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

anxiety

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.

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.

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.

Burned-Out & Overwhelmed: How Depression Affects First Responders

Burned-Out & Overwhelmed: How Depression Affects First Responders

Superhero movies have dominated Hollywood for at least a decade. Ironically, this may be leading us to take real-life heroes for granted. First responders are the ones who run toward a crisis or disaster. They are emergency medical personnel, disaster response teams, firefighters, and more. They are the people you turn to in the worst moments of your life.

They put their bodies on the line every day. Yet, it’s more than that. First responders can face a massive emotional toll during a typical workday.

Sure, they chose their career. Yes, they are essential to every community. But we cannot underestimate the potentially traumatic conditions under which they operate. This helps to explain why depression, anxiety, and related concerns are not uncommon among these professionals.

Perfectionism is Not Polite

Perfectionism is Not Polite

It’s natural and a sign of high self esteem to want to improve yourself. The main difference between wanting to do better and wanting to do the BEST is how you view mistakes, shortcomings, or flaws. The person striving for improvement sees their mistakes as a natural part of the process, not as a sign of failure. The perfectionist sees their flaws as cancelling out any good they have done.

The pandemic has burdened a lot of our social circles from seeing each other as often as we did in the past.

This may not be the popular opinion, but a lot of us are fine with that. For many people, less emphasis on socializing has been a relief.

Introverts, people with social anxiety, busy parents, people paying down credit card debt. A bunch of us were glad to not have to look for parking every weekend.

However, you may have been feeling lonely and isolated this whole time. And it may not be just because of the pandemic. Perhaps something deeper is at play?

If you spend so long coming up with the right thing to say that you delay interacting with anyone, your problem could actually be perfectionism. This, in fact, is great news!

While we can’t control the ebbs and flows of the world outside, we can always control how we choose to face it. Let’s talk about why overcoming your perfectionism could be the key to several ongoing problems in your life.

Anxiety After Social Distancing

Anxiety After Social Distancing

It’s OK if you’re not ready to “go back to how things were.”

As the weather warms up for summer and COVID fatigue reduces public inhibitions, many places are returning to “normal”: Kicking masks, social distancing, and isolation to the curb.

If you spent the past two years carefully avoiding face-to-face interactions with people outside your bubble, it can be pretty jarring.

You may be thinking, “What did I use to wear to work?” or “Were awkward silences after someone finishes speaking this long before?”

You might be painfully aware of people sharing drinks while watching your favorite re-runs.

And heaven help the person who coughs in public.

You’ve adjusted to an almost always virtual world, so returning to an in-person world can be anxiety-inducing.

Fret not—you’re not alone, and there are things you can do to make the transition easier.

Are Childhood Trauma and Anxiety Connected?

Are Childhood Trauma and Anxiety Connected?

You’ve been feeling anxious lately, but you know you don’t have any of the telltale symptoms of an extreme anxiety disorder, like PTSD. We know from studying PTSD that feelings of anxiety can develop because of childhood trauma. Even the classic depiction of it involves being so bogged down by anxiety from a trigger that it mentally places you right back in your traumatic past.

But what about the anxiety that doesn’t seem connected to a specific event? The kind you can’t really put your finger on? You may ask yourself: do I have any underlying trauma that’s making me anxious? Let’s talk about the connection between childhood trauma and anxiety.

Mindfulness in a Crisis: What to Do When You Can't Do Anything

Mindfulness in a Crisis: What to Do When You Can't Do Anything

When things go wrong in our lives, it’s a natural response to try to fix it. Humans have thrived through our problem-solving skills, and they come in handy every day. Sometimes, however, things happen that are out of our control. They’re out of our hands to solve and it feels helpless. Or, sometimes, more damage is done by trying to maintain control in an out-of-control situation. In situations like these, the best thing to do in the moment is to take a step back and try to find peace in other ways.

Coping with Medical Anxiety

Coping with Medical Anxiety

Anxiety is a beast. This emotion covers a vast range of feelings, thoughts, body responses, triggers, and so much more. It is simultaneously a casual term for small flutters in your stomach to intense disorders requiring therapy, medication, and more to function. Anxiety is extremely personal and individual, so it may manifest in different ways and for various reasons.

