Schmidtfamilycounseling

05/16/2025

🌿 May is Mental Health Awareness Month 🌿
Let’s talk about something close to our hearts: teen mental health.

Did you know that 1 in 5 teens will experience a mental health challenge? From anxiety and depression to the pressure of school, social dynamics, and identity exploration—it can feel overwhelming. But here’s the truth: teens are resilient, and support matters.

💚 Teens need:
✨ Safe spaces to talk without judgment
✨ Adults who listen more than they fix
✨ Validation that their feelings are real and important
✨ Access to therapists, mentors, and peer support

This month, let’s normalize conversations around mental health. Check in with the teens in your life—not just about school or chores—but about how they’re really doing.

💬 “How’s your heart today?”
💬 “What’s been feeling heavy lately?”
💬 “Who’s someone that makes you feel safe?”

Together, we can raise awareness, reduce stigma, and build a future where mental wellness is a priority—not a privilege.

💚

05/09/2025

05/08/2025

🧠💬 Seeking Neurodivergent Partners for Research Study 💬🧠
Are you part of a romantic partnership where one or both partners are Autistic and/or ADHD? I'm conducting a dissertation study through Texas Woman’s University exploring how neurodivergent individuals experience communication and connection in their relationships.
✔️ Participants must be age 25 or older
✔️ Identify as Autistic, ADHD, or both
✔️ Currently in a romantic partnership with another neurodivergent person
🗓️ One Zoom interview | ⏰ 60–90 minutes | 📩 Your voice matters
If you or someone you know is interested, please check out the flyer and complete the short screening form here: https://twu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6lDmcQGSBdOImIm or email the Principal Investigator Misty Schmidt at: mschmidt6@twu.edu
Feel free to message me with any questions, and thank you for helping to uplift neurodivergent voices in research! 🌟

04/28/2025

🌟 Ever wondered what a day in the life of a school-based family therapist looks like?

Join us for an engaging online webinar where experienced Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists share their real-world insights, challenges, and rewarding moments working in school settings!

JOB Opportunities and links available as well!

🗓 Date: May 15, 2025
🕒 Time: 3 PM EST | 2 PM CST | 12 PM PST
📍 Location: Online Webinar

Featuring:
✨ Misty Schmidt, LMFT
✨ Federico Mendez, LMFT
✨ Nakisha Randolph, LMFT
✨ Anne Rambo, LMFT

Don't miss this opportunity to learn about how MFT's are hired, the unique role family therapists play in schools, how they support students and families, and what their typical day entails.

🔗 Save your spot and get inspired! To find us and register: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/165hQKjNt8/

04/23/2025

💻❗️Join us May 15 at 3 pm EST (2 CST, 12 noon PST) for a FREE workshop co-sponsored with the Coalition of Systemic Therapists - designed to inform you what school based family therapy is like, how family counselors get into schools, and what the nationwide job opportunities are.

✅Featuring Misty Schmidt LMFT, Federico Mendez-Betancourt LMFT, Nakisha Randolph Randi Ran LMFT, and Anne Rambo LMFT.

🎉Here’s our save the date flyer! See you there - start the new school year with a new job and help us reach out to children and youth in need!

04/22/2025

🚨 EARLY BIRD SPECIAL ENDS MAY 5TH! 🚨

Join us for the Autistic Clinical Insights Virtual Conference 2025 – a powerful event centering neurodivergent voices and lived experiences in clinical practice.

🧠 44 Expert Presenters
💬 Grounded in Lived Experience
🤝 Designed for Clinicians, Professionals, and Allies

📅 November 14–16, 2025
📍 100% Virtual
🔗 Register & Learn More: www.autisticclinicalinsights.com

✨ This is more than a conference—it's a movement for neuro-affirming change.

04/15/2025

🌸 Why Are So Many Autistic Women Missed or Misdiagnosed?

For decades, autism was defined through the lens of how it presents in young white boys.
That lens became the standard.
And anyone who didn’t fit that mold—especially girls and women—was often overlooked, misunderstood, or misdiagnosed.

