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 remember the day’s struggling to convince him to go in, and, shamefully, I remember the embarrassment I felt, the eyes looking on as ‘the therapist’ son pleaded to go home.
Some days I ‘got him in’ to the detriment of his nervous system and mine. Other days I didn’t. I remember sitting on my hunkers saying to him “but love everyone else is going in” and he said to me clear as day “but Mum, I’m not like everyone else”.
It took me another ten years to hear that properly.
My son didn’t have any of the signs society told me to look for, but he told me and I still couldn’t hear.
When people say “everyone is getting diagnosed now,” I often think the opposite.
I think we are still vastly underdiagnosed.
What’s changed is not that Autism and ADHD suddenly appeared.
What’s changed is that more people finally recognise themselves in information that was never built with them in mind.
For decades, research and diagnostic models focused heavily on young boys, externalised presentations, and narrow stereotypes.
Meanwhile, countless women and AFAB adults learned to survive, by masking, adapting, people-pleasing, over-performing, dissociating, burning out, or collapsing quietly behind the scenes.
And sometimes I think about the women hidden in plain sight who came before us.
The women institutionalised for being “difficult,” “hysterical,” emotionally overwhelmed, unable to cope within the lives expected of them, or simply different in ways nobody understood.
We cannot know who among them may have been neurodivergent.
But I do wonder how many late-identified people carry generational histories of institutionalisation, psychiatric hospitals, addiction, alcoholism, heavy medication, emotional suppression, or lives and nervous systems shaped by survival rather than understanding.
Not because neurodivergence directly causes these things.
But because unsupported nervous systems, chronic misunderstanding, shame, trauma, and social exclusion shape generations.
I don’t think “everyone is suddenly Autistic or ADHD.”
I think many people are finally finding language for experiences that have existed for a very long time.
I cannot wait for this Saturday night @trinitycollegedublin where I am honoured to be hosting the panel for late identified women @neurodiversityireland Summit 2026.
Joining me to talk all things late identification are @emeroneill14 @elisha_caulfield and Sarah Parkes @mossandsandstudio
We are also looking forward to hearing from you and taking questions from the audience. The excitement is EEK!!! And if that’s not ‘too much’ we are then handing over to the incredible musician @emermaguireofficial !!!
Some last minute tickets are still available @neurodiversityireland and I hope to see you there 💞
I think this is one of the most important shifts that can happen after late identification.
No longer excusing ourselves.
Never pathologising ourselves.
But finally understanding ourselves in context.
And from that place, many of us begin relating to ourselves with more compassion, softness, and truth.
🎙️From Episode 16 of the Unlearning Autism podcast with Dr Emma Offord - link in bio 🔗
I love this phrase so much because it captures something many late-identified people struggle to explain - there can be a kind of falling apart after knowing.
But not because identification harmed us.
Often because the old survival structures no longer make sense once we understand ourselves differently.
The people-pleasing.
The pushing through.
The perfectionism.
The chronic self-monitoring.
The trying harder.
The life built around enduring.
And so there can be a disintegration.
But sometimes it is a deeply necessary one.
A shedding.
A loosening.
A rebuilding.
Not becoming someone new.
But slowly returning to who you always were underneath it all.
This quote is from my conversation with the beautifully articulated @divergentlives Dr Emma Offord on the #unlearningautism podcast.
🎙️Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts - link in bio
Episode 16 is here!
I can’t wait for you to hear this episode with the beautiful Dr Emma Offord @divergentlives and @thisvoiceisminepodcast
In this episode Emma shares her concept of positive disintegration - the process of things falling away so something more truthful can emerge and I know this description of late identification will resonate with so many.
Thank you Emma for being part of our unlearning 🙏💞
Do you get feedback from your body that it’s stressed? From physical symptoms to professional feedback? I realise today that although my mind is at ease, my body is still holding a lot.
Posture - I often stay in an awkward posture longer than I realise e.g. hunched over the sink washing dishes when I realistically could do this unhunched.
Histamine - I have always had histamine issues and as another sneeze threatens to explode I can feel my body tense. This is particularly heightened with the sweet combo that is hayfever and perimenopause!
Temperature - I feel temperature change to a level I can’t ignore and spend much of the colder months holding my body stiffly in a vain attempt to lessen exposure.
Hyperfocus - I love nothing more than getting ‘stuck in’ to a project, and in that moment I don’t notice how much I am sitting awkwardly reaching (and even when I do notice in my mind I can’t risk breaking momentum to readjust my self). A new office chair that doesn’t cripple my back is on my never ending to do list.
Startle reflex - I have a high startle reflex which regularly puts my body into fight-flight
Feeling emotions deeply - even watching a tense episode of #MAFSAU can have me reaching for the pause button as my body is too overwhelmed
Small things. But every day things. And accumulation of these ongoing stresses means that even when I feel quite regulated, my neurodivergent often overstimulated sensory and nervous system signal stress to my body.
How I support myself travelling as a late-identified AuDHD to minimise overwhelm.
I pick my flights, and even location, based on the time of day. 1pm is my ideal. I don’t sleep when travelling (rest is hard for me at the best of times), and I don’t sleep well before (in anticipation mode) or after (overstimulated) travel. The time of day of the flight can make the difference between a night’s sleep or none at all. It’s not a small detail — it’s the difference between coping and not.
I leave the house with plenty of time to spare — and if I’m 2 hours early to the airport, I’m not early enough. Because allowing a gentle pace throughout my travel day is essential.
Drop & go parking. An attendant parking my car for me. One less transition to manage. One less worry to hold. One less unknown to consider.
I’m always early to the boarding gate. Rush brings panic. This way I’m settled, no pressure building in the background.
“You go get a drink, sure I can watch your bags, I’m happy here.”
My huge muff headphones. Not just for sound — for silence. A break from the busy-ness and a chance to cocoon my mind.
I’ve abandoned my Neverfull for a light wheelie bag. Less glam, more free. My back already holds a lot of tension and adding a heavy bag is an extra I don’t need.
Soft clothes. Light layers.
Always.
I travel very light. Passport. Phone. Kindle. Headphones. Lip gloss. No keys. No wallet. Fewer decisions. Fewer moving parts.
My snacks. Something predictable when everything else isn’t.
My Kindle, and a variety of Netflix episodes downloaded on my phone. A movie is too long. I need options. I need pauses.
A journal and pen. Travel time becomes “free time” in my mind. A quiet space for perspective, not just waiting around.
In fact, the departures area of the airport is one of the few spaces in my life that I don’t feel I am in ‘waiting mode’. I’m here. Ready.
I do travel with my needs in mind so I can land as me. I used to think I was a bit of a princess. But no — not royalty, simply AuDHD.
This is what after knowing looks like for me.
This is something I’m seeing more and more. There’s a lot of encouragement around disclosure right now. But not enough conversation about the reality of the environment we live in. I think we need to talk more honestly about that.
