Dating on High Alert
Dating on High Alert dives into the messy reality of relationships and life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, and survival mode - because when your nervous system has spent years trying to keep you safe, connection gets complicated.
Hosted by Ilja Abbattista - trauma-informed coach, survivor advocate, and AuDHD truth-teller - this podcast explores ADHD, autism, CPTSD, attachment, emotional overwhelm, nervous system responses, and what it actually means to build safety in love and life after survival.
For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.
Because this isn’t just about dating.
It’s about learning to hear yourself again, in life and in love.
New episodes weekly.
Until next spiral.
Dating on High Alert
I Wasn’t Addicted to You - I Was Addicted to the Feeling
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
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 you chose to leave
- why your body doesn’t “get the memo” when your mind has moved on
- how hyper-focus can shift from people to purpose
- why time blindness can feel like emotional absence in relationships
- why fixation on a person feels so different from immersion in a passion
- and what this pattern is actually about beneath the surface
This is a conversation about dopamine, regulation, attachment, grief, intensity, shame, drive, and the deep misunderstanding many AuDHD women carry about their own wiring.
It’s not about being “too much.”
It’s about a nervous system that learned to survive through intensity before it ever learned how to feel safe in stillness.
If you’ve ever:
- fallen hard at the beginning
- struggled to regulate at the end
- or disappeared into an idea while a relationship waited quietly in the background…
This episode will meet you with clarity, not judgment.
No shame.
No fixing.
Just truth.
💛 DEAR ILJA + FREE AuDHD SURVIVAL GUIDE
If this episode stirred something in you and you’d like a safe, private space to talk it through:
Dear Ilja is open.
You can send me a voice note about anything that came up for you, dating, attachment, spirals, hyper-focus, heartbreak, shame, confusion, desire, grief… all of it.
No judgment.
No pressure.
No performing.
Just human support from someone who understands the wiring from the inside.
The link to Dear Ilja is here.
You can also download my free AuDHD Survival Guide, gentle, practical support for real life, not perfect routines.
That link is in the description too.
You don’t need to rush.
You don’t need to fix yourself.
You don’t need to carry this alone anymore.
Until next spiral. 💛
🎧 Subscribe, share, and spiral with me.
Dating on High Alert explores relationships, life, neurodivergence, trauma, masking, nervous systems, and what it actually means to build safety in love after survival.
For neurodivergent people, trauma survivors, partners, and couples trying to understand each other more deeply.
🖤 Explore support, coaching, and resources:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/resources
📩 Join the podcast mailing list:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/truth-led-podcast-sign-up/
🎙️ Submit a guest pitch or podcast topic:
https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/podcast-dating-on-high-alert/#submitastory
🎧 Support the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/supporters/new
📱 Instagram:
@iljaabbattista
📬 Contact:
letsconnect@iljaabbattista.co.uk
Until next spiral,
Ilja x