A certain amount of stress is just part of being alive, and I'm not interested in getting rid of all of it. What we work on is the point where it stops being the thing that gets you moving and turns into the thing that makes moving feel impossible.
People usually get in touch around something like:
- work that never really switches off, and the burnout that comes with it
- a mind that keeps replaying the same conversation or worry, often at its worst around 3am
- panic attacks, or the quiet dread of having another one
- a mood that has gone flat after a move, a breakup, or months of just pushing through
- a life change that has knocked you off balance without you quite noticing when
None of that has to be a crisis to be worth talking about. Honestly, a lot of the most useful work I do is on the ordinary, grinding stuff people have decided isn't "bad enough" to take to a therapist.
When the anxiety is mostly about work
This is far and away the most common reason people reach out, and the thing they tend to sit on longest. The emails that follow you to bed, the feeling that there's never enough time, concentration that keeps slipping, a temper shorter than it used to be. We get specific about what's actually feeding it, because "I'm stressed" is a place to start, not a plan. Then we build ways to bring it down that hold up on a normal Wednesday and not only when you're sitting in front of me.
Panic attacks
A panic attack is genuinely frightening, and much more common than people admit to each other: the racing heart, the tight chest, the urge to get out of the room, that sense that you've lost the dial that turns any of it down. The part I want you to hear is that you do not have to wait until they're frequent, or until someone has made it official, before it's worth dealing with. Catching it while it's still a handful of episodes, before your week quietly reorganizes itself around avoiding the next one, is exactly the right moment to come in. Social anxiety often travels with this, and we work with it the same way.
Low mood and the loss of momentum
Low mood rarely has one clean cause, and it's good at hiding. For some people it looks like throwing themselves into work and never stopping. For others it's not being able to make even a small decision without it feeling enormous. We slow things down and get honest about what has actually shifted, in your week, your relationships, your body, and we rebuild a floor you can stand on before going anywhere near the bigger questions.
Transitions, including the ones that come with being gay
A promotion, a breakup, a new country, a diagnosis, a birthday that hit harder than it had any business hitting. Transitions rearrange your sense of who you are, usually without asking permission, and white-knuckling through them is how they tend to curdle into anxiety or a slump. Some of these are specific to gay and queer life, like coming out to your family or rebuilding yourself after a relationship ends, and they belong in this room just as much as anything else. I won't treat them as a side note.
Book a free 20-minute call to talk through where you are.