Autistic women are frequently MISDIAGNOSED with :

🧠Anxiety,
🧠Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
🧠Bipolar Disorder
🧠Depression

Labeled as “sensitive,” “dramatic,” “too much,” or “too quiet”

🌱Praised for masking well—at the expense of their mental health

And yet, behind the scenes, many are struggling with:

🌱Sensory overload

🌱Social exhaustion from constant masking

🌱Rigid thinking and need for routine

🌱Emotional intensity and deep empathy

🌱Chronic burnout and identity confusion

Many don’t find out they’re autistic until adulthood—after years (or decades) of wondering why life feels harder than it should.

🎯 It’s not that autistic women “don’t exist.”
It’s that the systems weren’t built to see them.

🌱 But here’s the good news: more Autistic women are being seen, diagnosed, and understood.
They are naming our needs.
They are shedding the shame.
They are reclaiming their identities.

If this resonates with you—if you’ve ever wondered whether something was being missed—you’re not alone.
You’re not broken.
And it’s not too late to understand yourself more deeply.

04/14/2025

🧠💬 Let’s clear something up about autism.

No, it’s not caused by vaccines.
No, it’s not from Tylenol.
No, you didn’t “cause” your child to be autistic.

💡 Autism is not a tragedy or a mistake. It’s a naturally occurring neurodevelopmental difference—a variation in how the brain processes, connects, and experiences the world.

Research consistently shows that autism is genetically based and heritable.
In fact, 80–90% of autism's variance is explained by inherited genetic factors (Tick et al., 2016).
And get this: if your child is autistic, there’s a high chance YOU or another family member is too—whether diagnosed or not.

A 2020 study found that up to 47% of autistic children had at least one autistic parent when using detailed self- and informant-reported assessments (Murray et al., 2020). COULD YOU IMAGINE WHAT THIS PERCENTAGE WOULD BE IF ADULTS WERE ABLE TO GET THIS DIAGNOSIS WHEN THEY WERE YOUNGER!

So why does it seem like more people are autistic now?

Because we’re finally looking.

👧 In the past, professionals were taught that autism only showed up in young white boys.
Girls were overlooked. People of color were misdiagnosed. Adults were ignored.
And for decades, the criteria didn’t include the lived experiences of people who weren’t textbook cases.

Now, thanks to more research, more lived experience voices, and more autistic professionals in the field, we know better—and we’re diagnosing better.

We’re seeing what’s always been there.

Yet, society continues to ask:
🗣 “What caused it?”
🗣 “How do we fix it?”

But what if the real questions are:
✨ “How do we support this way of being?”
✨ “How do we create space for different kinds of intelligence, connection, and regulation?”

Autism doesn’t need a cure.
It needs understanding, accommodation (if we continue to not be inclusive), and celebration of neurodiversity.

💛 Autistic people aren’t broken.
They are deeply wired for patterns, honesty, curiosity, creativity, empathy, and connection—just in ways the world doesn’t always recognize.

Let’s move away from myths and toward truth.
Let’s stop asking what “caused” autism—and start building a world that actually includes autistic people, exactly as they are.

04/12/2025

🧠💬 “But they don’t look autistic…”

You’ve probably heard this phrase.
You may have even said it.
But what does it really mean?

So often, the way autism is portrayed in media becomes our default understanding.

We see genius coders, socially awkward white men, or quirky kids who speak in facts and miss sarcasm.
And while those portrayals reflect some autistic people, they don’t capture the full picture.

💡 Here’s the truth:
Autism isn’t always visible.
It doesn’t always “look” like a stereotype.
And most of the time… you won’t know someone is autistic unless they tell you.

🧍‍♀️ It could be your coworker who takes longer to respond in meetings.
🧍 It could be the barista who scripts their greetings perfectly.
🧍🏽‍♂️ It could be the student who has straight A’s and crashes from exhaustion after school every day.

Because many autistic people—especially women, people of color, and those who mask—don’t match the image you’ve been shown.

