Somatic Therapy for Neurodivergent Women

You’ve learned to rely on yourself. Maybe a little too much.

You may be very good at figuring things out. You may be the person who gets things done, anticipates what other people need, and keeps things moving. Or you may look capable from the outside while privately struggling to keep up with the basics.

Either way, you may have spent years learning how to adapt…to relationships, workplaces, family, social situations, and a world that often wasn't designed with your brain in mind.

You learned how to read the room. How to be easy to be around. How to push through. How to make yourself do things even when your brain and body were saying not today. How to think your way through problems. How to rely on yourself.

And somewhere along the way, you may have become so good at adapting that it became difficult to know what you actually need.

Maybe you've wondered why life seems to take so much more effort than it does for other people. Why you can show up for everyone else but struggle to do things for yourself. Why you keep pushing until you completely crash. Why asking for help feels so uncomfortable. Why you care so much about what other people think.

Or maybe you're at a point where the question has become much simpler:

I need to find me as a person.

I need to stop caring about other people more than I care about myself.

This is the kind of work we can explore together.

When adapting becomes a way of life

For many neurodivergent women, adapting starts early. You learn what gets approval, what makes you “easy,” how to behave in different environments, and which parts of yourself are better kept hidden.

You may have become exceptionally good at masking without necessarily thinking of yourself as someone who masks. Maybe people see you as successful, socially capable, agreeable, independent, or easygoing. They don't necessarily see the amount of energy it takes to be that person.

Over time, adapting can become automatic. You respond to what everyone else needs before checking in with yourself. You say yes when you mean maybe—or no. You push through exhaustion because there are still things that need to get done. You make decisions based on what will work for everyone else and only later realize you don't know what you wanted.

This can start to feel like you've lost touch with yourself.

You may know exactly how you're supposed to function, but have very little room to ask whether that way of functioning actually works for you.

Hyperindependence can be part of this too.

You may have learned that relying on yourself is safer, easier, or simply what you're supposed to do.

I should be able to handle this.

I'll figure it out.

I don't want to bother anyone.

It's easier if I just do it myself.

You might be much more comfortable giving than receiving. You may wait until you're completely overwhelmed before asking for help—or find yourself avoiding help altogether because depending on someone else feels vulnerable.

This doesn't mean you're incapable of connection. It means you've learned to protect yourself through self-reliance.

And when you've spent years looking outward for what other people need while handling your own needs alone, self-abandonment can become part of the pattern.

Self-abandonment isn't always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like ignoring your exhaustion because someone else needs something. Saying yes automatically. Treating your limits as inconveniences. Not knowing what you want until someone else tells you what they want. Continually choosing what will keep everyone else comfortable.

These patterns usually developed for a reason. There may be protective parts of you that learned, often very intelligently, that staying attuned to other people was safer than staying attuned to yourself.

Therapy isn't about getting rid of those parts. It's about becoming curious about them and understanding what they're trying to do for you.

Why life can feel so much harder

One of the hardest things about being neurodivergent can be knowing that you can do something without being able to reliably make yourself do it.

You might be able to perform brilliantly when there is an external deadline, someone depending on you, or a clear expectation. But when the task is only for you, suddenly motivation, executive functioning, or follow-through can disappear.

That can be incredibly confusing - and shame-producing.

You may have spent years trying to solve this by trying harder. Creating better routines. Finding another productivity system. Becoming more disciplined. Promising yourself that this time you'll stay on top of everything.

Sometimes those strategies help. At least for a period of time. But sometimes the problem isn't that you aren't trying hard enough. It's that you're continually asking yourself to function beyond your actual capacity.

You may push through for days or weeks, accomplishing everything that needs to be done, until eventually your system says no. Then the things that normally seem manageable become almost impossible. You withdraw, shut down, procrastinate, or simply can't make yourself do anything.

And once you recover, the cycle begins again.

This pattern of overfunctioning and collapse can make you believe you're inconsistent, lazy, unmotivated, or somehow failing at adulthood. In reality, your capacity is information. It tells us something about what is happening for you. It isn't a character assessment.

When your mind won't let you rest

You may also spend a lot of time in your head.

Thinking through conversations. Replaying what happened. Anticipating problems. Trying to make the perfect decision. Wondering whether someone is upset with you. Preparing for every possible outcome.

It can be tempting to see overthinking as the problem. But often, your thinking is trying to protect you.

Maybe there's a part of you that believes if you think about something long enough, you can prevent rejection, avoid making a mistake, or make sure nothing catches you off guard.