If you experience anxiety, you may find yourself worrying about many different things. Work, relationships, socializing, and family issues are just some of the everyday things that cause worry.

But what about physical health?

Though often overlooked or written off as something every does, anxiety over physical health is actually a common thing. But especially now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people are more worried than ever before about their health.

While this worry is completely valid and can be based in a lot of facts, this worry about physical health is taking a toll on many peoples’ mental health — and possibly yours, too.

What is Grounding and How Does it Help with Anxiety and Trauma?

What is Grounding and How Does it Help with Anxiety and Trauma?

If you struggle with anxiety, then you know first-hand how consuming your anxious thoughts can be. You may be totally fine one moment, minding your own business, when your brain suddenly attacks with an onslaught of anxious thoughts racing around in wild patterns- which can be totally debilitating. Anxiety is often hard to explain to others, extremely frustrating, and the unpredictability can be especially rough.

So much of anxiety and trauma is related to our experiences of the past and our worries about the future.

If you have experienced a particularly traumatic event, you can be triggered by flashbacks, memories, and reminders of the trauma, which can cause intense feelings of anxiety. This can also look like fear and worry about that event happening again or dealing with an “anniversary” of when it happened.

Grounding techniques are an incredible way to help reduce the impact of those messy icky anxious feelings in the moment.

Unfortunately, anxiety happens. Those messy feelings? Yeah, they’re gonna happen too. And as much as we want to get rid of them and feel “100% healed,” life just doesn’t work that way. While grounding isn’t a way to erase these memories or experiences, it can be a way to have them feel less intense in the moment, which will help you build resilience over time.

While grounding isn’t a cure for anxiety, it’s a useful technique to bust out when the hardest moments happen. Instead of drowning in your anxious thoughts, grounding can help bring you back to reality. Here’s how it works.

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Why High Achievers Avoid Therapy (and why they shouldn't)

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Why High Achievers Avoid Therapy (and why they shouldn't)

If you’ve been a high-achiever for most of your life, you’ve gotten used to chasing - and finding - success. It’s not an accident that you’ve exceeded in academics, your social life, and in your career. Sure, this drive often comes from a deep desire to be liked and to compensate for deficits (emotional or otherwise) from your childhood. But who wants to talk about that?

We do!

When you’re busy juggling a career, relationships, hobbies, and a social life, it’s easy to ignore emotional or mental health issues. You might not even notice there are issues to avoid in first place. Everything is fine as long as I keep saying it is, right? This is what we in the biz call super-avoidance. (No one calls it that.)

Self-described “alphas” often get that way by ruthlessly prioritizing. And therapy might not be the highest priority on your list. If everything is fine, why rock a steady boat?

While this isn’t always the case, sometimes that very success that we are so proud of, comes at the price of our mental health. What types of emotions and experiences have you given up in order to meet arbitrary milestones, to meet that long-fetishized muse named productivity, or to please someone in authority?

As long as you continue to ignore your mental well-being, it will soon affect other aspects of your life. As they say, if you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll have to make time for your illness.

The Coronavirus Pandemic is Kicking Your Anxiety into Overdrive

The Coronavirus Pandemic is Kicking Your Anxiety into Overdrive

Your routines have been turned upside down, and no one seems to have helpful information. Think about how you usually respond to change. Do you resist it? Lean into it? Insist on keeping things the way they were as long as possible? Or abandon anything familiar and wing it? Your response is this reality is just like that, times 100.

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The Five Types of Impostor Syndrome

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The Five Types of Impostor Syndrome

Have you ever felt like you’re living a life you don’t deserve? Or, that you are offered opportunities you aren’t qualified for?

Turns out, even the highest achievers go through the same thing as you, and it’s called the impostor syndrome.

Impostor syndrome affects 70 percent of millennials and counting. This syndrome is defined as an extreme case of self-doubt. So extreme that it stops you from chasing your dreams or sharing your experiences with those that are two steps behind you.

It’s the inability to internalize (or believe) in your success despite external evidence of that success.

You constantly think everything you do is fraudulent. But guess what? You are worthy of your experiences. You have earned your place no matter what stage of life, or your career, you are in.

