Neurodivergence & Trauma Therapy for Adults in Seattle
Maybe you’ve spent years wondering why certain experiences affected you so deeply. Perhaps you’ve been told you’re “too sensitive” or that you need thicker skin. Or, that everyone struggles and you just need to push through.
Maybe you learned to hide your reactions before you even understood why you were having them.
For many neurodivergent adults, life has involved adapting to environments that didn’t understand the way their brains, bodies, or nervous systems worked. Over time, constantly masking, being misunderstood, or feeling chronically out of step with the world can leave lasting emotional and physiological effects.
That doesn’t mean neurodivergence is trauma. It means that living in environments that repeatedly require you to suppress who you are can become deeply painful. Trauma isn’t defined only by catastrophic events. Sometimes it’s the accumulation of thousands of moments where your experience wasn’t believed. Where your needs were dismissed. Where your body learned that being yourself wasn’t safe.
You may notice that you stay constantly alert. You apologize before you’ve done anything wrong. You monitor other people’s emotions more than your own. You struggle to trust yourself even when you’ve spent years trying to understand who you are.
None of those responses mean you’re broken. Often, they make sense. Therapy offers a place to become curious about those patterns instead of judging them.
Together we’ll explore the experiences that shaped your nervous system and the ways you’ve learned to survive. We may talk about ADHD, autism, executive functioning, burnout, trauma, sensory differences, relationships (including polyamory and ENM), identity, grief, or simply what it’s been like to move through a world that wasn’t built with your brain in mind.
Healing isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about creating enough safety that your nervous system no longer has to work so hard to protect you.
If this feels familiar, let’s see if we’re a good fit.
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Neurodivergent is an umbrella term describing brains that develop or function differently from what society considers typical. It commonly includes ADHD, autism, dyslexia, Tourette syndrome, and other neurological differences. Neurodivergence isn’t an illness to cure—it’s a different way of experiencing and interacting with the world.
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No. Some people come with formal diagnoses, while others are simply trying to understand themselves better. Therapy can be valuable whether you’re formally diagnosed, self-identifying, questioning, or simply noticing that the usual advice has never quite worked.
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Yes. Many adults identify with both autism and ADHD (sometimes called AuDHD). Together we’ll explore how those experiences overlap and build strategies that fit your brain rather than trying to force it into someone else’s system.
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Yes. Many clients discover or begin exploring neurodivergence in adulthood after years of masking, burnout, or wondering why life has always felt harder than it looked for other people.
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Yes. Neurodivergence, gender diversity, and queer identities frequently overlap. My practice is affirming of LGBTQIA+ identities and recognizes that these experiences often influence one another rather than existing separately.
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Yes. I provide secure online therapy for adults throughout Washington State.
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We’ll spend about 15 minutes talking about what brings you to therapy, what you’re hoping for, and whether we seem like a good fit. If it feels like a good match, we’ll talk about next steps.