Sara Stanizai
Benefits of Choosing a Neurodivergent Therapist

When it comes to your mental health, the importance of finding the right therapist cannot be overstated. Finding someone who gets your life and empathizes with your goals can be tricky if your life doesn’t look mainstream, which is the case for most of our neurodivergent clients. Plus, you deserve excellent clinical care! A shortcut to finding a therapist that is a great fit is looking for neurodivergent affirming therapists, who are often therapists who are neurodivergent themselves. Neurodivergent therapists bring a unique perspective to the therapeutic relationship, offering a myriad of benefits for both neurodivergent and neurotypical clients.

Benefits of Choosing a Neurodivergent Therapist
Sara Stanizai
Embracing Self-Discovery in Neurodiversity

Getting to know yourself and learning how your brain works can be a tricky journey, especially when it comes to neurodivergent experiences like ADHD. There is so much information online, but it’s hard to tell what’s a trustworthy source, and some sources seem to directly contradict others, making it quickly overwhelming. If you find yourself wondering, "How do I know if I have ADHD? Do I need to see a professional or can I diagnose myself?" this post is for you, written from a neurodiversity-affirming perspective.

Embracing Self-Discovery in Neurodiversity
Sara Stanizai
Breaking the Doom Spending Cycle

It’s 2024- even on a good day, there’s a lot to feel anxious about. There’s the big picture: global warming, pandemic, human rights violations, inflation, uncertain job futures- and that’s not even considering individual stressors like difficult jobs or strained relationships.

We all feel anxiety sometimes and we all have different ways to cope with it. For some of us, we like to get a little spendy: enter doom spending. Whether it's impulsively buying items online or constantly seeking comfort in retail therapy, doom spending can become a harmful coping mechanism. In this post, we'll explore the connection between anxiety and doom spending, and more importantly, discuss healthy coping strategies to break free from this cycle.

Breaking the Doom Spending Cycle
Sara Stanizai
Exploring Stimming in Adults: Understanding, ...

Stimming, short for self-stimulatory behavior, is a term commonly associated with neurodivergent individuals, including ADHD and autistic adults.

But what is it, actually? And- does it serve a purpose?


By de-pathologizing and normalizing stimming, we can better understand its benefits for the nervous system and overall mental health. It’s super important to support/encourage stimming for those who find it helpful, and explore how affirming therapists can support ADHD adults in various aspects of their lives.

Exploring Stimming in Adults: Understanding, Normalizing, and Supporting Neurodivergence
Sara Stanizai
Managing Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria in Your ...

You may be familiar with the term Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD). It’s not gender dysphoria or being a highly sensitive person. If you spend any time on mental health channels on social media, you know these words can all start to sound the same.

What is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria?

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is an emotional response to the perception of rejection or criticism, which can be more intense for individuals with ADHD or certain neurodivergent traits.

It goes without saying, then, that RSD can have a huge impact on relationships. It can manifest as hypersensitivity, fear of abandonment, and emotional volatility. Unfortunately, these can easily be confused with attachment issues, personality disorders, even abuse. It is crucial for partners to recognize that RSD is not a character flaw but a neurobiological response.

Rejection sensitive dysphoria can significantly impact relationships, causing emotional turmoil and strained connections. However, with understanding, communication, and a few proactive strategies, managing RSD within your relationship is possible.

Managing Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria in Your Relationship

Spotting Codependency in Friendships

Spotting Codependency in Friendships

Next to family, and sometimes in place of family relationships, friendships can be the most important relationships in your life—the foundation for the good and the bad, the ups and the downs.

Independence and mutual respect are necessary for a friendship or any relationship. Many people are aware of codependent romantic relationships, but it is also possible with friendships. When boundaries become non-existent, and friends begin to blend into one another, it can be the telltale of a codependent friendship.

5 Signs You Sold Your Soul to Your Job… & How to Get it Back

5 Signs You Sold Your Soul to Your Job… & How to Get it Back

Jobs typically give you set hours. Once your shift ends, so should the work you do. However, some assignments can feel inescapable when you answer emails or are called in on your days off. Before you know it, your life before you got this job could disappear.

