Therapy

When the life that held you together no longer holds

Burnout does not always arrive dramatically. Sometimes it begins with exhaustion that rest does not resolve. Ordinary demands become harder. Sensory input feels unbearable. Words, focus, motivation, and everyday skills become less available.

You may feel as though you are losing yourself. In reality, the strategies that helped you survive may no longer be sustainable.
You are not failing.

Your nervous system may be asking for a different way of living.

The woman beneath the competence

Many of the women I support have spent years adapting, caregiving, achieving, monitoring themselves, managing other people’s feelings, and overriding their own needs.

Self-abandonment rarely looks like betrayal at first. It can look like being responsible, flexible, understanding, forgiving, or easy to be with. It may even be praised as strength.

Eventually, the body begins to register the cost.

Therapy offers a place to understand what you have been carrying—and what you may be ready to put down.

Therapy that includes your body

Insight matters, but understanding a pattern does not always change it.

Change begins when that understanding reaches the body: when you notice yourself bracing, withdrawing, going numb, becoming restless, or reaching the edge of your capacity.

My approach is neurodiversity-affirming, trauma-informed, relational, and body-centred. Together, we may explore:

• Burnout

• Masking and chronic over-functioning

• Sensory and emotional overwhelm

• Identity following a late neurodivergent diagnosis

• Trauma, attachment, and family patterns

• Boundaries and self-abandonment

• Grief, chronic pain, and life transitions

• Relationships that require too much of you

• Sustainable ways of living and working

  This is not about making you better at enduring a life that costs too much. It is about helping you understand yourself, honour your capacity, and include your body in the decisions shaping your life.

I understand this path personally

I’m Angela Slade, MA, RCC, CMHIMP—a Registered Clinical Counsellor with more than 20 years of experience.

My own late diagnosis of ADHD and autism changed how I understood my history, my nervous system, and the effort I had spent trying to become understandable.

I had believed I needed to work harder at being human. My diagnosis helped me recognize that I was never broken. I was adapting.

That lived understanding now deepens my clinical work. I offer a collaborative space where you do not have to mask, perform wellness, justify your needs, or move faster than your system can safely manage.

From adapting to becoming

The goal is not to create a perfected or permanently regulated version of you.

It is to help you:

• Recognize the patterns beneath your exhaustion

• Understand your sensory and nervous system needs

• Reduce demands that repeatedly exceed your capacity

• Reconnect with your emotions, body, and identity

• Practise boundaries without abandoning yourself

• Build a life that no longer depends on your disappearance

  You do not have to become someone new.

  You are learning to recover the woman beneath the competence, caregiving, masking, and roles—and allow her to become present in her own life.

Online counselling across British Columbia

Secure virtual sessions are available for women throughout British Columbia, with daytime appointments available.

Individual sessions are $185. Receipts are provided for eligible insurance plans. Direct billing may be available for CVAP, WorkSafeBC, and ICBC.

Begin with what your life is showing you now

You do not need to force change or make a dramatic decision.

You can begin by becoming curious about what your exhaustion, emotions, and body have been trying to communicate.

If something in your life is beginning to open, I welcome you to reach out when you feel ready.

It may be revealing the way home.