Neurodivergent Strategies for Late-Diagnosed Adults: The Divergent Paths Podcast

You were probably told your impulsivity was selfish. That you jumped in, overshared, or said yes too fast because you weren't thinking about anyone but yourself. This episode makes the case, with the research to back it up, that the opposite was usually true.

Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. talks about the science behind how impulsivity has different motivations than we assumed. For a lot of late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults, impulsivity got filed under "character flaw" early and somewhere along the way you decided you were the problem and built a mask to manage it. But the science tells a different story about what that impulse was actually reaching for: connection.

2013 study: Low Self-Control Promotes the Willingness to Sacrifice in Close Relationships

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About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

Nobody sat you down and taught you to mask. It just switched on one day, quietly, without asking, and most of the time you don't even catch it happening. So what would it mean to actually get your hands on the switch?

In this episode, Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. and co-host Russ dig into intentional masking: the difference between the mask that flips on automatically, without your permission, and the one you choose to wear because you've read the room and done the math on what it will cost you.

The heart of the conversation is your capacity, and why it's a moving target. We reframe this as a masking budget: your high-cost events (the dentist, the family visit, the party you're dreading) get planned around, not powered through. Because unmasking was never meant to be all or nothing, and treating it that way is its own kind of trap.

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About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

You already know masking changes what other people see. What gets talked about far less is what it does on the inside. When you spend years suppressing emotion to keep a smooth, friction-free version of yourself running, you slowly lose access to the emotional data your brain uses to file memories away. And for a lot of neurodivergent people, especially those with ADHD, emotion is exactly how memory gets encoded in the first place.

In this episode, Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. walks through a concept she calls delayed encoding. The event happened, the memory happened, but the feelings attached to it were locked out at the time. Unmasking can hand them back to you, sometimes weeks later, sometimes decades. She uses a memory of her own to show how a moment you thought you understood can return with completely new emotional information once you can finally feel it.

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Chat with Regina on Instagram @drreginaphd

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About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

Calm water isn't the same thing as safe water. It just feels that way when you've spent years wanting to keep things smooth.

Dr. Regina McMenomy Ph.D. breaks down the concept of productive friction: the discomfort that shows up whenever you're actually growing, versus the discomfort that shows up when you're staying small to avoid rocking the boat. Drawing on her own swimming practice, she unpacks why so many late-diagnosed and late-identified neurodivergent adults have learned to mistake stillness for safety, and what it costs you when you do.

If you've been feeling the friction in your own late-diagnosed or late-identified journey, that's not a sign something's wrong. It might be a sign something's finally moving.

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Chat with Regina on Instagram @drreginaphd

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About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

Ever laughed off the moment you gave yourself away? Maybe it was a joke that landed wrong, or eye contact that came a beat too late. Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. unpacks a kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with how much sleep you got: instead, it's from the constant tension of monitoring your own performance while reading everyone else's reactions in real time.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What people-pleasing actually feels like from the inside for a lot of late-diagnosed adults
• How people-pleasing and masking are linked, with people-pleasing acting as the mechanism through which a masked version of yourself earns approval
• What changes in your relationships when you stop crafting every sentence for maximum smoothness and start just saying the thing

If you've spent years dismissing this tension as anxiety or "just how you are," this episode offers a different lens, and a path toward relationships that don't drain you to maintain.

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Chat with Regina on Instagram @drreginaphd

Book a Make it Make Sense Call with Regina

About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

There's a moment after diagnosis where you think the hard part is over. You have the language now, the explanation, the "why." Then you go back to your same job, same relationships, same life, and realize none of it changed just because you understand it better.

In this episode, Dr. Regina McMenomy Ph.D. and Russ Catanach dig into that specific, disorienting stretch: the gap between knowing you're neurodivergent and actually living like it. They talk through why this phase can feel so much harder than understanding the diagnosis itself, what masking feels like once you're aware you're doing it, and why intentional unmasking (even though it's exhausting) gives you agency that burnout never will.

If you're in that in-between space right now, not who you were before your diagnosis but not sure who you're becoming either, this episode will make you feel a lot less alone in it.