That can be especially intense when rejection sensitivity is part of the picture. A delayed response, a change in someone's tone, or a conversation that felt slightly off can send your mind searching for an explanation: Did I do something wrong? Did I disappoint them? Are they upset with me?

Rather than trying to shut your mind down, somatic therapy gives us another way to understand what's happening. We can become curious about what your thinking is protecting you from, what happens in your body when uncertainty appears, and whether you can begin to create some space between the fear and the story your mind is telling you.

The same applies to emotional overwhelm. The goal isn't to make you less emotional or to teach you how to stay calm no matter what happens. It's to develop a different relationship with what you experience…to notice what's happening earlier, understand your responses with more compassion, and have more choice in how you respond.

What is somatic therapy?

Somatic therapy is a body-based approach to therapy that recognizes that your experiences aren't held only in your thoughts or memories. They can also show up through sensations, emotions, impulses, patterns of behaviour, and the ways your body responds to what is happening around you.

That doesn't mean we stop talking.

We'll still talk about your life, your relationships, your experiences, and what you're struggling with. But we'll also pay attention to what's happening in your body as you talk about those things.

Maybe your chest tightens when you talk about asking for help. Maybe you notice yourself holding your breath when you talk about disappointing someone. Maybe you feel an urge to explain yourself, fix something, or move away from a difficult feeling.

Those responses can tell us something.

Somatic therapy gives us another way to listen.

Why a neurodiversity-affirming approach matters

Your ADHD, autism, or AuDHD isn't something I want to help you fix.

Therapy shouldn't simply teach you how to become better at functioning in a world that may already be asking too much of you. Instead, we can look at the relationship between your brain, your body, your environment, and the expectations you've internalized.

What actually works for you? Where are you masking? Where are you overriding yourself? Which expectations are genuinely yours, and which ones have you absorbed from everyone around you?

Being neurodiversity-affirming doesn't mean assuming everything is fine exactly as it is. It means we don't begin with the assumption that you are the problem.

What working together can look like

There isn't a script you have to follow, and you don't need to know how to “do” somatic therapy.

We might talk about something that's happening in your life and slow down enough to notice what happens inside you. We might explore a recurring pattern, pay attention to a sensation, or become curious about a protective response.

When it's appropriate, I may also use specific brain-based and somatic approaches such as Brainspotting or Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR).

We don't force anything. I help you to slow the pace, we get curious, and work with what shows up.

The goal isn't to force yourself to change or to get rid of the parts of you that are struggling. It's to understand what's happening with more compassion and create enough safety and awareness that something different becomes possible.

Coming back to yourself

For some women, therapy eventually becomes less about fixing what's wrong and more about discovering what has been missing.

Who am I when I'm not performing?

What do I actually want?

What do I need?

What happens when I let myself be supported?

What happens when I stop overriding myself?

What parts of me have been waiting to be heard?

You may have spent years becoming very good at adapting to the world around you.

Maybe the next part of your life isn't about becoming even better at adapting.

Maybe it's about building a life that has more room for you.

Not perfectly. Not all at once.

Just with a little more awareness, a little more choice, and a little less leaving yourself behind.

Is somatic therapy right for you?

Somatic therapy may be a good fit if you're neurodivergent or wondering whether ADHD, autism, or AuDHD might help explain some of your experiences. It may also be helpful if you're exhausted from masking, constantly adapting, or trying to keep up with expectations that don't seem to come naturally to you.

You might be struggling with overthinking, perfectionism, people-pleasing, rejection sensitivity, emotional overwhelm, burnout, or the cycle of pushing yourself until you crash. You may understand your patterns intellectually and still find yourself repeating them.

Or you may simply have reached a point where you know something needs to change, but you're tired of trying to change yourself through more effort.

You don't need to have a diagnosis. You don't need to arrive knowing exactly what's wrong.

You can start with what you know: life isn't feeling the way you want it to, and you're ready to understand why.

Work with me

I'm Shari Lee Block, MSW, RSW. I provide somatic therapy for neurodivergent women, including women with ADHD, autism, and AuDHD, as well as women who are exploring whether neurodivergence may help explain their experiences.

My work is trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming, drawing from somatic therapy, IFS-informed care, Brainspotting, and Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR).

I offer virtual therapy in Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, PEI, and am based in Winnipeg.

You don't have to arrive with the right words or a clear explanation. You can bring what you're experiencing, and we'll make sense of it together.

[Explore working with me → CONTACT ME

[Learn about Brainspotting

[Learn about Deep Brain Reorienting