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

Regina McMenomy, PhD.
  • 4.8 (20)
  • Mental Health
  • Weekly

Neurodivergent Strategies for Late-Diagnosed Adults is the podcast for people with ADHD, autism, and other late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults ready to unmask, heal from burnout, and build a life that works with their brain, not against it. Hosted by Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D., this show offers real talk and practical strategies for navigating executive dysfunction, rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), perfectionism, emotional regulation, masking, PDA, and more. Each episode explores how unspoken expectations, internalized ableism, and cultural myths about productivity keep neurodivergent people stuck and what we can do to shift the narrative. Whether you’re newly diagnosed, self-discovered, or still figuring it out, you’ll find insight, compassion, and tools to help you find your divergent path. Sign up for N.E.R.D. Notes! Book a Free Discovery Call with Regina About the Host: Dr. Regina McMenomy Ph.D. (she/her) is a neurodivergent coach, educator, and host of the Divergent Paths podcast. With a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and over 20 years of experience in higher education and instructional design, she blends academic depth with lived neurodivergent insight. Regina was diagnosed later in life and like many of her clients, spent decades masking, overworking, and wondering why burnout always came back. Now she helps late-diagnosed people with ADHD and autism unmask safely, rebuild their self-trust, and embrace rest as a radical act of self-support. The Divergent Paths podcast offers empowering conversations, practical tools, and hard-won wisdom for those ready to live more authentically. You’ll often find her talking about nervous system regulation, perfectionism, emotional honesty and, occasionally, oatmeal.

  1. 6h ago

    Neurodivergent Fawn Response: When “Easygoing” Was a Survival Strategy

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! You’re the easygoing one. Low maintenance. The person who always says yes, picks up the extra project, and never makes things difficult. But what if none of that was your personality? What if it was protection? Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. breaks down fawning, the lesser-known fourth trauma response after fight, flight, and freeze. Fawning means moving toward a perceived threat and making the other person comfortable until the danger passes. Kindness is a choice but fawning happens automatically and it sits right alongside masking and people-pleasing. The episode also zooms out to the systems that keep fawning in place. Workplaces often reward the people who are easy to work with and label the people who push back for fairness as a problem. And expectations around gender, race, and class decide who pays the steepest price for not fawning. 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 Dr. Regina is a late-diagnosed neurodivergent coach, educator, and host of Divergent Paths. After more than 20 years in higher education, she founded Divergent Paths Consulting to help late-diagnosed adults unmask, recover from burnout, and build lives and workplaces that fit how their brains actually work. Her Ph.D. in American Studies shapes her approach. She connects personal experience to the systems that taught so many of us to hide, so clients can stop asking “what’s wrong with me” and start building what fits.

    Neurodivergent Fawn Response: When “Easygoing” Was a Survival Strategy

  2. Oct 30

    Self-Gaslighting After Neurodivergent Late Diagnosis: Why You Don’t Believe Yourself

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! You’ve never needed anyone else to talk you out of your own experience. You’ve been doing it yourself for years. “It’s not that loud in here.” “What's wrong with me?! Everyone else handles this fine.” “Maybe I just fooled the person who did my assessment.” If those scripts sound familiar, you may be dealing with self-gaslighting: dismissing your own perceptions, feelings, and needs so thoroughly that nobody else has to. Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. explores why self-gaslighting runs so deep for late-diagnosed and late-identified neurodivergent adults. Without language describing your neurotype, the only explanations available were character flaws. Mix in masking, quieter interoceptive signals, and internalized ableism, and doubting yourself starts to feel like the safest option. 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.

    Self-Gaslighting After Neurodivergent Late Diagnosis: Why You Don’t Believe Yourself

  3. Oct 23

    Neurodivergent Late Diagnosis & Gaslighting: Why You Were Primed to Doubt Yourself

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! You’ve spent years being told your memory is unreliable, that you missed a significant social cue, that you’re too sensitive. So when somebody tells you the thing you saw didn’t happen, part of you already believes them. Dr. Regina McMenomy and co-host Russ dig into gaslighting: where the term comes from, what separates deliberate manipulation from careless invalidation, and why late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults are so often on the receiving end. They unpack how working memory differences, years of masking, and rejection sensitivity can make someone else’s version of reality feel more trustworthy than your own, and how manipulators use power dynamics to exploit that gap. Regina also shares her own experience in a relationship where gaslighting showed up as a steady stream of small corrections, laying the groundwork for bigger moments where her perception was supposed to give way. The good news: recognizing the pattern is where rebuilding self-trust begins. 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.

    Neurodivergent Late Diagnosis & Gaslighting: Why You Were Primed to Doubt Yourself

  4. Oct 16

    ADHD, Autism and Rumination: When their words say "I'm fine" but their face says they aren't

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Someone tells you something you said didn’t bother them but their face said something different. Days later, maybe years later, you’re still replaying that moment, trying to figure it out. That isn’t you being too sensitive. It’s your brain trying to close a loop that never got closed. In this episode, Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. explores why late-diagnosed and late-identified neurodivergent adults experience more moments of misattunement and why so many of them become moments we can't let go. High-resolution perception, the double empathy problem, and masking all raise the odds of a miss. Many of us also never learned repair growing up, so those moments stay open. The goal isn’t to stop noticing. It’s to build relationships, including the one with yourself, where missteps get resolved instead of replayed. 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.