Sign up for N.E.R.D. Notes and get weekly nerdy neurodivergent insights!

Chat with Regina on Instagram @drreginaphd

Book a Make it Make Sense Call with Regina

About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

Most neurodivergent coaching will sell you a three-month transformation and a tidy finish line. For late diagnosed adults doing genuine unmasking work, that promise can do real harm. This episode is about why your path is divergent by design, and why curiosity about yourself matters more than any checklist.

Dr. Regina McMenomy Ph.D. describes the people she loves working with: late diagnosed, late identified, late realized neurodivergent adults who are approaching their neurodivergence with genuine curiosity, not just collecting a label. These are people who are done outsourcing their self-concept to their work, their hobbies, or relationships that never really supported them. She also gets honest about why her coaching looks nothing like the tidy three-month transformation arc most of the industry sells, and why that framing can actively harm someone doing real unmasking work.

Sign up for N.E.R.D. Notes and get weekly nerdy neurodivergent insights!

Chat with Regina on Instagram @drreginaphd

Book a Make it Make Sense Call with Regina

About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

You started doing the work. You've begun understanding how your brain actually works, and you began peeling back the mask you built to survive. So why is everything suddenly harder with the people closest to you?

Dr. Regina McMenomy Ph.D. shares in this episode the part nobody warns you about: what happens to your relationships after you start unmasking. When you cancel plans without guilt, hold firmer boundaries, and stop spending your executive function smoothing every sharp edge, people notice. Some read it as you becoming mean or distant. That tension isn't proof your relationships are broken. It usually means they need renegotiation.

Unmasking isn't about becoming someone new. It's about becoming visible, including to yourself, and not everyone will be ready for that. You're not the villain here. You might just be the antagonist to someone else's comfort, and you're allowed to be okay with that.

Sign up for N.E.R.D. Notes and get weekly nerdy neurodivergent insights!

Chat with Regina on Instagram @drreginaphd

Book a Make it Make Sense Call with Regina

About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

It is a terrifying thing to stand in a spotlight you never agreed to walk into. When you're a late-diagnosed neurodivergent adult you might have heard dropping the mask brings instant freedom, but nobody warns you about the deep ache of finally being seen for exactly who you are. When someone looks past your carefully constructed, people-pleasing performance and embraces your messy, genuine self, your nervous system might actually scream danger instead of feeling relief.

In this deeply personal episode, Dr. Regina McMenomy Ph.D. explores the emotional reality of the "visibility gap"—the awkward, liminal space between who you used to be and who you are becoming. For late-diagnosed adults, their mask wasn't just a habit; it was a protective system built brick by brick. This episode unpacks why unmasking is a relational event, why being misread hurts so much more once you are trying to be authentic, and how your nervous system gradually calibrates to accept true belonging and secure, safe connections.

Sign up for N.E.R.D. Notes and get weekly nerdy neurodivergent insights!

Chat with Regina on Instagram @drreginaphd

Book a Make it Make Sense Call with Regina

About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.

You recognize the feeling the moment it starts. One conversation, one interaction, and suddenly this person is everywhere in your brain, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and approximately 47 times in between. You're not just interested. You're consumed. And if you're neurodivergent, there's a reason it hits that hard.

In this episode, Dr. Regina and Russ break down limerence (also called romantic hyperfixation), why ADHD and autistic brains are especially susceptible to it, and how your attachment style either fuels the fire or keeps the loop going indefinitely. If you've ever turned a person into a puzzle you couldn't stop trying to solve, this one's for you.

If you've ever confused intensity for intimacy, or chased the high of pursuit without realizing why, this episode gives you the language and the framework to finally understand what was happening and what to do about it.

Sign up for N.E.R.D. Notes and get weekly nerdy neurodivergent insights!

Chat with Regina on Instagram @drreginaphd

Book a Make it Make Sense Call with Regina

About Dr. Regina McMenomy, PhD

Regina is a neurodivergent coach and educator who helps late-diagnosed adults unmask, heal from burnout, and build lives aligned with how their brains work. She founded Divergent Paths Consulting to provide the type of coaching and support that late-diagnosed nerdy neurodivergent folks need after receiving their late diagnoses.