Neurodivergence, ADHD, and Autism

If you've spent most of your life feeling like everyone else was handed an instruction manual and yours got lost in the mail, this one's for you. It's also for the person who loves you, the partner who's tired of having the same argument, and the parent sitting with a brand new diagnosis and a lot of feelings about it. In this post I want to talk about what it's actually like to live with an ADHD or autistic nervous system, what changes when someone finally understands it, and what therapy with me looks like if you're ready to try it.

Different Nervous Systems, Different Worlds

I bring both clinical training and lived experience to my work with neurodivergent adults, couples, and families, including people with ADHD and Level 1 Autism. Neurodivergence simply means your nervous system takes in, interprets, and responds to the world differently than the majority does. Brains vary, the same way hands and hair and heights do. The trouble is that most of our schools, workplaces, and social rules were built around one kind of brain, and everyone else gets measured against it.

So a lot of what gets called laziness, dramatics, or being "too sensitive" turns out to be a person doing their best in a world designed for someone else. I see this over and over in my office. When people finally get an explanation that fits, with no judgment attached, their whole body exhales. That exhale is often where the real work begins.

Growing Up With ADHD, Growing Old Enough to Wonder Why

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Adults with ADHD often arrive carrying decades of feedback. You're so smart, if you'd just apply yourself. Why can't you be on time? Did you even read the email? By the time you're thirty or forty, that chorus lives in your own head, and it's usually louder than anyone else's ever was.

What I hear in sessions sounds a lot like this: the attention that comes and goes without warning, the overwhelm that shows up over a pile of mail, the emotions that arrive at full volume, and the burnout that follows a week of holding it all together. Time can feel slippery too; Russell Barkley's work on time blindness put words to something many of my clients have felt their entire lives: that "now" and "not now" are the only two settings.

In therapy, we slow down and get curious about how your mind works. We look for the strengths that got overlooked along the way, the creativity, the intensity, the ability to hyperfocus on something you love until it's brilliant. We also look for supports that fit you, instead of borrowing a system that works beautifully for someone else and falls apart in your hands by Thursday. The goal isn't to turn you into a different person. It's to build trust in yourself, and a little more flexibility in how you move through an ordinary day.

(If you want a book to pair with this, I wrote a Shelf Help review of Jessica McCabe's How to ADHD. You can find it here: Shelf Help: "How to ADHD" by Jessica McCabe.)

Autistic Adults, and the Exhaustion of Masking

Many autistic adults I work with have spent years studying other people like it was a second job. Which facial expression goes with which situation, how long to hold eye contact, when it's okay to leave the party, how to say the right thing in the right tone. That's called masking, and it takes a staggering amount of energy. It can also leave you wondering who you are underneath all of it, and whether anyone has ever met that person.

My approach is gentle and affirming. I'm interested in your differences and sensitivities as information about how you work, not as a list of things to fix. Many clients come to therapy wanting space to explore how their neurodivergence shapes their relationships, their communication, their sensory world, their energy, and the way big feelings move through them. A lot of us also carry a quiet belief that we're "too much" or "not enough," and that belief deserves some daylight.

We go slowly. Pacing matters, and so does staying inside a window where your body feels safe enough to think. Rather than pushing for change, we build steadiness first, and from there, a sense of permission to be exactly who you are.

When Two Nervous Systems Share a Home

Neurodivergence doesn't stay in one person's skull; it walks into the kitchen and sits down at the table. One partner needs quiet after work and the other needs to talk it all out. One of you hears a direct question as a normal question and the other hears an accusation. Dishes, deadlines, texts that go unanswered for six hours, a mood that shifts and no one can say why. Without a name for what's happening, couples tend to fill in the blanks with the worst possible story: you don't care, you're being difficult, you're doing this on purpose.

In couples work, I use Emotionally Focused Therapy to look at how each partner's nervous system operates and how those two systems bump into each other. I'm not interested in deciding who's to blame. I'm interested in the dance you two keep doing, and in helping each of you see the other more accurately, with a little more curiosity and a lot less guessing. When a difference gets understood instead of argued with, a relationship usually starts to feel lighter and more workable.

When Your Child Gets a Diagnosis

Parents sometimes come to me in the middle of a diagnostic process, or just after one, with a mix of feelings that can be hard to hold at the same time: relief that there's finally an answer, grief for the childhood you pictured, fear about what comes next, and a fair amount of exhaustion from the appointments and paperwork. All of that can be true in one afternoon.

Therapy and parent coaching give you room to process those feelings while also learning how your child's nervous system works. Together we look for parenting approaches that are supportive and sustainable instead of rigid or reactive. And because it's rare for two parents to see things exactly the same way, I also work with caregivers who parent differently, helping you understand each other and build something more collaborative as a family.

What It's Like to Work With Me

My office is warm, respectful, and free of judgment. Your experience gets taken seriously, and nobody is going to reshape it to fit someone else's expectations. If you're a person who has been explaining yourself for years, you won't have to do much of that here. We'll figure out together what you need, whether that's EMDR for the old stuff that still stings, parts-informed work for the voices that never quiet down, or simply a place to be understood in context.

If any of this sounds like you, or someone you love, I'd really like to hear from you. I offer a free 20 minute consultation, no pressure, just a conversation about what you or your family are navigating and whether working together feels like a good fit. Schedule yours here.

I'm Anne James, LMFT, the founder of Myriad Therapy in San Marcos, California. I see individuals, couples, and families throughout San Diego County in person and across California via telehealth.

References

McCabe, J. (2024). How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It). Rodale Books.

You can find this title and more in the Shelf Help section of my resources hub at myriadtherapy.com.