Unlock Your Potential: A Trauma-Informed Guide to ADHD Support with Access to Work

Have you ever felt that you were struggling against a battle that is not seen in the workplace? Where starting a task is like taking a bath in cement, or a coolly sarcastic remark in the office rings in your ears all day, ruining your whole concentration?

You have ADHD, so you realize that this is not a matter of being slightly distractible. It is an inexorable, and often tiresome, bargain with your own brain, in a place which was not designed to accommodate it. And when you bring with you the baggage of earlier trauma, either of missed deadlines and social misinterpretations in your life, or of earlier life events, then, daily negotiation is a struggle over your own sense of safety and value.

But what could you do, should you make of that struggle? Imagine being able to enter not only the accommodations, but also a vast feeling of ability and serenity.

It has everything to do with an effective, government-sponsored program known as Access to Work, and a nurturing attitude that transcends the normal coaching service to find a permanent solution to your problems. As the director of Creating Change and the recent, proud recipient of the “SME awards Best ADHD Clinical Services Provider South West,” I specialise in guiding neurodivergent professionals on this transformative journey from merely surviving to authentically thriving.

The Unseen Battle: Understanding the ADHD Brain in a Demanding World

The only way to see how a trauma-informed approach is powerful is by knowing how complex the ADHD experience is. It is not a personality defect; it is a neurological distinction.

Manager of the Brain: Executive Function.

Consider the executive of your brain to be an air traffic system. This control tower is handling more traffic volumes and with periodic power outages and interruptions in the ADHD brain. This can manifest as:

• Time Blindness: This refers to the failure to perceive time properly and time is passing, and so saying to just manage your time better is the most unhelpful advice ever. One hour would be like a minute, and a deadline tomorrow would seem a psychological mile away until the last minute, when it would seem to be at the tip of your nose.

• Task Initiation & Activation: The neurological engine that starts the engine may be difficult to boot. It is not laziness but a real struggle to overcome the sense between desire and action, and this is usually aggravated by the fear of doing it.

• Emotional Dysregulation: Emotions may be strong, too much, and easily aroused. A win is blissful, and a loss or even what you feel like is being criticized can be devastating and affect your whole day.

• The Shadow in the Corner: How Trauma and Dysregulation of the Nervous System Enhance ADHD.

Here is the point where standard ADHD therapy fails. As is the case with a number of bright and capable adults with ADHD, immigration to trauma rests in the background, making all the challenges worse.

The Shadow in the Corner: How Trauma and Nervous System Dysregulation Compound ADHD

Here is the point where standard ADHD therapy fails. As is the case with a number of bright and capable adults with ADHD, immigration to trauma rests in the background, making all the challenges worse.

What is "Trauma" in This Context?

We are not referring to the great trauma, one event trauma. To neurodivergents, trauma may be accrued in the past- a thousand cuts of paper of shame, lack of understanding, and failure. It is the instructor who labeled you as lazy, the manager who told you that you are not living to your potential, the social gap that you are revisiting all night, the overall sense that you are out of step with the world.

Your Body Keeps the Score: The role of the Nervous System

Your nervous system is your natural anti-surveillance system, which is created to ensure your security. It becomes activated when it feels threatened, e.g., when the deadline is breaking or when spoken to in a threatening voice. In a hypersensitive state, constantly in a fight, flight, or freeze position, this system is frequently hypersensitized, especially when a person has had a history of trauma.

• Fight: Pertinaciousness, impatience with coworkers, and always feeling out of place.

• Flight: Incessant activity, delays by engaging in other activities, abandoning stressful events.

• Freeze: This is the nightmare of awful paralysis when you cannot think or move, and you just stare at the screen for hours and hours.

No productivity app, no planner in the world, can help you when your nervous system is out of control. You are alive physiologically, not productive psychologically.

A Lifeline for Growth: Demystifying the Access to Work Scheme

It is at this point that hope is made viable. Access to Work is a government grant offered by the UK that is aimed at removing such barriers. It is not an advantage; it is an investment in your professional potential and the success of your employer.

Who is Eligible?

You will most likely be eligible in case you have a disability or long-term health condition (including ADHD) that affects your performance at work. It is meant to offer more than the reasonable adjustments to the level that your employer must offer.

What Can It Fund?

The scope is very wide and can be determined according to your needs:

• Specialist Assistance: This covers mental health assistance, like the integrated ADHD and trauma-informed coaching and therapy that I offer.

• Specialized devices: Noise-cancelling headphones, specific software to set an organisation (such as MindManager or Sonocent), or even standing desks.

• Travel to Work Support: In case anxiety or sensory overload makes it hard to get to work, support can be offered.

• Job Aids & Support Workers: To assist with certain activities that you are struggling with.

The problem with most is the application process itself, which is to express needs that can be comprehended and accepted. This is where the advice of a specialist comes in.

