Much of the conversation around Autism and ADHD centers children. How to identify them, teach them, manage their behavior, or help them succeed in school. Far less attention is given to neurodivergent adults. Adults are expected to manage careers, relationships, households, finances, sensory environments, social expectations, and countless invisible responsibilities without accommodations or even an understanding of why certain things seem to require so much more effort. For some, neurodivergence was recognized in childhood. Others may spend decades wondering why they seem to experience the world differently before finally finding language that makes sense of their experiences. Neurodiversity-affirming therapy offers a place to understand how your mind works, identify your needs, develop strategies that genuinely work for you, process experiences of misunderstanding or exclusion, and build a life that honors your needs.

Autism

Being Autistic in adulthood can mean navigating a world organized around ways of communicating, socializing, working, and processing information that may not come naturally to you. You may experience sensory environments more intensely. You may need more predictability and recovery time. You may communicate differently from those around you. Maybe you become deeply immersed in your interests and find seemingly ordinary demands surprisingly exhausting. Or maybe you’ve learned to carefully observe other people and consciously perform the behaviors expected of you (a process often described as masking.) From the outside, you may appear highly capable. What others don’t always see is the amount of processing, preparation, self-monitoring, or recovery happening underneath.

In therapy, you can learn how to live more sustainably as yourself and begin to make sense of experiences that may have been misunderstood throughout your life. Therapy can be a space to explore masking and authenticity, navigate relationships and boundaries, and recover from burnout. We’ll work together to understand your sensory, emotional, relational, and executive-functioning needs.

ADHD

ADHD is often reduced to being distracted, disorganized, or unable to sit still. But the lived experience is much more complicated. You might know exactly what needs to be done, yet feel unable to initiate it. Time can disappear. Small administrative tasks can become enormous obstacles, while something genuinely interesting can hold your attention for hours. You might struggle with working memory, transitions, planning, emotional regulation, maintaining routines, or accurately sensing how long something will take. Years of hearing that you should “just try harder” leaves deep internal wounds. Consistent difficulty with translating intention into action can become mistaken for laziness or irresponsibility. Even by the person experiencing it.

In therapy, we’ll begin to separate difficulty from moral failure. Instead of relying solely on systems designed for people whose brains function differently, we can explore strategies that work with your attention, motivation, energy, and executive functioning. Therapy can also make room for the emotional consequences of ADHD, such as frustration, shame, overwhelm, relationship difficulties, burnout, and the exhausting experience of repeatedly trying to force yourself into systems that don’t fit.

AuDHD

AuDHD is a term commonly used by people who are both Autistic and have ADHD. The combination can create experiences that aren’t fully captured by looking at either diagnosis separately. You might crave predictability while simultaneously struggling to maintain routines. Novelty may energize you, while unexpected change overwhelms you. You might need stimulation and sensory input in one moment, and desperately need quiet in another. Deep interests may coexist with difficulty initiating everyday tasks. Sometimes, it can feel as though different parts of your nervous system are making contradictory requests. Understanding that interplay can be profoundly relieving.

Therapy can be a space to stop treating those contradictions as personal shortcomings and begin to understand what they tell you about your needs. We’ll explore executive functioning, sensory needs, relationships, masking, emotional regulation, burnout, identity, and practical ways of creating more flexibility and sustainability in everyday life.