Why Group Therapy Can Be a Turning Point for Late-Identified Autistic Women

If you found out you're autistic or AuDHD later in life, you may have spent decades feeling like everyone else got a rulebook you never received. You learned to copy facial expressions, script your side of conversations, and push through sensory overload without letting it show. That's masking, and for a lot of late-identified women, it worked well enough that no one, including you, realized the toll it was taking. Then the exhaustion finally caught up with you.

One of the hardest parts of identifying as neurodivergent later in life is how lonely it can feel. You may finally have language for your experience, but the people around you still relate to the version of you that you created to fit in. That gap is exactly what group therapy is good at closing.

Why a group?

Individual therapy is very valuable, and I offer that, too. But something happens in a group of women who are wired just like you that 1:1 work can't quite replicate. When you say "I rehearse phone calls before I make them" or "I need two days to recover from a social gathering," and the other women nod because they do the same thing, the anxiety starts to loosen. You stop being the odd one out and become one of several people who simply process the world differently. You have a community.

This is also where co-regulation comes in. Being around others who don't need you to perform lets your nervous system do something it rarely gets to around new people: settle. You get to practice being yourself in real time, with people who already understand, which is a different experience than an individual session.

What we actually do in the Unmasking Group

I created a group around this exact experience. The Unmasking Therapy Group is a closed online cohort of no more than eight autistic and AuDHD women who meet once a week for ten weeks. "Closed" matters here: the same women stay together the whole time, so trust has room to build instead of resetting every session.

Over those ten weeks, we look honestly at what masking has cost you, and we work on autistic burnout recovery, because so many late-identified women arrive running on empty. We spend real time on shame, self-compassion, and self-trust, since those take the biggest hit after a lifetime of being called "too much" or "too sensitive." We talk about honoring your sensory needs and your actual capacity instead of overriding them. We work on communicating across neurotypes, so the neurotypical people in your life can understand you without you erasing yourself to make it happen. And running underneath all of it is the experience of being supported by people who understand from the inside.

The goal is not to “fix” you, because you were never broken. It's about coming home to yourself after a lifetime of performance, untangling the relational harm that masking so often invites, and building a life your system actually gets to rest inside of.

The practical details

The group meets online over secure video, so you can join from anywhere in Louisiana, Florida, or Virginia. Sessions run 75 minutes on Thursdays at 3:00 PM Central, starting September 10, 2026. It's open to autistic, AuDHD, and ADHD women ages 21 and up. You do not need a formal diagnosis to be here. If you've self-identified as neurodivergent, you belong. I'm an LCSW with more than 25 years of experience, and I'm an AuDHD woman myself, so this work is personal as well as professional.

This group is therapeutic support and community. What I offer is a place to do the human work of understanding yourself and living more comfortably as who you actually are.

If any of this resonated

If you read this and recognized yourself, consider joining the group. Spots are capped at eight so the group stays small enough to feel safe, and registration closes September 4. The best next step is a free 15-minute fit consultation, where we can talk about where you are and whether this group is a good match for you. No pressure, just a conversation. You can book it at amandamorristherapy.janeapp.com.

You've spent long enough being the only one in the room like you. This is your chance to belong.