Gender Differences and ADHD Symptoms: Why Women Are Still Being Undiagnosed

For decades, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) looked like a hyperactive boy who couldn’t sit still in class, got in trouble for talking out of turn, and had parents and teachers throwing their hands up saying “boys will be boys.”
This image mostly came from studies focused on boys with ADHD and children with ADHD, creating a limited understanding of differences between male and female presentations.

This picture was so ingrained in our understanding of ADHD that we missed an entire population of people struggling with the same condition…they just looked different.

If you’re a woman who got diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, you probably have a story about feeling “different” your whole life but not knowing why.

Maybe you were the daydreamer who got called “spacey” or “ditzy.” Maybe you were the perfectionist who worked twice as hard as everyone else just to keep up. Maybe you were the one everyone thought had it all together on the outside while you felt like you were drowning on the inside.

As someone who works with people navigating ADHD diagnoses, I’ve seen how profoundly sex and gender stereotypes have shaped who gets identified, when they get help, and what kind of support they receive.

The research is clear: ADHD affects all genders, but the way it shows up and gets recognized is significantly different depending on whether you’re perceived as male and female.

The “Typical” ADHD Story We All Know

When most people think of ADHD, they picture what we now know was a very narrow representation: a young boy who’s bouncing off the walls, can’t focus in school, gets in trouble for being disruptive, and whose symptoms are impossible to ignore.

This presentation is real and valid, but it’s just one way ADHD can look like.

This traditional understanding of ADHD was based on research on gender differences that was predominantly done on males with ADHD. The diagnostic criteria for ADHD, the criteria for ADHD symptom checklist, even the treatment approaches were all developed around how ADHD typically presents in males.

For decades, this meant that females with ADHD and girls with ADHD were overlooked, misdiagnosed, or told there was nothing wrong with them.

The problem wasn’t that female ADHD didn’t exist. The problem was that their ADHD looked different, and we weren’t looking for different.

How ADHD Symptoms Show Up Differently Across Genders

The Internalizing vs. Externalizing Divide

One of the biggest sex differences in ADHD relates to internalizing versus externalizing symptoms.

Males with ADHD: More likely to show externalizing symptoms such as hyperactivity, impulsivity, and disruptive behaviour – obvious signs that meet traditional expectations for symptoms of ADHD in deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.

These behaviors are hard to miss because they affect other people and disrupt classrooms or workplaces.

ADHD in Females: Tend to have more inattentive symptoms like daydreaming, withdrawal, and perfectionism. They might appear engaged but mentally drift off.

They might work incredibly hard to compensate for their difficulties, leading to exhaustion and anxiety rather than obvious behavioural problems.

Because these differences in ADHD symptoms are less visible, ADHD are more likely to go unnoticed in females than in males. This contributes to an under diagnosed population.

The Perfectionist Mask

Many women with ADHD – and especially females with ADHD diagnosed later in life – develop what researchers call “masking” behaviors.
They learn to hide their symptoms and overcompensate for their difficulties.

This might look like becoming a perfectionist, working twice as hard as their peers, or developing elaborate organizational systems to manage their challenges.

From the outside, it might look like they have everything together. They might be high achievers in school or work, but the cost is enormous internal stress, anxiety, and exhaustion.

Because they’re not failing in obvious ways, their ADHD goes unrecognized while they suffer in silence.

This often happens more in females than males due to societal expectations, hiding difficulties with elaborate systems. While effective in appearances, the emotional cost is high.

Emotional Dysregulation

Women with ADHD often experience intense emotional reactions, rejection sensitivity, and difficulty managing their emotional responses.

But instead of these being recognized as ADHD symptoms, they’re often misattributed to being “too sensitive,” “dramatic,” or having anxiety or mood disorders.

This emotional component of ADHD is real and significant, but it doesn’t fit the traditional hyperactive model, so it gets overlooked or misunderstood.

Why Girls and Women Get Missed

Societal Expectations Shape What We See

Societal expectations for male and female behaviour shape how ADHD is noticed.

Boys with hyperactivity are seen as needing intervention, girls with ADHD may be called dreamy or creative rather than having a neurodevelopmental condition.

A girl who’s hyperactive might be told she’s “too much” or needs to “calm down,” but she’s less likely to be referred for ADHD evaluation.

Boys who display hyperactive or disruptive behaviours are more likely to be seen as having a problem that needs intervention. Girls with the same underlying neurology might just be told to try harder or be more organized.

Additionally, differences in ADHD symptoms and differences in symptom presentation mean gender differences in adult ADHD are real, with diagnostic systems slow to adapt.

The Quiet Struggle Goes Unnoticed

Inattentive ADHD…the type that involves difficulty focusing, being easily distracted, and struggling with organization…is much less disruptive to others than hyperactive-impulsive ADHD.

A child who’s quietly daydreaming in the back of the classroom doesn’t disrupt the lesson the way a child who’s getting up and moving around does.

This means that many girls and women with ADHD slip through the cracks not because their symptoms are less severe, but because their symptoms are less obvious to others.

Hormones Complicate the Picture

ADHD symptoms can fluctuate with hormonal changes, and women experience more dramatic hormonal shifts throughout their lives than men.
Hormonal changes during puberty, throughout the menstrual cycle, in pregnancy, and during menopause can influence ADHD symptoms, often making them more difficult to recognize and manage.

Many women first notice their ADHD symptoms becoming unmanageable during major hormonal transitions, but because these changes coincide with life stressors (like having children or going through menopause), the ADHD often gets overlooked in favour of situational explanations.

Hormones complicate recognition. In child and adolescent years, puberty changes ADHD impact, but this has rarely been considered in ADHD clinical setting until more recently.

The Misdiagnosis Pipeline

Because women’s ADHD symptoms often look different from the traditional presentation, they frequently get misdiagnosed with other conditions before anyone considers ADHD.

Anxiety and Depression

Women are often diagnosed with anxiety or depression before ADHD is considered, despite the prevalence of ADHD being similar between male and female populations. This is partly due to sex differences in symptom presentation and a lack of clinician training in gender differences in adult cases.

Women with undiagnosed ADHD often develop anxiety and depression as secondary conditions. When you’re constantly struggling to keep up, feeling like you’re not meeting expectations, and working harder than everyone else just to function, anxiety and depression are natural results.

But these secondary conditions often get treated as the primary problem, while the underlying ADHD continues to go untreated.
Someone might spend years in therapy for anxiety without anyone realizing that the anxiety is partly driven by untreated ADHD.

Eating Disorders

There’s a significant overlap between ADHD and eating disorders, particularly in women. People living with ADHD may face challenges like acting impulsively, finding it hard to manage emotions, and striving for perfection, which together can increase the likelihood of developing unhealthy eating patterns.

But again, the eating disorder might be treated without addressing the underlying neurodivergence.

Borderline Personality Disorder

The emotional intensity and rejection sensitivity that many women with ADHD experience can sometimes be misinterpreted as borderline personality disorder.

While some people may have both conditions, it’s important that ADHD gets considered as a potential explanation for emotional dysregulation.

The Late Diagnosis Experience

Many women don’t get diagnosed with ADHD until they’re adults, often after their own children are diagnosed or after a major life change makes their symptoms impossible to ignore anymore.

The Relief and the Grief

Getting an ADHD diagnosis as an adult often brings a complex mix of emotions. There’s relief at finally having an explanation for lifelong struggles, but there’s also grief for all the years of feeling different, trying harder than everyone else, and not understanding why things that seemed easy for others were so difficult.

Many women describe feeling angry about all the opportunities they might have missed, relationships that suffered, or potential that went unrealized because their ADHD wasn’t recognized and treated.

Reframing Your Life Story

An adult ADHD diagnosis often requires reframing your entire life story. Suddenly, things that you blamed yourself for (being disorganized, struggling in school despite being smart, having difficulty maintaining friendships, or feeling overwhelmed by daily tasks) start to make sense in a different way.

This reframing can be incredibly healing, but it can also be disorienting as you adjust to understanding yourself through a new lens.

Men’s ADHD Isn’t Always Obvious Either

While we’ve focused primarily on how women’s ADHD gets missed, it’s important to acknowledge that men can also be misunderstood or misdiagnosed, particularly if they don’t fit the hyperactive stereotype.

Inattentive Men Fly Under the Radar

Men with primarily inattentive ADHD might also be overlooked, especially if they’re not disruptive.

They might be seen as lazy, unmotivated, or just not living up to their potential, without anyone considering that attention difficulties might be the underlying issue.

