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

trauma

Harnessing the Power of the Vagus Nerve: 7 Effective Ways to Support Your Mental Health

Harnessing the Power of the Vagus Nerve: 7 Effective Ways to Support Your Mental Health

In my quest to manage my mental health after an extremely stressful few years (who’s with me?) I’ve noticed everyone keeps talking about the vagus nerve. As the longest cranial nerve in the body, it forms a vital connection between the brain and various organs, including the heart, lungs, and digestive system.

It’s one of those things I learned about in grad school, as well as at several therapist trainings over the years. But like most things, I didn’t start paying close attention until it affected me. Here’s what I’ve learned, I hope it helps you too.

REST AND DIGEST: The Opposite of Fight or Flight

By stimulating the vagus nerve, we can enhance our vagal tone, which is crucial for supporting our mental health.

Increasing your vagal tone activates the parasympathetic nervous system, and having higher vagal tone means that your body can relax faster after stress.

If you think of stress management in terms of cultivating the opposite of fight or flight, you’ll understand why things that promote our body to rest and digest will help you not only reduce stress, but bounce back from stressful situations more easily.

How Does the Vagus Nerve Help Anxiety?

I’m glad you asked! Here are seven ways to improve your mental health by activating your vagus nerve.

What is the Difference Between PTSD and C-PTSD?

What is the Difference Between PTSD and C-PTSD?

Imagine: You’re moving through your workday, like usual, handling the day’s joys and stresses like the boss you are. When, all of a sudden, it feels like the world around you has changed. For the worse.

Your heart drops into your stomach, your body feels vulnerable and exposed, and then you begin to feel confused about where you are or what you were doing.

Mentally, emotionally, and perhaps even physically, you feel like you were just dropped back into the worst day of your life. You’re immobilized. Bracing. Waiting for it to happen all over again.

That is what a flashback feels like, for people experiencing PTSD. But what does a flashback feel like for individuals experiencing C-PTSD?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can set in after experiencing a single, horrific event. Think of things that happen in a flash, like being in a car accident, grieving the death of a loved one, or experiencing assault.

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) can set in after experiencing repeated trauma. Instead of going through a key event once, it’s caused by living through a lengthy and highly stressful period of time. This includes chronic or repeated experiences.

Unlike those diagnosed with PTSD, who experienced a single, existentially-threatening event, those diagnosed with C-PTSD may have experienced an entire childhood of abuse, ongoing domestic abuse with a partner, being a prisoner of war, or experiencing abuse or harassment in a long-term workplace. This complex stress can arise from a series of major events or from prolonged micro-aggressions. We all know that trauma isn’t defined by the scale of the event, but rather by the person’s ability to cope with the event(s). This means that a lifetime of experiencing micro-abuses, neglect, aggression, etc., can produce the unique web of hypervigilant pain and wounding that we clinically refer to as C-PTSD.

Trauma Bonding: How to Recognize the Cycle and Break Free

Trauma Bonding: How to Recognize the Cycle and Break Free

Some of the hardest challenges we face in life can connect us deeply to others.

Winning a championship with your recreational softball team, getting to the end of a show week, or making it through that last deadline with your coworkers. Moments like these can create lasting relationships with the people who stayed, even when we were down in the dirt.

But what happens if the person you went through hell with caused the hell? More than that—what if you like them being around but feel conflicted about the levels of stress and toxicity they bring you?

That’s called a trauma bond. Feeling emotionally connected to the perpetrator of your prolonged abuse. Sometimes it can be tricky. You may feel like you have to take the bad with the good. And generally that’s true. But if the “good” parts only come at the price of negative experiences, and you feel obligated to tolerate or look past things that don’t sit right with you, there’s a good chance you are involved in a trauma bond.

(Contrary to popular belief, trauma bonding is not bonding with someone over each of your own past traumatic incidents.)

Trauma bonding is characterized by what feels like “hot and cold” manipulation, so that you emotionally and physiologically, feel bonded to whatever (or whomever) provides the first semblance of safety.

This is not only the case in abusive family or romantic relationships, but often strong group dynamics that require intense physical and psychological devotion, such as military training, spiritual cults — even some workplaces TBH.

Let’s talk about recognizing the cycle of trauma bonding and how you can eventually break free of it.

Aggression Toward Women Doesn't Discriminate

Aggression Toward Women Doesn't Discriminate

When it comes to aggression against women, there are no qualifiers that determine who is going to experience it. Harm takes on the full spectrum, from famous women in powerful positions to the most disenfranchised, including trans women of color.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a U.S. Democratic Representative of New York and youngest woman to ever serve in Congress, was simply walking up the steps of the Capitol to cast a vote when she was accosted, bullied, and verbally attacked by Congressman Yoho, who didn’t agree with her political views. AOC had to defend herself multiple times in front of Congress after Yoho denied the charges, despite reporters overhearing Yoho say aggressive slurs about her.

Megan Thee Stallion is a rapper and songwriter whose latest smash hit, WAP, broke music records by debuting as No. 1 on both the streaming and digital sale charts, with over 93 million U.S. streams and 125,000 downloads in the first week of its release. But current headlines are focused on questioning the legitimacy of her recounting being shot in the foot by rapper Tory Lanez. Despite video footage of the incident and her various messages on social media discussing how she was coping with the trauma, Megan Thee Stallion resorted to sharing graphic photos of her foot post-surgery after followers said they didn’t believe her.

Eden the Doll, Jaslene White Rose, and Joslyn Flawless were recently robbed, attacked, and physically assaulted in Hollywood by Carlton Callaway, Davion Williams, and Willie Walker while Steven Hurtado recorded evidence to ridicule later, all as onlookers pointed, laughed, and encouraged further violence. Two arrests have since been made. The footage itself, however, reflects the sentiment that violence against women is not only allowed, but celebrated. Anyone who has been made complicit in their own violation instantly recognized the insidious terrorism of a perpetrator holding someone’s hand while forcing her to find her friends to be further victimized.

These stories are only the tip of the iceberg. Millions of people endure this violence and aggression from men and carry their own unsung stories. From the #metoo movement to the sickening number of un-publicized deaths of trans women, aggression toward women is not a small issue. But it’s the small things that make it an ongoing issue.

Three Ways You Might be Minimizing Your Trauma

Three Ways You Might be Minimizing Your Trauma

Trauma is any experience that overwhelms our ability to cope with it.

In other words, the deciding factor of whether an experience is traumatic or not, is whether it overwhelms your ability to cope with it.

The tricky part is that frequently, one way that we try to cope with traumatic events is to minimize them. That’s our brain trying not to be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the stress. This goes for events that overwhelm us physically, emotionally, or both.

Here are three signs that you might be minimizing your trauma, and thereby actually prolonging or intensifying its effects.

Convenient to Long Beach and Seal Beach at:

4510 E Pacific Coast Hwy, #540, Long Beach, CA 90804

contact@prospecttherapy.com | (562) 704-4736