Head vs. Body: Why the Standard Mental Health Model Misses the Mark

Why Regulating My Nervous System Changed Everything

For most of my life, doctors saw me through one lens: anxious, overwhelmed, maybe depressed. The solution was always the same — antidepressants. Cipralex, Effexor, Paxil, you name it. These medications were prescribed based on the belief that the root issue was a chemical imbalance in the brain. And for a long time, I believed that too.

And yes, antidepressants did help take the edge off certain symptoms. They dulled the sharp spikes of panic that sometimes came out of nowhere. But they never touched the full reality of what I was living.

They didn’t fix the chronic fatigue.
Or the executive dysfunction.
Or the sensory overload that left me unable to think.

They didn’t help me function.
They just helped me survive. Barely.

What I didn’t know then — and only began to understand after my late-diagnosed autism and ADHD — is that the problem wasn’t just in my head. It was in my body.

More specifically, in my nervous system.

Autistic Burnout Isn’t Depression

Autistic burnout isn’t about sadness or low mood. It’s what happens when your entire system has been running on overdrive for too long. When masking, fear, hypervigilance, and sensory overwhelm become the baseline.

My system was stuck in survival mode. Constantly scanning, reacting, bracing. No amount of serotonin reuptake was going to rewire a nervous system that didn’t know how to feel safe.

This is where the standard mental health model falls short. It focuses only on brain chemistry and ignores the body. It ignores the wiring. And it overlooks what we actually need to regulate.

The Shift I Didn’t See Coming

Ironically, the first real shift in my energy came not from a psychiatric medication, but from something prescribed for nerve pain. It had nothing to do with mood. It was meant to treat a complex dental issue I’d been living with for years. I wasn’t expecting anything major. I’d been barely functioning for months. I couldn’t get off the couch. My burnout was so deep, even writing felt impossible.

But within a few days of starting this new medication, something changed.
And it had nothing to do with nerve pain.

I got up.
I opened my computer.

I had still been writing, but only in short bursts — pushing through burnout and sensory overwhelm. Every paragraph felt like a climb. The process was draining. I often crashed afterward.

But this time was different.
For the first time in a very long time, I had the energy to stay. To focus.
To write for hours — not in survival mode, but with presence.

Regulation Is Somatic, Not Just Psychiatric

I’m not against antidepressants. For some people, they can be lifesaving. But we need to stop assuming they’re always the answer. For neurodivergent people, regulation isn’t just chemical. It’s somatic.

If your nervous system has never felt safe…
If your body has learned to brace for the world since childhood…
If everything feels too loud, too fast, too much…
Then no pill designed to balance mood is going to be enough.

We need care models that understand the interplay between body and brain. That recognize how long-term masking rewires us. That validate how real autistic burnout is and how hard it is to come back from without the right kind of support.

Final Thought

Sometimes, the medication that helps you the most isn’t the one they intended to give you.
Sometimes, what your body needed all along was to stop bracing. To feel safe. To rest.
And sometimes, you don’t even realize how far gone you were…
until something unexpectedly finally helps you come back to yourself.

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