Different Masking Strategies

Men with ADHD might develop different masking strategies than women.

They might become class clowns, focus intensely on specific interests, or channel their hyperactivity into sports or other physical activities. These strategies might help them cope but can also delay recognition of their ADHD.

Emotional Symptoms Get Overlooked

Men with ADHD also experience emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitivity, but these symptoms might be even less likely to be recognized in men due to societal expectations about male emotional expression.

The Intersection of Gender and Other Identities

It’s important to recognize that gender doesn’t exist in isolation…it intersects with other aspects of identity that can further complicate ADHD recognition and treatment.

The Intersection of Gender and Other Identities

It’s important to recognize that gender doesn’t exist in isolation…it intersects with other aspects of identity that can further complicate ADHD recognition and treatment.

LGBTQ+ Considerations

Transgender and non-binary individuals may face unique challenges in getting appropriate ADHD care, particularly if their gender identity isn’t respected by healthcare providers or if their symptoms don’t fit traditional gender-based expectations.

Socioeconomic Factors

Access to ADHD evaluation and treatment is significantly affected by socioeconomic status. Girls and women from lower-income families might be less likely to receive comprehensive evaluations or ongoing treatment, even when their symptoms are recognized.

Moving Toward Better Recognition and Treatment

The good news is that awareness of gender differences in ADHD is growing, and diagnostic practices are slowly evolving to be more inclusive and comprehensive.

Updated Diagnostic Criteria

Mental health professionals are becoming more aware of how ADHD can present differently across genders.

Updating diagnostic criteria for ADHD to reflect differences between male and female experiences – including those without ADHD for comparison will improve outcomes.

Greater attention to sex and gender research, differences in ADHD symptoms, and ADHD in girls ensures clinicians better understand the reason for these gaps.

Specialized Assessment

Some clinicians now specialize in evaluating ADHD in women and girls, using assessment tools and approaches that are more sensitive to how the condition presents in these populations.

Comprehensive Treatment Approaches

Treatment for ADHD is increasingly recognizing the need for comprehensive approaches that address not just the core symptoms, but also the secondary effects like anxiety, depression, and self-esteem issues that often develop when ADHD goes unrecognized.

If You’re Wondering About Yourself

If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself in these descriptions, it might be worth exploring whether ADHD could explain some of the challenges you’ve experienced. This is particularly worth considering if:

● You’ve always felt “different” but couldn’t explain why
● You work much harder than others to achieve the same result
● You struggle with organization and time management despite trying numerous systems
● You have difficulty focusing, especially on tasks that aren’t immediately interesting
● You experience intense emotions or rejection sensitivity
● You’ve been diagnosed with anxiety or depression but treatments haven’t fully addressed your symptoms
● You have a child or family member with ADHD and you’re noticing similarities

Here is an ADULT ADHD Self-Rated Symptom Checklist that you can use as a prescreener.

Getting Proper Evaluation and Support

If you suspect you might have ADHD, it’s important to work with a mental health professional who understands how the condition can present differently across genders. Look for someone who:

● Has experience evaluating ADHD in adults
● Understands gender differences in ADHD presentation
● Uses comprehensive assessment tools, not just brief questionnaires
● Considers your full history, including childhood experiences and family history
● Looks at how symptoms affect your daily functioning, not just whether you fit a narrow stereotype

What to Expect from Evaluation

A comprehensive ADHD evaluation should include detailed interviews about your current symptoms and childhood history, standardized rating scales, and consideration of other conditions that might explain your symptoms. The process might take multiple appointments and should feel thorough rather than rushed.

Treatment is Individualized

If you are diagnosed with ADHD, remember that treatment should be tailored to your specific needs, symptoms, and life circumstances. What works for someone else might not work for you, and that’s okay. Treatment might include medication, therapy, lifestyle changes, or accommodations at work or school.

The Importance of Accurate Diagnosis

Getting an accurate ADHD diagnosis (whenever it happens in your life) can be transformative. It’s not just about getting access to treatments (though that’s important). It’s about understanding yourself, reframing your struggles, and developing strategies that actually work with your brain rather than against it.

For women who have spent years feeling like they were failing at things that seemed easy for everyone else, understanding that their brain works differently can be incredibly validating. It doesn’t excuse challenges, but it explains them and opens up new possibilities for support and success.

The goal isn’t to use ADHD as an excuse or to lower expectations for yourself. The goal is to understand how your brain works so you can develop strategies that actually help you thrive, rather than continuing to struggle with approaches that weren’t designed for your neurology.

Your struggles are real, your experiences are valid, and you deserve support that acknowledges and addresses how your brain actually works…not how other people think it should work.

If you’re wondering whether ADHD might explain some of your lifelong struggles, or if you’ve been recently diagnosed and need support navigating this new understanding of yourself, you don’t have to figure it out alone.

At Get Reconnected Psychotherapy Services, Sep Nikmanesh and Adam Adivi provide comprehensive support for adults with ADHD, including help processing late diagnoses and developing strategies that work with your unique brain.

Book a Free 15 Minute consultation with Adam and a Free 15 Minute Consultation with Sep to explore how Sep and Adam can support you in understanding and managing your ADHD.

source https://getreconnected.ca/blog/adhd-gender-differences-women-undiagnosed/

How to Deal With a Negative Pregnancy Test after IVF and Embryo Transfer

There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that comes with seeing a negative pregnancy test result following an embryo transfer.

It’s different from the disappointment of a regular cycle not working out.

This time, you did everything “right.” You went through the fertility medications, the monitoring, the procedures.

You had actual embryos. There was science involved. And still, facing a negative test result can feel devastating.

If you’re reading this after getting that negative test result, I want you to know that what you’re feeling right now is completely valid.

The grief, the anger, the confusion, the urge to immediately plan your next steps after a negative outcome, or the desires to never think about assisted reproduction treatment again… all of it makes sense.

As someone who’s been through it all and who works with people navigating fertility challenges, I’ve sat with countless individuals and couples through this exact moment.

The one thing I always want people to know is that there’s no “right” way to process this kind of loss, and there’s no timeline for when you should feel better or be ready to make decisions about what comes next.

The Unique Grief of a Negative Pregnancy Test

When you’re trying to conceive naturally and get a negative home pregnancy test, there’s disappointment, but there’s also usually a sense of “we’ll try again next month.”

With IVF treatment, the stakes feel different. You’ve invested so much (financially, emotionally, physically). You’ve put your life on hold, taken time off work, dealt with side effects from fertility medications, and endured procedures that aren’t exactly comfortable.

There’s also this weird cognitive dissonance that happens. On one hand, you know the statistics. You know that even healthy, young couples don’t have a 100% chance of success with IVF treatment.

But on the other hand, when you’re going through it, part of your brain starts to believe that because there’s so much medical intervention involved, it should work.

When the pregnancy test is negative, it can feel like a betrayal by your own body, by the medical system, by the universe itself.

You might find yourself thinking things like “If science can’t make this happen, what hope do I have?” or “Maybe I’m just broken.”

You’re not broken. Sometimes embryos that look perfect don’t achieve successful embryo implantation, and sometimes embryos that don’t look promising do.

There’s still so much about conception and implantation that medical science doesn’t fully understand.

Even when your fertility specialist has done everything correctly, embryo implantation remains complex and sometimes unpredictable.

What You Might Be Feeling Right Now

Even though you weren’t technically pregnant, you may be grieving the loss of possibility, the loss of the timeline you had in your head, the loss of that specific embryo. This grief is real and deserves to be acknowledged. Women undergoing fertility treatments often experience this as a profound loss.

Anger

You might be furious at your body, at the unfairness of it all, at people who seem to get pregnant without trying. You might be angry at well-meaning friends who say things like “at least you know you can make embryos” or “maybe you’re just stressed.” That anger is completely understandable and part of the emotional ups and downs of fertility treatment.

Failure and Inadequacy

Even though logically you know this isn’t your fault, you might feel like you’ve somehow failed. Like your body didn’t do what it was supposed to do, or you didn’t think positively enough, or you should have done something differently during the two-week wait.

Isolation

Unless someone has been through fertility treatments themselves, it can be hard for them to understand the specific kind of disappointment you’re experiencing. You might feel alone in your grief, especially if this isn’t something you’ve been open about with friends and family. Remember that your fertility journey is unique to you.