The 5 types of impostor syndrome are:

  1. The Perfectionist: You set your own bar a little too high, because reaching a goal means it must not have been that hard to do.

  2. The SuperHuman: Overworking yourself means you’re the best, right?

  3. The Natural Genius: Really good at stuff, but only do what’s comfortable.

  4. The Soloist: Thinks asking for help shows weakness.

  5. The Expert: You know your stuff but freeze when someone asks you to demonstrate your competence.

This syndrome may stop you from reaching your biggest career goals or pushing yourself to grow. If you think you may be dealing with impostor syndrome, Mint created an infographic explaining the different types, how each type may affect your finances, and tips to overcoming it.

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How to Find a Therapist

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How to Find a Therapist

Even if you have the resources of time, money, and energy.

And you know what questions to ask.

And your social anxiety/depression/phone dysphoria/stress/overwhelm isn’t getting in the way — it can be really hard to find a therapist.

According to a 2018 study by Mental Health America, California ranks 24th in the nation in terms of prevalence of mental health issues and correlated access to care.

Let's say you've tried everything else. You've spoken to friends and family. You've tried making changes in your habits. You've read every book, or at least every online article about your issue. And you've decided it's time for more individualized, professional help.

You may be completely willing to give therapy a try, but there’s one pressing question: how do you find a therapist?

With so many options, it almost seems too daunting to even try to find one. Fortunately, when you break it down, you can easily find a therapist and get the help you need.

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How to Forge Your Own Path When You Feel Left Behind by Your Peers

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How to Forge Your Own Path When You Feel Left Behind by Your Peers

Does it feel like no matter what you do, you aren’t accomplishing as much as your peers?

If you’re feeling left behind, you aren’t alone. It’s common for everyone to experience this mindset from time to time, especially young people. Early adulthood is a time when many people are exploring their place in the world.

What we don't hear about as often, are the people who later in life are changing careers, exploring their sexuality, or moving to a new city -- without it being framed as a gimmick, an anomaly, or some Under the Tuscan Sun BS.

The truth is, any choice you make deliberately is the right choice for you.

Why Can't I Stop Procrastinating?

Why Can't I Stop Procrastinating?

Everyone has a hard time focusing occasionally. There are often legitimate reasons that underlie chronic procrastination.

For many people, it’s easy to chalk up procrastination to laziness. In reality, those who procrastinate often aren’t lazy at all. Instead, there are merely other problems that get in the way of completing tasks in a timely fashion. One way to figure out what causes your procrastination is to pay attention to the thoughts and feelings that come up when you avoid a task.

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Straddling two worlds: Fostering Immigrant Communities of Healing

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Straddling two worlds: Fostering Immigrant Communities of Healing

In so many recent conversations, I’ve heard about the specific challenges experienced by immigrant communities and first- and second-generation Americans. Like so many things, putting a name and framework to a cluster of experiences can be immensely healing.

For many of us, we don’t realize the impact of this identity — until we do.

It’s a strange experience trying to pay back an invaluable debt that you didn’t really ask for but very much appreciate.

I spoke with Lindsey Phillips at Counseling Today about what it’s like to work with my community therapeutically. She ended up writing an excellent article about the specific mental health challenges experienced by first- and second-generation Americans and how we can find healing.

Tips for Managing Social Anxiety Before, During, and After an Event

Tips for Managing Social Anxiety Before, During, and After an Event

We’ve all been there. You agreed to make plans (showing up for a birthday party, scheduling a meeting with your supervisor, attending an extended family event) and you’re totally dreading it.

Your introverted, anxious, or depressed side is regretting your recent optimism. “WTF was I thinking?”

You look for a way to bail, but then, you don’t want to seem like a flake.

So, despite the pressure to flee building in your chest, you psych yourself up and leave the house. Then, even though things seem to be going fine, panic starts to rise in the back of your mind. 

Social anxiety is a real thing.

Even people who seem to be confident, popular, and generally have their shit together, can have anxiety in social situations. Often, it's those people who have it the worst. Acting like socializing is a breeze is often a way to overcompensate for feelings of inadequacy or insecurity. Everyone feels this way occasionally, but it can be really exhausting and overwhelming when you feel like this all the time. 

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