Neurodivergent-affirming

More than okay. Welcome. Self-diagnosis is valid here, full stop. Formal assessment is expensive, waitlisted into the next geological era, and historically built around white boys who liked trains, which means a lot of autistic and ADHD adults (especially those who are AFAB, BIPOC, queer, or good at masking) went their whole lives getting missed. If you've done the reading, sat with the recognition, and landed on "oh, that's what's been going on," I trust you as an authority on your own experience.

Whether you have a piece of paper, you're on a waitlist, or you're just fairly sure, we can get to work. You don't have to prove your neurotype to me to deserve affirming care for it.

Absolutely not. That's the opposite of what happens here.

So much of the "help" neurodivergent people get is really just training in more convincing masking: sit still, make eye contact, stop stimming, pass as neurotypical, exhaust yourself doing it. That approach treats you as the problem to be corrected. I don't. Masking has a well-documented cost — burnout, anxiety, losing track of who you even are under the performance — and a lot of our work is often about doing less of it, not more.

The goal isn't to sand you down into something more palatable to a world that wasn't built for you. It's to help you understand your own wiring, work with it instead of against it, and build a life that fits the brain you actually have.

No, no, and there's no such thing. "Good at therapy" is not a real skill you can fail at.

You can look at the wall, the floor, your pet, or a fixed point past the camera. Eye contact is optional here, always. You can stim, fidget, rock, doodle, knit, or pace during session. If talking out loud is hard on a given day, we can use the chat, type, slow way down, or sit in silence until words show up. If you go nonverbal sometimes, we'll plan for that rather than treat it as a crisis. Info-dumping about your special interest is genuinely welcome. It often tells me more than small talk ever could.

You get to show up in your actual body and brain, not a performance of the "ideal client." Bring the fidget toy.

It can genuinely help and it's not an either/or. Medication (the "doctor thing") is one lever, and a real one, but it's prescribed by a medical provider, and I'm not one, so that piece would go through your doctor or a psychiatric prescriber. What therapy adds is everything around the medication, or everything alongside it if meds aren't your path.

Executive function struggles come loaded with decades of shame — "why can't I just do the thing?" — and that shame spiral makes everything harder. Affirming therapy helps you build systems that actually work with an ADHD brain instead of the neurotypical productivity advice that's failed you a hundred times, untangle the self-blame, and get curious about what's really happening when you're stuck (hint: it's rarely laziness). Skills, self-compassion, and scaffolding, that part is very much therapy's lane.

No. I don't provide formal autism or ADHD diagnostic assessments. That's a specific type of evaluation, and it's not what I offer.

What I can do is some screening. If you're wondering whether a full assessment is worth pursuing, we can use screeners together to get a clearer picture, talk through what they suggest, and, if we agree it makes sense, get you pointed toward trusted referrals for a full evaluation. Think of it as a thoughtful first step and a map, not a diagnosis. No pressure to pursue formal assessment at all if that's not what you want; plenty of people find self-understanding is enough.

Yes. All of my work is telehealth, and I see adults across both Oregon and Washington. For a lot of neurodivergent folks, that's not a consolation prize; it's the better option. No fluorescent-lit waiting room, no sensory gauntlet of getting to an office, no masking through a commute before you've even started. You join from your own space, with your own lighting, your own comfort items, and your camera on or off as you need it.

If you're a neurodivergent adult anywhere in Oregon or Washington, you can work with me from wherever you feel most regulated. Curious whether we're a fit? There's a free 20-minute consultation to find out. No pressure, no performance required.