Therapy for neurodivergent adults in Croydon
When masking is exhausting you
Key facts
- BACP registered #197852
- Croydon practice
- Individual therapy £70
- Couples therapy £100
- 50-minute weekly sessions
- Couples therapy in person only
You've spent your life learning to pass. Reading social cues like a second language, forcing eye contact even though it feels wrong, dimming the intensity that makes you you. It works, mostly. But it's wearing you down.
Maybe you were diagnosed as a child. Maybe you've only just realised as an adult why everything has always felt harder for you than it seems for everyone else. Either way, you're tired of performing neurotypical and wondering why you can't just be normal.
You're not broken
Most therapy for neurodivergent people focuses on skills: how to socialise better, how to stay organised, how to manage sensory overload. As if the problem is that you haven't learned the right techniques yet.
But you don't need more productivity hacks. You need space to untangle what's actually yours from what you've absorbed about being "too much" or "not enough." The shame that came from being misunderstood for years. The exhaustion of chronic masking. The grief for the easier life you see other people having.
I can't diagnose neurodivergence - I'm not qualified to. But I can work with you if you already know or suspect you're neurodivergent, whether that's ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or something else. The work isn't about fixing your brain. It's about understanding how you've been shaped by living in a world that wasn't built for you.
If you're specifically looking for support around ADHD or autism, I've written separate pages about working with each.
What we'll do
We meet weekly or twice-weekly and work with what you're actually struggling with: relationships that keep going wrong in familiar ways, work that drains you, the sense that you're fundamentally different and nobody quite gets it.
I won't assume I understand your experience. Neurodivergence isn't a single thing - your particular wiring, your particular history, the particular ways you've learned to cope all matter. But we'll pay attention to how constantly adapting to a neurotypical world has shaped you.
Maybe you learned early that your natural way of being was wrong. That your interests were too intense, your needs too demanding, your way of processing too slow or too fast. Maybe you built an entire persona around being acceptable and lost track of who you actually are underneath.
The work is about separating what's yours from what was imposed. About finding what actually works for you rather than what you think should work. About grieving what you've had to give up to fit in, and figuring out what you might want back.
Common questions
- What counts as neurodivergent?
- Neurodivergent is an umbrella term for brains that work differently from the neurotypical norm. It includes autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, Tourette's, and sometimes conditions like OCD and bipolar. The term recognises these as natural variations, not disorders to be fixed.
- Can therapy help if I don't have a formal diagnosis?
- Many adults suspect they are neurodivergent without formal diagnosis; diagnosis can be expensive, inaccessible, or unnecessary for their purposes. Therapy can offer a place to work with your experience whether or not you have official confirmation. If you want assessment, I can point you towards appropriate services.
- What's masking and why is it exhausting?
- Masking is hiding your natural traits to appear more neurotypical - forcing eye contact, suppressing stimming, performing social scripts, hiding your needs. It's exhausting because you're running constant translation software, monitoring yourself, and suppressing authentic responses. Many neurodivergent adults don't realise how much energy masking takes until they stop.
- Is therapy different for neurodivergent people?
- Good therapy adapts to how you process. That might mean allowing movement, not requiring eye contact, being explicit rather than relying on subtext, or accommodating sensory needs. It also means not pathologising traits that are simply neurodivergent. The goal is not making you more neurotypical; it is creating room to understand how you actually work.
The practical bits
First meeting £120
90 minutes, then £70 per session
- 50-minute sessions, weekly or twice-weekly
- In person in Croydon (near East Croydon station, Reeves Corner)
- Open-ended. We work until the work is done.
Note: I can't provide ADHD or autism assessments - I'm not qualified to diagnose. If you need a formal assessment, I can point you towards appropriate services. But if you already know or strongly suspect you're neurodivergent, we can work together on what that means for you.