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When "No" Feels Like a Wound: Rejection Sensitivity and ADHD
For most people, those moments sting a little and pass. For many people with ADHD, they land like a physical blow. The shame floods in fast. Some people rage. Some collapse. Some go quiet and decide, right there, never to try again.
This experience has a name that's been everywhere lately: rejection sensitive dysphoria, or RSD. I want to end our October series here because it ties together everything we've talked about this month: the emotions, the body, and the relationship
Cary M Hamilton
5 days ago5 min read
Our House Runs on Two Operating Systems
I am the neurotypical one in my house.
My children have ADHD and sensory processing differences. My husband is neurodivergent. For years I treated ADHD and SPD in my office with real confidence. I had the training, the certifications, the clinical hours. Then I lived it, and I found out how much my expertise had been missing.
Clinical knowledge is a map. Living in a neurodivergent family is the actual trip, weather included.
Cary M Hamilton
5 days ago3 min read
ADHD at the Center: When Attention and the Senses Get Tangled
A systematic review of 31 studies found that people with ADHD showed significantly more sensory differences than people without ADHD, in all four domains of the Sensory Profile assessment.
A 2025 study of 2,676 children with ADHD used network analysis to map how symptoms connect. Sensory processing sat near the top of the map, linked to both ADHD symptoms and other co-occurring challenges. The researchers suggested sensory processing may be fundamental to how those patterns
Cary M Hamilton
5 days ago4 min read
The Girl Staring Out the Window, ADHD Hiding In Plain Sight
Girls with ADHD are often skilled at masking. They copy a friend's notes, stay up late redoing work, and people-please their way through the day. Many get diagnosed with anxiety or depression first, because that's what shows on the surface.
The ADHD underneath keeps running the show.
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 213 min read
Volume Ten: The Emotional Side of ADHD Nobody Talks About
The same brain systems that manage attention also manage emotion. Executive function includes the pause between a feeling and a reaction, and in ADHD those systems mature later, often by several years. Your nine-year-old may be working with the emotional brakes of a six-year-old.
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 133 min read
ADHD, It's Not a Deficit. It's a Traffic Jam.
At least once a week, a parent sits across from me and says some version of this: "He can build in Minecraft for four hours straight. Why can't he do ten minutes of homework?"
It's a fair question. The answer changes how you see your child.
Attention isn't what's missing. Steering it is.
For years I wrote "attention deficit" in treatment plans without a second thought. I explained it to parents in my office. It sounded precise and clinical.
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 64 min read
Setting Boundaries for Joy: Finding Gratitude & Glimmers This Holiday Season
We are all about encouraging boundaries in relationships because they foster healthy connections and improve self-esteem and self-compassion. But here's what we're learning about boundaries and mental health: when we protect our time and energy through healthy limits, we create the capacity to actually notice the good moments—what trauma therapist Deb Dana calls "glimmers."
These small moments of warmth, connection, and joy are everywhere during the holidays, but we can o
Cary M Hamilton
Nov 27, 20256 min read
Living and Understanding ADHD: A Journey Through the Maze—From Both Sides
October is here, and with it comes ADHD Awareness Month. As someone who sits in a unique intersection—a licensed mental health counselor and child mental health specialist, registered play therapy supervisor, clinic owner, AND a mom to neurodivergent kids with ADHD and SPD married to a neurodivergent partner—I can tell you that ADHD awareness isn't just professional knowledge for me. It's a lived experience.
Here's the twist: I'm neurotypical.
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 16, 202512 min read
The Silent Crisis: Unmasking ADHD in Our Girls
ADHD in girls might manifest differently, but it's not an enigma.
Cary M. Hamilton
Oct 28, 20234 min read
Could it be ADHD?
October is ADHD Awareness Month.
Let’s start with some quick facts about ADHD:
ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Cary M. Hamilton & Sarah Moran
Oct 14, 20205 min read
The information contained on this site, blog posts, videos, and interviews are for general education purposes and do not constitute professional advice. If you are a provider, it’s important to seek training, continuing education, or clinical supervision. If you are a parent, I encourage you to seek direct help from a qualified provider for your child and family. All identifying information, including names and other details, has been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
*The photos used are personal or are stock photography models and do not represent specific individuals in any way.
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