Reclaiming Your Neurodivergent Identity

Are you the mother or grandmother of a child or grandchild with Autism or ADHD?  

Did you know that there is a high chance that you could be Autistic or have ADHD too?

Research has shown that Neurodiversity has a strong genetic link and if your child or grandchild is Neurodivergent there is a high chance that you could be Neurodivergent too.  However, as a woman, your Autism or ADHD could have been missed or misdiagnosed as mental health issues like anxiety or depression as women internalise or mask their Autism or ADHD in order to ‘fit in’.

Here are some of the things you as a Woman with undiagnosed Autism and/or ADHD may have struggled with in your life:

• Social anxiety, feeling like you don’t belong or having trouble making friends.
• Taking things literally and not understanding social cues.
• Replaying every social situation afterwards and critiquing yourself for not being ‘normal’ enough.
• Trouble naming and labelling your emotions or the emotions of others.
• Extreme feelings of rejection when faced with neutral social situations.
• A pervasive need to change yourself to please others.
• Feeling overwhelmed by or hyper-vigilant of others’ emotions.
• Repeated cycles of anxiety, depression or burn-out.
• History of an eating disorder.
• Regular melt-downs or shutting down and not wanting to speak or engage with others.
• Forgetting to eat, drink water or take care of basic self-care needs.
• Needing time by yourself to ‘recharge your social battery’.
• Feeling overstimulated by sensory inputs like sound, lots of people, smells, the textures of foods or the feeling of certain fabrics or labels on your skin.
• A dislike for being touched, receiving hugs or getting to a point of feeling ‘touched out’.
• Having a special interest in a topic and hyper-focusing on this.
• Not being able to find the focus and/or motivation to do mundane ones.
• Forgetting about tasks or people because they are ‘out of sight, out of mind‘.
• Struggles being organised or getting places on time.
• Needing to stick to a really strict routine, or battling to stay with a routine.
• Trouble making decisions.
• Feeling like you are ‘always on‘ with a million ‘tabs’ open in your brain.
• Trouble maintaining relationships with friends or family because phone calls and text messages feel too hard.

If you found yourself saying “Yes” to many of these then there is a chance that you could be Neurodivergent.
(These are just some ways that Autism or ADHD can present itself in women and AFAB.  Disclaimer: This is not an exhaustive list nor does it constitute a diagnosis and is purely educational. All Neurodivergent people are different with different strengths and difficulties. For a formal diagnosis please consult a professional.)

Discovering that you are Neurodivergent can be life-changing and an exciting journey of self-discovery. However, it can also be so deeply confusing, confronting, emotional and overwhelming. 

All late-diagnosed, self-identifying or neuroquestioning Neurodivergent individuals have trauma attached to their identity.  

We are the ‘quiet kids’, who learned to follow the rules and do things perfectly so that we could safely fly under the radar. We do this while relinquishing our needs to a culture that does not understand, nor make space for our natural ways of knowing and being.
  
We bear the brunt of eye rolls and exasperated sighs from teachers as we info-dumped about our interests, fidgeted or needed extra accommodations in class. We know what it is like to not be included in social circles, to be made fun of and/or we may have experienced being bullied by our peers.

We are the woman who was labelled as ‘different’,’ too sensitive’ and ‘difficult’ at work.

We are the mum who found it hard to make friends with other mums, and who struggled to gather a community around her so we just did it alone.

There are so many places inside of our sense of self where we learned that we were ‘too much’, or ‘not enough’. Where we learned to hide, stay silent, please or pretend till we don’t even know who we are underneath it all…

And yet we are who we are.  Beneath the narrative, the labels and the construct of who others told us who we are. 

We are. 

We are in our own space and time. We are our own person. We are Neurodivergent, different and proud, not disordered or broken.

You are invited to this ‘Reclaiming your Neurodivirgent Identity’ 90-minute masterclass based on trauma-informed, neuro-affirming research and the lived experience of Tanya Valentin, as a late-identified AuDHD woman.  Together we will explore ways that you can understand and explore your Neurodivergence and reclaim your Authentic Neurodivergent Identity with compassion and grace.

• Suitable for all Neurodivergent women and gender-diverse people (self-diagnosed Autistics or ADHD and neuroquestioning individuals welcome) of all ages or those who think that they may be Neurodivergent and want to understand themselves better.
• Move through the session interactively or watch the recording afterwards as provided.
• Slides provided with prompts discussed in Masterclass.

Cost $55 NZD or Pay What You Can as part of our Ethical Pricing Offer

We have a right to exist, to express ourselves, to take up space, to decide and to just be.

Cost $55 NZD or Pay What You Can as part of our Ethical Pricing Offer