My Award-Winning, Integrated Methodology: Healing the Root, Not Just the Symptom

Winning the award for “Best ADHD Clinical Services Provider South West” was a testament to the power of this integrated approach. We do not merely bandage up the symptoms, but assist you to heal the wounds beneath, that the natural resources of your nature may be raised.

Let me break down the pillars of our work together:

1. The Integral Eye Movement Therapy (IEMT): Rewriting the Emotional Code

This is a potent transitional modality, which I apply as an Advanced IEMT Practitioner in order to eliminate the residual impact of traumatic events. How does it work?

• It Bypasses the Story: You do not have to go through painful experiences and retell them in detail, as in the case of traditional therapy. The IEMT operates directly with emotion and identity patterns of emotion.

• It digests the "Charge: That sick sensation in your gut that you experience when you remember a failure or criticism in your past. The physical sensation is dissolved with the help of IEMT, and the memory is left in its place, without its debilitating power.

• Practical Application: We can specifically address certain memories at the workplace that were triggered by events such as freezing during a presentation, the rude comments that destroyed your self-esteem, etc., and within a couple of minutes, we can make it neutral or even less intense, release the mental energy into the present.

2. Nervous System Regulation: Building Your Internal Anchor

A physiological state cannot be thought out of. Thus, we will offer useful, somatic (body-based) techniques to help you control your nervous system in real time.

• Sensory Grounding: Easy exercises to perform when you are feeling overwhelmed at a meeting or at your desk to bring your mind back to the present and get out of panic.

• Breathwork & Polyvagal Theory: Practice of consciously changing the parasympathetic mode of your nervous system by using your breath to come out of a state of panic (sympathetic) to safety (parasympathetic).

• Developing Window of Tolerance: We slowly increase your stress and emotion management ability to avoid fighting, fleeing, and freezing, and ensure you remain more resilient to the everyday stresses of work.

3. Trauma-Informed Coaching & NLP: Repatterning Your Mind

In a trauma-informed approach, we re-code the software that runs your life with the use of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

• Reframing Limiting Beliefs: We change our thoughts about ourselves to include I am fundamentally broken into My brain is uniquely wired and has incredible strengths. We reform "I am so disorganised" to a dynamic, associative type of thinking, which has to have a tailor-made organisation system.

• Future Pacing & Anchoring: This is a mental rehearsal of success, where you install a sense of calmness and confidence, which you are able to call on prior to an important speech or tough conversation.

• Trauma-Informed Principles: We are grounded in safety, collaboration, transparency, and empowerment. That you are the one who knows what it is like to be you, and I am the one who presents the mechanism and structure.

A Powerful Complementary Modality: Exploring Challenges Through Metaphor

As part of my mission of delivering the most comprehensive and efficient tools to my clients, I always work with and refer to other global professionals. A notable example of such a person is Dale Turnbull, a Metaphors of Movement Trainer and Coach.

The issues and blocks that we encounter in business and life are not merely logical but tend to be symbolic and reside in the narratives and metaphors that we carry about unconsciously. The work by Dale is revolutionary in that it lets you analyze your problems, such as feeling stuck, hitting a wall, or being stuck in a rut, without having to think about them as abstract notions, and instead perceive them as concrete sceneries that you can walk in and transform by modifying them internally.

Dale is a person that I have collaborated with, and his work is something that is astonishing. The changes that my clients experience following the sessions with him are incredible, and that is why I am actively promoting the idea of all of them to seize his inimitable offer.

I'm personally booked onto his next session, I love the way he works so much.

Now you may have it, at no cost to you. Dale is inviting people to explore a real business or personal challenge through metaphor.  Such sessions are filmed on his YouTube channel so that other people can also learn about the process. The chance to experience a deep mode of modality freely is a rarity.

👉 [Apply to take part in a FREE Metaphors of Movement session with Dale Turnbull.] Apply to take part

Apply To Take Part in Dales' Metaphor of Movements

What does this truly integrated support look like in your day-to-day work life?

Scenario 1: Taming the Email Beast and Starting Daunting Tasks

• The Old Way: You open your inbox, look, and have more than 100 emails, and then you feel this rush of panic (activation of the nervous system), and your first response is to open your browser and start surfing the internet to avoid the emotional state (flight response). The shame builds.

• The New Way: You feel the sense of being overwhelmed coming up. You adopt a 30-second breathing method to manage your system. Then you use a systematic protocol of BRAIN that we have created: Batch, Respond, Archive, Incubate, Next-action. You apply an IEMT-based method to dissolve that wall of awfulness that surrounds a particular project in you, and it makes initiation smooth and smooth.

Scenario 2: Navigating Difficult Conversations and Feedback

• The Old Way: You are constructively criticized by your manager. Your Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) lashes, you experience a hot flash of embarrassment (fight/flight), you are either defensive or go numb (freeze). The rest of your day is ruined.

