You've Been Trying to Work With a Brain the World Wasn't Built For. That Gets Exhausting.
You’ve tried the planners. The apps. The color-coded systems. The alarms. The lists inside the lists. Some of it works for a while. Then it stops. And somehow that becomes your fault too.
If you’ve spent years being told to focus more, try harder, or just get it together, and none of that has actually helped, it’s not because you’re not trying hard enough. It’s because the strategies were designed for a different kind of brain.
MK Counseling Services offers neurodivergent-affirming therapy in Pennsylvania for adult women navigating ADHD and neurodivergence: diagnosed, suspected, or somewhere in between. Our specialist, Alaina Schrader, is currently full but accepting waitlist inquiries.
ADHD Beyond the Stereotype
What ADHD Actually Looks Like
ADHD in adults, especially women, rarely looks like what people expect. It’s not always hyperactivity. It’s not always obvious. And for many women it went undiagnosed for years because it didn’t fit the textbook picture.
What it actually looks like:
- Masking exhaustion. Performing neurotypical all day, then collapsing when you're finally alone. The effort of appearing fine takes everything.
- Executive function struggles. Not laziness. A genuine difficulty initiating tasks, switching between them, or finishing what you started even when you want to.
- Time blindness. Time exists in two categories: now and not now. Deadlines feel abstract until they're suddenly not.
- Rejection sensitive dysphoria. An emotional response to perceived criticism or rejection that hits harder and faster than people around you seem to understand.
- Hyperfocus. The flip side of distraction. Getting completely absorbed in something for hours while everything else falls away.
- Emotional dysregulation. Feelings that arrive fast and feel intense. Not a personality flaw. A nervous system response.
- Chronic under-achievement. Being clearly capable but consistently not reaching what you know you could do, and not understanding why.
If you’ve spent years wondering why things that seem easy for everyone else feel so hard for you, this might be why.
Why Standard Advice Doesn’t Work
The Problem With "Just Try Harder"
Most productivity advice, life coaching, and even some therapy was designed for neurotypical brains. It assumes that if you have the right system, the right motivation, or the right mindset, it’ll click.
For ADHD brains it doesn’t click. Not because of effort. Because the underlying neurology works differently.
- “Make a to-do list” doesn’t account for task initiation difficulties
- “Set a reminder” doesn’t help when time blindness makes the reminder feel unreal
- “Just start somewhere” doesn’t address the paralysis that comes before starting
- “You did it before so you can do it again” ignores that ADHD is interest-driven. Consistency doesn’t work the same way.
Therapy that works for ADHD doesn’t try to make you function like someone you’re not. It builds strategies that fit how your brain actually works and helps you understand why you work the way you do.
How We Work With ADHD
A Different Approach to ADHD Therapy
Your brain isn’t broken. It just came with a different instruction manual. Therapy at MK Counseling works with how you actually think, not how the world wants you to think.
Alaina Schrader uses a neuroscience-informed, person-centered approach that starts from where you actually are, not where a treatment manual says you should be.
She draws from Parts Work to help you understand the different internal responses that show up around ADHD: the inner critic, the procrastinator, the part that’s been masking for years. From Polyvagal Therapy to help regulate the nervous system responses that underlie emotional dysregulation and overwhelm. And from practical skill building that’s designed around your brain’s actual patterns, not a generic productivity framework.
Sessions feel like a conversation. Humor has a place. You won’t be asked to mask, not even a little. You won’t spend sessions trying to act neurotypical. That’s not what this is.
Alaina Schrader, LPC, NCC, ADHD-CCSP is MK Counseling's ADHD and neurodiversity specialist.
She works primarily with adult women aged 18 and up who are dealing with diagnosed or suspected ADHD and neurodivergence.
Her practice is feminist, LGBTQ+ affirming, and trauma-informed. She works with clients who are neurodivergent in a variety of ways, not just ADHD, and brings a warmth and relatability that makes sessions feel genuinely accessible.
Alaina is currently full but accepting waitlist inquiries. When space opens, waitlist clients are contacted first.Â
What ADHD Therapy Looks Like at MK Counseling Services.
Alaina’s sessions are telehealth only, which means you can join from home, your car, or wherever you actually have a moment to breathe. No commute. No waiting room. No performing before the session even starts.
The first session is a conversation about what’s been going on, what you’ve tried, and what you’re hoping for. There’s no intake checklist to get through before you’re allowed to talk about what actually matters.
From there, sessions are flexible and built around what you need. Some weeks that’s practical skill building. Others it’s processing the emotional weight of years of not understanding why things felt so hard.
Alaina accepts Aetna, Anthem, Highmark BCBS, Cigna, United/Optum, and UPMC.Â
ADHD Therapy May Be Right for You If!
- You're ready to understand yourself differently, not fix yourself
- You've been in therapy before and felt like the approach wasn't designed for you
- You want therapy that works with your brain instead of trying to normalize it
- You're exhausted from masking and want a space where you don't have to
- You've been diagnosed with ADHD, or you suspect you might be, and standard strategies haven't worked
You don’t have to be ready. You just have to be willing. Whenever that is, we’ll be here.
Ready to Stop Managing and Start Understanding?
Alaina is currently full, but joining the waitlist means you’ll be first to know when space opens up. You deserve a therapist who actually gets how your brain works. Alaina will be here when the timing is right.