Overwhelm About Next Steps

Your medical team might already be talking about what to try next, but you might not be ready to think about that yet. Or conversely, you might want to jump right into planning the next cycle because forward movement feels like the only way to cope.

Understanding Your Test Results

When facing a negative pregnancy test result, it’s important to understand what this means in the context of your treatment cycle. Your fertility specialist will typically confirm pregnancy through blood work that measures human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG levels) – the pregnancy hormone that would indicate successful embryo implantation.

Sometimes, the home pregnancy test result could indicate a false negative if taken too early. Your HCG level needs to reach a certain threshold to confirm pregnancy, and timing is crucial when testing after a frozen embryo transfer or fresh transfer.

The hormone changes in your body during this time can be significant. Your ovary and uterine lining have been prepared through various fertility medications, and when the pregnancy test is negative, your body needs time to readjust as the pregnancy hormone levels return to baseline.

Coping Strategies

Give Yourself Permission to Feel Whatever You’re Feeling<

This isn’t the time to try to be positive or look on the bright side. If you’re devastated, be devastated. If you’re angry, be angry. These feelings won’t last forever, but they need space to exist right now. This challenging time requires patience with yourself.

Take Care of Your Physical Needs

Grief is exhausting. Make sure you’re eating, staying hydrated, and getting rest. If you’ve been on progesterone or other fertility medications, your body is also adjusting to hormonal changes, which can affect your mood and energy levels. the hormone fluctuations following an embryo transfer can be particularly intense.

Limit Social Media and Pregnancy Announcements

Give yourself permission to unfollow pregnant friends temporarily, skip baby showers, and avoid the corner of Instagram where everyone seems to be glowing with pregnancy joy. Your mental health is more important than social obligations right now.

Communicate with Your Partner

If you have a partner, know that they might be processing this differently than you are. Some people want to talk through every feeling, others need space to process privately first. Try to communicate about what you each need without assuming you should be grieving in the same way. A simple hug can sometimes provide comfort when words fail.

Navigating Conversations with Others

One of the hardest parts of dealing with fertility treatment failures is managing other people’s reactions and comments. Even well-meaning friends and family can say things that feel hurtful when you’re already raw.

You Don’t Owe Anyone Information

If you’ve been sharing your journey with others, you might feel pressure to update everyone about the results. Remember that you can share as much or as little as you want. A simple “the test is negative this time, but we’re doing okay” can be enough if that’s all you have energy for.

Prepare for Unhelpful Comments

People might say things like “everything happens for a reason,” “maybe you should just relax and it will happen naturally,” or “have you considered adoption?” These comments usually come from a place of wanting to help, but they can feel incredibly invalidating when you’re dealing with a negative test result. It’s okay to say “I’m not ready to talk about next steps yet” or simply change the subject.

Find Your People

If possible, connect with others who understand what you’re going through. This might be through online fertility communities, support groups, or friends who have been through similar experiences. Sometimes you just need to be around people who get why this hurts so much and understand the emotional ups and downs of assisted reproduction treatment.

Making Decisions About Next Steps

Right now, you might feel pressure to immediately decide what comes next. Should you try another transfer if you have frozen embryos? Start another retrieval cycle? Take a break? Consider other options?

Here’s what I tell my clients: you don’t have to make any major decisions while you’re in acute grief. Most fertility clinics will give you time to process before moving forward, and rushing into the next step because you can’t tolerate the disappointment rarely leads to better outcomes.

Take Time to Process

Give yourself at least a few weeks to sit with what happened before making big decisions about your next move. Your perspective might shift as the initial shock wears off. This is especially important when planning your next treatment cycle.

Consider What You Learned

Was there anything about this cycle that felt particularly difficult? Are there aspects of the process you’d want to change next time? This isn’t about blaming yourself for the outcome, but about thinking through what would make future attempts more manageable.

Think About Your Resources

Be honest about where you are financially, emotionally, and relationally. What do you have capacity for right now? What support do you need to continue? Fertility treatment is a marathon, not a sprint and your fertility journey is unique to your circumstances.

When to Seek Additional Support

Some level of sadness and disappointment after a failed transfer is completely normal and expected. But there are times when professional support can be really helpful:

● If you’re having trouble functioning in daily life for more than a few weeks
● If you’re experiencing thoughts of self-harm
● If this disappointment is creating significant strain in your relationship
● If you’re feeling completely hopeless about your fertility journey
● If you’re using alcohol, drugs, or other substances to cope

Consider Fertility Counselling

Many fertility clinics have counsellors who specialize in helping people navigate the emotional aspects of treatment. They understand the unique stressors of IVF treatment and can help you process what you’re going through while also helping you think through decisions about next steps.

Individual or Couples Therapy

If fertility struggles are affecting your mental health or your relationship, working with a therapist who has experience with fertility issues can be incredibly valuable. They can help you develop coping strategies and work through the complex emotions that come with this journey.

Remember: This Doesn’t Define Your Worth

I know it’s hard to believe this right now, but your worth as a person isn’t determined by whether an embryo implants. You are not less deserving of motherhood or fatherhood because this cycle didn’t work. You are not being punished by the universe. You are not broken.

Fertility is complex, and there are so many factors that affect whether any given cycle will be successful. Some of these factors we can control, many we cannot. What we can control is how we care for ourselves through the process and how much support we allow ourselves to receive.

Moving Forward (When You’re Ready)

Eventually, when you’re ready, you’ll need to make decisions about your path forward. This might mean trying another frozen embryo transfer, exploring different treatment options, or deciding to step away from fertility treatments altogether. All of these choices are valid, and only you can decide what feels right for your situation.

Whatever you decide, know that it’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to take breaks. It’s okay to try again, and it’s okay to stop trying. Your fertility journey doesn’t have to follow anyone else’s timeline or expectations.

The only requirement is that you be gentle with yourself through whatever comes next. This is hard enough without adding self-criticism to the mix.

Finding Hope in the Midst of Disappointment

I don’t want to end this by telling you that everything happens for a reason or that this will all work out exactly as it’s supposed to. That kind of forced optimism doesn’t honor the real pain you’re experiencing right now.

What I will say is that people navigate fertility struggles and go on to create the families they want in many different ways.

Some try again and find success with subsequent transfers. Others explore different treatment approaches. Some decide to pursue adoption or child-free living.

There isn’t one right path, but there are many ways to build a meaningful life.

Right now, your job isn’t to figure out the rest of your story. Your job is just to get through today, and tomorrow, and to be kind to yourself while you do it. Remember that your fertility journey is unique, and there’s no timeline for processing this challenging time.

_______________________________________________________________________

If you’re struggling with the emotional aspects of fertility treatment, you don’t have to navigate this alone. At Get Reconnected Psychotherapy Services, Delia Petrescu, MA, RP provides specialized support for individuals and couples dealing with fertility challenges. She understands the unique stressors of IVF and can help you process your emotions while making decisions about your path forward. Book a free 15-minute consultation with Delia to explore how she can support you during this difficult time.

source https://getreconnected.ca/blog/negative-pregnancy-test-after-embryo-transfer-ivf/

August 2025 Get Reconnected Newsletter – Insights on Social Media and Mental Health

August 2025 Get Reconnected Newsletter – Insights on Social Media and Mental Health

What’s really happening when we scroll?

How many times have you opened Instagram just to “quickly check” something, and then you find yourself still on it even 20 minutes later? Or posted a photo and found yourself checking back throughout the day to see how many likes it got?

Maybe you’ve noticed feeling a little down after browsing through everyone else’s highlight reels of vacations, achievements, and picture-perfect moments.

If this sounds familiar, you’re definitely not alone. Most of us have a complicated relationship with social media.

On one hand, it helps us stay connected with friends, share important moments, and discover new ideas. On the other hand, it can leave us feeling anxious, lonely, or like we’re not measuring up.

The thing is, for years we’ve heard conflicting advice about social media and mental health. Some experts say it’s terrible for us, others say it’s fine in moderation, and many of us are left wondering what’s actually true.

In this newsletter, we’re exploring some recent studies that help us understand what’s actually happening to our minds when we scroll, post, and engage online.

---

UK Study: Posting vs. Viewing – Different Impacts on Adult Mental Health

A 2024 study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research followed 15,836 UK adults for over a year to understand how different types of social media use affect mental health. The researchers distinguished between two key behaviors: viewing social media content versus actively posting content.

The results were striking. Adults who frequently posted on social media showed increased mental health problems a year later, including higher levels of depression and anxiety. But frequently viewing social media content didn’t show the same negative association with mental health outcomes.

