CURRENTLY ENROLLING!
ONLINE THERAPY GROUP FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS
Unmasked: An Online ADHD Process Group for Women
Unpacking Identity, Shame, and Connection
Many women are being diagnosed with ADHD later in life and beginning to understand how deeply it may have shaped their mental health, relationships, energy, identity, and sense of belonging.
Unmasked is a 12-week online therapy group for women and nonbinary adults with ADHD who want space to talk honestly about the parts of the experience that often go unseen: masking, burnout, relationship strain, emotional intensity, shame, and the grief of realizing how long you went without the language or support you needed.
This is not a productivity-hack group. It is a place to understand your experience in the company of people who may recognize it from the inside.
Mondays beginning September 14, 2026
6:30–7:45 PM | Online throughout California
$70 per session | Maximum of 8 participants
WHERE
Secure telehealth
Open to all California residents
SCHEDULE
Mondays, 6:30–7:45 PM
12 weekly sessions
PARTICIPANTS
Women and nonbinary adults, 18+
Maximum of 8 members
INVESTMENT
$70 per session
Full-series commitment
ADHD goes beyond executive function
Conversations about ADHD often focus on time management, organization, routines, and getting more done. Those challenges are real, but they are only part of the experience.
ADHD can also influence how you understand yourself, how you respond to disappointment, how much effort you spend compensating, and how safe you feel allowing other people to see you struggle. It can affect work, friendship, intimacy, household responsibilities, emotional regulation, creativity, rest, and belonging.
For many women, receiving an ADHD diagnosis later in life can bring relief and recognition alongside grief. Experiences once interpreted as laziness, inconsistency, oversensitivity, irresponsibility, or failure may begin to make sense in a new way. At the same time, it can be painful to recognize how long you blamed yourself for difficulties that deserved greater understanding and support.
Unmasked offers room for both: the relief of finally having language and the complexity of reinterpreting your life through a different lens.
Why a process group?
You may already know a great deal about ADHD. You may have read the books, followed the accounts, tried the planners, downloaded the apps, and developed elaborate systems for keeping your life moving.
Knowing more does not always resolve the shame, loneliness, or relational pain underneath the symptoms.
A process group offers something different. Rather than only learning about ADHD, members have opportunities to explore what it is like to live with it in real time and in relationship with others.
You might notice that you apologize before speaking, worry that your story is taking too long, lose your train of thought and feel embarrassed, compare yourself to another member, assume someone is annoyed, or try to appear more composed than you feel.
These moments are not interruptions to the group. They can become meaningful opportunities to understand familiar patterns with greater curiosity and less judgment.
The group is intended to offer a place where you do not have to continually translate, defend, or minimize your experience.
What we will explore
ADHD identity and late-diagnosis grief
Receiving an ADHD diagnosis later in life can change how you understand your history. We will make room for relief, anger, sadness, recognition, and the complicated process of revisiting earlier experiences with new information.
Shame and the stories you learned about yourself
Many adults with ADHD have internalized words such as lazy, careless, inconsistent, irresponsible, dramatic, or too much. The group will explore how those messages became part of your identity and what it may mean to loosen their hold.
Masking and performance fatigue
Masking can look like overpreparing, perfectionism, people-pleasing, hiding confusion, working twice as hard, or appearing calm while privately overwhelmed. We will discuss both the protection masking can offer and its long-term emotional cost.
Time, avoidance, and productivity guilt
Time blindness, procrastination, urgency, task paralysis, and unfinished projects can create repeated cycles of pressure and self-criticism. The focus will not be on forcing yourself into greater efficiency, but on understanding the experience beneath the cycle.
Hyperfocus, intensity, and burnout
ADHD can include extraordinary creativity, passion, curiosity, and the capacity to become deeply absorbed. It can also bring all-or-nothing engagement, overextension, difficulty stopping, and the crash that follows.
Rejection sensitivity and belonging
We will explore the experience of anticipating criticism, interpreting ambiguity as rejection, fearing that you are too much, and longing to feel accepted without needing to perform or disappear.
ADHD in relationships
ADHD can influence memory, follow-through, household labor, conflict, defensiveness, intimacy, and the feeling of being understood or managed. All of this understandably impacts relationships. The group will offer space to explore these patterns without reducing anyone to a list of symptoms.
Emotional intensity and overwhelm
Members may discuss irritability, anger, flooding, sensory overload, shame after reactivity, and the difference between taking accountability and condemning yourself.
Work, competence, and over-functioning
ADHD may coexist with high achievement, chronic underestimation, burnout, impulsivity, professional masking, or a persistent fear of being exposed as less capable than others believe.
Integration and self-understanding
As the group comes to a close, members will reflect on what they understand differently, what they are ready to stop apologizing for, and what they hope to carry forward.
What to expect each week
Each 75-minute session will include four parts.
Brief ADHD-informed psychoeducation
Daria will introduce an accessible framework related to the week’s theme. This portion is intended to support reflection rather than turn the group into a lecture or class.
Facilitated group processing
Members will have time to discuss their experiences, respond to one another, and explore patterns that arise both outside and within the group.
Real conversation
You will not need to present a polished version of your experience or explain why something is difficult. Tangents, forgotten words, emotional intensity, and the need for clarification can all be approached with care rather than embarrassment.
Integration and reflection
Each session will close with time to gather what felt meaningful and notice what you would like to carry with you into the week.
This group may be a good fit for you if...
