Cristina Collins

​When the Usual Rules Don't Quite Fit

Maybe you've spent a lot of your life being given feedback about how you come across.

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Too blunt.

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Too quiet.

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Too intense.

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Too literal.

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Doesn't read the room.

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Doesn't seem interested.

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Great at the technical part, but needs to work on the people part.

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Maybe you've heard some version of that at work, in relationships, or both.

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And after enough feedback like that, you may have learned to monitor yourself constantly: what your face is doing, how long you've been talking, whether you're making enough eye contact, whether your answer sounded too direct, whether everyone else understood some unspoken rule you somehow missed.

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That can become exhausting.

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I'm not interested in teaching you how to perform a more socially acceptable version of yourself.

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I'm interested in understanding how you communicate, how you process the world, where misunderstandings are happening, and whether the adaptations you're making are actually serving you.

What I Think Often Gets Missed

People don't all communicate the same way.

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But some styles are treated as acceptable while others are treated as problematic.

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Someone may speak very directly and be interpreted as harsh.

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Someone may need silence before responding and be interpreted as disengaged.

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Someone may communicate care by solving the problem, remembering the detail, fixing the thing, showing up consistently, or telling you the truth — while the person receiving that care is waiting for words or emotional expression that look completely different.

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The intention and the impact can both matter.

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That's where I tend to get curious.

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If your communication is consistently creating outcomes you don't want, we can work on that.

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But we're going to look at it as a question of translation, context, choice, and fit — not as evidence that there's something defective about your personality.

Why I Understand This

I fell deeply in love with someone who was autistic.

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He was brilliant, loyal, genuine, and experienced the world very differently than I did.

There was never a lack of love or effort between us — and yet sometimes we simply couldn't reach each other.

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Conflict revealed those differences most clearly.

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When I became overwhelmed, I needed space and silence to process.

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For him, unresolved tension could create an urgent need to reconnect and know that we were okay.

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So in the exact moments when I needed distance to feel safe, he needed closeness to feel safe.

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We were two people who loved each other deeply, often asking for completely different things from one another in the same moment.

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Neither of us had a map for what was happening.

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We didn't yet have language for nervous systems, sensory overwhelm, processing differences, or mixed-neurotype relationships.

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I learned that processing time isn't rejection.

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Directness isn't automatically cruelty.

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Needing clarity isn't the same as being rigid.

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And showing love doesn't always look like talking about love.

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That relationship changed the way I listen.

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It made me much less interested in asking whether someone is expressing care the "right" way and much more interested in asking:

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How does this person actually communicate care — and is the person they love able to recognize it?

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I'm neurodivergent myself. I have ADHD, significant sensory differences, and a brain that tends to go deeply into what captures my attention. I've also spent time exploring whether autism may be part of my own story.

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Sound especially affects me. Loud rooms cost me. Background noise doesn't always stay in the background. I understand from the inside that sometimes the environment really is part of the problem.

The Workplace Part

Before becoming a therapist, I earned a master's degree in Industrial-Organizational Psychology.

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I studied how people function inside organizations: leadership, organizational culture, motivation, communication, performance, power, and the often-unspoken rules that shape whose style gets rewarded.

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Then I went and lived inside one of the most hierarchical organizations there is.

I served in the United States Air Force in Command and Control Operations in Germany, working within a central command and control environment supporting five nuclear bases in coordination with NATO.

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I advised senior leadership, coordinated high-level missions, and worked in situations where information came in quickly, precision mattered, and there wasn't much room for ambiguity.

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So if you tell me you're excellent at your actual job but your performance review says you need to improve your "soft skills," I'm going to be interested in what that phrase actually means in your workplace.

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If you corrected something inaccurate during a meeting and people became more focused on how you said it than whether the information was correct, I can understand why that would be frustrating.

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If you're successful in a technical field but exhausted by office politics, vague expectations, networking, or constantly decoding what people really mean, we can talk about that directly.

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I understand high-pressure environments, hierarchy, workplace culture, and what it can feel like to be competent while still being evaluated on a social rulebook nobody handed you.

How I Work

My approach is relational, neurodiversity-affirming, trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and strengths-based.

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I lean on Emotionally Focused Therapy and Family Systems Theory, and I'll draw from other approaches when they're useful.

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But I don't believe you should have to force yourself into a therapeutic model.

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The therapy should fit the person.

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I'm warm, but I'm also direct.

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If I notice a pattern, I'll name it.

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If something doesn't make sense to me, I'll ask.

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If I disagree with your interpretation of something, I'll tell you what I'm seeing rather than expecting you to infer it.

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And if I don't understand something about your experience, I'll be curious until I truly get it.