Goochland Behavioral Health, LLC

10/18/2026

🧠 Why do some people still struggle with memory problems and brain fog long after COVID? A study points to a surprising chain of events that starts in the gut and ends with low serotonin.

Serotonin is a chemical messenger best known for its role in mood. But it also helps control memory, sleep and digestion, and most of it is made in the gut.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania studied blood and stool samples from people with long COVID. They also ran experiments in mice.

In some patients, they found traces of the COVID virus in stool months after the infection. This suggests the virus can linger in the gut.

The leftover virus seemed to keep the immune system switched on, causing ongoing inflammation.

That inflammation made it harder for the gut to absorb tryptophan, a building block the body needs to make serotonin.

With less tryptophan, serotonin levels dropped. Patients with long COVID had lower serotonin in their blood than people who recovered fully.

Low serotonin then disrupted the vagus nerve, a major communication line between the gut and the brain. In mice, this was linked to memory problems.

When the researchers boosted serotonin in mice, using tryptophan building blocks or SSRI antidepressants, the memory problems went away.

The team says serotonin levels could one day help doctors identify which long COVID patients might benefit from certain treatments.

But there are important caveats. This pathway was found in only a subset of patients, and long COVID likely has many different causes.

The key cause and effect steps were shown in mice, not people.

Clinical trials are needed before anyone uses SSRIs or supplements to treat long COVID. People should not start these drugs without medical advice.

📃 RESEARCH PAPER
📌 Andrea C. Wong et al., "Serotonin reduction in post-acute sequelae of viral infection," Cell.

10/15/2026

Intentionally small. Independent by choice. Personally invested in your care.

10/15/2026

Working on my website this week…I have a few more changes to make! 💙

Psychiatric Medication Management for Adults in Virginia Insurance Accepted Telehealth Statewide / In-Person Manakin-Sabot

10/10/2026

Coming soon! 🌿

10/09/2026

10/04/2026

Boundaries = Security

I grew up in a house where my parents decided what we ate and when the TV went off, and I didn't appreciate how deliberate that was until I recently watched a friend's seven-year-old negotiate his own bedtime at a dinner party, confidently, like a small lawyer presenting terms.

Everyone found it charming. I did too, for about thirty seconds. Then I found myself thinking about Leonard Sax's The Collapse of Parenting, and about how easily we can mistake a child's confidence for readiness, or a child's preference for a decision they should be making.

Leonard Sax isn't interested in blaming parents for loving their kids too much. He doesn't think parents today love their children any less. If anything, Sax's argument is uncomfortable precisely because so much of this comes from love.

We want our children to have voices. We want them to feel respected. We don't want to become the kind of parents who simply say, “Because I said so.” But there is a difference between listening to a child and handing the child the steering wheel. And that distinction stayed with me throughout this book.

1. Kids weren't built to run the room, even when they're good at pretending otherwise.
That seven-year-old at dinner wasn't being manipulative. He was just doing what kids naturally do when nobody's holding the structure, filling the gap himself. Sax argues that children actually want someone else steering, even while testing whether anyone still is.

2. Letting kids decide everything isn't trust. It's an absence.
I used to think giving kids more say in their own lives was automatically the gentler, more respectful choice. Sax reframes that gently, pointing out that constant negotiation often isn't respect at all. It's just adults who've gotten tired of holding a boundary, handing the job back to someone too young to carry it.

3. A clear "no" can be more loving than an explained one.
I'd absorbed the idea that good parenting means justifying every rule so the child understands and agrees. Sax pushes back on that, gently insisting some boundaries don't need a debate attached, just consistency, which turns out to be its own form of safety.

4. Screens and peers have quietly become co-parents, and nobody voted on it.
The part that sat with me longest was his point about how much of a child's sense of direction now comes from devices and other kids instead of the adults actually in the room. Not because parents stopped caring. Because the gap left by less structure had to get filled by something, and it usually gets filled by whatever's loudest.

What I appreciated most about The Collapse of Parenting is that it made me think less about whether parents are “doing it wrong” and more about how difficult the job has become.

Most parents are trying to love their children well. We are simply raising them in a world that constantly tells us what good parenting looks like, and some of that advice can pull us in opposite directions. So perhaps the question isn't whether our children should have a voice. Of course they should.

The harder question is whether, while giving them that voice, we are still willing to be the adults. Because children don't just need to know that their feelings matter. They also need to know that they don't have to carry the whole world yet.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4rUeiUr

09/08/2026

Take a breath. You’re okay. You’re safe right now.

I believe you.
Your memories are real.
Your pain is real.

You’re not too much.
You’re not too sensitive.
You were never wrong for needing love, attention, or care.

I’m proud of you for surviving what no one saw.
You carried so much alone, but you’re not alone anymore.

I see how hard it’s been. And I promise to stay with you now.

You don’t have to shrink.
You don’t have to explain.
You don’t have to disappear to keep the peace.

I will not gaslight you. I will not abandon you.

You matter. Your feelings matter.
Your story matters.

Let’s keep healing — one breath, one moment, one small act of courage at a time.

07/15/2026

Do you agree? 💙

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