Send us Fan Mail

What really happens when you start ADHD medication?

In this episode of Dating on High Alert, Ilja Abbattista shares her honest personal experience of being diagnosed with ADHD in her 50s and starting stimulant medication for the first time.

From the fear of losing her creativity to experiencing a quiet mind for the first time in her life, Ilja explores the reality of titration, side effects, dopamine-seeking behaviours, and the unexpected discovery that ADHD medication revealed something else entirely - autism.

This episode explores:

• The reality of waiting years for an ADHD diagnosis
• Why social media gets ADHD medication wrong
• Medikinet vs Elvanse – Ilja's personal experience
• Side effects including cold hands, numb feet, headaches and appetite changes
• Dopamine-seeking behaviours and what happened when she stopped medication for a few days
• How stimulant medication can uncover underlying autism (AuDHD)
• ADHD, trauma and why medication cannot heal your past
• Dating, relationships and neurodivergence
• The grief, relief and identity shifts that can come with diagnosis

This is not medical advice. It is one person's lived experience of navigating ADHD, autism, trauma and relationships later in life.

Whether you're considering medication, newly diagnosed, supporting a loved one, or simply trying to understand your own brain, this episode offers an honest and nuanced perspective on a conversation that is often oversimplified.

To learn more about Ilja's coaching, speaking and consultancy work, visit:
www.iljaabbattista.co.uk

If you'd like to support me and buy me a coffee I'd really appreciate that more than you'll know. If you left me a review or shared this with someone else it would also make me very happy. Thank you for being here.

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

Have you ever told someone everything about your past, only to watch them pull away?

Maybe you've called it honesty, or you've called it vulnerability.
Maybe you've convinced yourself that if they're going to leave, you'd rather know now.

But what if sharing your deepest wounds too early isn't connection?

What if it's self-protection?

In this episode of Dating on High Alert, Ilja explores the hidden difference between intimacy and intensity, why so many people with trauma, ADHD, autism, and complex life experiences find themselves oversharing too soon, and what it actually costs when we hand someone our entire story before trust has had a chance to grow.

You'll discover:

• Why oversharing is often a nervous system strategy, not a personality flaw

• The difference between signposting and flooding

• How trauma, ADHD, and autism can create the perfect conditions for premature disclosure

• Why consent matters in emotional conversations too

• The hidden link between oversharing and over-giving

• How to stop short-circuiting genuine connection

• The "Drip Feed" approach that builds intimacy without overwhelming yourself or others

Most importantly, you'll learn why your story isn't a warning label and why not everyone has earned the right to hear it yet.

Because real intimacy isn't built through urgency.

It's built through trust.

If you've ever wondered whether you're "too much," this episode is for you.

🎙️ Need support in the moment?

Explore Dear Ilja Voice Note Support:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk

🌿 Ready to understand your patterns more deeply?

Work with Ilja:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk

If this episode made you think of someone, please share it with them.

These conversations matter because so many people are quietly living through the same patterns, wondering if they're the only one.

And if you'd like to help keep Dating on High Alert going, there's a support button in the show notes.

Every contribution helps me continue creating honest conversations about dating, trauma, ADHD, autism, relationships, and everything in between.

Whether you share the show, leave a review, or buy me a coffee, thank you for helping this work reach the people who need it most.

Until next spiral...

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

What happens when you read a message, mean to reply… and then completely forget?

And what happens when someone does the same thing to you?

In this episode of Dating on High Alert, we’re talking about unread messages, forgotten plans, RSD spirals, ADHD, autism, AuDHD, avoidance, and the painful gap between intention and impact.

Because sometimes one person is distracted - and the other person feels abandoned.

This episode is for anyone who has ever forgotten to reply, gone quiet from overwhelm, spiralled when someone didn’t text back, or lost people to misunderstandings that were never about a lack of care.

We’ll talk about why the people we care about most can become the easiest ones to accidentally let down, how shame makes repair harder, and why small, honest messages can stop silence becoming a story.

Understanding changes everything.

If this episode landed, don’t just sit with it and spiral.