This challenges the common assumption that all social media use affects mental health equally. The study suggests that active engagement through posting may be more psychologically demanding than passive consumption through viewing.

Why is This Important?

This research helps us understand that not all social media activities are created equal when it comes to mental health. Posting requires us to curate our image, seek validation through likes and comments, and often engage in social comparison as we see how our posts perform relative to others.

When you post content, you’re putting yourself “out there” for judgment and comparison. You might find yourself checking repeatedly to see how many likes or comments you receive, comparing your engagement to others, or feeling disappointed when posts don’t perform as expected.

The fact that viewing didn’t show the same negative effects suggests that mindful, passive consumption of social media might be less harmful to mental health than active participation focused on self-presentation and validation-seeking.

Read Article Here

---

University of Pennsylvania: Limiting Social Media Reduces Depression and Loneliness

In the first experimental study to establish a direct causal link between social media use and mental health, University of Pennsylvania researchers followed 143 young adults and found evidence that limiting social media use leads to significant mental health improvements.

Participants were randomly assigned to either continue their normal social media use or limit their time on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to just 10 minutes per platform per day (30 minutes total). After three weeks, those in the limited-use group showed significant reductions in both loneliness and depression compared to the control group.

Interestingly, both groups showed decreases in anxiety and fear of missing out (FOMO), suggesting that simply paying attention to social media use through self-monitoring can have benefits.

Why is This Important?

This study provides the first experimental evidence that social media use directly causes decreased wellbeing, rather than just being associated with it.

The researchers point to social comparison as the likely culprit: “When you look at other people’s lives, particularly on Instagram, it’s easy to conclude that everyone else’s life is cooler or better than yours.”

The findings are particularly relevant for adults who may find themselves constantly comparing their real lives to others’ carefully curated online presentations. Whether it’s career achievements, relationships, vacations, or lifestyle choices, social media can create an illusion that everyone else is doing better than you are.

The fact that limiting use to just 30 minutes per day made such a significant difference is encouraging. You don’t need to quit social media entirely to see mental health benefits.

The researchers noted it’s “a little ironic that reducing your use of social media actually makes you feel less lonely,” but it makes sense when you consider that social media often provides surface-level connections rather than meaningful relationships.

For busy adults juggling work, family, and personal responsibilities, this research suggests that cutting back on social media might actually free up mental and emotional energy for more fulfilling activities and relationships.

Read Article Here

---

Australian Study: Social Comparison is the Hidden Driver of Mental Health Problems

A 2022 study published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions looked at something we all do but rarely talk about: comparing ourselves to others on social media.

Australian researchers wanted to understand why some people who use social media problematically end up with depression while others don’t.

The study found that social comparison is the missing link. People who frequently compare themselves to others while using social media (looking at someone’s vacation photos and thinking “why don’t I travel like that?” or seeing career updates and feeling behind in life) are much more likely to develop depressive symptoms.

What’s particularly interesting is that this tendency to compare ourselves to others partially explains why problematic social media use hurts our self-esteem and mental health.

It’s not just about using social media too much but about what’s happening in our minds while we scroll.

Why is This Important?

This research helps explain why social media can feel so emotionally draining. When we’re constantly measuring our real lives against other people’s highlight reels, it creates a perfect storm for feeling inadequate.

You might be having a normal Tuesday, dealing with work stress or household chores, and then you open Instagram to see a friend’s perfectly curated post about their promotion, their beautiful dinner, or their amazing weekend. Without even realizing it, you start asking yourself “What am I doing with my life?”

This kind of comparison is especially tough for adults because we’re juggling so many different areas of life (career, relationships, parenting, finances, health). Social media gives us endless opportunities to find someone who seems to be doing better than us in any of these areas.

The study suggests that learning to recognize when we’re making these comparisons – and actively working to stop them – might be more effective than just limiting our social media time.

It’s about changing how we think while we scroll, not just how long we scroll.

Read Article Here

---

How You Can Support Your Mental Health with Social Media

Be intentional about posting: Before sharing content, ask yourself why you’re posting. Are you sharing something meaningful or just seeking validation? Consider taking breaks from posting while still staying connected through viewing and direct messaging.

Curate your feeds mindfully: Pay attention to how different accounts and types of content make you feel. Unfollow or mute accounts that consistently trigger negative emotions, comparison, or anxiety. Follow accounts that inspire, educate, or genuinely entertain you.

Focus on quality interactions: Instead of broadcasting to everyone, prioritize direct messages and meaningful conversations with people you actually care about. Focus on connecting with people who matter to you instead of chasing likes from people you don’t really know.

Set purpose-driven limits: Rather than arbitrary time limits, set intention-based boundaries. For example, “I’ll check Instagram once in the morning to see what close friends are up to, but not during work hours or before bed.”

Practice the 30-minute rule: Based on the Pennsylvania research, consider limiting your daily social media use to around 30 minutes total across all platforms to see if you notice mental health benefits.

Take regular digital detoxes: Whether it’s phone-free meals, social media-free weekends, or longer breaks, giving your mind rest from these platforms can help you maintain perspective and reconnect with offline activities and relationships.

Final Thoughts

The research reveals that our connection with social media has many different sides to it. The key isn’t necessarily using it less but using it more consciously – in ways that support rather than undermine our mental health and wellbeing.

As adults, we have the power to choose how these platforms fit into our lives rather than letting them dictate how we feel about ourselves.

source https://getreconnected.ca/blog/august-2025-get-reconnected-newsletter-insights-on-social-media-and-mental-health/

July 2025 Get Reconnected Newsletter – Insights on Sleep and Mental Health

What is sleep?

Sleep is something that happens to us every night where we become less aware of what’s around us and our bodies get a chance to fix and restore themselves.

During sleep, our brains don’t just “shut down” but become incredibly active just in different ways than when we’re awake.

While we sleep, our brains go through different stages, and each stage does something important.

The deepest sleep stages help lock in what we learned that day, fix damaged brain cells, and as we’re learning from exciting new research … it literally washes out the junk that builds up in our brains during the day.

Without good sleep, we can’t think straight, manage our feelings well, or feel mentally healthy. Sleep is just as important to feeling good mentally as eating food and drinking water are to staying alive.

In this newsletter, we’re sharing some recent research about how sleep and mental health work together.

The 5Rs: Why Your Brain and Body Need Quality Sleep

In our blog post, we explored how sleep is essential for mental health through what we call the “5Rs” framework. Here’s why each one matters for your psychological wellbeing:

• Refresh – Sleep gives your mind a chance to clear mental clutter and reset for the next day, which is crucial for focus and decision-making.
• Renew – Your body uses sleep time to strengthen your immune system and heal physical damage, creating the energy foundation you need for emotional resilience.
• Restore – This is where sleep directly impacts mental health by helping your brain process the day’s experiences and regulate your emotional responses.
• Regenerate – During deep sleep phases, your brain literally repairs itself at the cellular level, maintaining the healthy neural networks needed for good mental health.
• Reconfigure – Sleep reorganizes your brain’s connections, enhancing creativity and problem-solving abilities that help you cope with daily stresses.

What makes this especially important for mental health is that sleep isn’t passive downtime.

While you’re sleeping, your brain is actively cycling through different stages with some focused on physical recovery and others dedicated to emotional processing and memory work.

Read the full blog post here.

Why is This Important?

This foundational understanding shows us that sleep isn’t just “time off”. But it’s also when some of your brain’s most important mental health work happens.

Poor sleep quality disrupts these essential processes, which directly impacts your emotional regulation, memory processing, and stress management.

When you understand that sleep is actively restoring your emotional balance and reconfiguring your brain for better problem-solving, it becomes clear why sleep problems and mental health issues so often go hand in hand.

The research we’ll explore next builds on these fundamental sleep processes to show specific ways sleep impacts mental wellness.

---

Even Night Owls Benefit from Earlier Bedtimes for Mental Health

Think you’re naturally wired to stay up late? New research from Stanford Medicine might surprise you.

In a large study of nearly 75,000 adults, researchers found that both morning people and night owls had better mental health when they went to bed earlier.

Even if you identify as a “night owl,” staying up late increased your risk of mental health disorders by 20-40% compared to night owls who followed an earlier sleep schedule.

The researchers were initially skeptical of their own findings. “We spent six months trying to disprove it, and we couldn’t,” said study author Dr. Jamie Zeitzer.

Why is This Important?

