but it wasn’t adequately considered.
I became so concerned about what appeared to be a lack of attention to the complexity of her presentation that I wrote a rather strongly worded email outlining my concerns.
Following that communication, her presentation was reconsidered, and she ultimately received an ADHD diagnosis.
That doesn’t mean that every gifted person who struggles with attention or task initiation has ADHD. Nor does one anecdote - or one memorable statistics course - establish a diagnosis.
A proper ADHD assessment needs to consider the whole clinical picture, including developmental history, patterns across settings and over time, functional impact, compensatory strategies, co-occurring conditions, and other possible explanations.
Trauma, anxiety, depression, sleep difficulties, physical health conditions, autistic burnout, and many other factors can affect attention and executive functioning. Clinical nuance matters.
But academic or professional success does not rule ADHD out, either.
A thoughtful assessment needs to look beyond outcomes and ask:
What does it take for this person to function?
How much effort are they expending?
What strategies are they relying on?
What happens when structure, urgency, pressure, or external expectations disappear?
What difficulties might be hidden behind an impressive list of accomplishments?
Sometimes the most important part of someone’s story isn’t what they have managed to achieve. It’s everything they have had to do to make those achievements possible.
Some people love talking.
Some can analyze their experiences from every possible angle and understand exactly why they respond the way they do - yet that understanding doesn’t necessarily change how they feel.
Others find it difficult to identify or communicate what is happening internally. They may struggle to find words for emotions, have limited awareness of bodily sensations, or become overwhelmed when asked to describe difficult experiences.
And some people simply don’t want to spend every therapy session talking.
That’s okay.
Alongside traditional psychotherapy, I use approaches such as Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, and EMDR. Depending on the person and the approach, these may allow us to work with difficult experiences without requiring extensive verbal processing.
I also work with listening-based interventions, including the Safe and Sound Protocol, Rest and Restore Protocol and iLs. For some people, these may be useful additions to therapy or options to explore separately.
If you’d like to hear more about how I combine somatic therapy, Brainspotting, intuition and listening-based approaches, I discuss my work in this podcast conversation about healing through somatics and sound.
The evidence supporting different modalities and their use for particular concerns varies, and no intervention is right for everyone. These approaches need to be considered thoughtfully in relation to the individual - not offered as universal solutions.
For example, while the research on interventions such as SSP is very promising, no one approach should be presented as a universal solution.
I’m particularly interested in how we can work gently with highly sensitive nervous systems.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that more isn’t always better.
Some people respond well to approaches that would be overwhelming for someone else. Some need an extraordinarily gentle pace.
This is particularly important for highly sensitive and complex nervous systems, where individualized pacing can make an enormous difference.
That’s not a failure.
It’s information.
The important thing is that we pay attention to how your nervous system responds instead of expecting you to respond according to someone else’s timeline.
Many neurodivergent people experience differences in interoception - the ability to notice and interpret signals from inside the body.
Some have difficulty recognizing hunger, thirst, fatigue, emotional states, or the early signs of overwhelm. Others experience internal sensations very intensely. Some fluctuate between the two.
Trauma can complicate this further. For someone who has spent years feeling overwhelmed by internal experiences, disconnecting from those sensations may have become a way of coping.
But what if they would like to feel more connected?
What if they want to recognize that they’re approaching overwhelm before reaching a crisis point?
Or become better able to identify what they need?
Somatic approaches can sometimes help people explore their internal experiences gradually, with an emphasis on choice and tolerability.
Importantly, not everyone wants or needs to develop greater awareness of bodily sensations.
Again, the goal isn’t to impose an ideal way of experiencing the world. It’s to help people explore possibilities that might make life more comfortable.
If you’re uncomfortable making eye contact, you don’t have to make eye contact with me.
If you think more clearly while looking away from the screen, that’s fine.
If you need to fidget, move around, or do something with your hands while we talk, go ahead.
If keeping your camera on throughout an online session makes it harder to engage, we can explore arrangements that work for both of us.
And if your thoughts take an unexpected detour, I’m probably going to be curious about where we’re going.
Sometimes those detours turn out to be surprisingly important.
I don’t expect everyone to communicate the same way, process information at the same speed, or have the same goals.
For some people, therapy involves working through longstanding trauma. For others, it’s about navigating everyday experiences that have become exhausting or overwhelming.
Sometimes it’s about developing practical strategies.
Sometimes it’s about learning to recognize and respect your own needs.
And sometimes it’s about discovering that the person you’ve spent your whole life trying to change is actually someone worth getting to know.
This is probably the most important part of my approach:
My goal isn’t to help you become a different person.
It’s to help you become more comfortable being the person you already are.
That might involve processing trauma, developing new skills, exploring ways of regulating your nervous system, or finding strategies that make everyday life easier.
But it also involves self-compassion.
Learning to recognize your needs without judging yourself for having them.
Questioning expectations that may never have been right for you - and learning how to set boundaries with others when you want or need to.
Understanding that needing support or accommodations doesn’t make you less capable.
Recognizing that the things that bring you joy, comfort, and connection may look very different from what brings those things to someone else.
I want people to have more choices.
More flexibility.
More capacity to recognize what feels good and what doesn’t.
More freedom to decide what they want their lives to look like.
And less pressure to live according to somebody else’s expectations.
Ultimately, you’re the expert on what makes your life meaningful.
My role is to help you explore possibilities, understand yourself more fully, and find ways to make that life more accessible - not to tell you what it should look like.
I wish more neurodivergent people knew what it could feel like to work with a therapist who truly understands them.
Someone who doesn’t automatically interpret differences as deficits.
Someone who understands that you can be exceptionally capable and still struggle with things that appear simple.
Someone who recognizes that autistic burnout isn’t laziness, ADHD paralysis isn’t a lack of caring, and preferring solitude isn’t necessarily a sign that something is wrong.
Someone who can appreciate the creativity, humour, intensity, curiosity, and unexpected connections that can make neurodivergent minds so fascinating.
Someone who is curious about the full story - not only the diagnosis, behaviour, or achievements visible from the outside.
And someone who genuinely enjoys working with you.
Because I do.
I love those moments when a client’s face lights up because they realize they don’t have to spend twenty minutes explaining something I already understand.
I love the connections our minds make, the interesting detours, the humour, and the delight of discovering a strategy that fits.
I love helping people question the belief that they need to become less of themselves in order to have a good life.
Therapy doesn’t have to be another place where you’re expected to perform, mask, or translate yourself into a form other people find easier to understand.
It can be a place where you begin to recognize your needs, honour your strengths, address the things that are genuinely difficult, and build a life that feels right to you.
You can be brilliant and still struggle. You can be successful and still need support. And you deserve a therapist who is curious about the whole picture, not just the parts that are easiest to see.
You can also learn more about my individualized approach to coaching and therapy, including Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, parts work and nervous-system-focused approaches.