Come and work with me.

Head to iljaabbattista.co.uk and visit the Work With Me page to explore Inner First, JFAI, voice note support, coaching, and the support that fits where you are right now.

If this episode helped you feel seen, please support the podcast by leaving a review, sharing it with someone who needs it, or sending me a message with what landed.

Every share helps this reach someone who thought they were the only one.

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

You Can’t Love Well From a False Map | Dating on High Alert with Ilja Abbattista

What happens when the information you’ve used to understand yourself was never built for the full picture?

A major new study has found that over half of ADHD and autism content online is inaccurate or misleading - and honestly, I think a lot of people can already feel that.

Because so many people are trying so hard to heal.
Learning the language.
Doing the work.
Trying to understand themselves and their relationships…

…and still ending up confused, overwhelmed, heartbroken, or exhausted.

In this episode, Ilja Abbattista explores:
🧠 AuDHD misinformation online
🖤 trauma, masking & nervous system survival
⚡ why so much relationship advice misses the mark
🧩 the complexity of late diagnosis & self understanding
🌿 and what changes when you finally start working from a more accurate map of yourself

Because maybe you were never failing.

Maybe the map was incomplete.

If this episode resonates with you and you’d like support navigating your own patterns, relationships, self understanding, or healing journey, you can find ways to work with Ilja in the show notes, including 1:1 coaching and Dear Ilja voice note support.

And if this podcast is helping you feel seen, understood, or less alone - please consider supporting the show by sharing the episode or leaving a review. It genuinely helps keep these conversations going.

Links are in the show notes.

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

What if the intensity you’re feeling… isn’t connection?

In this episode of Dating on High Alert, we’re looking at something that doesn’t get talked about anywhere near enough - the way ambiguity, inconsistency, and mixed signals can feel like chemistry.

Especially for ADHD and AuDHD brains, where dopamine is driven by uncertainty, not stability. Ambiguity can be particularly activating, exhausting, or destabilising for many autistic people.

That pull you feel?
 The constant thinking about them?
 The high when they show up and the drop when they don’t?

It can feel like meaning. Like something important is happening.

But sometimes, it’s not about the person.
 It’s about what the situation is doing to your nervous system.

We also go deeper into what happens when you ignore your internal signal for too long - how self-abandonment doesn’t happen all at once, but slowly, quietly, and reasonably… until you realise you’ve lost yourself inside something that no longer fits.

And then comes the question so many people sit with:

Do I stay, or do I go?

This episode breaks down why that decision feels so difficult, especially when you can’t visualise a better future, don’t feel confident, and are waiting for clarity that never seems to arrive.

And more importantly… what actually moves you forward when none of those things are in place.

This isn’t theory.
This is lived experience, pattern recognition, and truth, without the fluff.

If this episode resonates with you:

• Listen to the full episode via the link in the show notes
 • Share it with someone who needs to hear it
 • Follow the podcast for more honest conversations around dating, ADHD, trauma, and relationships

Work with me:

If you’re stuck in patterns you can’t seem to break, navigating neurodivergent relationships, or trying to make a decision you keep avoiding - this is exactly the work I do.

→ Coaching, support, and contact details: https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/
 → Support the podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/support

Important Support Resources:

If you are in a situation where you don’t feel safe, please reach out for support:

• Refuge (24/7 helpline): 0808 2000 247
 • Women's Aid: womensaid.org.uk
 • Men's Advice Line: 0808 801 0327
 • LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0800 999 5428
 • Samaritans: 116 123

You don’t have to navigate it alone.

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

Your Body Already Knew. Your Mind Just Didn’t Want to Know.

Have you ever had a feeling about someone that you kept explaining away?

It wasn't because you were naïve, or because you “missed the signs.”
But because the connection felt stronger than the warning your body was giving you.

In this episode of Dating on High Alert, Ilja Abbattista explores the difference between gut feelings, intuition, and trauma responses - and why so many of us learned to override ourselves long before we ever entered a relationship.

