I’m here today with Kelsea Newman, a sensory trauma occupational therapist and ADHDer herself, who advocates for sensory-friendly lifestyles for neurodivergents and all sensitive souls.
As a fellow ADHDer and a highly-sensitive person, I am just fascinated with how the world of neurodivergence, trauma and high sensitivity intersect. It can sometimes feel a bit muddled, especially for someone who's not in the field and an expert in these areas so I'm so curious how you feel that sensory processing impacts you as a ADHDer? And how are those things separate and one in the same?
Sensory Processing and ADHD
Kelsea: Yeah, definitely. When I first learned about sensory processing, sensory therapy and specifically sensory processing disorder, I feel like it made my life and ADHD diagnosis make even more sense.
What I love about it in particular is it explains all of our different kinds of ADHD symptoms and neurodivergent experiences like impulsivity, difficulty focusing, stemming (like playing with our hair)- all of those different things.
It gives you the why behind all of those different ADHD or neurodivergent symptoms.
My symptoms are impulsivity and hyperactivity- and sensory processing has given me this sense as to why it's looking like this.
Melissa: I'm so interested in how you feel about high sensitivity and sensory sensitivities in general. Is that always an element of the ADHD profile or is that just sometimes a characteristic?
High Sensitivity and Neurodivergence
Kelsea: That is such a good question, and it is always. From the sensory processing perspective, it is always a characteristic for neurodivergents in general- no matter where you fall on that sensitive nervous system spectrum.
Having sensitive senses is the one common denominator between all of the different kinds of neurodivergent diagnoses.
Melissa: I love that you're clarifying this because I feel like it's a conversation I've had many times because some people identify as highly sensitive and are neurotypical.
But then I feel like I don't know if I've ever met a neurodivergent person who doesn't also identify as having a highly sensitive nervous system. So just to hear you clarify, that is a part of it is great.
So, how do you start to pull apart? Because I feel like so many times people who are neurodivergent also experience complex trauma.
Do you agree with that? Just moving through the world differently you can define complex trauma? For listeners, I think of it as events that have taken place over time rather than one isolated event. Is that how you would describe it as well?
Kelsea: Exactly. And I think that from the sensory perspective as well, we're born with these highly sensitive senses.
We feel things deeply, not just emotionally, but our senses literally feel things on this more intense level.
Neurotypical trauma vs. Neurodivergent trauma
Let's say, a neurotypical person feels things at a level 10 compared to us with highly sensitive senses and highly sensitive nervous systems. We are born and go through life at level 100. A lot of times I felt very confused growing up from that because I felt like I had experienced so much trauma and I just felt so extremely traumatized.
But based on the neurotypical definition of trauma, I wasn't that traumatized, even though my body was saying differently, even though I was feeling differently. And again, because we feel things so deeply, our spectrum of what trauma is much broader than it is for a neurotypical person, and includes sensory trauma and includes more broad when it comes to emotional trauma.
And so that's one thing that I am a huge advocate for is spreading that word because it's very valid. Just being able to validate others’ experiences and understanding that they are not alone in that. And that it is true, that we are much more traumatized than we realize too.
Melissa: I relate to this so much because I felt the same way growing up. Like, I don't have the big “T” trauma that neurotypicals might be like, Oh no, you're fine. Nothing happened to you. But then I'm like: why do I feel like I'm carrying so much trauma in my body?
Because I am highly sensitive. I am neurodivergent. I was moving through the world in this way that I think, and maybe you can speak to this too, but there's these little T's that register in our body. And as neurodivergent people, oftentimes we're a bit gaslit by the outside world and even ourselves around like, “Oh, no, that shouldn't be a big deal.”
So, then we think if that isn't a big deal, something must be wrong with me that I'm having these feelings or this reaction. Do you see that?
Kelsea: And even that on its own, that experience is traumatizing. Just going that alone and being gaslit by society as well. And constantly being like, “Okay, well I'm not that bad. I should just suck it up.”
It leads to us developing, more limiting beliefs and keeps that trauma caught in our nervous systems and in our body.
Melissa: Absolutely. So how would you define trauma? I'm curious your definition.
Defining and validating the Neurodivergent trauma experience
Kelsea: My definition of trauma is anything that makes someone feel unsafe. So that can include a lot of different, experiences than is defined by society's definition of trauma.
Trauma can be any time you embarrass yourself. It can be any time that you experience sensory overload. Any time that you felt uncomfortable.
