ADHD & AuDHD Therapy for Burnout, Masking & Late Diagnosis

ADHD can affect much more than concentration or organisation. You might struggle with overwhelm, emotional intensity, procrastination, rejection, relationships or self-esteem — or the frustration of knowing exactly what you need to do but still not being able to make yourself do it.

You may have spent years hearing that you’re lazy, disorganised, too sensitive or simply not trying hard enough. Over time, those messages can become part of how you see yourself.

In therapy, we can start separating those messages from what’s actually true about you. We can explore how your brain works, what gets in your way and what genuinely helps — rather than finding another set of rules you’re supposed to force yourself to follow.

You might feel exhausted, overwhelmed or mentally foggy. Tasks that once felt manageable can suddenly feel out of reach, and you may find yourself withdrawing, losing motivation or struggling to recognise yourself.

For many people with ADHD, burnout builds gradually after years of masking, compensating, overworking and pushing past their limits.

I don’t see that as failure. I see it as a sign that your mind and nervous system have been carrying too much for too long. Together, we can look at what has been draining your energy, which needs have gone unmet and what needs to change for life to feel more sustainable.

Recovery isn’t about getting you back to the version of yourself that burned out. It’s about finding a way of living that costs you less.

You might have become very good at appearing capable.

Perhaps you rehearse conversations, hide how overwhelmed you feel, force yourself to be sociable, compensate for forgetfulness, people-please or spend a lot of energy making sure nobody realises how difficult things feel underneath.

Masking can help us navigate environments that don’t understand us, but maintaining it can become exhausting.

Therapy can give us space to notice where the performance ends and you begin. What do you actually like? What do you need? Which expectations belong to you, and which ones have you learned to meet for everyone else?

Unmasking doesn’t mean suddenly abandoning every coping strategy. We can approach it gradually, helping you understand yourself and choose where you no longer want to keep shrinking.

Finding out you have ADHD later in life can change how you understand yourself. There can be relief in finally having an explanation for things that never quite made sense.

But there can also be grief, anger and a lot of looking backwards. Why didn’t anyone notice? What might have been different if I’d known? How much of what I thought was my personality was actually masking?

You may start looking differently at school, work, relationships, family dynamics and experiences you previously blamed yourself for. I know some of this territory personally because I was late diagnosed with ADHD myself.

Therapy gives you somewhere to process what your diagnosis means without immediately turning it into another self-improvement project. We can explore what you’re learning about yourself and what a life that fits you more comfortably might look like.

Being both autistic and ADHD can sometimes feel contradictory. You might crave routine but struggle to maintain it, need novelty but find change overwhelming, or want connection while also needing significant time alone.

What helps one part of you can sometimes seem completely at odds with what another part needs, and advice designed for ADHD might not account for your autistic needs — and vice versa.

I work in a neurodivergent-affirming way, so the aim isn’t to make you appear more neurotypical. We can explore your particular combination of needs, sensory experiences, energy, communication, masking and overwhelm.

There isn’t one correct way to be AuDHD. The aim is to understand how it works for you.

You shouldn’t have to spend half your therapy session explaining or defending your identity before you can talk about what actually brought you there.

We might talk about sexuality, gender, coming out, identity, belonging, relationships, bi erasure or the impact of moving through spaces where you haven’t always felt understood. I’m also comfortable working with alternative relationship styles.

For some people, queerness and neurodivergence overlap in important ways, particularly around masking, identity, social expectations and the experience of feeling different.

We can make space for all of that without assuming your identity is either the problem or irrelevant to what you’re going through.

You don’t need to fit neatly into one of my specialist areas. I also work with people experiencing:

• Anxiety

• Depression and low mood

• Trauma

• Stress and burnout

• Self-esteem and confidence

• Relationship difficulties

• Grief and loss

• Addiction and recovery

• Life transitions

• Identity and self-discovery

• Emotional regulation

• Chronic illness

• Menopause

• Work-related difficulties

Sometimes you’ll know exactly what has brought you to therapy. Other times, you might simply know that something isn’t working anymore, you’re struggling more than usual, or you want something in your life to change.

You don’t need to work out which category you belong in before you contact me. We can start with what’s happening for you and go from there.