Category Archives: Neurodivergence & Identity

Psychosexual wellbeing is rarely discussed when it comes to Autistic women. Historically, autism research and diagnostic frameworks have largely been based on male presentations, leaving many Autistic women unseen, misunderstood, or diagnosed much later in life. Conversations about autism have often centered deficits, behaviours, and social difficulties, while sexuality has frequently been ignored altogether or […]

I think we need to start having more honest conversations about what neuroaffirming care actually is and what it is not. Recently, I’ve noticed an increasing number of neurodivergent clients arriving in my practice after working with therapists who identified themselves as neuroaffirming, yet leaving those therapeutic relationships feeling more confused, ashamed, burned out or […]

When My Diagnosis Became Their Healing: How Understanding Autism Changed All of Us By Michelle Labine PhD December 202 I had been circling around the idea that I might be Autistic for almost eight years before I was formally diagnosed: ADHD at 48, Autistic at 50. By the time I sat in that final assessment […]

Masking on Overdrive: How ADHD Amplifies Autistic Adaptation By Michelle Labine, PhD December 2025 There is a particular kind of tiredness that settles into my body when I think about the years I spent adapting myself to everyone around me. I hesitate to use the word masking because it has never sat right with me […]

The Hidden Burnout: When ADHD Drive Meets Autistic Exhaustion By Michelle Labine, PhD A December Reflection This is a topic I’ve written about before in different forms, and the fact that I keep circling back to it tells me just how deeply it lives in my bones. This push-pull between ADHD drive and Autistic exhaustion […]

Part One: When the Mind Speaks in Images Autistic Knowing in the Therapy Room By Michelle Labine, PhD November 2025 As an Autistic therapist, one of the most reliable ways I understand what’s unfolding in a session doesn’t come from structured thought or linear reasoning. Instead, it comes as an image sudden, symbolic, and quietly […]

Feeling “Childlike” in Power or Learning Situations: A Common AuDHD Pattern By Michelle Labine, PhD October 2025 When an AuDHD woman says she feels “childlike” or “small” in certain situations, she isn’t being metaphorical. It’s a full-body experience and a visceral shrinking that shows up as a quieting of voice, a sudden loss of words, […]

Autism + Environment = Outcome Understanding the Equation as a Late-Diagnosed AuDHD Woman By Michelle Labine, PhD  October 2025 For most of my life, I believed the way I responded to the world revealed something inherently wrong with me; that I was too sensitive, too intense, too emotional. What I couldn’t see then was that […]