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.
Episodes
36 episodes
Read. Forgotten. Devastated. (You've Been Both.)
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, forgot...
You Can’t Love Well From a False Map | Dating on High Alert with Ilja Abbattista
You Can’t Love Well From a False Map | Dating on High Alert with Ilja AbbattistaWhat 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 o...
ADHD, AuDHD & The Fear of Leaving Relationships When Faced With the Unknown
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 ...
Your Body Already Knew...Your mind Just didn't Want To Know
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 ...
Why Do I Keep Finding Myself Here? Here's how you change it.
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 so...
Why You’re Late for People You Love (ADHD, Autism & Time Blindness Explained)
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.&nbs...
Negative Self Talk, AuDHD, Mindset and Masking part 3
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 sil...
The Engine Behind the Mask: Hyper-vigilance, AuDHD & cPTSD | Masking Part 2
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, hyp...
Masking, ADHD & Autism: Why Unmasking Isn’t Always the Answer
💬 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 s...
“You’re Too Sensitive": When Feeling Everything Isn’t Weakness
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 fr...
Why Rejection Hits So Hard
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 r...
Dating on High Alert: When Ambiguity Feels Like Chemistry
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...
Impulsive Spending Isn’t About Discipline
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....
I Only Do Things at the Last Minute (and I Hate That About Me)
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, autis...
Masking didn't break you - it helped you to survive!
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 conver...
When You Go Quiet: Shutdown Isn’t Indifference, It’s Protection
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...
Re-entry & Framing - Why Ambiguity Hits So Deep
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 yo...
Intuition or Hypervigilance? Understanding the Difference in a Trauma-Shaped, Neurodivergent Nervous System
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” ...
Dating on High Alert: When Trauma Is the Lens
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...
How We Self-Soothe When We Don’t Know Where We Stand
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...
I Was Ready… And Then Everything Stopped
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, a...
I Wasn’t Addicted to You - I Was Addicted to the Feeling
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 ...
Impulsive, Reckless & Wired: The Risks We Don't Talk About
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 t...
Why does calm feel so uncomfortable when all you’ve ever known is chaos?
If you live with ADHD, autism, trauma, or the full neurospicy trio, peace isn’t always peaceful at first. Sometimes it feels suspicious or it feels empty. Sometimes it may even feel like something must be wrong, because nothing <...
Overthinking, Over giving, and Over feeling - Why We Do It (and How to Stop Spiralling)
Ever catch yourself replaying a text, analysing a look, or scanning for shifts in someone’s tone, and suddenly, you’re spiralling? This one’s for you.In this episode, we dive deep into why so many of us with ADHD, autism, and tr...