Menopause as a Time of Growth, Strength, and Renewal

Menopause doesn’t have to be a time where everything feels like it’s falling apart. For many women, it can be a powerful invitation to pause, re-evaluate, and create a day-to-day life that finally aligns with their most authentic selves.

That version of you—the one who may have gotten lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, in motherhood, in climbing the career ladder, or in supporting a partner—deserves space to reemerge. Menopause can be a season of growth, opportunity, joy, health, strength, empowerment, and so much more.

And if you’re also living with ADHD, these shifts can feel even more intense. Hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause can magnify ADHD symptoms like brain fog, emotional sensitivity, and memory lapses. But with the right tools and vision, this season can also become a time of clarity and empowerment.

Why Menopause Can Be an Empowering Time

This stage of life can also be deeply introspective. It’s a chance to reflect and get clear on who you are today and what matters most to you moving forward. It’s an opportunity to let go of what no longer serves you and intentionally create space for what does.

As the years go by, many women forget to check in with themselves. We get so focused on external responsibilities that we rarely stop to ask: What do I really want for myself? What do I need most in this season of life?

Menopause—and especially menopause with ADHD—can be the perfect time to return to these fundamental questions.

What Is a Menopause Vision Statement?

One way to do this is by creating a Menopause Vision Statement.

A vision statement is a simple but powerful way to get clear on your values and goals during menopause. It becomes your north star—a personal guide to help you navigate changes, make decisions, and focus your energy on what truly matters.

Your Menopause Vision Statement is unique to you. Some examples might look like this:

• “In my life, thriving during menopause means getting to compete in triathlons, play with my grandkids, and enjoy a variety of foods with the people I love.”
• “Thriving during menopause means spending as much time as possible with my family, tending to my beautiful garden, and being strong enough to do a push-up.”
• “If I’m thriving during menopause, then I feel alive and joyful; I spend my time hiking outside with my friends; I practice gratitude to nourish my body and soul; and I make sure to prioritize sleep and protein for my health and fitness.”

This kind of vision does more than just reframe menopause as positive—it also helps you and your coach build a personalized plan that supports thriving.

How the Vision Statement Shapes Coaching

Let’s take the example Vision Statement:
“Thriving during menopause means getting to compete in triathlons, play with my grandkids, and enjoy a variety of foods with the people I love.”

With this in mind, your coaching program might include:

• Eating balanced meals that fuel training without unnecessary restrictions.
• Prioritizing endurance workouts with some strength training to support muscle and bone health.
• Building sleep strategies to ensure energy for both training and playing with grandchildren.

For women with ADHD, coaching may also involve skill-building to strengthen time management, reduce anxiety, and find new systems when old ones stop working. This can mean externalizing memory, reframing rest as fuel, and practicing emotional regulation tools that align with your vision.

Using Your Vision to Make Choices

The Menopause Vision Statement can also help you evaluate daily behaviors. For example, let’s say you wonder if cutting back on alcohol would help.

Through the lens of your Vision Statement, the decision becomes clearer:

• If training and staying energized matter most, you might cut back because alcohol leaves you tired and less active.
• If a thriving social life is more aligned with your vision, then enjoying wine tastings and dinners with loved ones might stay a priority, and you may choose to adjust elsewhere.

There’s no “right” or “wrong” choice—just the one that aligns best with your vision.

Menopause, ADHD, and the Power of New Tools

When you approach menopause with ADHD, the changes can feel disorienting. Old tools may stop working, and anxiety often increases as routines unravel. But this doesn’t mean you’ve failed—it means it’s time to build new supports that work with your new brain and body.

Skill-building strategies might include:

• Externalizing memory with planners and reminders
• Breaking tasks into smaller steps to reduce overwhelm
• Developing time management systems that fit this stage of life
• Exploring whether ADHD medication, HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), or a combination might help reduce symptoms
• Practicing anxiety reduction through grounding, journaling, or therapy

These strategies aren’t just “nice to haves”—they are survival tools that create resilience and relief.