Your natural chronotype (whether you’re a morning lark or night owl) might not be what’s best for your mental health. This challenges the common advice to “follow your natural rhythm.”

The research suggests that regardless of your preferences, earlier bedtimes benefit everyone’s psychological wellbeing. This could be related to how our modern environments (artificial light, social schedules) may conflict with deeper biological needs for earlier rest.

If you’re a night owl struggling with anxiety, depression, or mood issues, gradually shifting your bedtime earlier – even by 30-60 minutes – might provide mental health benefits beyond what you’d expect.

Read the full article here.

---

The Bidirectional Relationship: Sleep Quality Predicts Mental Health

A 2024 Sleep Foundation survey revealed something many of us know intuitively but hadn’t seen quantified: the quality of your sleep directly impacts how you feel mentally, and vice versa.

Nearly half of people who report having below-average sleep quality rate their mental health as below average. Those with poor sleep get nearly an hour less sleep per night (6.3 hours vs. 7.2 hours) and are three times as likely to rate their sleep quality as poor.

But here’s what’s particularly interesting: people with anxiety and depression don’t just sleep poorly, they seem to feel the effects of bad sleep more intensely than others.
Even when they sleep the same number of hours as someone else, they wake up feeling worse.

Why is This Important?

This isn’t just about getting more sleep BUT about understanding that sleep and mental health feed into each other in a continuous loop.
“Anxiety is like dumping gasoline on the fire of insomnia,” explains sleep specialist Dr. Brandon Peters.

When you’re anxious or depressed, poor sleep hits you harder. But improving your sleep quality can break this cycle and provide mental health benefits that go beyond just feeling less tired.

The research shows that people with below-average sleep quality are up to two times more likely to regularly experience nervousness and agitation, creating a cycle where poor sleep worsens mental health, which then worsens sleep.

Read the article here.

---

Your Brain’s Overnight Cleaning System: The Glymphatic Discovery

One of the most fascinating recent discoveries about sleep is that your brain has a waste removal system that works primarily while you sleep and it’s called the glymphatic system.

Recent studies show that when we’re in deep sleep, our brain cells work together in a coordinated way that helps move cerebrospinal fluid through brain tissue. This fluid acts like a washing system, carrying toxic waste products out of the brain so they can be eliminated by the body.

Think of it like your brain’s overnight janitorial service. During deep sleep, cerebrospinal fluid flows through your brain tissue, washing away toxic proteins and metabolic waste that build up during the day.

“Sleep is critical to the function of the brain’s waste removal system and this study shows that the deeper the sleep the better,” explains Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, who discovered this system.

Why is This Important?

This discovery helps explain why poor sleep is linked to mental health problems and neurodegenerative diseases. When your brain can’t properly clean itself due to insufficient or poor-quality sleep, toxic waste products accumulate (potentially contributing to depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline).
When this brain cleaning system doesn’t work properly, it may contribute to various conditions including depression, anxiety, headaches, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

The key insight?

Not all sleep is equal.

Deep, slow-wave sleep (N3 stage) is when this cleaning process works best. Light, fragmented sleep doesn’t allow for optimal waste removal, which may explain why you can sleep for 8 hours but still wake up feeling mentally foggy if the sleep quality was poor.

This gives us a biological reason why prioritizing sleep quality (and not just quantity) is crucial for mental health.

How You Can Support Your Sleep and Mental Health

Create optimal sleep conditions: Keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet. The glymphatic system works best during deep sleep, so minimize anything that might cause frequent awakenings.

Consider an earlier bedtime: Based on the Stanford research, even if you’re naturally a night owl, gradually shifting your bedtime earlier by 15-30 minutes may benefit your mental health.

Focus on sleep quality, not just quantity: Deep, restorative sleep is when your brain does its most important maintenance work. Avoid screens before bed, limit caffeine after 2 PM, and create a consistent wind-down routine.

Address the cycle: If you’re experiencing both sleep problems and mental health challenges, recognize that improving one will help the other. Consider working with a healthcare provider who understands this bidirectional relationship.

Read the article here.

---

Final Thoughts

Your brain works hard for you all day. Give it the deep, restorative sleep it needs to clean itself, process emotions, and prepare you for mental wellness tomorrow.

source https://getreconnected.ca/blog/july-2025-get-reconnected-newsletter-insights-on-sleep-and-mental-health/

Is Infertility a Trauma? Understanding the Emotional Impact of Fertility Struggles

The short answer is yes. Infertility is a trauma.

But like most things related to fertility struggles, it’s more complicated than a simple yes or no.

Not everyone who experiences infertility will develop trauma responses, but many people do, and those responses are completely valid and understandable given what they’re going through.

If you’re wondering whether what you’re experiencing counts as trauma, or if you’re having reactions that feel bigger than what seems “normal” for infertility struggles, you’re not overreacting.

The emotional impact of infertility is real, significant, and deserving of the same care and attention we give to other traumatic experiences.

As someone who works with people navigating fertility challenges, I’ve seen how profoundly this experience of infertility can affect someone’s sense of safety, control, and trust in their own body and the world around them.

These are hallmarks of trauma, and they deserve to be recognized and addressed as such.

Many women and men facing infertility-related trauma describe it as an ongoing series of traumatic events. It’s not just about one diagnosis or procedure, but it’s often the accumulation of invasive tests, failed infertility treatment, treatment results, and the lingering psychological distress that lasts years after unsuccessful infertility treatment.

What Makes Something Traumatic?

When we talk about trauma in mental health, we’re usually referring to experiences that overwhelm your ability to cope and leave you feeling helpless, unsafe, or fundamentally changed.

Trauma doesn’t have to involve only physical danger. It can be any experience that feels threatening to your sense of safety, control, or wellbeing.

Traditionally, we think of trauma as single, dramatic events: accidents, assaults, natural disasters.

But there’s also something called complex trauma or ongoing trauma, which develops from repeated or prolonged exposure to distressing situations. This is often where infertility struggles fit as traumatic experiences.

And if we look at the origin of the word trauma from the Greek language it stands for “wound” or “injury”. Infertility struggles not only wound you physically but also emotionally and mentally. The infertility trauma can be called an infertility wound.
Infertility trauma isn’t usually one devastating moment BUT it’s the accumulation of monthly disappointments, invasive procedures, loss of control over your body, financial stress, social isolation, and the gradual erosion of your assumptions about how your life would unfold.

Each individual event might not seem traumatic on its own, but the cumulative effect can be overwhelming.

Infertility on women’s emotional well-being can mirror responses to assault, loss, or illness. It’s a complex experience that goes beyond a physical condition.

Trauma of infertility includes the grief of involuntary childlessness, the stress of undergoing in vitro fertilization, and the loss of identity. This trauma is often compounded by disenfranchised grief, especially in cases of infertility and perinatal loss or the loss of a child.

Undergoing IVF treatment (in vitro fertilization treatment), can feel mechanical and dehumanizing, impacting the emotional resilience of women undergoing infertility treatment and women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment.

Unexplained infertility, secondary infertility, and male infertility all have different psychological profiles, yet they share the sense of loss, lack of control, and deep disappointment.

What Happens to Your Brain During Reproductive Trauma

When you’re going through infertility, your brain’s threat detection system (centered in the amygdala) interprets fertility challenges as crises and threats.

Your nervous system doesn’t distinguish between different types of threats, whether you’re being chased by a bear or getting another negative pregnancy test, your brain can respond with the same alarm bells.

In fact, infertility among women has been linked to higher levels of anxiety and PTSD-like symptoms even years after the end of fertility treatments.

This shows the a relationship between infertility and trauma responses.

Infertility affects both individuals and couples, challenging their emotional bonds and resilience. The emotional experience can cause feelings of shame, inadequacy, and isolation.

Your Threat Detection System Goes Into Overdrive

When you’re dealing with infertility, your brain’s threat detection system (centered in the amygdala) starts treating fertility-related situations as dangerous.

This makes sense from a survival perspective. For most of human history, being unable to reproduce would have been a genuine threat to genetic survival. So when you can’t conceive, your primitive brain interprets this as a crisis that needs immediate attention.

This is why you might find yourself unable to think about anything else during certain parts of your cycle, or why your heart races when you see a pregnancy announcement. Your amygdala is essentially screaming “DANGER!” and flooding your system with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.

The Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response

During infertility, you might notice yourself having intense reactions that feel disproportionate to the situation.

Maybe you snap at your partner during a fertility discussion (fight), avoid baby-related social events entirely (flight), or find yourself unable to make decisions about treatment options (freeze).

