Living your life
. . . for the real you
Coaching and consultation for the newly identified “audult” neurodivergent
So you’re AuDHD. . . now what?
It’s such a relief to finally know WHY you’ve struggled your whole life. . .
But knowing doesn’t stop the struggle!
Many of us are in a state of deep ND burnout when we finally self-identify and that means our energy and our ability to get through a day can be severely compromised.
The things that used to be on auto-pilot abruptly go manual, and you forget how to do them.
“How many scoops of coffee go in the machine?”
“What do I wear?”
It’s like EVERYTHING is just taking so much more brain power that you DO NOT have to spare.
Plus ND’s tend to have a lot of other stuff going on too..
chronic pain
hypermobility
allergies
long COVID and other immune system challenges
vision problems
dizziness
sleep disorders
. . . let alone the difficulties of employment and relationships!
On top of that, a lifetime of masking can leave us wondering who we even ARE. How much of our personality was just what we had to do to survive?
“Am I a nice person? Or am I just people-pleasing because I’m too scared to do what I really want?”
“Do I WANT to be in the career and relationships I’m in? Are they choices I’m making or just things that are happening to me?”
“If I stop masking, and people pleasing, and living in fight, flight, freeze. . .who will I even be?”
So many questions and fears. . .
YOU NEED A PLACE TO THINK IT THROUGH
With a coach who’s neurodivergent, too!
Neurodivergent Affirming Coaching works by meeting you where you are. . .
Identifying your needs, limits, and desires
Addressing any external and internalized ableism that’s holding you back
Brainstorming changes to your environment, schedule, and activities to get you where you want to be
Honoring how your history and neurotype combined to make you who you are today
Learning about the ways to care for and operate your interest-based nervous system (no your motivation isn’t broken, it just runs on something other than “because I said so”)
Clarifying your sensory profile and beginning to meet your sensory needs
Building a collaborative relationship with yourself
Imagine what your life will look like when you understand your brain, and radically accept exactly who you are.
No more over-committing, people-pleasing, and pushing-through.
A schedule that incorporates the things you need to feel your best.
Self-knowledge and profound self-respect empowering you to redesign your life in a way that works for the REAL you, not the version that you learned you “should” be.
And when all that is in place. . .
the shame melts away,
the self-loathing lifts,
and you find yourself
squealing and giggling
and hopping around ridiculously
because Autistic joy is goofy as hell and you deserve to have ALL of that good stuff in your life!!!
Is coaching the same as therapy or counseling?
While their are many similarities between coaching and therapy. . .talking together in a room, focusing exclusively on your situation, bringing compassion and curiousity and unconditional positive regard to you. . . there are some fundamental differences.
The primary difference is that we are not working under the medical model. That means we do not see who you are as a “pathology” and we do not see your way of being as “deficient”. We are not here to “fix” you or change you. We are here to help you accept yourself exactly as you are and help you explore ways to build your life so that it suits you.
One idea that comes up over and over is that masked adult ND’s often learned to ignore their own needs and limits in favor of prioritizing what they felt others wanted from them. So a big part of our work is often helping people realize what their needs and limits are, and then empower them to try to respect those needs and limits in their life.
ND AFFIRMING COACHING CAN HELP YOU. . .
Understand Yourself
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Have you ever completely lost track of time because you were so deeply immersed in what you were doing? This is called the “flow” state, and ND’s get there a lot!! When we allow our passion to be an asset and a guide, instead of trying to force ourselvesto focus on things we’re not interested in, we can accomplish incredible things!
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Echolalia is the word for repeating phrases or sounds. Sometimes we hear these phrases over and over in our minds, sometimes we shout them out loud!
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Despite the stereotype that Autistics lack empathy, many of us have a very intense deep form of empathy that can sometimes be quite painful or problematic. We need to learn how to turn down the volume on everyone else’s feelings if we want to have any chance of hearing our own needs and desires!
Accept Yourself
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Time is just a human construct, and it’s something a lot of ND’s, ADHDers especially, have a hard time staying connected to. The sense of time passing is not innate for us, tracking it is an extra task we need to do in addition to everything else, and when we think about ANYTHING else (brushing our teeth, writing a paper, balancing the checkbook, chopping an onion) we may completely lose our place in time. This leads to panic attacks when the “time bomb” goes off and you realize you are, once again, late for everything. Unsurprisingly this leads to all kinds of feelings of self-doubt, shame, etc. If that sounds like you, it may be time for a self-love tune up!
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It’s tiring being neurodivergent! Chances are you are processing way more sense data and thoughts than the average human. Plus you’re likely to be managing multiple other chronic conditions like sleep and mood disorders, digestive problems, body pain. It makes sense that you’re likely to need lots of brief rest periods in the day, and longer periods of sleep at night, and pajamas are just good for everyone, right?
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This one is so hard to navigate! Never knowing if you’ll have math brain, or empathy and connection brain, or researching brain. . . or seemingly no brain at all. If you try to force or control it, your brain is likely to backfire on you. Try to embrace and accept your mercurial brain exactly as it is. Maybe this part of being ND goes well with the time-blindness. . . because instead of saying we’ll do math at 2pm on Tuesday, we learn that we will do math when we CAN do math, and our schedule becomes aligned to our capacity instead of the demands of the world.
Love yourself… EXACTLY as you are
Talk it through with someone who already does...
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