A New Chapter of Empowerment

When you approach menopause this way, it becomes more than a phase to endure—it becomes a chapter of empowerment. A time to rediscover yourself, honor your values, and create systems that help you thrive with strength, joy, and clarity.

✨ Ready to create your Menopause Vision Statement? Work with Victoria Prisco—Licensed Therapist, ADHD Specialist, and Menopause Coach—to uncover what thriving in this season looks like for you. Together, we’ll design strategies to help you move through menopause with purpose, balance, and confidence.

📅 Book a session today: levelupwellnesshub.com

vprisco@gmail.com

See Full Bio

ADHD and Perimenopause: Why You Might Feel Like You’re “Losing Your Mind”

So many women share the same story:
“I feel like I’m falling apart. I’ve always managed, even if it was hard… but now I can’t keep it together.”

For women who were never diagnosed with ADHD, perimenopause or menopause often becomes the breaking point where the puzzle pieces finally click. Looking back, you may recognize signs were there all along—forgetfulness, restlessness, procrastination, big emotions—but you masked, coped, and pushed through.

Now, with hormones shifting, those old strategies stop working. Everything feels heavier.

The Hidden Cost of Hyper-Independence

• You don’t ask for help, even when you’re drowning—because needing support feels like failure.
• You constantly prove you can handle it—even when exhausted—fearing people might leave or respect you less if you don’t.
• You feel more shame when you rest than when you overwork, because you were always praised for pushing through—even when it broke you.
• You equate asking for support with being a burden. You’d rather struggle in silence than risk “putting on” someone else.
• You only feel safe when you’re fully in control, because letting go feels too vulnerable, too dangerous.

Hyper-independence often looks like a personality trait. But for many neurodivergent women, it’s a survival pattern—one that gets praised but quietly burns you out.

Why ADHD Feels Different in Perimenopause

Stimulants alone often don’t fix it, because this isn’t just ADHD anymore. During perimenopause and menopause, hormones that play a major role in brain function—especially estrogen and progesterone—fluctuate and decline.

• Estrogen regulates dopamine and serotonin, the brain chemicals tied to attention, motivation, and mood. When estrogen drops, dopamine signaling weakens, which intensifies ADHD symptoms like distractibility, brain fog, and forgetfulness. Serotonin also dips, leading to mood swings, irritability, and anxiety.
• Progesterone has a calming effect on the nervous system, supporting emotional balance and stress regulation. Lower progesterone means you’re more likely to feel overstimulated and less able to recover from stress.
• Oxytocin, the bonding and connection hormone, also tends to decrease. This can lead to feelings of loneliness, disconnection, or rejection sensitivity.

When these hormones fluctuate or decline, your brain’s usual ADHD challenges get magnified. Tasks you used to “push through” suddenly feel impossible, and your emotional responses may feel bigger, faster, and harder to regulate.

Common Perimenopause + ADHD Symptoms

• Brain Fog → ↓ Estrogen (harder to focus, organize thoughts, or recall information)
• Mood Swings → ↓ Estrogen + ↓ Progesterone (sudden shifts from calm to anxious, sad, or irritable)
• Irritability / Anger Outbursts → ↓ Estrogen (shorter fuse, quicker to react)
• Reduced Stress Tolerance → ↓ Estrogen + ↓ Progesterone (little things feel overwhelming, harder to recover from setbacks)
• Memory Lapses (“Why did I walk into this room?” moments) → ↓ Estrogen (weaker short-term recall and working memory)
• Emotional Sensitivity → Estrogen Fluctuations (feeling easily hurt or reactive to small triggers)
• Crying Spells / Tearfulness → Estrogen Fluctuations (tears come quickly, often without clear reason)
• Increased Sensitivity to Rejection / Criticism → ↓ Estrogen + ↓ Progesterone (heightened rejection sensitivity, classic in ADHD, becomes even sharper)
• Feelings of Isolation or Loneliness → ↓ Estrogen + ↓ Oxytocin (reduced sense of connection, even with loved ones)
• Difficulty Making Decisions → ↓ Estrogen + ↓ Dopamine (harder to weigh options, more second-guessing, mental “stuckness”)

The combination of ADHD and perimenopausal hormone shifts can feel like your brain is working against you. It’s not that you’re failing—it’s that your brain chemistry has fundamentally changed.