You may feel drawn to Unmasked if you:
- Were diagnosed with ADHD later in life or are still making sense of what the diagnosis means
- Have spent years masking, compensating, overpreparing, or trying to appear more organized than you feel
- Understand ADHD intellectually but continue to carry shame about its impact
- Feel exhausted by cycles of hyperfocus, overextension, and burnout
- Struggle with emotional intensity, rejection sensitivity, or relationship strain
- Have often felt simultaneously “too much” and “not enough”
- Want something deeper than productivity advice or executive-function coaching
- Would value being in a group where others may recognize your experience without extensive explanation
No one needs to have identical symptoms or life circumstances. The group will make room for the many ways ADHD can appear across adulthood.
Who is the group for?
Unmasked is designed for:
Women and nonbinary adults with ADHD who feel comfortable participating in a women-centered group.
Participants must:
- Be at least 18 years old
- Be physically located in California during every session
- Have sufficient privacy to participate through telehealth
- Be able to commit to the full 12-week series
- Complete a brief consultation before joining
You may decide during screening whether a formal ADHD diagnosis is required. If it is not, I would use:
A formal diagnosis is not required, although participants should strongly identify with the lived experience of ADHD and be interested in exploring it within a psychotherapy group.
What this group is not
Unmasked is a psychotherapy process group. It is not:
- ADHD coaching
- A productivity or organizational-skills class
- A diagnostic evaluation
- A drop-in support group
- A crisis service
- A replacement for individual therapy when more intensive or individualized support is needed
Members may still leave with useful language, insight, and ideas. The primary purpose, however, is emotional and relational exploration rather than symptom-management training.
Group details
Unmasked: An Online ADHD Process Group for Women
Dates: 12 consecutive Mondays beginning September 14, 2026
Time: 6:30–7:45 PM
Format: Secure online telehealth
Location: Participants must be physically located in California
Participants: Women and nonbinary adults with ADHD, ages 18+
Group size: Maximum of 8 members
Fee: $70 per session
Facilitator: Daria Kalimán, Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist
Because this is a small, closed process group, consistent attendance supports safety, trust, and cohesion. Participants are asked to commit to all 12 sessions and anticipate no more than two absences.
Complete our brief inquiry form, and Daria will contact you to answer questions and discuss whether the group may be a good fit.
MEET YOUR FACILITATOR
Led by Daria Kalimán
Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, AMFT #151840
Daria offers a warm, relational, trauma-focused, and collaborative approach to therapy. She is interested in the emotional experiences that are often hidden beneath outward functioning, including shame, perfectionism, identity confusion, relationship strain, and the exhaustion of trying to keep up.
Her approach integrates attachment-based therapy, narrative exploration, parts work, somatic awareness, and neurodivergent-affirming care. Rather than treating ADHD as a collection of deficits to overcome, Daria helps clients become curious about the ways they have adapted, the meanings they have carried, and the forms of support that allow them to feel more fully known.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a formal ADHD diagnosis to join?
A formal diagnosis [is/is not] required. The group is intended for adults who strongly identify with the lived experience of ADHD and want to explore its emotional, relational, and identity-based impact. Daria will discuss fit during the initial consultation.
Is this an ADHD skills group?
No. The group will include brief ADHD-informed psychoeducation, but it is not primarily focused on organization, productivity, time management, or executive-function techniques. The emphasis is on group processing, self-understanding, relationships, shame, identity, and connection.
Is this group only for people who were diagnosed later in life?
No. Late-diagnosis grief will be one of the themes explored, but adults diagnosed earlier in life may also be a good fit. What matters most is an interest in examining how ADHD has shaped your identity, emotional life, and relationships.
What happens in a process group?
A process group gives members space to talk about their experiences and notice how familiar relational or emotional patterns arise in the group itself. Daria will help members reflect, respond to one another, and explore moments of connection, discomfort, misunderstanding, comparison, or recognition.
Will I be expected to speak during every session?
Members are expected to participate, but participation does not mean speaking for an equal amount of time every week or sharing before you feel ready. Daria will help create a balance between respecting each person’s pace and supporting meaningful engagement.
Is the group confidential?
Members will be asked to agree not to share identifying information or personal stories disclosed by other participants. As with any therapy group, confidentiality among members cannot be guaranteed in the same way it can be in individual therapy, and this limitation will be reviewed before the group begins.
Can I attend from outside California?
No. Because this is a psychotherapy group led under a California registration, members must be physically located in California during each session.
Is this a drop-in group?
No. Unmasked is a closed 12-week group. The same members will meet throughout the series so the group can develop familiarity, trust, and continuity.
What is the attendance policy?
Consistent attendance is important in a small process group. Participants are asked to commit to the full 12 weeks and anticipate no more than two absences. Additional attendance and financial policies will be reviewed during the consultation and included in the group agreement.
How do I join?
Complete the group inquiry form to request a brief consultation with Daria. You will have an opportunity to ask questions, share what draws you to the group, and determine whether the format may be supportive for you.
You do not need more "shoulds" floating in your mind
You may need a place to understand how hard you have been working, how much you have been carrying, and what changes when your experience is met with recognition and compassion rather than judgment.
Unmasked offers a space to talk honestly, feel less alone, and begin relating to your ADHD identity with greater empathy.
SCHEDULE A CALL
If you’re interested in scheduling a 15-minute screening call to enroll in the group or being listed on my referral sheet for notification about upcoming groups launching throughout the year.
LINKS
