Christine Doyle is an educator, speaker, and companion specialising in the late-identified Autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD experience in women and AFAB adults.
Following over a decade working as a therapist, Christine began to notice a recurring pattern: capable, thoughtful women describing burnout, relational strain, sensory overwhelm, and a persistent sense of being “too much” or “not enough” — without a framework that fully explained their experience.
Her own late identification as AuDHD brought a different lens to that work. What had often been understood as individual difficulty was, in many cases, unrecognised neurotype navigating environments that were not designed with neurodivergent nervous systems in mind.
That shift reshaped her professional focus.
Today, Christine works from a neurodiversity-affirming perspective, centring lived experience and identity integration rather than deficit or disorder-based narratives. Her work explores:
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The psychological cost of being missed in childhood
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Masking and burnout across the lifespan
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Nervous system capacity and sensory honesty
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AuDHD internal conflict and late recognition
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Hormonal transitions and their impact on wellbeing
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Workplace understanding and inclusion
Christine delivers structured 1:1 integration programmes, webinars, and organisational training that translate lived Autistic experience into language leaders, families, and individuals can understand and apply.
Her approach moves away from pathologising frameworks and toward coherence, self-trust, and sustainable alignment.
She is the host of the Unlearning Autism podcast and founder of the Wild Women Community.
Testimonials
What my clients Say
Don't just take my word for it! Here is what some of my previous clients have to say about their work with me:
1-2-1 Work with Christine
These 1:1 offerings provide structured, reflective spaces for exploring neurodivergent identity, considering assessment, integrating late identification, or deepening understanding as someone supporting a neurodivergent adult.
Purchase my book
HormoneFULL, Not Hormonal is a narrative-led handbook exploring the impact of hormonal transitions on Autistic AFAB people across the lifespan. Grounded in the lived experiences of 101 Autistic AFAB adults, this book brings together verbatim reflections on puberty, menstruation, pregnancy and postpartum, perimenopause, and menopause — stages that are often poorly understood, minimised, or misattributed within both medical and mental health settings.
What I Offer
Find what you're searching for among my offerings. You can expect:
EMAIL: christine@christinedoyle.ie
PHONE: 087 687 1002
Blog
I’ve noticed I’m reaching for my trusted softie more and more these days.
Why did I not know that perimenopause would feel like being right back in puberty.
In waiting for the hot flashes and the absence of bleeding I missed what was right in front of me.
✨The cramps that have me curled up on the couch. Shorter cycles and heavier bleeds.
✨The emotional dips that can arrive out of nowhere.
✨A swelling of rage that feels far bigger than the moment in front of me.
✨Histamine issues back with a bang - reminiscent of my teenage years that had me on operating tables and on injections trying to make the unmanageable, well, normal.
✨An increased need for much more alone time that brings me back to afternoons walking in solitude as a teen, trying to find space to breathe.
✨Days where clothes feel wrong, noise feels too much, and capacity is suddenly gone.
Perimenopause.. I feel like I’ve been here before.
This time, though, there is something different.
Now I know I’m Autistic.
Now I understand my bodymind better.
And that brings a compassion that I didn’t have back then.
Because puberty wasn’t held like that.
It was a time of comparison.
Why are you so sensitive?
Why are you making such a big deal of it?
No one else needs to go on the pill.
Everyone finds periods hard.
And when you hear those messages enough, you start to believe the problem is you.
Autistic perimenopause fun facts:
It (often) starts earlier and lasts longer
If can bring an arrival or intensifying of Autistic traits for many.
It can raise body mind sensitivities such as digestive, histamine and migraines.
It is often a lot more complicated time for a sensitively wired system. Not too sensitive (in the eyes of others), but actually more sensitive than others experience.
Source: HormoneFULL, not Hormonal
And for me, this rollercoaster of hormones also brings something healing.
A chance to meet myself now with the understanding I needed then.
Did perimenopause surprise you too?
🙌🙌🙌
Episode 14 is now live … Eliza’s values of reducing pressure and allowing trust and simplicity back in are the balm I keep listening to .. thank you for your words Eliza.
Episode 14 with @elizafricker_missingthemark is now live
There was so much in this conversation with Eliza that stayed with me, but this part really hit home.
So many neurodivergent adults are carrying more than people realise.
The internal pressure.
The pressure to cope.
The pressure to get it right.
The pressure to hold everything together.
And then the external pressure on top of that — parenting, expectations, systems, noise, pace, demands.
It can become hard to hear yourself underneath it all.
I loved Eliza’s reminder that sometimes support is not about adding more.
