The gold standard from the research states that people see the most benefit from therapy AND medication. The research claims that one without the other isn't nearly as effective as both together. Here at The Chronic Illness Therapist, we rely on YOUR personal and lived experiences to guide treatment. We make referrals for medication when appropriate, but we also understand that people may want to learn how to live without medication. We work together with you and your medical team to make sure you're treatments actually improve your life.

No... BUT, sometimes people are wrongly diagnosed. Sometimes, chronic illnesses greatly mimic ADHD symptoms. Sometimes complex PTSD and other adverse childhood experiences create ADHD-like symptoms. At The Chronic Illness Therapist, we strongly believe in helping clients make appropriate changes in their lives to alleviate the suffering from symptoms regardless of the root cause. This means we don't actually need to know the root cause in order to see improvement, and that's a good thing! When we remove the pressure to figure it all out, the answers start to arise in a much more natural, easier way.

Chronic mental and physical conditions often overlap. As we work together to implement proper stress management techniques and remove the obstacles currently in the way of you living the life you want to live, we slowly start to unravel the answers you're looking for.

Occupational Therapists are often the right referral for a proper sensory disorder diagnosis, but there's a lot we can still do within our talk therapy sessions. By using bottom-up, somatic approaches, we learn to be more connected with our bodies. This connection and heightened awareness allows us to make decisions that reduce the stress associated with sensory dysregulation.

The symptoms of combined-type ADHD include:

• Inattention: Difficulty focusing, getting easily distracted, making careless mistakes, forgetting things often, struggling to complete tasks.

• Hyperactivity-impulsivity: Fidgeting, feeling restless, blurting things out, difficulty waiting your turn, interrupting conversations.

The combination of inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity can make it very challenging to focus on tasks, stay organized, and manage daily activities.

Here's what's at the heart of working with these issues in therapy:

• Self-compassion work, both from a top-down and bottom-up approach

• Values-driven goals, meaning... we figure out what's most important to you and start there

• Emotion-regulation skills

• Executive functioning skills and training

  • Organizational Skills: Learning strategies for managing time, planning tasks, and staying on top of deadlines.

  • Focus and Attention: Techniques to improve concentration, minimize distractions, and maintain focus during tasks.

  • Impulse Control Techniques: Develop strategies to resist impulsive actions and make more thoughtful decisions.

In essence, we are diverging from the norm. And that's a good thing. These diagnoses have historically come with the notion that we have deficits in our brains... that our brains just don't work correctly. This couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, here at The Chronic Illness Therapist, we believe that neurodivergent brains aren't so abnormal after all. Rather, they are quite common. Read more about our thoughts on the matter here.