Online counselling for adults with ADHD

I support Canadian adults with ADHD with my training and lived experience.

Late-diagnosed neurodivergence, including ADHD, is a foundation of my online counselling.

Realizing that you have ADHD can be incredibly overwhelming. If you’re beginning to wonder whether ADHD might explain some of your experiences, you may relate to the following:

  • Being labelled as disorganized, scattered, hyper, or lazy from a young age

  • Feeling driven by a motor and unable to slow down, or feeling completely paralyzed and unable to start important tasks

  • Putting away a hat and somehow reorganizing the entire closet, only to finish with the closet contents on the floor, and less organized than when we started

  • Wondering whether we somehow tricked a professional into diagnosing us and worrying that if we just tried hard, everything would be fine

  • Sometimes, historically high achievement involving little effort comes crashing down during post-secondary

  • Starting large projects with little advance planning, knowledge, or experience

  • Putting something away in a safe spot and forgetting where the safe spot is

  • Creating a colour-coded planning system and abandoning it after four days

  • Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and increasingly unable to keep up with life, despite working harder than others. What looks like depression might be burnout. Commonly labelled autistic burnout, it also happens with ADHD. Take a peak at my blurb about autistic burnout.

  • A collection of other diagnoses, like major depressive disorder, borderline personality disorder or generalized anxiety disorder, that might feel partially right but never explain the whole picture?

You’re not alone. These experiences, along with many others, are very common for late-diagnosed adults. ADHD remains under-recognised and under-diagnosed in many groups of people, particularly those whose experience doesn’t fit historical stereotypes.

Late-diagnosed ADHD can change your life story, and this is a focus of my practice.

Receiving an ADHD diagnosis in adulthood often challenges our understanding of our past selves, relationships, strengths, and experiences. I offer a space process with safety, compassion, and curiosity. I can support your journey with:

  • Facilitating retelling and sense-making of your past experiences and identity

  • Honouring the sense of relief that comes as past experiences begin to make more sense

  • Holding the grief and anger that shows up alongside the relief

  • Replacing coping strategies that contributed to burnout with approaches that support your needs

  • Identifying and loosening the grip of conscious and unconscious masks that no longer serve you

  • Exploring a new sense of self rooted in self-compassion, instead of self-criticism

  • Recovering from perfectionism, people pleasing, and the pressure to prove your worth

  • Weighing the pros and cons of seeking an official diagnosis, self-identifying, or something in between

A moss-covered fallen log in a lush green forest

Above all else, being witnessed and validated, instead of being minimised and dismissed, can be crucial to healing.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Counselling for ADHD

  • Yes! You can read more about my experience here. You’re welcome to ask additional questions, if that feels important to you.

  • You’re not alone. Relief and grief, coined “gre-lief” by Kory Andreas, is a massive piece of adult diagnosis. Diagnosis often reframes your entire life story, fissures the identity you’ve already built, and exposes the immense effort it took to adapt. Your hurt is valid.

  • That’s okay with me. I often help clients explore the potential costs, benefits, and implications of pursuing a diagnosis. No matter what option you pursue, I can support you through it. We don’t need a diagnosis to make sense of your experience and find a path forward.

  • No. ADHD diagnosis is outside of my scope. If you’re interested in an ADHD assessment, I’m happy to connect you with professionals who have expertise in assessment and diagnosis.

  • Counselling can help in a number of ways. We can work to increase your understanding of your needs, neurotype, and strengths. We can challenge internalized ableism and critiques. We can also explore practical coping skills, like how to overcome a laundry mountain, quiet a loud internal critic, and successfully self-advocate.

  • Yes, but not quite. ADHD often touches all aspects of our life, including our identities, relationships, careers, and internal narratives. This work considers all of that together, rather than considering your ADHD as one small part of you. In addition, working with a professional who is familiar with the nuances of late-diagnosis can make a world of a difference.

  • Medication is one of several options that people consider for ADHD management. Prescribing and managing medication is outside my scope of practice. I can support you with what the research reports, common experiences, misconceptions, and communication with other healthcare professionals. Also, I welcome the opportunity to collaborate with you and your other healthcare providers to amp up your support.

  • Yes, I offer online counselling to clients in Canada's unregulated provinces and territories, including British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland & Labrador, Yukon, Nunavut, and Northwest Territories.