about renata

Hi, I'm Renata.

I'm a creativity coach for late-diagnosed neurodivergent (Autistic, ADHD, AuDHD) women who got the diagnosis but still feel lost.

You probably thought that finally finding a name for your experience would help. And maybe it did, for a minute. But then the strategies stopped working. The willpower was short-lived. You started looking inward trying to figure out who you actually are underneath all the coping, and you couldn’t find much. Just a version of you assembled from other people’s preferences and expectations. 

That's not a personal failure. That’s exactly what masking and unmasking looks like. 

I'm AuDHD myself, self-diagnosed in my early thirties. At the time I had a college degree, a ten-year career as a graphic designer, and a life that looked like it worked. After my diagnosis, I started to see more clearly the many ways I had been trying to keep that life going. And I realized this wasn’t sustainable long term.

In fact, I’m still in the middle of this process. Not quite on the other side of it yet. And that informs everything about how I work, because I’m not teaching from a place of having figured it out. I'm working alongside you asking the same kinds of questions.

I use expressive art-making not just because it’s fun and creative, but because when you do it in a conscious and guided way, you can access parts of yourself that words can't reach. Discoveries and insights surface in an organic and gentle way that simply don’t come up when someone asks you directly. Small clues and puzzle pieces to the bigger picture of who you are. 

My background is in visual art and design. I have a BA in Studio Art and spent over a decade doing creative work professionally. I've also completed training in therapeutic art facilitation with art therapist Youhjung (Thirsty for Art) and the Healing Art Facilitator Training with Katie Goodling (Inner Peace Art Studio). Beyond that, much of what I know about neurodivergence, CPTSD, and AuDHD specifically comes from years of research, reading, and my own lived experience. 

This work isn’t about making something beautiful or being productive. This is about slowing down enough to notice what’s true and already happening inside you, maybe for the first time. 

You don’t need previous art experience. You can start exactly where you are. 

— Renata