These reactions don’t mean that you can’t handle it or that you’re exaggerating, they’re your nervous system’s automatic responses to perceived threat.

Memory and Decision-Making Get Hijacked

When your brain is in threat mode, the prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for rational thinking, planning, and decision-making – gets suppressed.

This is why you might have trouble concentrating at work, forget important details about treatment protocols, or find yourself making impulsive decisions about fertility treatments when you’re emotionally activated.

Your brain is essentially saying, “We don’t have time for complex thinking right now—we need to focus all our energy on this threat.”

This can make you feel like you’re not thinking clearly or like you’ve lost your usual ability to problem-solve effectively.

Chronic Stress Rewires Your Brain

Perhaps most importantly, when fertility struggles go on for months or years, your brain adapts to this chronic state of stress. Neural pathways associated with threat detection become more sensitive and activated more easily.

This is why someone who’s been through extensive fertility treatments might have intense anxiety reactions to things that wouldn’t have bothered them before—like medical appointments, certain times of the month, or even conversations about family planning.

Your brain has essentially learned that reproduction-related experiences are dangerous, and it’s trying to protect you by staying hypervigilant to any potential threats in this area.

Why Your Brain Treats Infertility as Trauma

From a neurological perspective, infertility has many of the same features as other traumatic events: loss of control, repeated exposure to distressing situations, unpredictability, and a threat to your fundamental sense of safety and identity.

Your brain doesn’t care that this isn’t a “traditional” trauma—it responds to the psychological and emotional overwhelm with the same protective mechanisms it would use for any other threat.

This is also why infertility can trigger trauma responses even in people who haven’t experienced other types of trauma. Your nervous system is responding to the current situation, not making judgments about whether your distress is “justified” compared to other people’s experiences.

The psychological impact of infertility should not be minimized. Responses to infertility can include avoidance, hypervigilance, or intrusive thoughts. These are normal and understandable.

The Many Ways Infertility Can Be Traumatic

Loss of Control Over Your Body

One of the most fundamental aspects of trauma is feeling powerless, and infertility can create an intense sense that your body is betraying you or operating outside your control.

You might eat the right foods, take the right supplements, follow all the medical advice, and still have your body not respond the way you expect it to.

Repeated Cycles of Hope and Devastation

Every month or every treatment cycle can feel like an emotional roller coaster. You build up hope, invest emotionally in the possibility of success, and then experience crushing disappointment when it doesn’t work.

This repeated cycle of hope and loss can be deeply traumatizing over time.

Medical Trauma from Procedures and Treatments

Fertility treatments often involve invasive procedures, hormone injections, frequent monitoring, and interventions that can feel dehumanizing or overwhelming.

Some people develop specific trauma responses to medical settings, needles, or internal exams because of their fertility treatment experiences.

Loss of Life Assumptions

Most people grow up assuming they’ll be able to have children if they want them. Infertility shatters this basic assumption about how life works, which can feel like losing your footing in the world.

When fundamental beliefs about your future get destroyed, it can be deeply traumatic

Social and Relationship Trauma

The way other people respond to your fertility struggles can also be traumatic.

This might include insensitive comments from family, friends who drift away because they don’t know how to support you, or medical professionals who dismiss your concerns or treat you like a number rather than a person.

How Trauma Shows Up in Fertility Struggles

Trauma responses during infertility can look different for different people, but there are some common patterns that many people experience:

Hypervigilance About Your Body

You might find yourself obsessively monitoring every physical sensation, analyzing every symptom, or becoming intensely focused on fertility-related signs.

This hyperawareness is your nervous system trying to regain control by gathering as much information as possible.

Avoidance of Triggers

This might look like avoiding baby showers, steering clear of the baby section in stores, unfollowing pregnant friends on social media, or even avoiding certain medical appointments.

Your brain is trying to protect you from reminders of your pain.

Intrusive Thoughts and Rumination

You might find yourself unable to stop thinking about fertility, replaying conversations with doctors, obsessing over what you could have done differently, or having intrusive thoughts about worst-case scenarios.

These thought patterns are common trauma responses.

Emotional Numbing or Intense Emotions

Some people respond to infertility trauma by shutting down emotionally, feeling disconnected from their feelings or from other people.

Others experience intense emotions that feel overwhelming and difficult to manage.

Sleep and Concentration Problems

Trauma often affects sleep patterns and concentration. You might have trouble falling asleep because your mind is racing with fertility-related thoughts, or you might find it hard to focus on work or other activities because your brain is preoccupied with your struggles.

Changes in Your Sense of Safety

You might feel like your body isn’t safe or trustworthy, like the medical system has failed you, or like the world is fundamentally unfair.

The Unique Nature of Infertility Trauma

What makes infertility trauma particularly complex is that it’s often ongoing and uncertain. Unlike other types of trauma that have a clear beginning and end, infertility can stretch on for months or years with no clear resolution in sight.

In a study by Roozitalab and colleagues, the results showed that 41.3% of infertile women had symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Ambiguous Loss

Infertility involves grieving someone who never existed but who felt very real to you (the child you imagined having, the family you planned to create, the version of yourself you expected to become).

This type of loss, called ambiguous loss, can be particularly difficult to process because there’s no clear endpoint to the grief.

Ongoing and Unpredictable

Most traumas have a clear before and after (life before the car accident and life after, for example).

But infertility trauma is ongoing and unpredictable. You never know when the next disappointment will come, which keeps your nervous system in a state of high alert.

Invalidation from Others

Many people don’t understand the depth of pain that infertility can cause, which means your trauma responses might be minimized or dismissed by others.

This invalidation can actually make the trauma worse and make recovery more difficult.

Hope Makes It Complicated

Unlike other types of trauma where you’re processing something that’s definitively over, infertility trauma exists alongside hope.

You might be grieving while also trying to stay optimistic about future treatments. This emotional complexity can make it harder to process your experiences.

When Infertility Trauma Needs Professional Support

While some level of distress is normal during fertility struggles, there are signs that indicate you might benefit from trauma-informed mental health support:

Your Daily Functioning is Significantly Impacted

If fertility-related distress is making it difficult to work, maintain relationships, or take care of basic needs, that’s a sign that professional support could be helpful.

You’re Having Panic Attacks or Severe Anxiety

If you’re experiencing panic attacks, especially in medical settings or when confronted with fertility-related triggers, this might indicate trauma responses that could benefit from specialized treatment.

You’re Using Substances to Cope

If you find yourself drinking more, using drugs, or relying on other substances to manage fertility-related emotions, this is a sign that you need additional coping strategies and support.

You’re Having Thoughts of Self-Harm

If you’re having thoughts about hurting yourself or if life doesn’t feel worth living because of your fertility struggles, please reach out for professional help immediately.

Medical Settings Feel Triggering

If you’re having intense anxiety, panic, or flashback-like experiences in medical settings, this might indicate medical trauma that could benefit from specialized treatment.

Trauma-Informed Care for Fertility Struggles

If you recognize trauma responses in your fertility experience, it’s important to seek support from mental health professionals who understand both trauma and fertility issues.

Trauma-informed care means working with someone who:

Validates Your Experience

A trauma-informed therapist won’t minimize your pain or suggest that you should just “relax and it will happen.” They understand that infertility can be genuinely traumatic and will treat your experiences with the seriousness they deserve.

Helps You Develop Coping Strategies

Trauma therapy often focuses on helping you develop tools for managing overwhelming emotions, intrusive thoughts, and physical symptoms of trauma. This might include grounding techniques, breathing exercises, or other strategies for regulating your nervous system.

Addresses Both Past and Present

Sometimes infertility trauma connects to earlier experiences of loss, medical trauma, or feeling powerless. A trauma-informed therapist can help you understand these connections and address both past and present sources of distress.

Supports Your Decision-Making

Trauma can make it difficult to make clear decisions about treatment options or life choices. Trauma-informed care includes helping you process your experiences so you can make decisions that feel right for you.

Healing from Infertility Trauma

Healing from infertility trauma doesn’t necessarily mean that all your fertility-related pain will disappear, especially if you’re still in the midst of trying to conceive.

But it does mean developing tools for managing the emotional impact, rebuilding your sense of safety and control, and processing your experiences in a way that doesn’t keep you stuck in overwhelming distress.

Acknowledging the Trauma is the First Step

Simply recognizing that what you’ve been through qualifies as trauma can be incredibly validating.

