Tending Paths - Katy Higgins Lee, MFT

10/09/2025

October 10th is World Mental Health Day. I'm for it. And I believe that without adequate attention to helping people meet basic needs and to be recognized as equal human beings - no amount of 'mental health' treatment is going to stem natural, normal responses to oppressive systems.

I've been a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor for 25 years, and I've seen client after client experience a lifetime of gaslighting by privileged people telling them to find ways to be "well-adjusted" to oppressive, broken systems. For so many people, 'mental health' ought to be met with curiosity, compassion, community, and adequate resources. Instead it's diagnoses and drugs. It's calls for compliance rather than aiding in liberation.

So today - let's celebrate everyone who struggles with their mental health and everyone who works to help. Let's also recognize that if we want mental health, we'll need enough healthy food, water, shelter, community, health care, respect, care, and full human rights.

10/06/2025

I’ve been taking a break from posting for more than a month, but this trend caused such a visceral reaction in me that I had to say something.

Video description: Katy, a middle-aged white woman with brown medium-length hair and clear-framed glasses, speaks directly to the camera.

10/03/2025

For the first time in quite a while, I have space for a couple of new therapy clients!

(I’ve had a waitlist for a number of years, but I have made my way through the list and still have some space!)

I work with individual adults and couples, with a focus on neurodiversity-affirming therapy.

I’m only able to work with clients who are in California, but can do either telehealth or in-person in my office in downtown Santa Rosa.

My work is influenced by the Neurodiversity Movement and Neurodiversity Paradigm, The Theory of Positive Disintegration, Neuroqueer Theory, Brainspotting, Somatic/Movement Therapies, Mindfulness, Ecotherapy, Expressive Arts, Trauma Theory, Anti-Racism, Attachment Theory, and Mythology.

Check out my website site for more info. (Link in comments.)

10/03/2025

Free event with Andrew Reichart, AMFT.

FREE ONLINE EVENT: One hour Q&A on how to view the world through a Neurodiversity-affirming lens, and what this means for people & society.

10/02/2025

AuDHD Parent + PDA Child = A Beautiful, Exhausting Dance 🧠💙

You understand your child's need for control because you feel it too. You see their overwhelm because you live it daily. You recognise their masking because you've perfected the art yourself.

Being an AuDHD parent to a PDA child means you're fluent in the same language, but that doesn't make it easier. Sometimes it makes it harder.

The beautiful parts:
• You truly GET why demands feel threatening
• You can spot their overwhelm before anyone else
• Your sensory needs align, you both need the calm space
• You understand stimming, special interests, and the need for routine
• Your empathy runs deep because you've been there

The exhausting parts:
• Their meltdown triggers your own nervous system
• You're masking your own needs to support theirs
• Executive function struggles meet executive function struggles
• Your ADHD brain forgets the PDA strategies when you're dysregulated
• You're advocating for them while your own needs go unmet

The guilt:
"I should be better at this because I'm neurodivergent too."
"Why can't I regulate when they need me most?"
"Am I passing on my struggles to them?"

The truth:
You're not failing. You're two beautifully wired nervous systems trying to find safety together. Some days you'll be the regulated one. Some days they will be. That's the dance.

The glimmers:
• You see their authentic self, not their behaviours
• You know accommodation isn't "giving in"
• You model that neurodivergent is not broken
• You're raising them to embrace their differences

You're exactly the parent they need. Perfectly imperfect and wonderfully wired. 🌼

09/21/2025

Most gifted or multi-exceptional clients don’t arrive in therapy confused about why they’re struggling.

They’ve already mapped the terrain. They’ve connected the dots. They’ve read the books. Listened to the podcasts. Sat with the spirals.
They’re not lacking insight. They’re drowning in it.

What they need is something else entirely.
✨ A somatic anchor — for nervous systems running on overdrive
✨ An existential container — for meaning-making and grief
✨ A relational mirror — to unlearn being “too much”
✨ A creative space — for the parts that don’t speak in words
✨ A flexible rhythm — that spirals with them, not against them

Giftedness often intersects with trauma and other forms of neurodivergence. That means healing isn’t linear. It’s layered. And therapy must stretch to hold that complexity — not flatten it to fit the model.

🌿 Let’s move beyond the one-size-fits-all framework. Because for some of us, insight isn’t the beginning. It’s the bind.

📖 Read the full blog: Link in bio.

09/10/2025

09/05/2025

We reward “social skills” like they’re the key to belonging.
👀 Eye contact.
💬 Small talk.
🤝 Group work.
But here’s the truth:
“Social skills” are not neutral.
They’re shaped by neuronormativity — a blueprint designed around dominant norms.
It tells us that fluent = friendly.
That verbal = valid.
That quiet = disconnected.
And when systems believe that —
they start designing people out of belonging.
🚫 Neurodivergent communication is called a “deficit.”
🚫 Non-verbal connection is dismissed as absence.
🚫 Scripting or pacing is labelled as “wrong.”
But connection doesn’t require conformity.
✨ Belonging doesn’t come from eye contact or tone of voice.
It comes from being understood — without having to translate yourself to fit.
Let’s stop asking:
“Can they improve their social skills?”
Let’s start asking:
“How do our systems respond to difference — with curiosity or correction?”

09/04/2025

We see this all the time in schools.

People are doing the same drills they've been doing since their students were in kindergarten and now they're in 10th grade.

They have the same IEP goals.

They're still working on the same basic tasks.

Don't we want to ask the question, WHY?

How would you feel if at the age of 5 and the age of 15 you were working on the same thing?

Is it really that you don't know what you're doing or have you become so disenfranchised in this entire "educational" process that you've just stopped caring?

This is a theme among the things our students share. So much so that this post and our next will both address it.

Gordy tells us, "Imagine spending every day from age 5 to 21 looking at clocks, coins, and colors. Are you bored enough to riot? Are you defeated enough to unravel your shorts and eat them? I’ve been there and it sucks. If I could change just one thing about education before I die, it would be the idea that nonspeaking people can’t handle real academics. Do better."

Let's make this the year we actually follow through and do better. Want an easy place to get started? Check out this info on our Accessible Academics course - a super affordable, lifetime access, self-paced course designed to help parents or educators learn easy ways to make real academic content accessible to their learners who don't speak and may be communicating just by making choices.

We've helped more than 300 folks get started with this course. Let us help you, too.

https://www.reacheveryvoice.org/accessible-academics-course