• The New Way: You have worked on the nervous system to develop a sense of resilience. You re-framed feedback as data, not destiny, using NLP. By the time the criticism hits you, you have the first pang, yet your system of control enables you to be present. You are able to ask clarifying questions, develop a solution together, and walk out of the meeting not defeated.

Your Journey with Us: A Step-by-Step Partnership

Embarking on this path with me is a structured, supportive partnership designed for your success.

1. The Discovery Connection: We start with a deep-dive evaluation, 90 minutes. It is not a checklist, but a joint journey of discovering your strengths, weaknesses, work atmosphere, and family background. We recognize the particular trends that are stalling you out.

2. The Co-Created Blueprint: We construct a powerful, individualised Support Plan. This document is powerful. It can be clearly and clinically stated what you are seeking, what kind of intervention I am going to offer to you (IEMT, Nervous System Regulation, NLP Coaching), and what results can be expected. This is what will form the basis of your Access to Work application.

3. Seamless Application Advocacy: I offer professional advice and documentation for your Access to Work application. I assist you in conveying your needs in such a manner that will fit perfectly well with the scheme requirements, which will, to some extent, boost your case to the maximum approval probability, as far as it is concerned.

4. Implementation, Integration Empowerment: After approval, we start our work of transformation. We have an interactive mix of reprocessing the hurdles of the past, placing the new resources, and formulating viable strategies. It is not passive therapy; it is an active, collaborative growth and skill-building process.

5. Constant Improvement and expertise: Because you will evolve, and your needs will be different. We keep on improving your plans, so that they are up to date. The idea is to make you become internal with these tools so that you are your own greatest contributor of support, even after you and I have completed our work.

Why Settling for Standard Support Can Cost You Your Potential

The generic ADHD coaching or mentoring in the workplace offers a one-size-fits-all group of procedures. In case you had some trauma in your past, these strategies do not usually work, as they do not take into consideration the physiological and emotional hindrances that undermine your best intentions.

What is different about our approach to the integrated, clinical approach is that we recognize a basic truth: You cannot think yourself out of a state of survival. Through the trauma reparation and the management of the nervous system, we establish the inner security that these cognitive strategies have always needed to be implemented, with ultimately the ultimate effect that they will be integrated effectively and successfully.

Take the First Step Toward a Work Life You Love

You have already demonstrated so much strength and endurance as you have been able to navigate a world that was not meant for you. It is time to make an investment in a working style that is.

You are supposed to feel confident, relaxed, and cherished as the wonderful, creative, and passionate professional that you are. It is not your fate to go through a cycle of stress, shame, and struggle. Access to Work gives the structure, and our integrated approach, which is award-winning, gives the map and the roadmap.

Don't just get by. Don't just cope. It is now time to unleash this deep potential lying buried under the surface.

Your professional life starts with one conversation towards a controllable, self-assured, and successful life. Get in touch with m,e and today have a discovery call with confidentiality. We shall talk about how we can use the Access to Work scheme to forge a career that not only takes your energy but also makes you run.

Deep-Dive FAQ Section

Q: I've had CBT and traditional therapy for my anxiety. How is this different?

A: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a great form of therapy that can be used to challenge and transform negative thought patterns. Nonetheless, trauma and nervous system dysregulation reside within the body and are usually below the consciousness level. Our therapy incorporates the cognitive (including NLP and coaching), the somatic (including work with the nervous system), and the emotional (including the use of IEMT) to provide a solution to the problem at all levels.

Q: How many sessions will I need, and will Access to Work cover them?

A: The number of sessions will be different in several ways based on your personal goals and history. Certain clients experience notable changes within 6-8 sessions, whereas others have long-term support. Access to Work is normally used to fund a set of sessions that can be reinstated. My discovery call will help me provide you with a more personalised estimate, and I will also provide you with all the documentation required for your application.

Q: My ADHD is diagnosed, but I'm not sure I have "trauma." Is this still for me?

A: Absolutely. The word trauma may be very daunting. A lot of my clients do not necessarily identify with it. We tend to operate in what I refer to as the small-t trauma- the cumulative stress, shame, and the sense of overwhelmingness in a lifetime of attempting to fit a square peg in a round hole. In case you experience very intense emotional responses to stress factors in the workplace that you consider to be disproportionate or when you are often stuck, then this work is meant to suit you.

Q: Can you help me communicate my needs to my employer?

A: Yes, and this is one of the main aspects of our work. We are able to create easy, professional, and efficient communication plans and scripts. I would also be able to suggest the way to frame your needs in a collaborative manner in terms of your strengths and the value that you bring to the team, and this usually results in a more favorable response from the management.

Laura Horn, winner of “SME Awards Best ADHD Clinical Services Provider South West” https://smenews.digital/?s=creating%20change%20iemt