You’re not overreacting, you’re not weak, and you’re not broken…you’re having normal responses to abnormal levels of stress and loss.

Building Safety and Stability

Trauma healing often starts with helping your nervous system feel safe again. This might mean developing daily routines that feel grounding, creating physical spaces that feel safe, or learning techniques for calming your body when it’s in a state of high alert.

Processing Your Experiences

Trauma therapy provides a safe space to process your experiences without judgment. This might involve talking through your fertility journey, processing specific difficult moments, or exploring how this experience has affected your sense of self and your relationships.

Reconnecting with Your Values and Identity

Trauma can make you feel like your entire identity is consumed by your struggles. Healing involves reconnecting with other aspects of yourself (your values, your relationships, your interests, and your strengths) that exist independently of your fertility journey.

You’re Not Overreacting

One of the most important things I want you to know is that if infertility feels traumatic to you, then it is traumatic for you.
You don’t need to compare your experience to other types of trauma or minimize your pain because others might seem to handle fertility struggles better.

Trauma is not about the objective severity of what happens to you BUT about how your nervous system responds to overwhelming experiences.

If your body and mind are responding to infertility in ways that feel traumatic, then those responses deserve care and attention.
The emotional impact of infertility is real, significant, and worthy of the same compassion and professional support that we give to other traumatic experiences.

You deserve to have your pain acknowledged, your responses validated, and your healing supported.

Therapy Approaches for Reproductive Trauma

At Get Reconnected, we offer treatment for infertility trauma using effective evidence based modalities like Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) to help process overwhelming emotions and distressing memories—such as failed fertility treatments, miscarriages, or pregnancy loss.

We also integrate Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic practices, and polyvagal-informed techniques to help regulate your nervous system, rebuild emotional safety, and restore connection to your body and self.

We recognize that men and women who experience infertility often carry trauma both in body and mind.

Moving Forward with Trauma-Informed Support

If you recognize yourself in these descriptions of infertility trauma, please know that healing is possible.

Trauma responses are your nervous system’s attempt to protect you, and with the right support, you can learn to feel safe and grounded again while still honoring the very real pain of your fertility journey.

This doesn’t mean you have to give up hope about conceiving or that trauma therapy will solve your fertility struggles.
But it does mean you can get support for processing this experience in a way that doesn’t keep you stuck in overwhelming distress.

You deserve care that acknowledges the full scope of what fertility struggles can do to a person…not just the physical aspects, but the emotional and psychological impact as well.

Your experiences matter, your pain is valid, and healing is possible.

Additional resources for coping with infertility

• The 9 Stages of Infertility Grief and How to Cope
• Surviving Mother’s Day When You’re Facing Infertility
• Finding Hope Through the Infertility Journey
• Coping with Infertility During the Holidays
• Two-Week Wait After IVF: 13 Tips to Survive the Toughest Part of Fertility Treatments
• Surviving Infertility: Coping with the Ups and Downs
• Coping with Infertility: The Role of Fertility Counselling
• Fertility Anxiety: Coping Strategies for Real Struggles

Reach Out for A Free Consultation

If you’re struggling with trauma responses related to your fertility journey, you don’t have to heal alone.

At Get Reconnected Psychotherapy Services, Delia Petrescu provides trauma-informed care specifically for individuals dealing with fertility challenges.

She understands personally and professionally how infertility can affect your sense of safety and wellbeing, and she’s here to support your healing process.

Book a free 15-minute consultation to explore how trauma-informed therapy can support you through this difficult time.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do I know if my infertility experience is traumatic?

Trauma isn’t about the event itself but your response to it. If you feel overwhelmed, unsafe, powerless, or emotionally numb, you might be experiencing trauma.

What kind of therapist should I look for?

Seek a therapist trained in trauma-informed care, ideally with experience in reproductive or medical trauma. Look for modalities like EMDR, ART, IFS, or somatic therapies.

Can trauma therapy help with infertility even if I’m still trying to conceive?

Yes. Therapy can help regulate your nervous system, reduce anxiety, and give you tools to manage ongoing uncertainty—without interfering with hope.

Is infertility trauma recognized in the DSM-5?

While not a specific diagnosis, many experience symptoms that overlap with PTSD or Adjustment Disorder.

What’s the difference between stress and trauma in infertility?

Stress is common and usually manageable. Trauma occurs when stress overwhelms your ability to cope and creates lasting changes in your nervous system.

source https://getreconnected.ca/blog/infertility-trauma-emotional-mental-health-impact/

Attachment Styles in Relationships: What Netflix’s “Love is Blind” Reveals About How We Connect

Have you ever watched Love is Blind and thought “How does one get attached without ever looking at each other?”
If you’re familiar with the Netflix show, you didn’t just watch reality TV, you also witnessed different attachment styles in action.

The show might be packaged as entertainment, but under all the pod dates and romantic drama is a live demonstration of how attachment styles influence the way we connect in romantic relationships.

As someone who works with people navigating relationships patterns every day, what strikes me most about the show isn’t whether people can fall in love without seeing each other but how quickly their attachment wounds surface when they’re forced to connect through conversation.

Remove physical appearance, social status, and all the usual dating distractions, and what you’re left with is raw emotional and relational habits. The ways people learned to seek love, maintain it, or protect themselves from it all come rushing to the surface. This offers a real-time analysis of emotional wiring.

The Pods as a Psychological Experiment in Emotional Connection

The show’s format creates the perfect conditions for attachment systems to activate quickly. In regular dating, you have so many buffers: from sharing activities, physical chemistry, external validation. But in those pods, it’s just voice, emotion, and whatever relationship blueprint you’ve been carrying since childhood.

These interactions expose adult attachment styles fast. People’s attachment wiring are explored as the conversations become deeper. Some seek constant reassurance, others pull away as things get real. Emotions are at a high, not just because the stakes feel big, but because the show taps into something universal, our need for connection, and the ways we protect ourselves when it feels threatened.

In this way, Love is Blind becomes more than entertainment. It becomes a window into how we all relate to the insecurities, anxiety, or fear, but always with the hope of being seen and understood.

Take Jessica from Season 1. Everyone was frustrated watching her with Mark, but what we saw was someone whose nervous system couldn’t accept love that felt too available. She wanted to be chosen, but when Mark was all-in, her brain possibly went into overdrive looking for problems. He was too young, too eager, too…there

This isn’t about Jessica being difficult or self-sabotaging for fun. Research shows that if you grew up with love that was conditional, maybe you only got attention when you achieved something, or affect got withdrawn during conflict, then unconditional love can literally feel unfamiliar and wrong. Your nervous system rejects it because it doesn’t match what love is supposed to feel like. That’s one way anxious attachment style may show up.

Love Is Blind and Attachment Theory in Action

Attachment theory was developed by psychiatrist John Bowlby and psychologist Mary Ainsworth. It explores how our earliest relationships (especially with caregivers) create blueprints for how we connect with others throughout our lives. Attachment theory can help explain why we behave the way we do in close relationships and future relationships.

Read More: Understanding Attachment Styles: From Attachment Theory to Adult Relationships

These early experiences teach us whether relationships feel safe or uncertain, whether our needs will be met consistently, and how much we can trust that love will stick around when things get difficult.

What makes Love is Blind so psychologically revealing is that it strips away all the usual dating buffers and forces people to connect through pure attachment system activation. It shows how styles influence how we initiate and maintain romantic relationships.

The Patterns We Can’t See in Ourselves

What makes the show so revealing is how these styles play out when people can’t rely on their usual coping mechanisms.
Cole from Season 3 is a perfect example. Charming, funny, great at surface-level connection. But watch what happened every time conversations moved toward real vulnerability. Suddenly it was jokes, deflection, change of subject.

That’s not necessarily someone being shallow. That’s usually a nervous system that learned early on that emotional openness feels dangerous.

Maybe growing up where feelings weren’t welcome, or vulnerability was met with criticism or withdrawal.

So, we develop protective strategies, such as staying charming, staying surface-level, keeping people close enough to not be alone but far enough away to stay safe. That can reflect avoidant attachment styles, a type of insecure attachment style.

How Early Experiences Shape Relationship Patterns

The manner in which we connect as adults tends to mirror the emotional climate in which we came up. Well before we selected partners or friends, we were figuring out what it felt like to love, what safety feels like, and if our own needs would ever be satisfied.

These initial experiences inform not only how we connect with others, but also how we perceive ourselves. Attachment style often affect adult relationships in more ways than we realize.