The list of what trauma is really can't be defined into specific events.
Because, especially for those of us who are neurodivergent and who feel things deeply, it can encompass everything.
And it's going to look completely different from one person to another. So anything essentially that makes us feel unsafe, putting us into a fight or flight response, which I know for a lot of us who are neurodivergent, this happens to us frequently.
So just going to validate this further. That the amount of trauma our nervous systems go through is a lot. Whenever I talk about this I always share:
How strong and resilient our nervous systems are and how strong we are. The fact that we go through immense amounts of trauma in our nervous system and our nervous system keeps on fighting. I just think that neurodivergents are really the most resilient people out there.
Melissa: I so agree with you. And I'm hearing you say: other people can't define what trauma is because it's how we experience it. And if we're more sensitive, perhaps than a neurotypical might be in the same environment, they may not experience it as unsafe or register it as a traumatic event.
But for us, I agree with that. Whether being called on in class and not knowing the answer or whatever we might have internalized differently than the person next to us- we can't label what is or isn't trauma for others. It's how the person feels in response to what happened.
What exactly is causing trauma?
Something that interests me and I'm really curious about your perspective on is this chicken or the egg:
Having a highly sensitive nervous system and experiencing trauma, are we more likely to experience trauma in our worlds because of our sensitive nervous system? And therefore we accumulate more trauma in our bodies? Or is it the flip of that? What’s causing what? Or is it both?
Kelsea: It's both. Working with kids, I see all the time, the experience of a traumatic event or experiencing multiple traumatic events can cause them to acquire a sensitive nervous system from trauma.
The opposite of that would be, being born with a sensitive nervous system and then putting us at a greater risk for experiencing more trauma, not just because we have more sensory trauma and we feel things deeply, but also it even puts us at more risk for being more impulsive or having more emotional regulation challenges.
I know for me, I would attribute a lot of those Big T + small T traumas that I've experienced to my impulsivity. That impulsivity put me into more dangerous situations, especially as a child and teenager.
Melissa: I always find that so interesting because it does feel like when you're in more traumatic environments, you also become a bit more hypervigilant, right? You learn to scan that environment and the masking and conforming as a form of safety, just develops, but it's intertwined.
Kelsea: Exactly.
Whenever you experience trauma and go into that fight-flight-freeze-fawn state and become more hyper-vigilant, it really does physically change your senses.
I think it's interesting because we think of PTSD as being all psychological and emotional, but there are so many of these, physical changes that happen as well.
Sensory Overload vs. Burnout
Melissa: What is the difference between sensory overload and nervous system burnout? How would you differentiate those two things?
Kelsea: So sensory overload is more so those moments when you have a lot of sensory input coming in and you're feeling that fight, flight, freeze, fawn just creeping up. And for a lot of us, we live in that chronic fight, fight, freeze, fawn state- so a lot of us have this baseline.
I know for me, there'd be times when I have a lot of that flight energy, a lot of that freeze energy. And so take your baseline, and then whenever it is in an elevated range, that would be your sensory overload range.
Some people will say that it is whenever you go into fight, flight, freeze, fawn and then they're like, “Well, I'm always kind of in fight, flight, free, fawn.”
So you're experiencing sensory overload whenever you're at that elevated baseline level. And because of this more intense level, nervous system burnout is incredibly common for us neurodivergents too.
Nervous system burnout is over a long period of time, whereas sensory overloads are those moments when you're at that elevated baseline.
Finding the root cause begins with a sensory evaluation
Melissa: Do you feel like, in your work, there's so much overlap in all of this? Like, what is causing what? I always want to get to the root of what's causing the thing so that I can actually solve it and support it. But I feel like it can be confusing because complex trauma can present with the shutdown, the dissociation, the anxiety, all of these things that can also look like ADHD symptoms.
So what's the difference between ADHD paralysis and suppressed emotions from complex trauma because when we're exhibiting outwardly, it might look the same?
How do you work through that to give your body what it needs?
Kelsea: My favorite place to start is a sensory evaluation or a sensory trauma evaluation. For a lot of us, when we experience fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or experience trauma, we think about more of the psychological impact. We don't think about the physical impact. And what I love about sensory therapy is that it helps you look and figure out what is that physical impact. Where are these kinds of traffic jams occurring in our nervous system?
