Karise McNamee - Paths with Purpose

Karise McNamee - Paths with Purpose AuDHD Counselling Social Worker supporting ADHD & AuDHD women (burnout, shame, perimenopause, PMDD, hormones, health challenges). Book a session with me today.

I provide mental health counselling for women with:

- fertility grief and loss
- hormonal conditions such as PMDD, PMS or perimenopause
- challenges or mental health concerns related to ADHD, AuDHD and autism

I will provide you with a safe space to express your feelings and frustrations, and teach you strategies to navigate your changing emotions and behaviors, rather than trying to change who you are. I will work with you to help you to feel balanced, and better able to cope and communicate your needs, despite sometimes feeling lost, misunderstood, or out of control. My own lived experience with similar conditions means that I truly understand how this can impact so many areas of your life, and how exhausting it can be to put on a ‘happy face’ all the time. I offer flexible online sessions to women all across Australia, no matter where you live, or how you may be feeling. Because you deserve to feel heard and supported. I understand and I am here to help you. Still want to know a bit more about me? Here are some podcast episodes where I have been interviewed about my work and experience. https://youtu.be/IenbfgPK_yI

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6XvCsloRBvB90ezbFOHqv0?si=vm9S0o_-RxyHh7TjCsko_g

06/02/2026

Females may be just as likely to be autistic as males but boys are up to four times more likely to be diagnosed in childhood, according to research

06/02/2026

I’m heading back to uni in a few weeks to start my thesis and I thought I’d share some accommodations that have helped me in the past and that I’ll probably be asking for again.

Let’s be real though - the most important accommodation is an accessible process for requesting them.

Support shouldn’t require chasing specialists for reports and multiple appointments all the while we’re attending classes just to have our needs met.

Accessibility that requires forms, proof and multiple appointments isn’t accessibility, it’s another barrier.

04/02/2026

A politics graduate reflects on life being autistic and experiencing alexithymia and aphantasia.

31/01/2026

Research suggests that ADHD night owls should reset their internal clocks. Here’s how to fix circadian rhythm problems and achieve more restful sleep with ADHD from J.J. Sandra Kooij, M.D., Ph.D..
additu.de/never-sleeps

30/01/2026

Jean Hailes

30/01/2026

Our Youth Development Scholarships program provides $1,000 for study expenses like laptops, textbooks, or uniforms. It helps young people in social housing or out-of-home care achieve their education goals.

30/01/2026

The AASW welcomes and supports the statement submitted by the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), focused on ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls.

The statement highlights the role of social workers in:

• advocating for inclusive and equitable legal systems
• addressing structural barriers that perpetuate gender inequality
• supporting access to sexual and reproductive health and rights
• and promoting women’s land rights as essential to security, equality, food sovereignty and sustainable development.

Read it here: https://bit.ly/467Kx8U

It recognises the interconnected impacts of conflict, crisis, and climate change on women’s safety, wellbeing, and access to justice, and affirms the value of Indigenous knowledge and customary land tenure systems.

What are your thoughts on advancing gender equality and justice worldwide for women and girls?

28/01/2026

🌟 North Queensland ADHD Conference 2026

Connection. Clarity. Community.
This is more than a conference — it’s a movement for families, educators, and professionals who believe in celebrating neurodivergent strengths.

🗓️ Saturday, 28th February
📍 Pullman Reef Hotel Casino, Cairns
🕙 10 AM – 4 PM
🎤 Hosted by My Spirited Child
💬 Hear from leading voices
🧠 Explore practical tools
🌱 Leave feeling empowered
🎟️ Book now → https://www.myspiritedchild.com/upcoming-events/nqac-2026/

27/01/2026

*THIS CASTING CALL IS NOW CLOSED. Thank you to all applicants.*

26/01/2026

"You cannot breathe your way out of patriarchy. You cannot cold plunge your way out of structural oppression. You cannot meditate, journal, or yoga your way out of conditions that were designed to dysregulate you.

This is not to say that nervous system regulation tools aren't valuable. They are. I use them. I teach them. I believe in the body's capacity to settle, to find ground, to return to itself.

But when regulation tools are offered as the solution to chronic activation without naming the cause of that activation, they become a form of gaslighting. They locate the problem in your body rather than in the conditions your body is responding to.

The message becomes: if you're still anxious, you haven't tried hard enough. If you're still activated, you haven't found the right technique. If you're still struggling, the failure is yours.

But what if your nervous system isn't broken? What if it's accurate?

What if your chronic activation is a correct response to living in a world where your body has never been fully safe? Where your rights can be legislated away? Where your value has been tied to your appearance, your compliance, your ability to serve? Where violence against women is endemic and normalized. Where the mental load is invisible and unpaid and never ending?

You're not dysregulated because you're doing something wrong. You're dysregulated because your body is reading the environment correctly.

This is the problem with nervous system work that doesn't include political analysis. It pathologizes accurate perception. It tells you to calm down when calm would actually be a form of denial. It trains you to regulate your way into tolerating conditions that should not be tolerated.

What if regulation isn't always the goal?

What if sometimes the goal is testimony?

What if your body's activation is not a problem to be solved but a truth to be witnessed? What if the shaking, the racing heart, the inability to settle is your body saying: this is not okay. This was never okay.

And I refuse to pretend it is.

There's a reason oppressed peoples have always used the body as a site of protest. The body that refuses to be calm is a body that refuses to comply. The body that stays activated is a body that is telling the truth about what it has survived.

I'm not saying don't regulate. I'm saying regulate with your eyes open. Know what you're regulating for. Notice if your regulation practice is helping you show up more fully for your life, or if it's helping you tolerate conditions you'd be better off changing or leaving.

There's a difference between settling your nervous system so you can be present and settling your nervous system so you can continue to be extracted from.

One is healing. The other is sophisticated dissociation.

Your body knows things. It knows what's safe and what isn't. It knows what's sustainable and what's depleting. It knows when you're in the wrong relationship, the wrong job, the wrong room.

The question is not how do I make my body stop reacting. The question is what is my body trying to tell me that I haven't been willing to hear.

Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is not calm down. Sometimes the most radical thing is to let your body speak. To let it be a witness. To refuse to regulate yourself into compliance with conditions that are slowly killing you.

Although you cannot breathe your way out of patriarchy, you can listen to the body that has been registering its impact all along."
—Ailey Jolie

Artwork by instagram.com/haisoohaisoohaisoo

24/01/2026

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women – yet most research is still focused on men.

For many women, risk increases after menopause. But right now, we are missing a critical opportunity to act early.

A groundbreaking international research project, spanning seven countries, is working to change that. With the Royal Women’s Hospital’s Professor Martha Hickey appointed as global co-lead, the study is exploring how heart disease risk shifts during and after menopause – and how we can prevent it before symptoms appear.

Backed by $15 million in funding from the Global Cardiovascular Research Funders Forum, researchers at the Women’s will help deliver new, women-specific evidence so health professionals can better protect heart health at the right time in a woman’s life.

Because women deserve prevention, not just treatment.

Read more about the global study and what it could mean for women’s heart health: www.thewomens.org.au/she-heals

Address

Sydney, NSW

Opening Hours

Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 7:30pm
Friday 10am - 7:30pm

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+61413131972

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