Autistic mental health mentoring
If you are an autistic autodidact into natural health, there is a lot you can do by yourself, through safe and simple (≠ obvious) practices to navigate the vulnerabilities of being on the spectrum and enjoy (and share) the upsides.
MH obstacles to a good autistic life that can often be cleared
- reduce meltdowns and shutdowns – instead, learn to read the subtle signals of your body and mind to keep your batteries charged
- recover from burnouts faster – increase mental resilience through balancing your physiology (yep) and build stamina using effective routines, somatic awareness and emotional intelligence
- stabilise unpredictable energy and mood swings using somatic awareness and adequate nutrition strategies
- learn to decode the messages in your emotions while they are speaking quietly so they don’t need to scream at you with overwhelming intensity
- find the root causes of your anxiety and/or depression patterns and use prevention rather than fire-fighting – but also have a working emergency script ready to use for the times when you can’t think straight
- improve your relationships by learning to attune to other people without getting overwhelmed by their emotional intensity (if you are hyper-empathic)
I may be able to offer informed and sensitive personal support in making the above happen for you, based on two decades’ worth of bookish and hands-on study I’ve done to navigate issues resulting from neurodivergence-related and other developmental trauma for myself and autistic friends.
You can read about specific tools I found useful here.
Check my experience with specific mental health challenges in the context of (un/late-diagnosed) autism – eating disorders, extreme mood swings, developmental trauma, hyper-empathy, emotional numbness and/or outbursts (expert!), challenges around gender identity (I’m a non-binary trans person) and migration / bicultural identity.
Important: I’m not claiming that I (or you without a support network) can “heal” these. Most take years of multiple sources of support to deal with. I can help you build routines and perhaps facilitate insights that help you move forward in the long run (and better utilise other available supports) even when you face serious issues. (How this relates to therapy.)
I won’t push you to do what works for me, but can draw on meta-learnings on how to piece together an individual autistic mental health puzzle to make it easier for you to solve yours.
Personal support can be helpful when …
- you are tired and want a shortcut. I can’t guarantee quick solutions to anything, but I’ve gone down a lot of blind alleys and seen others do that, so I can alert you to the obvious (in hindsight) fails
- you are in a crisis (or, your life is currently a never-ending series of crises; I have been there for at least 1.5 decades) and want safe support from someone who “gets it” and will not give hurtful “advice”, while pointing out what is still possible
- you want structure and accountability in your learning process – set appointments to make it a focus and review progress
- you want feedback – an extra pair of eyes to observe and reflect back what seems to be working, changing, or stagnating … hear which patterns seem striking to an outsider
- you want guidance – only you can discover the hacks to your vulnerabilities and build them into your daily routines, but I can share many approaches and strategies that have worked to try out systematically
In which formats can I provide support?
I work with a mix of video calls and written materials. We can also work with drawings and diagrams. My strongest communication channel is writing and my post-session write-ups will often be more informative than what I say during a live session – where I focus on listening, observing and asking questions.
Learn more about what process and content to expect, and on fees.Interested in working together?
Autistic natural health 