Pinpointing where those specific kinds of sensory traffic jams are occurring in a sensory evaluation can be a good place to get that more clear picture of exactly what is happening.
Our brain loves organization. Which is why I like the sensory evaluation, especially sensory trauma evaluation, so I can find out what's happening and organize it. It can take away that overwhelming feeling to be like, “Okay, this is happening.”
Then you can create a game plan.
Because what it all comes down to is suppressed emotion getting trapped in our bodies and in our nervous system. And it's leading to those physical symptoms and physical experiences as well.
Melissa: If we're trying to get back into our bodies to ultimately regulate and support our nervous system through these experiences, is it more of a mind thing that we need to define the root and put it into these boxes? Is it necessary?
Or is the result of the sensory trauma evaluation more about how to get into your body and release these things through somatic training, and it doesn't matter where it's coming from?
Kelsea: Yes. We all have these sensory needs in order to help regulate our nervous system- no matter the specific why.
So learning how to meet your specific sensory needs and learning what your personalized unique sensory needs are, ultimately is what helps you be more regulated.
Creating a sensory lifestyle
Melissa: You talk a lot about creating a sensory lifestyle. What is that? What does that look like for someone who's a parent?
I see a lot with kids, when they jump on you or they want their sensory swing. I feel like they intuitively know I need this to regulate myself.
But as adults, we don't necessarily have that. It's not as socially appropriate to have those outlets. Do you have things you do? What do you do to meet the deep pressure?
Kelsea: You'll see kids will naturally seek out deep pressure in lots of different ways - kind of running and crashing into things. You'll even see just kids leaning on things, or fidgeting with things. We forget that when we are born, we're in the womb, and we're surrounded by all of this deep depression. As a baby, we're kind of given all of the sea pressure and this touch, and that's such an important part.
But then as we get older, we think we don't need deep pressure as much, but the reality is especially if you're neurodivergent, we are not getting nearly enough deep pressure as we need so we suppress that feeling.
I have a free deep-pressure library that I can also share with you if anybody's interested. Because I don't want it to feel like an extra task, an extra thing to add on a to-do list.
Because it feels good, like a hug or massage. It's one of those things that you just get addicted to, kind of like this weighted pillow- it’s so calming.
The more you can get that deep pressure, whether it's acupressure mats, compression clothes, deep pressure fidgets. One of my favorite fidgets of all time is just a stress ball. I remember those used to be so popular back in the day and now they're kind of making a comeback again.
Melissa: It’s so amazing how our bodies intuitively know what we need. And yet as adults, we get a bit conditioned to ignore those needs.
I have your same weighted pillow. When I'm working, I like to have my computer on top of me, or I love to hug a pillow, it’s so calming to me. This makes so much sense. My body needs this deep pressure to regulate. It's a support that my body knows, and my mind just hadn't attached the reasoning behind it.
Kelsea: It's so interesting once you start looking closely at the things that you're doing throughout the day, whether it's cracking your knuckles, skin picking, rubbing your feet back together, or getting into those very contorted kinds of sitting positions where you're cutting off your circulation.
Why would you do that? My body's craving that deep pressure that is regulating, it helps the blood flow. Again, this helps to process all that sensory input coming in.
Melissa: I've always wondered why I like to sit like a pretzel, even right now my legs are twisted together as much as possible.
That is the most comfortable for me- this is validating actually. And a reminder of how much we can trust what our bodies are telling us and what we need.
Everyday sensory strategies
Melissa: So I'm curious, as a neurodivergent, highly sensitive person with complex trauma, How do you support yourself in your day? Do you have go-tos in your life that you feel really help ground you and keep you feeling safe in your body?
Kelsea: I think addressing the emotional and the psychological side is just as important as addressing the physical side as well. So, I love somatic therapy for that approach because it does include the body as well. And that's the physical component.
Breathwork and guided meditation
Tools that I love to use personally, are breathwork and guided meditation. When I was in college, my therapist recommended I join a mindfulness meditation class. I remember sitting there in a group with other college students and trying to meditate and it being the hardest thing, even just to sit up straight.
I couldn't even get to the meditating part because I was like, this is so uncomfortable. I don't have the postural strength to even just sit here- let alone calm my thoughts.
But I realized guided meditation is more neurodivergent friendly.
Melissa: I do a lot of this as well. The overwhelmed feeling of racing thoughts and the ideas and the impulsivity- that noise is very dysregulating.
