I help highly sensitive, often neurodivergent adults let go of shame through compassionate, no-BS online therapy that supports how their brains actually work.
Have you been called “too sensitive” so many times you’ve become numb (or wish you could be)? Maybe you’ve heard: “Just grow a thicker skin.” (Eyeroll.)
Many people who experience the world intensely come to me saying things like:
If any of this rings a bell, you may be an “orchid.”
We’re all wired differently. Sensitivity lives on a spectrum, and you’re not on the “wrong” end of it. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to be. There’s just how you are. And here’s the secret: there’s nothing wrong with being sensitive.
At one end of the human sensitivity spectrum are dandelions. Give them a little sun and rain and they’ll grow just about anywhere into a perfectly lovely yellow flower. At the other end are orchids. They need very specific conditions to thrive. But when they get what they need, they bloom in spectacular ways.
You’re not broken. You’re an orchid.
About 15–20% of people are orchids, wired to be more sensitive to their surroundings, emotions, and internal rhythms. Many (though not all) are also neurodivergent (ADHD, autism, dyslexia, sensory issues, etc.). If you’ve spent your life trying to adapt to environments that weren’t built for you, it makes sense that you’re exhausted.
Being an orchid means you feel more, sense more, and respond more deeply to the world around you. That can be painful. But it also opens the door to creativity, connection, and depth.
Even if you didn’t grow up in the right conditions, it’s not too late to create them for yourself now.
You can stop apologizing for who you are.
Your sensitivity is not something to fix. It’s something to support and protect. With the right tools and context, you can stop feeling like too much… and start feeling like yourself.
We’ll explore how your sensitivity affects your life, relationships, and self-worth. Together, we’ll look at masking, executive functioning, shame, substance use, or whatever’s coming up for you.
We’ll go at your pace. With curiosity, not judgment.
Support should meet you where you actually are.
This is not about fixing you. It’s about understanding how you work and building support around that. When therapy matches your nervous system, change starts to feel possible.
You don’t need to be “ready.” You just need to show up.
If your sensitivity feels like a problem, it may be because it wasn’t seen or supported when you were growing up.
Orchids need specific conditions to thrive. But many sensitive people grow up in environments that invalidate their needs, whether on purpose or not.
You didn’t overreact. You adapted.
Invalidation can look like:
If you’re also neurodivergent (e.g. ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, etc.), your nervous system may react more strongly or differently to the world around you. This can include:
It wasn’t your wiring that caused the pain. It was the misunderstanding around it.
Maybe you were labeled difficult. Maybe you were praised for “keeping it together” but quietly fell apart. Without support, you learned to mask, shrink, or to feel ashamed.
Therapy can help you shift that. You may not have received what you needed back then, but you can give it to yourself now.
You are not too much. You were never the problem.
You Might Be an Orchid If...
And You’ve Learned To...
You might appear successful while privately managing stress like it’s a second job. On the outside, you may be competence personified. Inside, you’re juggling anxiety, overstimulation, and the pressure to prove your worth.
You might:
This isn’t about not trying hard enough.
It’s about surviving in conditions that never worked for you. You’ve spent years holding yourself together in places that misunderstood your wiring. That’s not weakness. That’s endurance.
You love deeply. You feel a lot. You pick up on things others miss. But if your intensity was ever called “too much,” you may have started shrinking just to keep the peace.
In relationships, you might:
You’re not asking for too much. You’re asking for honesty.
High sensitivity in relationships doesn’t mean you’re clingy or dramatic. It means you care. It means you notice. You’re not broken for wanting emotional safety. You’re wired for it.
If your sensitivity was treated like a problem, you might have learned to hide yourself. To wear masks. To adapt. And somewhere along the way, you may have lost track of what’s real.
You might doubt your instincts, or equate needs with weakness. You may feel like no version of you is quite right.
Therapy can help you come home to yourself.
This isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about reclaiming the self you buried to survive. Your sensitivity doesn’t need to disappear. It needs room to breathe.
Here’s a short exercise to try at home. It helps you get some distance from your shame without denying it. You don’t need to fight it or silence it. Just make space to hear it and decide whether it’s worth listening to. Because yelling at it doesn’t work, but neither does pretending it’s not there.
Naming it doesn’t give it power. It gives you perspective.
It goes like this:
Step 1: Write down your shame voice’s greatest hits.
Stuff like:
Step 2: Give that voice a name. It can be The Critic. Jerkface. Harold. Whatever fits.
Step 3: Try saying: “Thanks for your opinion, [Harold]. I hear you. But I’ve got this right now.”
We start from wherever you are. We work as a team. You bring your lived experience. I bring tools that fit your needs and pacing.
This isn’t nod-and-smile therapy. It’s real support, matched to how you actually function.
I offer strategies that meet your nervous system with compassion.
That includes executive functioning support, and therapy approaches like Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), harm reduction, and psychodynamic therapy.
But honestly? The most important part is this: I listen. I don’t judge. And I don’t ask you to be someone you’re not.
You don’t have to know what to say. You don’t even have to want to talk. You just have to show up. We’ll figure the rest out together.
This isn’t about fixing you. It’s about finding you.
Let’s work together to value your inner orchid, your neurodivergence, your sensitivity, your… self. There’s nothing wrong with how you’re wired. It’s time for support that honors it.