You would not be the first person who has felt they sold their soul for their job. You may be someone who has to work a dissatisfying job to support yourself or your family. Maybe you want to devote yourself to a job you love. The problem is that it can feel like you are never off work. Before you know it, you dedicate your time and energy solely to your job instead of your own needs.

When Gender Socialization Collides with Gender Identity

When Gender Socialization Collides with Gender Identity

There is a lot of weight placed on gender that is so subtly done it’s not always on the radar as problematic. In our social media era, you’ve likely seen or heard about someone’s gender reveal party. Is it a boy? Or is it a girl? The problem lies in how skewed this viewpoint truly can be. It can unknowingly create discomfort and cause underlying issues in a person’s future.

Addressing the Mental Health Stigma for Professionals

Addressing the Mental Health Stigma for Professionals

The year is 2022. Society is becoming more focused on the importance of mental health, but much work still needs to be done. This stigma surrounding mental illness remains present and may even carry more weight for healthcare professionals themselves.

According to the World Health Organization, as many as two-thirds of people who experience mental health difficulties do not seek the appropriate treatment. This number is probably higher for professionals due in part to the fact that stigmas still exist and can cause people to feel ashamed.

Given that anyone struggling with mental health issues is already carrying a daily burden having to grapple with stigmas is additional, unnecessary pain.

In order for anyone, including professionals, to be able to assist others, something needs to be done to address this problem.

What is Betrayal Trauma?

What is Betrayal Trauma?

Your clique. The squad. Your ride or die. Your person. The inner circle of your life. Whether this group consists of family, friends, or some combination of the two, everyone has somebody that they trust closely. When someone within your circle breaks your trust or acts out in a way that hurts you, it can result in betrayal trauma. The level of this trauma depends on how significant the circumstances are. It is also influenced by how necessary a role a person plays in your life.

5 Ways to Improve Communication with Your Neurodivergent Partner

5 Ways to Improve Communication with Your Neurodivergent Partner

Neurodivergent or neurodiverse people have their own unique way of navigating the neurotypical world. It’s no better or worse than the average person, but it is different.

Communication is the framework for any type of relationship, but it can be challenging with someone who is neurodiverse. Here are some ways to manage this with your partner.

Why Do I Feel Anxious For No Reason?

Why Do I Feel Anxious For No Reason?

If you notice you keep telling yourself what you “should be doing” to manage your mental health, take an honest inventory of what you’re actually doing. Many times, people say they are “working on it” but can’t name one or two things they are actually doing. This is like taking a day off but spending it worried about work: It’s not really rest!

Try a few of the things on this list, or come up with your own. There isn’t a right or wrong way, it’s just the way that works for you. But if you’re running out of ideas, talking to a trained mental health professional can help.

Navigating Anxiety After the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Navigating Anxiety After the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Why the Overturning of Roe v. Wade Causes Anxiety

Any kind of jolting political update can result in shock, fear, anger, and uncertainty. Our lives are full and nuanced. At some point, we take certain political and social realities for granted. Roe v. Wade dates back to 1973. There are people that have been born since then and have lived their entire lives with this ruling as a part of their reality. Meanwhile, the people that knew the realities of life before 1973 are more advanced in age. Sure, there have been attempts to alter or overturn it, but most people didn’t see it as something that requires constant attention.

Upon hearing the news of the Supreme Court decision, what once felt certain suddenly became chaos. Uncertainty breeds anxiety. ‘What will happen next…How does this affect me and my loved ones…Are we in danger of other drastic changes?’

It’s normal to feel stressed about such scenarios. However, if the stress morphs into a free-floating sense of general anxiety, you could be dealing with a diagnosable disorder. Let’s explore some self-help steps you can take right away to alleviate those stress levels.

5 Signs You Have a Trauma Bond

5 Signs You Have a Trauma Bond

It just doesn’t seem right for the words trauma and bond to be linked. To bond with someone is a good thing, right? Quite often, it is. In fact, it can be one of the best things we have ever experienced. So, to be clear, “trauma bonding” is not about connecting and healing with someone over shared traumas. A trauma bond is something that happens to someone trapped in an abusive relationship.