This episode is for:

• Neurodivergent people navigating relationships, masking, emotional overwhelm, and self-trust
• People with trauma histories who struggle to trust their own knowing
• Partners wanting to better understand trauma responses, intuition, and nervous system patterns
• Anyone who keeps finding themselves overriding what they already know

Inside this episode, Ilja explores:

• The difference between gut feelings and intuition
• Why trauma responses can blur clear thinking
• Why strong feelings are not always true feelings
• How childhood experiences can disconnect us from our own signals
• ADHD, object permanence, and internal imagery
• Why visualisation and manifestation advice often fails neurodivergent brains
• The difference between thinking an image and seeing one
• Why masking, survival, and self-doubt make complete sense
• The real reason we override ourselves — and why it isn’t weakness

This isn’t an episode about blaming yourself for the times you stayed.

It’s about learning to hear yourself sooner.

⸻

CONTENT NOTE:
This episode includes discussion of trauma, abusive relationships, dissociation, nervous system responses, and survival adaptations.

⸻

💬 WORK WITH ILJA

If this episode resonated with you and you’re looking for support that actually works with your brain and nervous system - not against it - you can explore support, coaching, and resources here:

https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/

🖤 SUPPORT THE PODCAST

If Dating on High Alert has helped you feel seen, understood, or a little less alone - you can support the podcast here:

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

You don’t keep choosing the same person.
It just feels like you do.

Different face. Same pattern.

Different relationship. Same ending.

Different version of you… somehow still stuck in the same place.

And at some point, you start asking the question that quietly eats away at everything:

What am I doing wrong?

This episode answers that. Directly.

Because the problem was never you…
It’s the starting point you’ve been given.

Most advice tells you to wait for motivation.
To visualise the outcome.
To believe before you move.

But what if none of that comes first?

In this episode, I break down the actual sequence that creates change, the one I’ve been using my entire life without realising it:

Feeling → Decision → Action → Build → Belief

Not theory. Not fluff.
A method that explains why you’ve felt stuck, and exactly how to move.

We also go deeper into:

• Why cycles repeat (even when you’re self-aware)
• Why “just try harder” makes things worse
• What’s really happening when your brain stops instead of moves
• How relationships get stuck in the same loop
• And the one shift that changes everything

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right… and still not getting anywhere, this is the missing piece.

If this episode landed for you ... don’t sit with it and overthink it.

Tell me where you’re stuck.

Send me a voice note through Dear Ilja.
Just talk. No structure. No pressure. That’s your first step.

And if you already know you’re ready to go deeper -
my 1:1 sessions are open.

You don’t need to wait until you feel ready.
You just need to move.

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

Why are you late… even when you care?

In this episode, we’re talking about ADHD, autism, and time blindness, and why AuDHD brains experience time completely differently.

This is not an episode about excuses or apologies.

 It’s an explanation.

Because when you understand what’s actually happening, everything changes.

We’re unpacking the reality of the now and not now brain, where time doesn’t flow, it switches. Where something can matter deeply to you, and still somehow… disappear until it’s too late.

Why you can be on time for a job interview, but late for dinner with someone you love.
 Why waiting mode can quietly take your whole day.
 Why changing a plan by ten minutes can feel like everything just broke.
 And why safe relationships, the ones that matter most, don’t always trigger the urgency your brain needs.

And we’re also talking about the other side of this.

What it feels like to be the person waiting.
 The pause before someone says “it’s fine.”
 The way lateness can land as I don’t matter, even when that isn’t what’s happening at all.

Because both experiences are real.
 And most people are trying to navigate this without the language for what’s actually going on.

If you’ve ever called yourself lazy, disorganised, careless, or unreliable, this is for you.

And if you’ve ever loved someone and quietly wondered,
 “If I matter so much… why am I the one still waiting?”
 this is for you too.

Understanding this doesn’t fix everything.
 But it changes the conversation, from blame to structure, from shame to strategy.

And that’s where things actually start to shift.

If this landed, if you recognised yourself or your relationship in this, I work with both people in that dynamic. Individually, and together.

