Transparency About Marketing as a Neurodivergent Therapist
This may feel like a random topic for a therapy practice, because I’m going to be talking about my marketing process, but I promise you that I have a point. It may be a meandering point with lots of side journeys, but a point nevertheless.
I have a love/hate relationship with marketing:
I love that if we’re truly looking at marketing from a relationship perspective, it is simply the process of making yourself known to the people who would benefit from your services or products. It’s not about convincing people who wouldn’t benefit, because that doesn’t do anything for either party. Marketing is about making a connection with potential customers or clients who don’t yet know that your business exists.
I hate how it feels fake. It feels like I’m trying to put on a show to convince you of something. As I’m leaning into my neurodivergence so that I can truly respect my limits and strengths and needs, this is where I keep running into walls by trying to do things the “right way.”
I don’t want to do things the “right way” anymore. It doesn’t get me closer to my goals and it forces me to do things that I don’t want to do or that don’t feel aligned with my personality or values.
The cover of my magazine project from Junior year of High School.
Okay, stick with me here as we wander towards the point I promised. I’ve been thinking about this because I love writing blogs. I’ve always been into writing, even though I’ve been told it’s not a strength of mine. I’ve journaled since at least 1998. I (poorly) wrote Hey Arnold and Sailor Moon fanfiction throughout 6th and 7th grade. As a junior in high school, I had an assignment to create either a magazine or a newspaper regarding a specific topic. I chose to create a magazine that was a crossover between anime and psychology: I wrote article after article about Sailor Moon, Ranma ½, Schizophrenia, and Anorexia Nervosa. I created quizzes (like in Seventeen Magazine) and provided reviews of online journals. I wrote “a letter from the editor.” I was absolutely committed to that assignment.
From 2020 to 2021, I was writing for this blog pretty consistently. I enjoyed the writing process, but didn’t invest my time into editing because 1) I hate editing and 2) it felt like nobody was reading anyway. But then something happened and I just stopped writing, for the blog at least. I think I got overwhelmed with the other writing/business copy programs I’d joined that I started to avoid blogging altogether.
Back to marketing—because a therapy practice is a business, I need to do marketing in some way.
It’s the only way I can work with people that would benefit from me when they don’t know I exist. For a good portion of my life, I did really well with being invisible, but that’s not really an option anymore. I hate having to network: it drains my social battery and I can’t seem to balance between too much and too little—when I commit to something, I really commit. I also struggle with social media because the amount of energy it takes to engage, and the continuous need to create content completely drains me. Social media is where I like to go to rot my brain cells, not necessarily to educate the masses.
At the same time, I do love to educate. If you ask me about something, I’ll go on a whole spiel. I will tell you everything that I know on the topic and will ask questions to see if there is anything else that is relevant. I know that my clients, the associates I supervise, and my previous students have all experienced my info dumping, because it’s exciting to share my knowledge. The thing is, it’s really hard to have that kind of relationship in the online-content-creating sphere when you don’t have a following. Coming up with content on the spot makes my mind go blank—just an empty space or a hamster spinning on a wheel. Plus, my sensitive soul doesn’t have the space for trolls who feel threatened or don’t align with my content who give me a hard time. Do I block and then feel bad about silencing someone with an opinion? Do I give people the benefit of the doubt and use it as an opportunity to educate? Do I ignore it? It’s all too much mental work and no matter what I do, I definitely ruffle feathers.
Now, instead of trying to create content based on what the internet wants, I pretend I’m back in high school, when I was writing simply because I wanted to write. Now I write to document my thoughts, feelings, and ideas. This feels very unaligned with how a therapist “should” be. After all, we’re taught to not self-disclose unless it’s in the best interest of the client. Yes, I fully agree that a client coming to therapy should not need to take care of their therapist. That’s just exacerbating a problem at the expense of the client. But as I’m continuing to self-reflect, thinking about my life experiences, my joys and pains, I realized that there have not been many individuals—mentors, teachers, friends’ parents—who were able to truly guide me through life, as I was riding the intense waves of my feelings, trying to understand my quirkiness and build a protective wall to both honor myself and shield me from a very judgmental world. Nor did I have individuals who talked about the struggles of focus when all you want to do is literally everything and anything but then get overwhelmed with the to-do list. I joke, but I’m also serious: I’m shocked that I made it this far in my education because I did forget to sign up for the SAT and I also avoided filling out the application for my license to be a LMFT.
If sharing my experiences can help someone feel a little less alone or help them feel a little bit more comfortable reaching out to me (or another therapist that can understand their experience), then that’s awesome.
I’m 3rd generation, of Mexican descent. I’m neurodivergent (ADHD and I suspect autistic). I’ve struggled with hopelessness, despair, and being othered. I’ve also experienced intense joy, hope, and ambition. I want the nuanced experiences of those who do not fall under what’s considered “normal” to be spoken into existence. I know my voice isn’t the only voice out there, but I want to throw my hat into the ring to show another variation of the human existence.
The point of this post? In “marketing” myself, I want you to know who you’re working with (if you’re seeking therapy), and I want to provide insights, ideas, and different perspectives based on my experiences (personal and professional).
Marketing doesn’t have to just be slick commercials or internet “content” that we all know is trying to sell us something. Putting myself out there is my genuine way of engaging with the world while also doing the job of reaching the people I can help with my business as a therapist, and I’m fulfilling my own needs to share my knowledge and experience at the same time.