This is not rare. About 40 percent of women and 10 percent of men report being victimized by intimate partner violence. The keyword there is “report.” Many more examples are kept quiet due to shame or guilt. Let’s take a closer look.

Facing the Challenges of Being Queer & POC

Facing the Challenges of Being Queer & POC

In a world that is quick to discriminate, there are many challenges faced by minority groups. Those challenges are magnified when you belong to two or more of those groups. Queer people of color can face racist and queer-phobic slurs that can take a toll physically and mentally.

In the 21st Century, our world is becoming more inclusive and inviting to minority groups. As our understanding of gender and sexuality expands, more people are able to express their full selves. But this doesn’t mean the work is done. Queer POC face some of the harshest realities in our world today. If more people knew what queer POC went through, we could encourage more conversations about this demographic’s experiences. With a clear understanding of these experiences, those who are queer and POC can suffer fewer mental health challenges.

Here are the challenges that those who are POC and queer face.

How Discrimination Affects LGBTQ+ Healthcare

How Discrimination Affects LGBTQ+ Healthcare

Everyone needs healthcare. Everyone gets sick and is vulnerable to illnesses or diseases, and everyone needs regular check-ups. Regardless of gender or sexual orientation, healthcare is essential for us all.

Discrimination in healthcare settings can endanger the lives of the LGBTQ+ community who don’t have access to or are denied adequate healthcare. The Affordable Care Act prevented healthcare providers and insurance companies from refusing someone healthcare based on discrimination. But, policymakers continue to add changes to this.

You never want to be in a situation where your relationship while being HIV+ is an excuse for your doctor to refuse you HIV medication. Trans men and women should not have their mental health issues ignored or routine medical care denied due to personal biases of providers. If things do not change regarding healthcare within the LGBTQ+ community, large portions of our communities will continue to be too exhausted, afraid, or at risk to seek treatment, or worse; entirely denied care.

Here is how discrimination affects the LGBTQ+ communities.

5 Reasons People Report Being Happier After Divorce

5 Reasons People Report Being Happier After Divorce

File this under: Who’s going to tell them?

The romanticizing of life-long marriages has actually had a detrimental effect on relationships.

We have started to see a backlash against longevity as the ultimate factor of successful relationships and marriages. Marriage itself is of course a nuanced, complex arrangement - but you wouldn’t know that if you looked at social and other media around this multi billion dollar industry.

Of course, long term monogamous relationships are a beautiful thing! (TBH if I wasn’t a therapist, I would be a wedding and event planner. Seriously, I love weddings.)

But focusing on longevity ignores all the other factors that go into a successful relationship.

Things like evolving with your partner, or allowing space for them to change, the impact of financial stress, raising children, isolation from friends and family, and many other experiences are often ignored in the phrase “til death do you part.”

Sometimes, the kindest thing you can do is agree to end a relationship or a marriage amicably.

This is true for people of all genders. However, because of patriarchal cultural norms and the institutional barriers for women, we are often most disadvantaged when it comes to considering ending a marriage.

Of course, anyone who has been through a divorce will often say they stayed longer than they should have. There is pressure on everyone from social, legal, financial, and even religious aspects.

And while media often shows men finding relief after “escaping the bear trap” of a bad marriage, and casts women in a desperate, “washed-up” light, research continues to show that women often report being happier after divorce.

A 2013 survey conducted by London’s Kingston University said the majority of women were happier than they had ever been after divorcing. Another survey by Carphone Warehouse said 35% of women were less stressed after divorce compared to 17% of men.

Here are five reasons why women in particular report being happier after divorce.

What is Inherited Family Trauma & How to Heal

What is Inherited Family Trauma & How to Heal

Many of us have family members who struggled through The Great Depression. Families had to cut back on expenses, save everything, and live in a period of great scarcity. Despite this event happening two generations ago, the habits and responses we still have from that trauma continue to be passed down. Though many of us have not faced the same kind of economic crisis as The Great Depression, we live in its shadow because of inherited family trauma.