Sometimes it’s about removing pressure.
Softening expectations.
Making things simpler.
Letting something go.
Doing it differently.
Choosing what actually helps.
A powerful conversation with the brilliant Eliza Fricker @elizafricker_missingthemark on Episode 14 of Unlearning Autism.
Listen via the link in my bio 🎙️
When something is “hard for everyone”…
it’s harder to be seen.
Hormonal changes are often spoken about as universally difficult.
So we hear things like:
“Everyone hates their period.”
“Everyone gets the baby blues.”
“I didn’t even notice menopause.”
And because of that, the depth of our experience can be missed — by others, and often by ourselves.
For me, it wasn’t just emotional shifts.
It was sensory changes that felt like they arrived overnight.
Furiously cutting off tags that never bothered me before
A feeling of constant overwhelm.
Friendships where I began to feel increasingly different and unable to mask the gap anymore.
Inability to keep my attention on conversation when there was background noise in a way I hadn’t known before.
I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know it was perimenopause. I was only 39. I was ‘too young’.
And a resurgence of histamine issues that brought me right back to puberty —
when I remember being so plagued by it that I carried a toilet roll with me everywhere.
This isn’t just perimenopause.
This is everything that comes with it for a neurodivergent person.
When something is already considered universally “hard,” it can be harder to recognise just how hard it is for you.
This is something I explore in HormoneFULL - a collection of lived experiences from over 100 Autistic women across the lifespan.
If this resonates, you can find it in the link in my bio.
I could have listened to Katie talk ALL DAY EVERYDAY
She is the epitome of neuro affirming and I was so honoured to record an episode with her for #unlearningautism
Katie is an occupational therapist and clinical director of @horizonstherapyservices in Dundalk. Katie is multiply neurodivergent (Autistic, ADHD and Dyspraxic) and is deeply passionate about supporting neurodivergent people to be their truest and most authentic selves.
Episode 12 is now live 🥳
When I hear someone say “I’m a bit OCD”, I wonder how often they are actually referring to an Autistic characteristic.
Historically we’ve been given very limited language for things like:
– needing order
– preserveration of thought
– things feeling “right”
– predictability
– routine
– sensory comfort
So a lot of it gets called “OCD.”
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is very real and impacts many. And it’s linked to intrusive thoughts or an anxiety that something bad will happen.
Terms like “a bit OCD” can be harmful and is incorrect and minimises a condition that, for many, is deeply distressing and confusing.
But that’s not what a lot of people are referring to when they say “I’m a bit OCD.”
Instead what they are saying is:
“I wash my hands a lot as I can’t stand the ick of any residue on them.”
“I need things to be where they should be to settle me.”
“I wish I could ‘let it go’ but my mind keeps going back to it.”
“I feel calmer when things are in order.”
“Why can’t everyone just do as they say?!”
“I get overwhelmed when there’s so much going on.”
That’s not about preventing something bad.
That’s regulation.
And very often… that’s much closer to Autistic experience than anything else.
We don’t talk about this distinction enough. So in the gap of information, people reach for the closest word they’ve been given.
And sometimes, even clinically, we’ve misunderstood what we’re looking at.
Not everything that looks like OCD… is OCD.
Sometimes it’s sensory.
Sometimes it’s nervous system regulation.
Sometimes it’s Autistic.
Have you ever described yourself as “a bit OCD”…and meant something else entirely?
An excerpt from my episode with Katie @horizonstherapyservices
This isn’t small.
It’s not “a nice to have.”
It’s the difference between constantly managing yourself…
and actually being able to settle.
I’ve been slowly doing this in my own life —
choosing people and places where I don’t have to explain, mask, or brace.
And it changes your baseline more than you realise.
A few weeks ago I asked for recommendations for neuro-affirming services and spaces —
GPs, hairdressers, therapists, gyms… anywhere that gets it.
Or for spaces that would like to be more neuro-sensitive, drop me a DM.
Because this shouldn’t be something we have to figure out alone.
If you have one, add it to that post.
Let’s make it easier for each other.
No one told us what puberty would feel like.
They didn’t know
Didn’t know how different it was for us
Didn’t know how to support us
Didn’t understand the overwhelm.
Didn’t understand the shift.
Didn’t understand the sense that something didn’t quite add up.
For many of us, this was the beginning of trying to understand ourselves in a world that didn’t quite meet us there.
This is where I’m starting in the webinar.
A quieter, more honest look at what was actually happening beneath the surface.
If this resonates, you’re very welcome to join me.
Link in bio.
