✨ Take the Free Quiz: https://learn.theneurodiversityadvocate.com/self-regulation-quiz-podcast

If you have ever wondered why you react the way you do when you feel overwhelmed, this conversation will connect some powerful dots.

In Season 2, Episode 4, Melissa breaks down the five personality patterns that develop in early childhood as survival strategies and how they show up in adulthood, especially for highly sensitive women and women with ADHD.

These patterns are not flaws. They are intelligent adaptations your nervous system created to keep you safe.

Melissa explores how ADHD symptoms and high sensitivity often overlap with what’s known as the “leaving pattern” and how emotional overwhelm, dissociation, perfectionism, people pleasing, and reactivity are often nervous system responses, not character defects.

When women understand their primary survival pattern, they can begin healing at the root instead of trying to fix surface behaviors.

This episode is about awareness, compassion, and building the nervous system capacity to respond differently in motherhood, relationships, and everyday life.

You are not broken. 💛 Your system learned how to survive. And you can teach it something new.

✨ In This Episode, Melissa Talks About…

1. The five personality patterns that form in early childhood as survival strategies
2. Why highly sensitive women and women with ADHD often run the “leaving pattern.”
3. How shutdown, dissociation, zoning out, or feeling spacey are nervous system responses
4. Why people pleasing, perfectionism, and overworking are rooted in early coping mechanisms
5. How reactivity and control can be protection strategies when feeling unsafe
6. What it actually takes to build nervous system capacity instead of relying on willpower
7. How self-awareness opens the door to healing at the root

This episode moves the conversation beyond labels and into understanding how your nervous system developed to keep you safe and how to gently begin shifting those patterns.

When we heal ourselves, we shift the patterns we pass down.

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Share this episode with someone who’s on their own neurodivergent healing journey. Every share helps more people feel seen, safe, and supported. 💛

🤝 Let’s Stay Connected: Resources + Links

✨ Free Nervous System Quiz: https://learn.theneurodiversityadvocate.com/self-regulation-quiz-podcast

📞 Work With Melissa 1:1: https://www.theneurodiversityadvocate.com/contact

📬 Join the Substack Community: Neurodiversity Advocate

🌐 Website: https://www.theneurodiversityadvocate.com/

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