And here’s something else most people don’t know:
📊 The autistic population actually shows higher intelligence on average than the general population.
But because communication, expression, or processing styles might differ from neurotypical norms, autistic people are often underestimated, dismissed, or excluded.

🚫 They’re told they’re “too intense,” “too slow,” “too literal,” “too emotional,” or “not professional enough.”
And behind all those judgments?
Bias.

Not reality.
Not lack of intelligence.
Not lack of capability.
Just a mismatch between how someone thinks and how the world expects them to perform.

🌈 So what can we do?

Stop assuming what autism “looks like.”

Listen when someone tells you they’re autistic—even if it surprises you.

Create space for different communication and thinking styles.

Challenge the idea that intelligence only shows up in one form.

Autistic people don’t need fixing.
They need understanding, respect, and environments that don’t make them perform to be accepted.

If this post challenged you, that’s okay. Growth lives there.
And if you’re autistic and tired of being misunderstood—you’re not alone.

04/10/2025

🌈 Autism Acceptance Month 🌈

Let’s talk about parenting autistic children—not through the lens of “fixing,” but through understanding, honoring, and supporting who they truly are.

💛 Your child doesn’t need to be changed to be worthy.
They need to be seen, heard, and loved exactly as they are.

✨ Instead of asking “How do I stop this behavior?”
Try asking:
🟡 What are they communicating?
🟡 What are they feeling?
🟡 How can I support their regulation, not just their compliance?

🌀 Stimming is not “bad behavior.” It’s self-expression.
Headphones aren’t a crutch—they’re access.
Scripts aren’t meaningless—they’re language.

🧠 And here’s something we need to understand deeply:
Autistic people are often seen as “disabled” not because of who they are—
—but because the environments around them are inaccessible, overwhelming, or non-inclusive.
Change the environment, and the “disability” often disappears.
Acceptance means creating spaces where differences don’t need to be masked to be accepted.

When we parent through a neuroaffirming lens, we:
✅ Validate all forms of communication
✅ Prioritize safety and regulation
✅ Celebrate differences instead of masking them
✅ Build inclusive environments where our kids can thrive

Your autistic child is not a puzzle piece.
They are whole. They are here.
And they deserve to grow up knowing that who they are is not just okay—it’s powerful.

Let’s raise children who don’t have to recover from their childhoods.

Let’s raise autistic kids who know they are deeply loved for who they are.

💬

04/08/2025

🧠💬 Let’s clear something up.

You’re either autistic or you’re not.
There’s no such thing as being “more autistic” or “less autistic.”

Autistic people have different support needs in different areas of their lives.
But no one is more autistic than someone else—it’s not a scale of how “much” autism someone has.

👉 For example, at work:
One autistic employee might need noise-canceling headphones and a flexible schedule to manage sensory and executive functioning differences.
Another might thrive in structured environments but need written instructions instead of verbal ones and not want to engage in small talk during team meetings (takes up too much energy).

Both are autistic.
Their needs just look different—not more or less autistic.

Saying someone is “more autistic” often reflects how visible their traits are to others—not how real or valid their experience is.

Let’s stop ranking neurodivergence and instead embrace the full spectrum of support, communication, and processing styles. ♾️💼💜

04/06/2025

🌀 Stimming Is Communication 🌀

For many autistic people, communication doesn’t always come in words.

Sometimes it flaps.
Sometimes it rocks.
Sometimes it spins, taps foot, clicks pens, bites lips, repeats, or hums.
✨ Sometimes it stims.

Stimming is not “bad behavior.” It’s a language—a way to say: 💬 “I’m overwhelmed.”
💬 “I’m excited.”
💬 “I need to feel safe.”
💬 “This is me.”

When we understand stimming, we stop trying to shut it down—and start listening to what it’s telling us.

🧠 Let people stim. Let them be.
It’s not weird. It’s not wrong.
It’s real, valid communication.

📩 If this speaks to you—or if you’ve ever had to mask your natural ways of being—I see you. And I’m here.

For more of this information click the https://schmidtfamilycounseling.com/blog/f/stimming-is-communication link below.

Stimming Is Communication: What Autistic People Are Really Saying Without Words