    ADHD, Autism and Rumination: When their words say "I'm fine" but their face says they aren't

  5. Oct 9

    Neurodivergent Late Diagnosis, Masking & Generational Trauma: Being Loved Versus Being Known

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! What happens when everyone in a family is masking, and nobody knows it? Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. and Russ explore how late diagnosis reveals patterns of behavior that run through generations. Neurodivergence is highly heritable, so when you look to your family to figure out what’s “normal,” you may be comparing yourself to people who are masking the same traits. Children learn to mask by watching the adults around them and attachment built between two masks is compromised from the start. This episode covers how masking gets passed down, why gender expectations kept so many women from being diagnosed, how fawning and contingent love take root, and why loving someone isn’t the same as seeing them. It also makes clear that this is not about blaming parents. Most were doing their best without the understanding to do otherwise. Most importantly, it’s about cycle breaking: what repair looks like, how small shifts change what the next generation inherits, and why understanding your neurotype is part of that 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.

    Neurodivergent Late Diagnosis, Masking & Generational Trauma: Being Loved Versus Being Known

  6. Oct 2

    Neurodivergent Unmasking: Why You Can Still Feel Lonely in Good Relationships

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! You can be loved, cared for, and in a relationship that functions well... and still feel like no one quite gets you. If that sounds familiar, masking may be part of the reason. Attunement means being perceived accurately and responded to in real time. It is the "you get me" feeling that builds safety and belonging. But attunement only works when there is a genuine signal to tune into. When you have spent years presenting a masked version of yourself, the people around you are attuning to the performance. Their care is real. It is just aimed at someone who isn't fully you. In this episode, Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. explores how masking disrupts attunement in both directions, why near-misses can hurt more than obvious rejection, and how you can start resyncing your relationships without burning everything down. The client story shared in this episode was shared with permission. 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.

    Neurodivergent Unmasking: Why You Can Still Feel Lonely in Good Relationships

  7. Sep 25

    ADHD, Autism & Hypervigilance: Why Reading People Drains You

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! You can tell your boss is irritated before they say a word. You know when your partner is off, what your kids need, and which comment will set off the meeting. But when someone asks how you're doing, you go blank. In this episode, Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D. launches a series on psychological attunement, the experience of feeling seen and how a late diagnosis shapes it. Many late-diagnosed and late-identified neurodivergent adults are highly attuned to other people. But much of that watching grew out of hypervigilance: years of getting things wrong without knowing why turned reading people into a safety system. From the outside, scanning for threats and connecting through curiosity can look the same. From the inside, one connects you and the other drains you. 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.

    ADHD, Autism & Hypervigilance: Why Reading People Drains You

  8. Sep 18

    Neurodivergent Capacity Optimism: Why You Always End Up Doing Too Much

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! You said yes to fun social plans on Monday. Then Saturday night arrives and the version of you who has to follow through has nothing left in the tank. Welcome to something Dr. Regina McMenomy Ph.D. likes to call capacity optimism: the confident belief that future you will have the resources to keep the promises present you makes. In this episode, Dr. Regina explores why neurodivergent adults are especially prone to overcommitting. She draws on behavioral economist George Loewenstein's empathy gap, the finding that people in one physical or emotional state struggle to predict how they'll think, feel, or act in another. For late-diagnosed and late-identified neurodivergent folks, that gap gets wider based on several factors. 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.

    Neurodivergent Capacity Optimism: Why You Always End Up Doing Too Much
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4.8
out of 5
20 Ratings

About

Neurodivergent Strategies for Late-Diagnosed Adults is the podcast for people with ADHD, autism, and other late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults ready to unmask, heal from burnout, and build a life that works with their brain, not against it. Hosted by Dr. Regina McMenomy, Ph.D., this show offers real talk and practical strategies for navigating executive dysfunction, rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), perfectionism, emotional regulation, masking, PDA, and more. Each episode explores how unspoken expectations, internalized ableism, and cultural myths about productivity keep neurodivergent people stuck and what we can do to shift the narrative. Whether you’re newly diagnosed, self-discovered, or still figuring it out, you’ll find insight, compassion, and tools to help you find your divergent path. Sign up for N.E.R.D. Notes! Book a Free Discovery Call with Regina About the Host: Dr. Regina McMenomy Ph.D. (she/her) is a neurodivergent coach, educator, and host of the Divergent Paths podcast. With a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and over 20 years of experience in higher education and instructional design, she blends academic depth with lived neurodivergent insight. Regina was diagnosed later in life and like many of her clients, spent decades masking, overworking, and wondering why burnout always came back. Now she helps late-diagnosed people with ADHD and autism unmask safely, rebuild their self-trust, and embrace rest as a radical act of self-support. The Divergent Paths podcast offers empowering conversations, practical tools, and hard-won wisdom for those ready to live more authentically. You’ll often find her talking about nervous system regulation, perfectionism, emotional honesty and, occasionally, oatmeal.

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