Rebuild trust in your needs, identity, and inner experience so you can create a life that fits who you actually are.
Maybe you got good grades, were "a pleasure to have in class," and were called gifted and exceptional all through school. No one noticed the quiet struggles. How it took you twice as much effort. How you were scanning the environment trying to figure out the invisible playbook everyone else seemed to have for making friends.
You learned that certain things you did were considered weird or unacceptable. Maybe it was stimming, echolalia, or the questions you asked. So you began to mute parts of yourself and shrink. You began to move through the world mirroring other people and thinking through the lens of "what's expected of me in this situation?" Instead of "what's authentic to me here?"
Then as an adult you started to learn about different presentations of Autism and ADHD and heard the "gifted," "HSP" (highly sensitive person), and "twice exceptional" experiences people shared and were shook by the resonance.
After months and years of obsessing over the question "Am I Autistic and/or ADHD?" you arrived at a place of self-identification or diagnosis. Both forms of identification are welcome here. And you realised: "I became so skilled at reading everyone else that I lost touch with who I am."
The mask worked.
That's what makes taking it off so hard.
Maybe you were the child who got good grades, followed the rules, and was called gifted, mature, or "a pleasure to have in class." No one saw the effort it took to keep up. The constant monitoring, analysing, and trying to decode the invisible social rules everyone else seemed to understand instinctively.
The mask worked.
That's what makes taking it off so hard.
Over time, you learned that certain parts of you weren't always welcomed. The way you moved. Your intensity. Your communication. Your excitement. Your sensory needs. Your clarifying questions. The way you related to the world around you. The things that felt natural to you slowly became things you monitored.
So you adapted and became highly attuned to other people. You learned to read the room, anticipate expectations, and shape-shift accordingly. The question gradually became less:
"What feels true to me?" and more:
"What version of me will be accepted here?"
Then you started hearing stories from other Autistic and ADHD women. Women describing experiences you'd never had words for. And for the first time, the confusion began to make sense.
Maybe you pursued a diagnosis. Maybe self-identification felt more aligned. Either way, the realisation landed:
"I became so skilled at reading everyone else that I lost touch with myself."
After years of learning to trust everyone else's perception of you, trusting your own instincts can feel surprisingly vulnerable and unsafe.
After years of looking outside yourself for the right answer, trusting your own preferences, needs, instincts, and limits can feel strangely unfamiliar.
Stuck in rumination loops after conversations ("did I say it wrong?" "What if they interpreted what I said this way instead of how I meant it?"
Constantly monitoring yourself through rehearsing, self-silencing, and anticipating reactions
Engaging in people-pleasing behaviour so you feel safe
Feeling lonely in social spaces because you're constantly being misunderstood.
Overexplaining in texts, then deleting, rewriting, and apologising
Ignoring your sensory, emotional, or physical needs until your body forces you to pay attention.
Feeling exhausted by the effort it takes to appear okay, capable, or unaffected.
Stuck in rumination loops after conversations ("did I say it wrong?" "What if they interpreted what I said this way instead of how I meant it?"
Constantly monitoring yourself through rehearsing, self-silencing, and anticipating reactions
Engaging in people-pleasing behaviour so you feel safe
Feeling lonely in social spaces because you're constantly being misunderstood.
Overexplaining in texts, then deleting, rewriting, and apologising
Ignoring your sensory, emotional, or physical needs until your body forces you to pay attention.
Feeling exhausted by the effort it takes to appear okay, capable, or unaffected.
Part of unmasking is questioning the beliefs that taught you belonging had to be earned.
Part of unmasking is questioning the beliefs that taught you belonging had to be earned.
Over-giving to earn belonging
How self-doubt, people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, or over-explaining became strategies for maintaining connection
Critical inner monologues
Who you are when you trust yourself. When you know who you are beneath the adaptation.
The discomfort of disappointing others and outgrowing relationships when you start self-advocating
Relearning how to trust your sensory, emotional, and intuitive experiences
How to root into your values to increase courage and self-trust and live a life aligned with what you believe in
How patriarchy shapes your experience as an Autistic and/or ADHD woman
The process of unmasking is an emotional rollercoaster. It requires vulnerability, courage, and self-trust. As you learn to belong to yourself, external approval stops determining who you get to be. This is what self-sovereignty looks like: building a life that reflects who you are rather than who you learned to be.
Over-giving to earn belonging
How self-doubt, people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, or over-explaining became strategies for maintaining connection
Critical inner monologues
Who you are when you trust yourself. When you know who you are beneath the adaptation.
The discomfort of disappointing others and outgrowing relationships when you start self-advocating
Relearning how to trust your sensory, emotional, and intuitive experiences
How to root into your values to increase courage and self-trust and live a life aligned with what you believe in
How patriarchy shapes your experience as an Autistic and/or ADHD woman
The process of unmasking is an emotional rollercoaster. It requires vulnerability, courage, and self-trust. As you learn to belong to yourself, external approval stops determining who you get to be. This is what self-sovereignty looks like: building a life that reflects who you are rather than who you learned to be.
Masking developed when being accepted felt safer than being yourself.
It's the survival adaptation that emerged in the tension between your authentic self and what society told you was palatable.
Masking developed when being accepted felt safer than being yourself.
It's the survival adaptation that emerged in the tension between your authentic self and what society told you was palatable.
Shift your focus from "what will they think?" to "Does this align with my values and who I am?"
