The therapist's guide to surviving ADHD distress | Charlotte Cummings

What do you do when the initial relief of a late diagnosis wears off and your ADHD brain starts kicking your ass again?

Petra sits down with counsellor, therapist, and researcher Charlotte Cummings for a deeply honest, liberating kōrero about the emotional reality of living with a neurodivergent brain. 

Charlotte opens up about her own journey toward an ADHD diagnosis, sparked by the sensory overload and executive function demands of parenthood, and explains why treating ADHD purely as a behavioral or workplace productivity issue misses the most crucial piece of the puzzle: our emotional, relational, and spiritual wellbeing.

Together, Petra and Charlotte unpack the messy reality of ADHD distress, over stimulation, and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), offering practical tools to step off the relentless productivity wheel. Charlotte shares how she builds intentional scaffolding into her life through daily decompression rhythms, weekly Thursday night baths, and flexible monthly habits without self-judgment. It is a warm, liberating conversation about learning to honor your unique brain, establishing circuit breakers against negative self-talk, and creating enough room in the world to fully become yourself.

Listen to Charlotte's podcast 'Mind You' on Spotify or YouTube, and find out more at charlottecummings.nz.

Support the show: greyareas.nz/support

Song credit: Korimako, Performed by Aro, Written by Emily Looker and Charles Looker and published by Songbroker.
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