What Helps Instead

When ADHD meets perimenopause, the old tools you relied on may not feel strong enough. This is where combining skill-building with hormone support makes a real difference.

1. Skill-Building for the ADHD Brain

• Use planners, reminders, and visual cues to externalize memory
• Break tasks into smaller steps to reduce overwhelm
• Reframe rest as brain fuel, not laziness
• Delegate responsibilities instead of carrying everything alone
• Practice grounding and journaling for emotional regulation

2. Hormone-Specific Supports

• HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy): Restoring estrogen and/or progesterone may reduce brain fog, mood swings, and sleep problems
• Estrogen-friendly nutrition: Flaxseed, soy, and chickpeas may support balance
• Exercise: Movement boosts dopamine and serotonin, offsetting dips
• Sleep hygiene: Protects memory, focus, and mood stability
• Stress reduction: Yoga, meditation, or walking lowers cortisol

3. Community & Connection

• Talk openly: silence fuels shame; connection reduces it
• Seek ADHD-informed therapy: find a provider who understands hormones + neurodivergence
• Peer support: remind yourself you’re not alone—this is a shared experience for many

✨ The bottom line: Perimenopause doesn’t erase your competence—it shines a light on how much you’ve been carrying. With hormone-aware strategies, support, and new skills, you can rebuild confidence and create systems that work for this version of your brain.

vprisco@gmail.com

See Full Bio

ADHD Time Management Strategies: Why Time Blindness Matters and What Actually Works

When most people think about ADHD time management, they imagine color-coded planners, cube timers, or productivity apps. But for ADHD brains, those tools often fail to solve the real issue. That’s because ADHD time management struggles aren’t just about the clock—they’re about time blindness.

What Is ADHD Time Blindness?

ADHD is neurological, meaning it impacts how the brain functions and perceives the world. One of the most overlooked aspects of ADHD is time blindness—the difficulty in accurately sensing or estimating time.

This difference explains why so many people with ADHD say:

• “It feels like this will take forever.”
• “I thought I had more time!”

Overestimating vs. Underestimating Time

Time blindness can show up in two big ways:

• Overestimating time:
  You believe a task will take two hours, so you avoid it because you don’t have two hours free. Later, you finally do it and realize it only took ten minutes.
• Underestimating time:
  You think you can get ready in 20 minutes, but it really takes 35. That makes you late, anxious, and scrambling—often forgetting things like your lunch on the way out the door.

These patterns aren’t about laziness. They’re about how ADHD brains process time differently.

Why Emotions Are at the Core of ADHD Time Management

For ADHD, the challenge isn’t just about minutes and hours. It’s about the emotions tied to tasks. Avoidance often comes from feelings such as:

• Anxiety
• Overwhelm
• Self-doubt
• Frustration

These feelings make a five-minute email feel like a two-hour mountain. Without strategies, the cycle repeats: procrastinate → panic → rush → shame.

ADHD Time Management Strategy: Timing Yourself

One of the most effective ADHD time management strategies is simple: time yourself.

By tracking how long tasks actually take, you create data your brain can trust. This helps you:

• See that a dreaded task only takes 10 minutes, not 2 hours.
• Realize that your morning routine consistently takes 35 minutes, not 20.
• Plan your day more realistically.
• Reduce the overwhelm that leads to avoidance.

Timing yourself bridges the gap between how long things feel like they’ll take and how long they actually take.

Building a Day That Works for ADHD Brains

Once you understand your personal timing, you can:

• Block off realistic chunks of your day.
• Reduce the stress of being late or unprepared.
• Build confidence by completing tasks without burnout.

This isn’t about “trying harder.” It’s about working with your brain instead of against it.

Moving Beyond Shame

If you’ve been telling yourself that you just need more discipline, you’re not giving yourself enough credit. ADHD isn’t about effort. It’s about learning tools that are designed for the way your brain processes time and emotions.

