Most mental health care begins after symptoms start to interfere with school, work, relationships or safety.

If you have been wondering whether you have ADHD - or if you already know you do and have been waiting to find the right provider to confirm it and discuss treatment - this post is for you. I am going to walk through exactly what an ADHD evaluation involves at Renew Wellness, how the booking process works, and what you can expect from your first appointment.

If you live in Durham or anywhere in the Triangle area and have been searching for PTSD treatment, you may have already discovered what many people in the region find: psychiatric providers who specialize in trauma and PTSD can be hard to get to, slow to schedule with, or simply not taking new patients.

If you have been searching for depression treatment in Raleigh, NC, you are probably already aware that finding the right provider takes more than a Google search.

Brain fog is one of the most commonly reported but least clinically specific symptoms I encounter. Patients describe it in different ways: a mental cloudiness that makes thinking feel slow and effortful, difficulty holding onto thoughts, trouble finding words, an inability to concentrate for more than a few minutes, or a general sense that their brain simply is not working the way it used to.

Most mental health care begins after symptoms start to interfere with school, work, relationships or safety

If you have been searching for mental health support and keep coming across the phrase 'medication management' without a clear explanation of what it actually means in practice, this post is for you.

ADHD and PTSD are two conditions that are increasingly being recognized as frequently co-occurring - and two conditions that are sometimes confused with each other, since both can produce problems with concentration, emotional reactivity, sleep, and a persistent sense of being unable to function the way you know you should.

Therapy is one of the most valuable tools available for anxiety. A skilled therapist can help you understand what drives your anxious thinking, develop strategies for managing difficult moments, and gradually face the situations you have been avoiding. Many people improve significantly through therapy alone.

One of the first things people ask me when they are thinking about getting help for PTSD or trauma is, how long will this take?

Anxiety and ADHD are two of the most common conditions I treat, and they are also often mistaken for each other. This confusion happens not only with patients, but also with providers who have not gathered a complete history.

At some point, most people who take antidepressants ask the same question: can I stop? Maybe you are feeling significantly better and wondering whether you still need the medication. Maybe the side effects have been bothering you. Maybe you ran out and did not refill in time, and now you are noticing strange symptoms you cannot quite explain.

If you have decided to seek help from a psychiatric provider but are unsure where to begin, you are not alone. The mental health system can appear confusing because it includes several different provider types, such as psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, psychologists, and therapists, each offering varying services. This variety, combined with multiple platforms for care delivery and conflicting information about insurance coverage, can make it challenging to know how to start the process.

Therapy is one of the best things a person can do for their mental health. A good therapist gives you tools, perspective, and a space to process the things that are hard to say out loud. Millions of people have turned their lives around through consistent, quality therapy alone.

When people decide to seek psychiatric care for the first time, one of the first questions they ask is who, exactly, they should see. Therapist? Psychologist? Psychiatrist? There's another option that many people haven't heard of — and for a lot of patients, it turns out to be exactly what they were looking for.

If you've been dealing with anxiety for a while, you've probably tried things. Deep breathing. Cutting out caffeine. Exercise. Journaling. Avoiding the situations that trigger it. Maybe therapy. Maybe a lot of therapy.

Something interesting is happening in psychiatric waiting rooms right now. Mixed in with the college students and new parents are people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s — people who have held careers and raised children and managed lives — who are only now finding out they have ADHD.

Somewhere in the last few years, burnout became a word for nearly everything. Tired of your job? Burnout. Overwhelmed by responsibilities? Burnout. Struggling to find motivation? Burnout. The word is everywhere, which means it's become easy to reach for it when something more serious might actually be going on.

I've noticed that a lot of people who need psychiatric care don't seek it — not because they don't want help, but because they're not sure what seeking help actually looks like. They picture something clinical and intimidating, or they're afraid of being judged, or they don't know if their problems are 'serious enough.'

If you've been treated for depression for years and you still don't feel right — if antidepressants have helped some but never quite delivered what they promised, or if they've made things worse in ways you can't fully articulate — there's a possibility worth considering.