Samantha Skvaril, MA, LCPC, Adhd-Ccsp

Samantha Skvaril, MA, LCPC, Adhd-Ccsp Chicago-based ADHD therapist (LCPC) helping late-diagnosed adults untangle shame, unmask, and rebuild self-trust.

Shame-first approach to ADHD, trauma, parenting & relationships.

You searched their names again, didn’t you..Closed the app. Opened it back up ten minutes later to see if there was some...
03/23/2026

You searched their names again, didn’t you..

Closed the app. Opened it back up ten minutes later to see if there was something new.

You’ve read the comments. You’ve checked what people are saying about Taylor Frankie Paul & Dakota. You’ve thought about them more this week than most things in your actual life.

And somewhere underneath all of it… there’s a feeling you can’t quite name. It doesn’t feel like entertainment anymore.
It feels like something is happening to you.

I’m a therapist and If this drama has you spiraling harder than you want to admit, swipe through.

These 12 slides explain exactly what’s happening in your body and brain right now. Mirror neurons, cortisol spikes, trauma-bond chemistry, and why your nervous system treats this like
unfinished business from your own life.

Your body is remembering.

Save this if it named the thing you’ve been doing but couldn’t explain. & Send it to the friend who’s been refreshing right beside you.

Which slide hit you the hardest? Drop the emoji or number below 👇❤️‍🩹🧠

Taylor Frankie Paul called her relationship an “addictive cycle” — right as that 2023 video dropped before her Bachelore...
03/20/2026

Taylor Frankie Paul called her relationship an “addictive cycle” — right as that 2023 video dropped before her Bachelorette premiere.

As a therapist, I broke down the public facts using real clinical frameworks in this 7-slide carousel.

You’ll clearly see how trauma bonding, coercive control, the cycle of violence, and situational couple violence create a dangerous structural trap. This is exactly why leaving these dynamics is so difficult and dangerous.

This one is eye-opening.

03/18/2026

As a licensed therapist who helps people untangle religious trauma and toxic relationship patterns, I have to speak up on the backlash that Taylor Frankie Paul has been receiving.

The hate misses the deeper picture:
How the Mormon Church’s high-control environment + intergenerational family wounds (Taylor’s prior divorce, her mom’s divorce shame, absent bio dad + emotionally immature and emmeshed mom) literally primed her for this volatile dynamic.

Add in Dakota’s documented history with severe substance abuse (he**in and fentanyl) and you get what I call the High-Control Trauma Bond Loop in action.

It feels like an exhausting push-pull: intense reconnection highs after conflict, crashing lows of volatility, and intermittent reinforcement that wires chaos to feel like love. Leaving feels almost impossible because the nervous system confuses familiarity with safety.

This isn’t about political parties, this is about safety.In therapy and in real relationships, people need to be able to...
02/04/2026

This isn’t about political parties, this is about safety.

In therapy and in real relationships, people need to be able to relax their bodies in order to connect. When someone doesn’t know where another person stands on issues that involve harm, power, or whose lives are protected, the nervous system stays on alert.

And therapy doesn’t work when vigilance replaces relationship. Research has consistently shown that the therapeutic relationship is one of the strongest predictors of outcomes, often more than technique alone (Horvath & Symonds, 1991).

It’s also worth naming that discomfort with this conversation often comes from people who are not directly impacted by these systems, and who benefit from silence, predictability, or being assumed “safe” by default. Clinicians included.

Wanting clarity isn’t about putting people in boxes.
It’s about knowing whether it’s safe to exhale.

01/29/2026

Since 2020, I’ve had clients come to me specifically because “neutral” spaces prioritizing therapist comfort, left them feeling unsafe, unseen, or confused.

And since 2020 (and before) I’ve been transparent about my values and beliefs.

Because therapy is RELATIONAL. We heal in relationship.
And you can’t fully be in relationship with a therapist if you don’t know whether it’s safe to be your authentic self.

…and my website is pretty clear about where I stand, so most clients already know what they’re walking into!

01/28/2026

I spend my days helping people unlearn shame because in personal healing, shame keeps us small. It isolates. It tells us to hide. It’s a terrible long-term motivator for growth.

But politically, something different is happening.

Shame right now isn’t whispering “you are bad.”
It’s asking, “Is this who you are?” It’s interrupting the stories we tell ourselves about neutrality, innocence, and “not knowing.” It’s cracking the comfort of “this doesn’t affect me.”
It’s creating friction between who we believe we are and what we’re allowing.

We’ve already learned something important over the last few years:

trying to reason with people who are committed to misunderstanding us is a dead end. You can’t fact your way out of bad faith. You can’t build empathy where there is no intention to listen.

So this moment isn’t about persuading the unpersuadable. It’s about waking up the people who still care who they are. The ones who thought they were on the “good” side of history. The ones who need the dissonance to register that this doesn’t match their values.

Because empathy alone hasn’t moved enough people.
Information alone hasn’t either. But that visceral “wait… this is wrong” feeling? That’s what’s shifting people.

Not into self-hatred. But into reckoning. Into choice. Into action.

Shame isn’t meant to be a home.
But sometimes, it’s the doorway.

We know the power of therapy. We’ve watched it stabilize nervous systems, interrupt shame spirals, restore agency, and h...
01/25/2026

We know the power of therapy. We’ve watched it stabilize nervous systems, interrupt shame spirals, restore agency, and help people keep going when the world feels unlivable.

We know that one regulated body can change a family. One supported person can stay in the work. One safe relationship can keep someone from burning out.

Providing therapy for activists is a part of how change actually sustains itself. Movements don’t collapse only from opposition; they collapse from exhaustion, isolation, and unprocessed trauma. Therapy is infrastructure.

If you’re an Illinois therapist who’s able to offer free, reduced cost, or community funded sessions, go to the link in my bio.

There’s a specific kind of weight that comes with being both a therapist and a mom.You don’t just parent, you track impa...
01/09/2026

There’s a specific kind of weight that comes with being both a therapist and a mom.

You don’t just parent, you track impact. you monitor rupture. you carry clinical awareness into moments that are already emotionally charged.

And while that awareness matters, it can quietly turn parenting into something that feels more high-stakes, exhausting, and lonely than it already is.

This group isn’t about parenting strategies or “doing it right.”
It’s about working with the parts that show up in our parenting,
making sense of rupture without alarm, and connecting with Self-led parenting — alongside other therapist moms who GET IT.

👉 If this resonates, you can fill out the interest form in my bio to be the first notified when details are finalized.

If you call yourself “ethical,”start by naming who your silence serves.Super spooky. 👻
10/24/2025

If you call yourself “ethical,”
start by naming who your silence serves.

Super spooky. 👻

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Chicago, IL

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