Do you feel smart but scattered?
Maybe you know you’re capable, but at the moment it feels like you’re barely holding it together?…
If you’ve always been “the capable one”
the deep thinker,
the high achiever,
and yet, behind the scenes, you feel scattered, exhausted, misunderstood, or like you’re falling apart, you might be a twice exceptional woman.
This is the crossover between high intellectual ability and neurodivergent.
Gifted and ADHD.
Highly intelligent and autistic.
Strategic and sensitive.
Often brilliant and burnt out.
At State of Being, we have love supporting high achieving nuerodivergent women who might look like they have it together, but feel overwhelmed, misaligned, and deeply tired underneath.
Read on to learn more about twice exceptionality and our approach here at State of Being…
Do you feel like you’re constantly underperforming your potential?
You know you’re intelligent. You grasp complex ideas quickly. You see patterns others miss. You can think strategically, creatively, expansively.
And yet…
You struggle with follow-through.
You procrastinate.
You hyperfocus on the wrong things.
You feel paralysed by simple tasks.
You oscillate between overworking and total shutdown.
You might have been told “you could be successful if you just applied yourself” at school. Or that you have “so much potential” in your career.
The gap between what you’re capable of and what you’re consistently producing can feel painful. It can create shame, self-criticism, and a constant sense of not being good enough.
Twice exceptional women often internalise this as a personal failure, rather than understanding how their brain actually works and how they can support themselves.
Do you feel misunderstood by some of the professionals you’ve seen before?
You’re articulate. Insightful. Self-aware.
So people assume you’re fine.
Because you’ve done well academically or professionally, your struggles may have been minimised. You might have heard:
“But you can’t have ADHD, you’re too successful.”
“You don’t seem autistic.”
“You’re just anxious.”
“Everyone struggles with focus.”
High IQ can mask neurodivergence. Neurodivergence can mask giftedness.
Many twice exceptional women are late diagnosed, especially those who are high masking, high achieving, and deeply sensitive.
You might be exhausted from explaining yourself. Or from never quite feeling fully understood.
Do you feel burnt out from trying so hard to compensate?
When you’re both gifted and neurodivergent, you often develop powerful coping strategies.
You over-prepare.
You over-research.
You over-function.
You over-give.
You may have built an identity around being competent and capable. But it comes at a cost.
Chronic stress.
Nervous system dysregulation.
Sleep issues.
Anxiety.
Imposter syndrome.
Relationship strain.
You might feel like you’re always “on.” Like your brain never truly switches off. Like you’re running a high-performance engine without adequate maintenance.
It makes sense that you’re tired.
We know how confusing it can feel to be both highly capable and deeply struggling. Therapy and assessment for twice exceptional women is not about pathologising, it’s about understanding your wiring a little better, reducing shame, and helping you build a life that works with your brain rather than against it.
Our Approach: Clarity, Validation, and a Brain-Aligned Plan
At State of Being, we provide therapy and comprehensive assessment for twice exceptional women or those who relate to the kind of difficulties described above.
We help you:
Understand how your intelligence and neurodivergence might interact
Reduce self-criticism and perfectionism
Address burnout
Build sustainable systems that actually suit your brain
Strengthen emotional regulation and relationships
Create work and life structures aligned with your capacity
This is about clarity. Not labels for the sake of labels. But answers that might finally make sense.
How the Process Works
1. We start with your story
In your first sessions, we take time to understand your history.
We explore both strengths and struggles. Intellectual ability, creativity, pattern recognition, emotional sensitivity, executive functioning challenges, masking, burnout cycles.
We collaborate on goals for how you’d like things to be different.
2. We clarify your profile
For clients looking for formal assessment for ADHD and/or Autism, this may include structured interviews and validated measures. We carefully differentiate between anxiety, trauma, ADHD, autism, giftedness, and overlapping presentations.
For therapy clients, we build a working formulation that explains your patterns in a way that feels useful.
The goal is self understanding, not putting you ‘in a box’.
3. We build a plan that fits for you
We then shift into practical, brain-aligned strategies.
This may include:
Executive functioning scaffolding
Nervous system regulation tools
Burnout recovery
Boundary setting
Values-aligned career clarity
Relationship support
Reducing masking and increasing authenticity
We regularly review progress and adapt the plan as needed to what feels like it works for you and your goals. There’s no one size fits all approach here.
Why Work With State of Being?
We focus on high-achieving, sensitive women
This is our niche. We understand the inner experience of women who appear capable on the outside but feel overwhelmed inside. We are deeply familiar with ADHD in women, high masking autism, burnout, and the mental load carried by intelligent, driven women.
We are neuro-affirming and evidence-based
We use current Australian guidelines and validated assessment tools when conducting evaluations. In therapy, we draw from evidence-based approaches including CBT, ACT, schema-informed work, attachment theory, and nervous system-informed strategies.
We balance scientific rigour with warmth and humanity.
We understand the complexity of twice exceptionality
Twice exceptional women are often misdiagnosed, overlooked, or told they’re “just anxious.” We understand how intelligence can compensate for neurodivergence and how that compensation eventually leads to burnout.
You do not have to minimise your struggles here. And you do not have to downplay your strengths.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Twice exceptional, often shortened to 2e, refers to individuals who have both high intellectual ability and a neurodevelopmental difference such as ADHD or autism. In women, this combination is frequently missed because strengths can mask difficulties.
-
Yes. High intelligence does not eliminate executive functioning challenges, sensory sensitivities, emotional intensity, or social differences. In fact, the discrepancy between ability and output can create significant distress.
-
That depends on your goals. If you want diagnostic clarity for work, university, or self-understanding, an assessment may be helpful. If you primarily want support with overcoming burnout, relationships, identity, or emotional regulation, therapy may be the right starting point. We can discuss this together in your initial session.
-
Therapy length varies depending on your goals. Some clients work short term around a specific issue, others engage in longer-term work around identity and burnout recovery. Assessments typically occur over several sessions and include a comprehensive feedback session and written report.
Ready for a safe space to finally make sense of your patterns?
You do not have to keep pushing through alone.
If you’re a twice exceptional woman (or wondering if you might be) who is tired of feeling misunderstood, burnt out, or secretly struggling despite your capability, we’re here to help.
You can:
Book an initial therapy session online
Enquire about an ADHD or autism assessment
Book a free intro call to ask questions and learn more
We offer in-person sessions in Paddington in Sydney’s East and telehealth across Australia.
When you get in touch, you’ll receive straightforward information about how we work and what the next steps could look like based on your goals.
This is a space where your strengths are taken seriously and your struggles are not dismissed.
A safe space to ask questions and learn more about yourself.