Dating on High Alert

Send us Fan Mail What really happens when you start ADHD medication? In this episode of Dating on High Alert, Ilja Abbattista shares her honest personal experience of being diagnosed with ADHD in her 50s and starting stimulant medication for the first time. From the fear of losing her creativity to experiencing a quiet mind for the first time in her life, Ilja explores the reality of titration, si...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever told someone everything about your past, only to watch them pull away? Maybe you've called it honesty, or you've called it vulnerability. Maybe you've convinced yourself that if they're going to leave, you'd rather know now. But what if sharing your deepest wounds too early isn't connection? What if it's self-protection? In this epi...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you read a message, mean to reply… and then completely forget? And what happens when someone does the same thing to you? In this episode of Dating on High Alert , we’re talking about unread messages, forgotten plans, RSD spirals, ADHD, autism, AuDHD, avoidance, and the painful gap between intention and impact. Because sometimes one person is distracted - and the...

Send us Fan Mail You Can’t Love Well From a False Map | Dating on High Alert with Ilja Abbattista What happens when the information you’ve used to understand yourself was never built for the full picture? A major new study has found that over half of ADHD and autism content online is inaccurate or misleading - and honestly, I think a lot of people can already feel that. Because so many people are...

Send us Fan Mail What if the intensity you’re feeling… isn’t connection? In this episode of Dating on High Alert , we’re looking at something that doesn’t get talked about anywhere near enough - the way ambiguity, inconsistency, and mixed signals can feel like chemistry. Especially for ADHD and AuDHD brains, where dopamine is driven by uncertainty, not stability. Ambiguity can be particularly acti...

Send us Fan Mail Your Body Already Knew. Your Mind Just Didn’t Want to Know. Have you ever had a feeling about someone that you kept explaining away? It wasn't because you were naïve, or because you “missed the signs.” But because the connection felt stronger than the warning your body was giving you. In this episode of Dating on High Alert, Ilja Abbattista explores the difference between gut...

Send us Fan Mail You don’t keep choosing the same person. It just feels like you do. Different face. Same pattern. Different relationship. Same ending. Different version of you… somehow still stuck in the same place. And at some point, you start asking the question that quietly eats away at everything: What am I doing wrong? This episode answers that. Directly. Because the problem was never you… I...

Send us Fan Mail Why are you late… even when you care? In this episode, we’re talking about ADHD, autism, and time blindness, and why AuDHD brains experience time completely differently. This is not an episode about excuses or apologies.  It’s an explanation. Because when you understand what’s actually happening, everything changes. We’re unpacking the reality of the now and not now brain, where t...

Send us Fan Mail In the final part of the masking trilogy, Ilja goes somewhere she has never gone publicly before. This episode isn’t theory, it’s truth. The difference between the self-criticism you can hear…  and the kind that lives in silence. The core belief formed before language, the one that doesn’t show up as a thought, but as a feeling. A reality. A quiet, persistent sense that something...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever been told you’re too sensitive, too alert, or overreacting … this episode is going to land. In Part Two of the masking series, Ilja Abbattista goes deeper into what’s actually powering the mask,  hyper-vigilance . Not the clinical definition.  Not the pathologised version.  But what it really feels like inside a body that has lived through trauma, while also navigat...

Send us Fan Mail 💬 Need support with this right now? If this episode brought something up for you, you don’t have to sit with it alone. Dear Ilja is real-time voice note support, for when you’re spiralling, overthinking, or just need someone who actually gets it. No pressure. No long-term commitment. Just grounded, honest support, when you need it most. 👉 Start here: https://iljaabbattista.co.uk...

Send us Fan Mail What if being “too sensitive” isn’t a flaw… but a nervous system that learned to pay attention? In this episode, Ilja explores what it means to feel everything deeply, the overwhelm, the misunderstanding, and the strength that can come from emotional depth. For many neurodivergent and trauma-experienced people, empathy isn’t just understanding someone’s pain. It’s feeling it in yo...

Send us Fan Mail Why does something small feel so devastating? A delayed reply.  That shift in tone.   A cancelled plan. And suddenly your whole body reacts. In this episode of Dating on High Alert , I’m talking about rejection sensitivity, not as a buzzword, but as a lived nervous system experience. Because for many AuDHD women, especially those with trauma histories, rejection doesn’t land light...

