When people find out I’m a therapist, they often imagine calm. Someone endlessly patient, grounded, and perfectly organised. I sometimes wish they could see the inside of my head instead, the lists that multiply, the tabs that stay open, the way I can forget what I walked into a room for while remembering every detail of something a client said three months ago.

It’s been a while since I received my diagnoses, but even now, I still find myself questioning them. I can trace the patterns back through my life, the sensitivity, the hyperfocus, the burnout cycles, but some part of me hesitates to fully believe it. Maybe because for so long I learned to mask, to perform competence in a world that values neatness and stamina.

I process information differently. That’s clear. My brain works fast and wide, like a web of associations always lighting up. It’s brilliant for therapy in many ways. I spot links quickly, between stories, themes, people, moments. I hold details others might miss, feel patterns before they’re fully formed. But that same speed can make the everyday parts of the job, the admin, the forms, the follow-ups, feel impossible. It’s as though I can hold ten emotional worlds in mind, but not one spreadsheet.

The work itself is both beautiful and demanding. I give a lot of myself in therapy. That depth of attunement feels natural — almost instinctive — but it’s also where I can lose myself if I’m not careful. The continued connection to people, the constant flow of feeling and meaning, can be overwhelming. I have to watch my own energy closely, to build in spaces where I don’t have to feel so much, so continuously.

Oddly, I sometimes find it easier when there are more people in the room. In family therapy, for instance, the attention is shared. The intensity is diffused across the system, not concentrated in one connection. With individuals, it can feel almost too intimate, as though I’m sitting in a beam of light that never switches off. I’ve learned to pace myself — not to pull away, but to protect the part of me that absorbs everything.

What’s helped most is understanding that my brain and body process connection differently. I feel things deeply and notice subtle shifts others might overlook,  the way someone’s tone changes when they talk about their dad, the flicker of relief when they realise they’re understood. That sensitivity is a gift in therapy. It helps me track meaning through all the small signals. But it also means I have to recover between sessions, to regulate my own nervous system after being inside so many emotional worlds in a day.

There’s a myth that therapists are endlessly regulated. The truth is more complicated. My regulation often comes after the session, not during it. I might seem still and focused while we’re talking, but my brain is whirring underneath, processing everything in parallel. Later, when the day ends, that energy can spill over.

I’ve learned to plan for that. To move, to walk, to decompress. To accept that I might not answer messages straight away, or that admin might have to wait until my head has stopped buzzing. The more I try to force myself into neurotypical rhythms, the less I have to give. The more I accept how I actually work, the more present I can be.

Sometimes clients tell me they feel seen in a way they haven’t before — that I notice things, or that they don’t have to explain the parts of themselves that feel “too much.” I think that’s one of the quiet strengths of being a neurodivergent therapist. There’s an understanding of difference that isn’t theoretical. It’s lived. I know what it’s like to need structure but resist it, to crave connection but need recovery from it, to think deeply and feel fast.

Being neurodivergent doesn’t make therapy harder or better, just different. It shapes how I notice, how I relate, how I pace. It also keeps me honest about my limits, which I think helps clients feel permission for their own.

I want people to know that therapists aren’t outside of these experiences. We’re not perfectly composed observers. Many of us are navigating the same terrain, learning how our brains work, how to rest, how to stay connected without losing ourselves.

And that’s what I love about this work. Therapy isn’t about having it all figured out; it’s about staying in the process, together.

So if you ever find yourself wondering whether a neurodivergent therapist can hold space for you, I’d say yes. Maybe even with a little extra empathy for the ways your mind might work differently too.

Because sometimes the best understanding doesn’t come from someone who feels separate from your world, but from someone who knows what it’s like to live amongst the things you might, to find calm inside the noise, to feel deeply, to notice everything, and to care enough to keep trying.