So I love guided meditation too. I don't know as much about somatic therapies but I'm so intrigued and I feel like from what I'm learning, it's such a great avenue to access the trauma at a body level, as opposed to talk therapy.
Somatic therapy
Kelsea: Somatic therapy is really like a realm under the sensory therapy umbrella. Somatic is all about our inner reception sense.
Fun fact, when we think of our senses, we think of our five big senses, but we have way more senses than that.
Interoception, vestibular, & proprioceptive senses
There are three that are the most important: our interoception sense, our vestibular sense, and our proprioceptive sense. I talked about deep pressure. That's related to our proprioceptive sense.
Our interoception sense is all about our internal body awareness. A lot of us can feel very out of touch with our body, out of touch with those internal sensations in our body.
Somatic therapy helps us better communicate with our internal sensations in our body.
And when we improve that communication it forms a relationship, where we can help our internal senses feel safer and calmer, which is what our nervous system craves more than anything: safety.
Melissa: I just recently, shared on Substack how I'm having this disconnect between my mind and my body. Like my mind knows these things that I should no longer be doing, right? Like stopping the perfectionist tendencies and the negative thought loops, but yet I'm trying to connect my mind to my body.
I'm like, what is the disconnect? And so what I’m hearing you say with somatic therapy and interoception is that's the connector, right?
Kelsea: Yeah. 100%. That was a beautiful way to put it. That's exactly what it is - it's a powerful therapy that helps you work through your trauma.
For a lot of us, we think that whenever we experience trauma, that it happens and then leaves our body. We don't realize it's getting trapped and stuck in our body.
What I love about somatic therapy is it allows us, and gives us tools, to release all of that trauma from our bodies. It's incorporating that emotional part, the psychological part, but also that physical part of literally that physical release of trauma from our body.
Melissa: This is amazing. I'm so grateful to have this information. Kelsea. Talk therapy is great, but there's a level it doesn't hit from my experience. Have you experienced that?
Traditional Therapy vs. Validation Therapy
Kelsea: I think talk therapy is great, and a wonderful tool. And I think that neurotypical people might not need that body-mind connection as much as we do.
But I think that, especially for us neurodivergents, our goal is to get our nervous system running more smoothly which actually allows us to be more regulated.
So many of us are living in dysregulated nervous systems where we don't feel safe. Which leads us to developing these core limiting beliefs, whether it is feelings of hopelessness, or that there's so much pressure always, or feelings of shame.
Validation therapy is remembering and reminding ourselves to validate our experiences, validate what we are going through, give ourselves the love that we deserve, the empathy that we deserve, the compassion that we deserve. Any kind of validation therapy is what is really the most important.
Then I recommend the sensory trauma evaluation so you can get to know your specific sensory needs.
I like to explain that, for those of us who are neurodivergent, once we have the information- it's really about incorporating it into our lifestyle.
I know that these are my specific sensory needs. And now I know that throughout my life I'm going to want to include that in my sensory lifestyle.
Something that I’m passionate about because, working in schools I see all of these highly sensitive kids, and it brings me back to my experience growing up.
Seeing how society is not always the most sensory friendly and how a lot of experiences, being highly sensitive growing up, are so invalidating.
So going back to that huge need that we deserve way more self-compassion, way more self-empathy, because we’re living as highly sensitives in a very sensory overloaded world that doesn't understand neurodivergence.
Melissa: I relate to you because I was also that kid in the classroom who felt very overwhelmed by my environment and it was very dysregulating because I didn't feel safe, I wasn't receptive to learning, and the ADHD was very distracting.
It was the perfect environment to accumulate lots of complex trauma because it didn't feel safe in so many ways. And so I just love everything that you're speaking to because I can imagine for future generations of kids. If we can get this information into the hands of parents and educators and set up our homes and our classrooms in a more sensory-friendly way, where people understand one another's sensory profiles, how amazing would that be to normalize and create these environments?
It's not stigmatized that you need something different.
It's just more open to having options available that are safer for different types of wiring and different levels of sensitivity.
I'm so appreciative of what you're doing and the work you're doing. I don't see very many people bringing these conversations together in one.
And that's why I immediately was like, I have to talk to Kelsea because it's so cool. We've got these different components that are, that are at play here. And just the way that you're breaking down to better understand and support other people- I am so grateful for what you're doing.
Validating neurodivergent trauma and creating a sensory friendly lifestyle with Kelsea Newman