Because understanding is only the beginning.
 Knowing what to do with it is where things change.

You can book a call, or send a voice note if that feels easier. Links are in the show notes. 

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

In the final part of the masking trilogy, Ilja goes somewhere she has never gone publicly before.

This episode isn’t theory, it’s truth.

The difference between the self-criticism you can hear…
 and the kind that lives in silence.

The core belief formed before language, the one that doesn’t show up as a thought, but as a feeling. A reality. A quiet, persistent sense that something about you was never quite right.

Ilja explores what happens when that belief is shaped by complex trauma, repeated experiences of being overlooked, and the absence of anyone stepping in to say: this isn’t your fault.

She speaks, for the first time, about the specific impact of exploitation on her relationship with money, the lived experience of earning and having everything taken, and how that creates a deeply embodied block that mindset work alone doesn’t reach.

This episode goes beyond the inner critic.

Into the nervous system.
 Into the body.
  Into the place where the belief actually lives.

And it introduces the one thing that has survived everything:

The core belief that anything is possible.

Not something learned after the trauma, but something that existed within it.

This is the most personal episode of the series.

And it ends with an invitation:

Watch this space.

If this episode landed somewhere in you, if you recognised the silent version, the one without words, you don’t have to sit with it alone.

🎙️ Explore more on Dating on High Alert
💬 Send a voice note via Dear Ilja for grounded, real support
📖 Or start with the free guide: You’re Not Too Much — You Were Never Met Fully
→ iljaabbattista.co.uk

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x

Send us Fan Mail

If you’ve ever been told you’re too sensitive, too alert, or overreacting… this episode is going to land.

In Part Two of the masking series, Ilja Abbattista goes deeper into what’s actually powering the mask, hyper-vigilance.

Not the clinical definition.
 Not the pathologised version.
 But what it really feels like inside a body that has lived through trauma, while also navigating ADHD and autism.

This episode explores:

•  What hypervigilance actually feels like in real time (physically, emotionally, neurologically) 
•  The difference between paranoia vs pattern recognition, and why that distinction matters 
•  How AuDHD and complex trauma overlap, creating a nervous system that never fully switches off 
•  Why hypervigilance is not just a symptom, but a trained survival intelligence
•  The hidden connection between masking and hypervigilance (and why you can’t separate them) 
•  The real cost of living in constant alert, exhaustion, shutdown, and mistrust of safety 
•  Why “just unmask” advice can feel impossible, and what actually helps instead 

Ilja also shares a powerful real-life moment where hypervigilance became a life-saving skill, and challenges the idea that healing means becoming less aware.

This is not about removing the mask.
 It’s about understanding the system behind it, and learning how to live with it differently.

If you’re AuDHD, living with trauma, or constantly scanning your environment without knowing why… this episode will give you language for what your body has been doing all along.

⚠️ Content note: This episode references childhood trauma, sexual abuse, and trafficking. Please listen with care.

If this episode hit something deeper, not just intellectually, but in your body, you don’t have to sit with that alone.

I offer real, trauma-informed support for women navigating ADHD, autism, trauma, and the complexity of all three combined. 

Here are a few ways we can work together:

💬 Dear Ilja (Voice Note Support)
For when you're spiralling, overthinking, or need grounded support in the moment, not next week.
You message me. I respond with calm, honest voice notes that meet you where you are.

🌿 1:1 Coaching & Mentoring
Deeper, consistent support to help you understand your patterns, regulate your nervous system, and rebuild your identity, without shame or performance.

✨ Keep an eye out for the next FREE download:
“The 5 Hidden Masks You Wear Without Realising”, a gentle guide to help you understand your masking as protection, not failure. 

👉 Explore everything here:
 www.iljaabbattista.co.uk

If you’re not ready for support yet, that’s okay.
 You can also follow the podcast, share this episode with someone who needs it, or just sit with what came up.

You’re not broken.
 You were trained.

Support the show

🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.

Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.

For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.

🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources

📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/

🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory

🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new

📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista

📬 Contact:
l[email protected]

Until next spiral,
Ilja x