Chris Mercurio

Welcome

Many autistic and ADHD men I work with are highly capable, analytically sharp, and deeply committed to the people they care about, and still find that certain parts of life feel harder than they should.

Relationships. Emotional honesty. Knowing what they feel, let alone how to say it. The gap between how much they care and how little that seems to translate.
 

That gap is not a character flaw. It is what happens when a nervous system that processes the world differently has spent years adapting to environments that were not built for it.
 

My work focuses on helping autistic and neurodivergent men understand how their patterns developed, what they have cost, and how to build more authentic ways of operating in relationships, in communication, and in their own internal lives.

What Changes

Most of my clients are not looking to become different people.

They want to stop performing and start connecting. They want to say hard things without the conversation becoming a crisis. They want to feel known, not just understood intellectually, but actually known by the people they care about most.
 

That kind of change does not come from more insight or better communication scripts.

It comes from working with the nervous system directly, building the capacity to stay present when it counts, and learning to trust that honesty does not have to cost the relationship.
 

That is what this work is about.

How I Work

I work from an integrative framework built around five elements that consistently drive change.

Patterns live in the nervous system, not just in thoughts, so we work with regulation and pacing, not just insight.

Conflicting internal states are understood as adaptive responses, not dysfunction.

The relationship between us is part of the work. And insight only sticks once safety and regulation are in place.
 

This means we go where it makes sense to go, not where a protocol says we should.
 

Sessions are direct, structured, and literal, which most of my clients find immediately more comfortable than vague or heavily interpretive approaches. I accommodate movement, reduced eye contact, and written supports when helpful.

Why This Work, and Why Me

I spent nearly twenty years in tech before becoming a therapist.

I understand the cognitive style, the cultural norms, and the specific ways that professional environments reward analytical performance while quietly penalizing emotional expression.
 

I also grew up navigating the daily friction of mismatched operating systems inside close relationships.

That experience, lived from the inside rather than observed from a distance, is part of why I understand what it costs to be the person who always figures it out, keeps it together, and never quite feels fully known.
 

I bring more than two decades of personal recovery experience as well.
 

That background shapes how I understand avoidance, shame, and the patterns that develop when someone has been managing their nervous system without adequate tools or support.

Additional Focus