What I Help With
My approach to therapy is gentle, collaborative, and affirming. I believe your therapy experience should feel like a partnership built on safety and the sense that you’re truly seen and understood.
My role is to be a steady, knowledgeable presence while we explore your self-discovery, healing, and the kind of parenting or life that actually works for you.
Here are some of the areas I most often help with at Otherwise Counseling
Pregnancy
When every choice feels high-stakes and your body changes consume your thoughts.
Postpartum
When your nervous system is fried and you don’t understand why this feels so hard for you.
Parenting
When routines, big emotions, and expectations collide with your own needs.
Exploring Neurodivergence
Maybe you aren’t in one of these stages. But you keep seeing your experience echoed in how others talk about living with neurodivergence and want a safe place to make sense of what that might mean for you.
Each client’s story is unique, but certain themes come up again and again. If any of these sound familiar, you’re not alone.
Pregnancy changes your body, your routines, and the way you move through the world. For some, those shifts can feel overwhelming in ways that go beyond morning sickness or swollen feet.
Maybe you:
Try to make a baby registry and spiral into decision fatigue, because every product feels like a life-or-death choice and the information is endless.
Become hyper-vigilant about every change in your body. Monitoring symptoms, googling late at night, and feeling consumed by the “what ifs.”
Struggle with executive functioning demands like tracking appointments, organizing prep, and keeping up with paperwork, while already exhausted.
Feel dismissed or brushed off when you bring up concerns at appointments, which leaves you even more anxious and alone.
Notice sensory shifts (smells, textures, sounds) that pile on top of everything else, making daily life feel like too much.
Therapy can help you slow down the noise, untangle what’s anxiety versus sensory overload, and create a more grounded way to move through pregnancy. Together, we’ll work on finding calm in your body, making decisions without spiraling, and building confidence in navigating this season your way.
Pregnancy Anxiety & Sensory Overload
Postpartum Anxiety & Overwhelm
Postpartum comes with sleepless nights and unpredictable days, but for autistic and neurodivergent women, the load can feel even heavier. It’s not just exhaustion, it’s the way everything demands executive functioning you don’t have the bandwidth for.
Maybe you:
Spend hours tracking feeds, sleep, and diapers in an app, terrified you’ll forget something important.
Feel like your body and brain never shut off. Hyper-alert to every cry, every noise, every possible danger.
Have a list of a hundred things to do but no idea where to start, so the whole day slips away.
Feel overwhelmed by medical or feeding decisions, breast vs. formula, pumping vs. nursing, schedules vs. cues, with no clear “right” answer.
Avoid asking for help because the effort of explaining what you need feels harder than doing it yourself.
Therapy can give you a place to set that load down. Together we’ll work on easing decision fatigue, calming your body’s alarms, and finding practical ways to meet your own needs while caring for your baby.
Therapy for Parenting Burnout in Neurodivergent Moms
Parenting doesn’t stop being demanding after the newborn stage — it just changes. For Autistic and ADHD moms, the daily juggle of routines, meltdowns, and decision-making can leave you drained.
Maybe you:
Struggle with transitions, your child’s or your own, and end up feeling like the whole day is one long battle.
Find school choices, therapies, or activities overwhelming, because every decision feels high-stakes and your brain won’t let you “just pick.”
Notice your child’s big emotions trigger your own nervous system, and suddenly everyone is melting down together.
Try to hold structure for your family, but your brain makes consistency feel nearly impossible.
Feel guilty that parenting spaces (playdates, PTA meetings, even casual conversations with other moms) leave you more isolated than connected.
In therapy, you’ll get space to be honest about the weight of parenting without judgment. We’ll work on separating what’s really urgent from what’s noise, creating sustainable systems that actually work for your brain, and finding self-compassion in the moments when things don’t go as planned.
Exploring Neurodivergence
For many women, pregnancy or postpartum is the first time the question of neurodivergence comes up. The sensory overload, the executive demands, the anxiety about “getting it right”. It can all shine a light on patterns you’ve been living with for years. Maybe for the first time, you wonder: Am I Autistic? ADHD? Something else?
For others, the realization comes later. Maybe you notice yourself in the stories other women share. It could be that you’ve always felt “different,” but only recently found language that fits. Whether you’re just beginning to explore this or you’re further along in the process, therapy can give you a safe space to sort through what it means.
Maybe you:
Stay up late scrolling through lists of Autistic or ADHD traits, wondering if they apply to you.
Feel both relief and grief as you realize how much of your past makes sense in a new way.
Struggle to untangle what’s “anxiety” and what might be part of your wiring.
Wonder how a diagnosis (or self-understanding) might shift your parenting, your relationships, or your sense of self.
Want to explore your identity without shame, pressure, or the need to “prove” anything.
Together, we’ll make sense of your experience, honor your needs, and help you trust that being “otherwise” is not a flaw to overcome but another kind of wisdom.