Understanding where these relational styles come from is not about blame but rather about recognizing that early survival strategies often pass into adult relationships. And once we see them clearly, we can begin to choose something different. Attachment style as an adult can shift with awareness.

What Secure Attachment Actually Looks Like in Real Life and on TV

Then there are couples like Brett and Tiffany from Season 4, who showed us what secure attachment style looks like in practice.
When conflicts arose, they didn’t treat them as threats to the relationship…they treated them as problems to solve together.

When Tiffany said she wasn’t feeling heard, Brett didn’t get defensive or dismiss her concerns. He listened, acknowledged what she was saying, and worked with her to figure it out. When they disagreed, they stayed connected even while working through the disagreement.

This isn’t about being perfect or never having conflict. It’s about having enough trust in the relationship to believe you can weather storms together. Secure attachment style doesn’t mean everything is easy, but that connection can be maintained through healthy repair. Someone with a secure attachment tends to approach intimate relationships with openness and resilience.

Secure attachment develops when early caregiving is consistent and responsive. When children learn that their needs matter, that relationships can handle conflict, and that love doesn’t disappear during difficult moments. People with a secure attachment are often able to create stable relationships.

Examples of Anxious, Avoidant, and Disorganized Attachment Styles on Love Is Blind

Anxious Attachment: The Fear of Abandonment

People with an anxious attachment style tend to navigate relationships with a powerful, underlying need to feel truly chosen and valued by their partner.

Coupled with this desire is a persistent fear that they might be abandoned, overlooked, or not enough.

This fear can make them hyper-vigilant to any signs of distance or rejection, causing them to seek frequent reassurance and sometimes question their own worth.

On the show, anxious attachment often looks like rushing to form deep bonds quickly, overanalyzing every pause, or change in tone.

Those moments of distance feel like looming threats, prompting a nervous system flooded with fear. The real question beneath it all is, “Will you stay with me?”

Avoidant Attachment: The Walls We Build

Avoidant attachment also comes with its own problems and complications. People with this attachment style do want attachment and intimacy but feel they have a dread about the vulnerability that is required.

Being open emotionally may feel too risky or too overwhelming, so they might retreat from others to protect themselves.

This distance is not because they don’t care, it’s a defence mechanism built up from previous experiences when closeness might have caused discomfort, loss of control, or pain. They tend to struggle between the need for independence and the desire for real contact.

Disorganized Attachment: The Push-Pull

Perhaps the most complex emotional blueprint we see on the show is what is called disorganized attachment. These dynamics are when someone is craving closeness and fearing it at the same time.

One moment they’re all-in, the next they’re creating distance or conflict.

Shake from earlier seasons demonstrated this push-pull. He’d have these moments of genuine connection and vulnerability, talking about wanting partnership and family. Then he’d flip and make comments about physical attraction or create drama that pushed his partner away.

Sometimes it isn’t only the case of someone being cruel but sometimes it’s what happens when your early experiences with love were both comforting and frightening.

Maybe caregivers were sometimes nurturing and sometimes scary, or love came with conditions that felt impossible to meet. The nervous system gets confused about whether connection is safe or dangerous. This confusion can result in an insecure attachment style.

Attachment Without Visual Cues in the Pods

The pods remove so many of the usual relationship steps that these relational habits get amplified quickly. In normal dating, you might not see someone’s attachment style clearly for months. But when people are forming emotional bonds based on conversation, with cameras rolling and a timeline ticking, old wiring can surface fast.

Lauren and Cameron seemed to have this beautiful connection in the pods, but even they had to navigate the reality of what happens when fantasy meets real life.

The secure couples tend to handle this transition better because they have more flexibility in their nervous systems. They can adapt when circumstances change without their entire sense of safety collapsing.

For those with insecure attachment styles, the transition from pods to real world can feel devastating. Suddenly all their fears about not being enough, being abandoned, or losing themselves in relationship get activated at once.

What This Means for Relationships

The most valuable thing about watching these dynamics play out isn’t the entertainment value but it’s the recognition. How many of us see ourselves in Jessica’s self-sabotage, or Cole’s vulnerability avoidance, or the anxious-avoidant dance that so many couples get stuck in?

The truth about attachment styles is that they’re not permanent. Yes, they run deep. Yes, they often feel automatic and outside our control. But they can shift and heal through new experiences of safety and connection.

This happens in healthy long-term relationships where partners can recognize each other’s habits and respond with patience rather than reactivity.

It happens in therapy, where people can explore these styles in a safe environment and practice new ways of relating.

And it happens through simple awareness by noticing when old coping mechanisms are driving and making conscious choices to try something different.

Moving Toward Healthier Connection

If you recognize your own relational habits in any of this, you’re not doomed to repeat the same relationship dynamics forever.
These patterns developed as survival strategies when you were young, and they served a purpose. They kept you safe in whatever environment you were navigating.

But what kept you safe as a child might be keeping you lonely as an adult. The hyper-vigilance that protected you from an unpredictable parent might now have you constantly scanning your partner for signs of rejection. The emotional walls that helped you survive criticism might now be preventing intimacy.

The path forward isn’t about fixing yourself or becoming someone completely different. It’s about developing a more secure attachment through awareness of your interaction styles, understanding where they came from, and slowly expanding your capacity for the kind of connection you actually want.

Sometimes this work can be done within a loving relationship with someone who’s willing to be patient as you both figure out your relational styles. Sometimes it requires professional support to untangle wounds that run particularly deep.

Therapies that focus on attachment provide a safe space to explore how early experiences shape current relationship dynamics.

Couples counselling offers tools to improve communication and repair conflicts.

Trauma-informed approaches add another layer of care by addressing how past wounds impact present relationships.

Why This Matters

At the end of the day, Love is Blind isn’t really about whether love can develop without physical attraction. It’s about whether we can show up authentically in relationship despite our fears, wounds, and protective strategies.

The couples who make it aren’t the ones without attachment issues but the ones who can acknowledge their relational dynamics, communicate about them, and work together.

They’re willing to do the vulnerable work of letting someone see not just their best selves, but their scared, defended, messy selves too.

That’s the real experiment: Can we love and be loved not despite our attachment wounds, but including them?
Can we create relationships where it’s safe to be human…anxious sometimes, defensive sometimes, scared of being hurt but willing to try anyway?

I think the answer is yes. But it requires the kind of courage most of these reality show contestants are just starting to develop.
The courage to look at your relational habits honestly, communicate about them openly, and choose connection even when your nervous system is screaming that it’s not safe.

That’s the work we do in therapy, and it’s some of the most important work there is. Because at the end of the day, we all want to be seen, known, and loved for who we really are. We just need to learn how to let that happen.

About the Author

Delia Petrescu, MA, RP, is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in trauma recovery, attachment wounds, and reproductive mental health. she has experience helping individuals and couples build secure, healthy connections.

Work With Us

At Get Reconnected Psychotherapy Services, we understand how attachment influences your relationships.

We offer evidence-based therapy to help you explore your unique story, heal old wounds, and develop healthier ways of relating.

Whether you are struggling with anxiety around connection, difficulty trusting, or simply want to strengthen your relationships, we are here to guide and support you.

If you’re ready to break free from old coping mechanisms that hold you back and step into more authentic, secure relationships, reach out to us.

Book a free 15-minute consultation to see how we can help.

FAQs

What is anxious vs. avoidant attachment?

Anxious attachment involves a strong need for closeness and reassurance, paired with a fear of being abandoned. People may become clingy or overly sensitive to signs of rejection.

Avoidant attachment involves discomfort with emotional closeness. These individuals often pull away or shut down when intimacy increases, fearing dependence or loss of control.

How do I know my attachment style?

You can get a better sense of your attachment style by reflecting on how you typically respond to closeness, conflict, and emotional needs in relationships.

For a quick starting point, try an online tool like the Attachment Style Questionnaire, which takes just 5–10 minutes and can offer helpful insights. This type of quiz can help you reflect, and learn more about attachment at your own pace.

However, the most effective way to explore your attachment patterns is in sessions with a trained therapist who can help you understand their roots and how they show up in your relationships.

Can attachment styles change?

Yes, attachment styles can change. While they often develop in childhood, they’re not set in stone. Through self-awareness, healing relationships, or working with a therapist, many people develop what’s known as an earned secure attachment—a more balanced and trusting way of connecting, even if they didn’t start out that way.

source https://getreconnected.ca/blog/attachment-styles-love-is-blind/