Learning to make decisions from self-trust, that create stability, rather than fear, obligation, or the desire for approval
Stop living in acceptability and start living in "I belong to myself"
Start living a life that feels like yours, instead of one earned through compliance.
Reclaiming who you've always been, but got buried under years of conditioning.
Therapy is where you stop measuring yourself against who you were told to be and start listening to who you've always been. Where self-trust grows strong enough to welcome back the parts of you that never needed fixing.
No. Many people arrive in therapy questioning whether they may be Autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent. Some arrive having self-identified. Others have received a diagnosis later in life and are still making sense of what it means.
Whether you're formally diagnosed, self-identified, or simply exploring, you are welcome here.
I practise from the neurodiversity paradigm, which is a framework of care that sees Autism and ADHD as neurotypes. Traditional therapy practises from the pathology paradigm, which is a framework of treatment that sees Autism and ADHD as disorders.
Masking is the process of suppressing, changing, or hiding parts of yourself in order to feel accepted, safe, or understood by others. For many Autistic and ADHD people, masking develops as a survival strategy.
It can look like monitoring your behaviour, rehearsing conversations, people-pleasing, over-explaining, ignoring your needs, or constantly trying to be what others expect. The challenge is that a strategy that once helped you belong can eventually leave you feeling disconnected from yourself.
Many people don't realise they're masking until they begin learning about neurodivergence later in life. You might find yourself constantly second-guessing your interactions, feeling exhausted after social situations, struggling to identify your own needs, or feeling like you've spent your life performing rather than simply being.
Masking is not always obvious. Sometimes it becomes visible only when you begin asking yourself, "Who am I when no one else is watching?" For women, adopting stereotypical gender norms or beauty standards can be a way of masking.
The goal isn't to force you to stop masking. Masking often developed for good reasons. It helped you navigate environments where being yourself didn't always feel safe.
Instead, our work focuses on building self-trust, understanding the purpose your masking has served, and creating enough internal and external safety that you have more choice in how you show up.
This is one of the most common fears people bring to therapy, and one of the common reasons people avoid therapy. When you've spent years adapting to expectations, it can feel scary to embark on that journey of self-reconnection.
When you've masked for years, it's difficult to know what is genuinely yours and what was learned for survival. Therapy is not about uncovering a hidden "true self" overnight. It's about gradually reconnecting with your emotions, needs, values, intuition, interests, and preferences until a clearer sense of self begins to emerge.
Yes. Much of our work together centers on rebuilding trust in your own experience. That looks like learning to listen to your emotions, honour your needs, recognise your limits, and make decisions based on what feels aligned rather than what earns approval.
Over time, self-trust becomes the foundation for authenticity. Not because you're trying to become someone new, but because you're finally giving yourself permission to be who you've been all along.
No. Many people arrive in therapy questioning whether they may be Autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent. Some arrive having self-identified. Others have received a diagnosis later in life and are still making sense of what it means.
Whether you're formally diagnosed, self-identified, or simply exploring, you are welcome here.
I practise from the neurodiversity paradigm, which is a framework of care that sees Autism and ADHD as neurotypes. Traditional therapy practises from the pathology paradigm, which is a framework of treatment that sees Autism and ADHD as disorders.
Masking is the process of suppressing, changing, or hiding parts of yourself in order to feel accepted, safe, or understood by others. For many Autistic and ADHD people, masking develops as a survival strategy.
It can look like monitoring your behaviour, rehearsing conversations, people-pleasing, over-explaining, ignoring your needs, or constantly trying to be what others expect. The challenge is that a strategy that once helped you belong can eventually leave you feeling disconnected from yourself.
Many people don't realise they're masking until they begin learning about neurodivergence later in life. You might find yourself constantly second-guessing your interactions, feeling exhausted after social situations, struggling to identify your own needs, or feeling like you've spent your life performing rather than simply being.
Masking is not always obvious. Sometimes it becomes visible only when you begin asking yourself, "Who am I when no one else is watching?" For women, adopting stereotypical gender norms or beauty standards can be a way of masking.
The goal isn't to force you to stop masking. Masking often developed for good reasons. It helped you navigate environments where being yourself didn't always feel safe.
Instead, our work focuses on building self-trust, understanding the purpose your masking has served, and creating enough internal and external safety that you have more choice in how you show up.
This is one of the most common fears people bring to therapy, and one of the common reasons people avoid therapy. When you've spent years adapting to expectations, it can feel scary to embark on that journey of self-reconnection.
When you've masked for years, it's difficult to know what is genuinely yours and what was learned for survival. Therapy is not about uncovering a hidden "true self" overnight. It's about gradually reconnecting with your emotions, needs, values, intuition, interests, and preferences until a clearer sense of self begins to emerge.
Yes. Much of our work together centers on rebuilding trust in your own experience. That looks like learning to listen to your emotions, honour your needs, recognise your limits, and make decisions based on what feels aligned rather than what earns approval.
Over time, self-trust becomes the foundation for authenticity. Not because you're trying to become someone new, but because you're finally giving yourself permission to be who you've been all along.
Helping deeply sensitive and neurodivergent adults rebuild self-trust, inner authourity, and lives that actually fit.
Providing therapy in person and online for Burlington, Chittenden County, and anyone within Vermont.
Pre-licenced therapist in the State of Vermont 097.0135825.