“What are the benefits of therapy and what kinds of things can I bring?”

You may be wondering what sorts of things therapy can help me with? Is my stuff too big or too small? 

Here are some themes clients have come to me to work on previously, and a bit more detail about how we might approach them.

Confidence in relationships

People often choose to explore therapy or counselling due to relationship difficulties, these may be within families, work, romantic, or platonic settings. For example, you might  have just experienced a painful break up, be wondering if the relationship you’re in is right for you, or be wishing to find someone to begin a relationship with. 

This can be hard for anyone but when you are also ND or suspect you may be, possibly along with other aspects such as gender, sexuality and differing relationship structures etc, then traditional advice and support may feel incomplete or entirely mismatched to your experience of relationships.

By gaining a clearer understanding of yourself and the dynamics at play in interactions with others, therapy can help you to feel more confident in your choices, secure in yourself, advocate for your needs to be met, and know where your boundaries lay with others.

Therapy can help you do this by strengthening your ability to identify those details you might have missed previously, and where they have been influenced by the belief that you are “too much” or “not enough”.

 All this becomes easier when viewed through the lens of Neurodivergence and we can work together to understand your unique perspective and responses to people, environments, and sensory stimuli. 

These aspects can often be invisible to others and even us, particularly if we have been silenced, dismissed, or ignored in our attempts to share our needs or distress previously. The impact of this can cause us real harm, affecting our quality of life, energy, and mental health. We may never have been validated or listened to in the past about this, causing us to feel it must be a problem with us, we are too fussy, difficult, sensitive, needy, or confusing for others to cope with.

More self-compassion 

Once we begin to understand ourselves better in the company of someone you feel safe with and connected to, you may begin to feel more comfortable being you, to experiment with unmasking, accept and even delight in who you really are authentically.

As you are mirrored, emotionally and psychologically held, and validated by your therapist, you can develop the ability to view yourself and your challenges more compassionately. You may begin to change your natural self-talk to be kinder and more empowering and watch as this positively impacts your life.

We might do this by really attending to and listening for the pain, shame, internalised ableism, and guilt you carry as a ‘flawed neurotypical’. We can bring to the surface and examine the critical words of others who judged you as defective instead of different. You can freely express your anger, grief and hopelessness in a space which simultaneously collects and gently holds the whispers of your creativity, hope and joy until you are really to reabsorb them. 

Greater understanding of yourself and your capacity 

Once you are clearer on who you are, your preferences and limitations, you may be more able to be honest about your needs and capacity, relieved of the guilt of believing you’re a flawed Neurotypical “normal” person. 

A helpful way to work on this is to explore and rediscover your natural strengths and identify your challenges. To get really clear on how they show up in your life and what you would like to be different. 

We can then collaboratively work out ways towards balancing these things alongside your true capacity. You may have been feeling burnt out due to believing you were simply not trying hard enough. When trying harder in a NT direction has not been working you may have blamed yourself and felt powerless to change. 

Finding ND solutions and workarounds which are aligned with your strengths can make all the difference but they will of course never make you NT.

With this new found deeper self knowledge and acceptance you can begin to set boundaries and advocate for your needs from a place of groundedness instead of purely survival.

Some clients may use this as an opportunity to make big changes in their life's, work and relationships. It may be the first time you have been able to confidently know who you really are under that mask. To begin aligning yourself with what you need to be happy and fulfilled instead of people pleasing and following a path that was never designed for you in the first place. 

Of course we also need to make space for the very real barriers of discrimination and structural systems of oppression which impact our ability to make these choices freely. However by exploring and knowing what is possible within us we may begin to draw on our strengths to change what is within our power to control. 

I hope describing this process may be helpful for you to read, yet I want to acknowledge that the work itself is not easy and certainly not a linear process. It is common to go through spirals of growth and what feels like regression as you begin to heal from the trauma of otherness and overwhelm. As ND’s and particularly for ADHDer’s there can be such a deep urgency to be there already - I hear and feel that deep in my bones and I also know that you deserve to slow down and regain control of the pace you choose to go at during this potentially transformational experience.

Take care

Fran