She Deals Collective

ADHD has taught me that “getting something done” is actually two separate problems.

Starting it.

And staying with it long enough to finish.

Those are not the same thing for my brain.

If I have to do something like taxes, I usually don’t need help doing the work. Once I’m in, I can hyperfocus for hours. I need help crossing the starting line.

Sometimes that’s literally my husband sitting next to me saying, “Okay. We’re doing this now.”

But give me laundry or cleaning and that’s a completely different problem.

I can start it. I just don’t want to stay with something that boring.

So I add stimulation.

I call someone. FaceTime. Marco Polo. Put on a show.

And suddenly I can fly through something I’ve been avoiding.

That distinction has helped me so much.

Because now when I’m stuck, I don’t just ask, “How do I make myself do this?”

I ask, “Is my problem starting this, or staying with it?”

Then I give my brain what it actually needs.

Sometimes that’s accountability.

Sometimes it’s stimulation.

Sometimes it’s both.

And that has worked a whole lot better for me than trying to shame myself into becoming more disciplined.

If you’re learning how to work with your ADHD brain instead of constantly fighting it, follow along. That’s a lot of what I talk about here.

Emotional dysregulation has been one of the hardest parts of ADHD for me… and it is so incredibly common, yet it still doesn’t get talked about nearly enough.

For me, feeling misunderstood or unheard can flip that switch fast. I can go from explaining myself to over-explaining, defending and feeling like I have to prove exactly what I meant before I even realize I’m doing it.

I still miss it a lot.

But I’m proud of myself for recognizing the pattern now and trying to interrupt it. This is decades deep, so I don’t expect it to disappear overnight.

I’m learning to catch it sooner, take responsibility when I don’t and keep working on it anyway.

That feels like real progress to me.

This case should force us to ask some incredibly uncomfortable questions.

What does “access to mental healthcare” actually mean if someone can have extraordinary access, repeatedly seek help, follow treatment and still end up in an absolute living hell?

Asking that question isn’t making excuses. It’s prevention.

We should want to know what was missed. What could have been done differently. Whether patients are being given real informed consent. Whether we’re looking deeply enough at physical and hormonal contributors. Whether meaningful therapy, sleep, nutrition, movement and nervous-system regulation are being treated as actual tools instead of afterthoughts. And whether we’re listening when someone says, “This is making me worse.”

Mental health reform doesn’t mean less help. It means better help.

Because access was never the finish line. Getting people better should be.

And when the stakes can be this devastating, accepting the status quo is not good enough.

One session of whole-body heat therapy. Depression symptoms improved. And the effects were still measurable six weeks later.

That’s wild to me.

The more I study inflammation, immune signaling, neuroinflammation, and mental health, the more convinced I become that inflammation plays a much bigger role than we give it credit for.

And my opinion? We are inundated with things every single day that can contribute to our overall inflammatory load, so I want to do whatever I possibly can to help lower that load and support my body.

Sauna is just one tool in my arsenal.

I rarely have access to an actual sauna, so at home I use a sauna blanket. When I first started, I could barely sweat. Now I can absolutely pour sweat, and sauna has become a huge part of my personal healing and detox routine.

Comment “sauna” and I’ll send you the sauna blanket I use.

This is my personal experience and opinion, not medical advice.

More than half.

In one large prospective study, s*xual dysfunction was reported by more than half of people taking the SSRIs studied.

And s*xual dysfunction doesn’t just mean a slightly lower s*x drive. It can include decreased libido, problems with arousal, decreased s*xual sensation, delayed or**sm or being unable to or**sm at all.

But here’s the part I cannot wrap my head around.

For some people, s*xual dysfunction can continue AFTER they stop taking an SSRI.

And when researchers tried to determine how common persistent s*xual dysfunction after stopping SSRIs actually is?

We don’t know.

There still isn’t enough evidence to give people a reliable prevalence.

So we know s*xual dysfunction while taking SSRIs is common. We know persistent s*xual dysfunction after stopping has been documented. But we still can’t reliably tell someone how likely that persistent outcome is.

That is information people deserve BEFORE they decide whether the potential benefits of an antidepressant outweigh the potential risks for them.

This isn’t about telling someone not to take medication. It’s about informed consent.

You deserve to know what we know AND what we still don’t know before making that decision.