Learn ADHD Strategies with Victoria

I specialize in helping people move past frustration and build ADHD time management strategies that actually work. Together, we’ll create systems that support your focus, reduce overwhelm, and help you feel more in control of your time.

🌐 Ready to get started? Visit levelupwellnesshub.com to meet with me and learn ADHD-friendly strategies that help you thrive.

vprisco@gmail.com

See Full Bio

Minecraft Therapy: Helping Kids With ADHD and Autism Build Social Skills While They Play

Why In-the-Moment Social Skills Coaching Works Best for Kids With ADHD and Autism

When children with ADHD or Autism struggle socially, traditional approaches often ask them to reflect after the fact: “How do you think that went?” or “What could you have done differently?” While reflection has value, many kids find it hard to connect those after-the-moment discussions to the heat of real situations. By the time they’re being asked to “process,” the feelings and context are gone.

For neurodivergent kids, the most meaningful growth happens in the moment—while the challenge is unfolding, when emotions are fresh, and when there’s a real opportunity to try a different skill right away.

Why In-the-Moment Learning Matters

• Brains Learn by Doing
  Kids with ADHD and Autism often thrive with hands-on, real-time coaching. Waiting until later to review a situation can feel abstract, but trying a new strategy while they’re actually upset, impulsive, or excited makes the skill stick.
• Emotional Regulation Is Hard to Recreate
  It’s nearly impossible to “rehearse” frustration or impulsivity outside of the moment. Supporting kids while they’re navigating those emotions gives them direct experience with calming down, re-focusing, and trying again.
• Builds Confidence and Success Right Away
  Instead of replaying mistakes later, children get to experience success in the moment—whether that’s pausing before acting, listening to a peer, or adjusting their idea to fit with the group’s. That success reinforces future positive choices.

How Minecraft Social Skills Groups Make This Possible

From the outside, my Minecraft Social Skills Group may look like simple play. In reality, it’s carefully structured to create natural opportunities for coaching, flexible thinking, and peer connection:

• Following Directions and Asking Questions
  Kids learn to listen and follow instructions for using tools—similar to a school setting where they need to stay calm, listen carefully, and ask for help without a meltdown.
• Moving Away From Isolative Play
  Instead of getting lost in their own world, children are encouraged to interact, build together, and problem-solve side by side.
• Practicing Flexible Thinking
  Maybe they want to build a castle, but the group decides on a bridge. In that moment, I guide them through compromise, teamwork, and collaborative play.
• Reeling in Impulsivity
  When a child is about to act without thinking—breaking another player’s build or rushing ahead—I step in right then, helping them pause, reflect, and choose a different action.
• Friendship in Real Time
  As kids learn to communicate, share, and negotiate, friendships form naturally. These are not hypothetical scenarios—they are lived experiences that carry into the classroom and home.

The Big Picture

Social skills are not learned from worksheets or lectures; they’re learned by living them out, with support, in real time. For kids with ADHD and Autism, the opportunity to practice flexible thinking, regulate emotions, and build connections while engaged in something they love—like Minecraft—makes the learning both powerful and lasting.

From the outside, it may look like just a game. But inside the world, every block placed, every compromise made, and every impulse paused is a step toward stronger skills, greater confidence, and more meaningful friendships.

Join the Fall 2025 Minecraft Social Skills Cohorts

If you’re interested in enrolling your child, Fall groups are now open for registration. Space is limited to 10 participants per group to make sure each child gets the right balance of guidance and peer connection.

Tuesday Cohort

• Dates: October 14 – December 30
• No group: Week of Thanksgiving or Christmas
• Times: 4:30 PM ET or 6:00 PM ET (55 minutes each)
• Sign up here: https://forms.gle/8CBecJjzDWw6PvDS9

Wednesday Cohort

• Dates: October 15 – December 17
• No group: Week of Thanksgiving
• Times: 4:30 PM ET or 6:00 PM ET (55 minutes each)
• Sign up here: https://forms.gle/PpvKuZCWhTdi4646A

vprisco@gmail.com

See Full Bio