Inherited family trauma is when a child is indirectly exposed to the trauma of a parent, who was likely exposed to the trauma of their parent, which leads to a dangerous cycle. The parent could end up placing the child in the same situation without meaning to. If you do not confront your trauma, you will not be able to help your child going through the same thing. You will be helpless as a family instead of a united force.

Here are ways that you all can heal from inherited family trauma.

Five Habits That Change When You Begin to Trust Yourself

Five Habits That Change When You Begin to Trust Yourself

What is self-trust?

It’s more than self-compassion, or self-esteem. It’s not thinking you’re great all the time, or ignoring your faults. It’s also not beating yourself up for mistakes, or “not living your highest potential.”

Self-Trust is a byproduct of integrating all the parts of yourself and radically accepting them.

When you start to internalize acceptance of yourself, it changes the way you operate in the world. These are five habits that change when you begin to trust yourself:

Anticipatory Grief: Seeing the Signs and Knowing the Symptoms

Anticipatory Grief: Seeing the Signs and Knowing the Symptoms

Grief is a very weird experience.

It’s both extremely personal and universal. It is common but also unpredictable.

It’s even more strange to deal with anticipatory grief.

What is anticipatory grief?

Anticipatory grief is the grief that sneaks up on you before you have even experienced the actual loss.

When you know the loss of a loved one is imminent, for example, you may experience grief for that person while they are still living. Watching a loved one decline is always difficult. Despite what you hope, a terminal diagnosis means the time you have left is brief. Every moment is precious.

But, what happens when you are grieving while this person is still alive? Does that mean something is wrong with you for experiencing these earlier emotions at a time that seems inappropriate? This is called anticipatory grief, which occurs before death. Anticipatory grief is rarely discussed because of the shame of feeling deep pain before anything has happened. Let’s talk about the signs and symptoms of anticipatory grief.

Being the Token Friend: How to Deal with the Stereotype of the Model Minority

Being the Token Friend: How to Deal with the Stereotype of the Model Minority

We all make judgments about the people we know or meet. We’re literally wired to do this. Our brains want to find similarities among things and put them in the same category.

It becomes a problem when we do this to people. You know, because people aren’t objects, animals, or abstract concepts. Then it stops being a natural tendency for order, and becomes a stereotype.

When we stereotype people, we unfairly put them into a narrow box of expectations. These stereotypes are particularly harmful for minority groups (aka the global majority) who are to be seen and valued for more than their appearance or presentation.

The “token friend” is a person of a minority group in a majority friend group. This is when they are treated and viewed like an outlier, even among their peers.

This friend is often used to make someone feel satisfied that they’ve crossed the race, gender, or sexuality divide. If you find yourself in the position of being a token friend, you know the pain of being painted into a narrow box. This weighs heavily on one’s mental health because they are not valued as a complete person. Here are the consequences of being a token friend and how to deal with being the stereotype of the model minority.

Relational Trauma and its Lasting Impact

Relational Trauma and its Lasting Impact

Hear me out.

Let’s say you have a broken blender at home. Every time you try to make a smoothie, it tips off the counter and splashes your fruit purée all over the kitchen floor. Sometimes you can salvage some of the smoothie, but most of the time, it just leaves you hungry, flinching, and trying to block out the loud whirring, while covered in a mess of mangled fruit and yogurt. You end up feeling like you’ll never get that refreshing sip you came for!

Abusive relationships are similar in that they leave us with reflexive jumpiness, feelings of mistrust, emptiness, and hopelessness. Although instead of fearing fruit purée, we end up fearing people. Sometimes people we love deeply.

But your relationships don’t have to feel like a broken blender. Finding those healthy relationships may not always be as easy as driving to the store and picking up a new appliance, but there are steps you can take and principles you can follow to avoid the traumatic mess of unhealthy relationships. Here are some pointers to help you identify and avoid toxic relationships and the damage they leave behind.

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