Send us Fan Mail There was a relationship in my life that felt electric. Not chaotic.  Not obviously toxic.  But ambiguous. And that ambiguity felt like chemistry. In this episode of Dating on High Alert , I’m unpacking something we don’t talk about enough: How uncertainty creates dopamine.  How dopamine intensifies attachment.   And why trauma-shaped nervous systems can mistake activation for con...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I’m talking about impulsive spending, but not in the way it’s usually framed. This isn’t about budgeting tips or learning to “just say no.” It’s about the nervous system. The hyper-focus.  The urgency.   The moment your brain becomes completely convinced that something is necessary, not optional. And what happens afterwards. The shame.  The self-talk.   The intern...

Send us Fan Mail Why do some of us only seem able to start when the pressure is unbearable? In this episode, I’m talking honestly about last-minute living, not as a productivity problem, but as a nervous system response . If you’re ADHD, autistic, AuDHD, or living with trauma, deadlines don’t always motivate you. They can trigger freeze, avoidance, shutdown… followed by a last-minute surge of adre...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Dating on High Alert , Ilja explores masking through a trauma-informed lens, especially for people with ADHD, autism, and complex trauma. Rather than treating masking as something to “fix” or remove, this conversation reframes it as an intelligent survival response, often learned very early in life, before choice or language existed. Ilja speaks to why advice li...

Send us Fan Mail Shutdown doesn’t look dramatic.  It looks quiet. It looks like going flat.  Pulling back.  Not having the energy to explain.  Losing your appetite.  Staying in bed because your body won’t move, even when your mind wants to. In this episode, I talk about the part of the nervous system that doesn’t fight or scan, it freezes, withdraws, and conserves. Not because you don’t care… but...

Send us Fan Mail For a lot of neurodivergent people, especially those living with ADHD, autism and trauma, ambiguity doesn’t land as “nothing is happening yet.” It lands in the body. As activation. As tension. As a quiet fear that something might change… and you may not be ready for it. In this episode of Dating on High Alert , I explore why unclear signals, emotional distance, inconsistency, or “...

Send us Fan Mail For many of us with trauma and neurodivergence, telling the difference between intuition and hyper-vigilance isn’t simple. The body reacts before the mind can make sense of what’s happening, and what looks like “overthinking” from the outside often began as protection, not anxiety. In this episode, I explore how intuition feels in a regulated body, how hyper-vigilance shows up thr...

Send us Fan Mail This episode marks a quiet but important moment in Dating on High Alert . After sixteen episodes exploring dating, attachment, intensity, and patterns, I’m naming the lens that’s always been there, trauma. In this episode, I share why I was born neurodivergent but didn’t recognise ADHD and autism until later in life, how trauma shaped my nervous system long before I had language f...

Send us Fan Mail There’s a stage of dating that doesn’t get talked about enough. You’re not single.   You’re not secure.     And you don’t quite know where you stand. For many of us, especially neurodivergent, trauma-aware women, that uncertainty isn’t just emotional. It’s physical. We feel it in our bodies, and until we have some sense of orientation, our nervous system stays unsettled. In this e...

Send us Fan Mail Why does one plan hijack your whole day? Why can’t you start anything else? Why does a cancellation send you straight into freeze? In this episode, I break down the AuDHD nervous-system pattern of anticipation, mobilisation, and shutdown, through my own lived experience. We talk about: • why your body prepares hours before your mind  • why waiting feels like pressure or pain  • wh...

Send us Fan Mail This episode isn’t about a person. It’s about the feeling your nervous system learned to depend on, and how that same pattern shows up at the beginning of relationships, at the end of relationships, and in the way we hyper-focus on passions, projects and ideas. Inside this episode, we explore: why early connection can feel like oxygen why endings feel like withdrawal, even when yo...

Send us Fan Mail This is the episode women whisper about but never get to hear. Today, we’re talking openly about impulsive behaviour in neurodivergent women, the fast yeses, the risky sex, the quiet “no” we can’t say, the adrenaline-soaked moments, the times we travelled too soon, trusted too quickly, or ended up in situations we never planned but somehow found ourselves in. We go into:  • sexual...