Autism, ADHD, and AuDHD therapy in Austin, TX
You've spent years managing a brain that works differently than the systems built around it, and calling it a personality flaw instead of what it is.
Schedule a free consultationno masking required in here
Whichever door you came through
You're still sorting out which parts of you are "just you" and which parts were a decade of compensating.
You've never been formally assessed, but you've read enough, watched enough, and recognized enough of yourself to know something's there.
You're autistic and ADHD, which means the advice for one contradicts the advice for the other about half the time.
You're not here to be convinced your brain is broken. You're here because managing it alone has gotten exhausting, and you want support that starts from how you actually work instead of how you're supposed to work.
This isn't therapy that tries to make you less yourself
A lot of therapy for neurodivergent adults, even well-meaning therapy, is quietly organized around helping you function more like a neurotypical person. Better eye contact. Fewer stims. A calendar system that assumes your executive function works like everyone else's. That's not what this is.
I work from the position that autism and ADHD aren't disorders to manage into invisibility, they're a different operating system. The goal isn't to make that system look like someone else's. It's to help you understand it well enough to stop fighting it, and to deal with the very real toll that years of masking, misdiagnosis, or being told you were too much or not trying hard enough has actually taken.
Where AuDHD makes things harder to name
If you're both autistic and ADHD, you already know the two don't sit quietly together.
Novelty and starting
New interests, impulsivity, momentum, beginning things before the last thing is finished.
Sameness and finishing
Predictability, routine, doing the thing exactly one way, all the way through.
You can end up feeling like two different people are running your life on alternating days, and neither set of advice written for "autistic people" or "ADHD people" separately quite fits. That contradiction isn't a character flaw and it isn't a sign you're doing it wrong. It's what AuDHD actually looks like from the inside, and it's something we work with directly rather than trying to smooth over.
The overlap with trauma work
Neurodivergence and complex trauma get tangled together more often than either gets named on its own. A childhood spent masking, overcorrecting, or being punished for traits you couldn't control leaves marks that look a lot like anxiety, hypervigilance, or emotional neglect on their surface.
Sometimes the neurodivergence gets missed because the trauma symptoms are louder. Sometimes it's the reverse: a diagnosis explains the traits but stops short of addressing what years of not being understood actually did to your nervous system.
The parts that learned to perform
I use Internal Family Systems to work with the parts of you that learned to perform, over-explain, or shut down to get through school, work, or family life.
The memories that still carry weight
And EMDR when there are specific memories, of being singled out, misread, or told you were the problem, that still carry weight.
Neither modality asks you to stop being autistic or ADHD in order to heal. They ask what happened to you inside a world that wasn't built for how your brain works.
What this looks like in practice
We start wherever you actually are: a fresh diagnosis, a self-identification you've never said out loud to a professional, or twenty years of knowing and never having language for it.
There's no requirement to have a formal diagnosis before we begin, and I won't ask you to justify how neurodivergent you are enough to deserve this kind of care.
Some of the work is about grieving the years spent thinking you were failing at being normal.
Some of it is building a relationship with yourself that doesn't run on constant self-correction.
All of it moves at a pace that respects how your particular brain processes things, not a generic therapy timeline.
Your brain isn't the problem. The mask you built to get through a world that wasn't designed for it is what we can gently set down.
Answered
Do I need a formal diagnosis to start therapy?
No. Many people come in self-identified, late-diagnosed, or still questioning. We can work with wherever you are, and I won't ask you to prove you're neurodivergent enough to deserve this kind of care.
What does neurodivergent-affirming therapy actually mean?
It means treating autistic and ADHD traits as a different operating system rather than a deficit to correct. Sessions adapt to your sensory needs, communication style, and executive functioning instead of expecting you to mask through them.
What is AuDHD?
AuDHD is a common term for being both autistic and ADHD. The two often pull in opposite directions, one toward novelty and one toward sameness, which is why advice written for either one separately tends not to fit.
Can neurodivergence and trauma overlap?
Frequently. Years of masking, being misread, or being punished for traits you couldn't control leave real marks. Many neurodivergent adults carry complex trauma alongside their neurodivergence, and we can address both together.
Do you offer sessions virtually?
Yes. I see clients in person in Austin and virtually across Texas. Camera-optional works for me if that's easier on your system.
Let's start with a conversation.
Fifteen minutes, no pitch, and no masking required. Just a conversation to see whether this feels like the right fit.
Schedule a free consultationA steady space is here whenever you are.