Dr. Willough Jenkins

Dr. Willough Jenkins Psychiatrist, Mental Health Advocate, Writer and Consultant

06/07/2026

Yes I’m frusted by this! Too many people who menstruate suffer in silence because they have been told its PMS.

06/07/2026

with Myers I loved this video - there is so much hope for recovery and it is so hard to see when you are in it

06/07/2026

Does anyone find themselves ruminating, catastrophizing bringing out all the cognitive distortions before bed? Let it go and onto some paper and check in on them the next day.

06/07/2026

Psychiatrist talking about somatization and mind body connection-Know that this is not in defense of blaming unexplained physical symptoms on mental health

06/07/2026

What do you think? Have you heard these? Do you agree?

06/06/2026

Can you guess the most prescribed antidepressant in the U.S.? Most people get it wrong. Here’s a hint: it treats depression, anxiety, OCD, and more… Zoloft (sertraline) is the #1 most prescribed. It’s one of the most studied SSRIs—used safely in adults and even in kids as young as 6 for OCD

06/06/2026

1. She’s supposed to pull away. When she slams the door or rolls her eyes, it’s not rejection. It’s development. Do not disappear just because she pushes. 2. Expect emotional waves. Some days you get silence. Other days you get tears over nothing. It is all part of recalibing her emotional world. 3. Her friendships are the training ground for trust and self-definition. They are where she practices being herself. Your role is to cheer from the wings, not try to take the stage. 4. Do not chase closeness. Create space for it. Trying to force her to open up usually backfires. If you are present and calm, she will often circle back on her own. 5. Model boundaries. Show her how to say no without guilt. That goes for friends, partners, teachers, and even family. 6. Teach emotional intelligence. Naming emotions, knowing what to do with them, and not being afraid of them is a life skill, not a personality trait. 7. Normalize* conflict. With friends. With you. With the world. Help her learn to repair, reflect, and navigate tension without shame. 8. Support healthy risk-taking. New sports, theater auditions, standing up for a friend. These are risks worth cheering for. They build confidence. 9. Watch for hidden stress. Girls are often socialized to smile through pressure. Perfectionism and people-pleasing can mask anxiety or burnout. 10. Remind her she is enough. The world will try to shrink her. Your job is to remind her she is not too much, not too emotional, not too ambitious. She is exactly enough. Parenting a teen girl is not about getting it perfect. It is about showing up, listening, and learning together. Follow for more insights from real conversations with teens every day.

06/06/2026

What teen relationships looked like in 1999 and what they look like now are not the same thing. The feelings are the same. The stakes feel the same. But the environment those relationships live in has completely changed. There was no group chat in 1999. No finsta. No sliding into DMs. A fight ended when someone hung up the phone. Now it lives in a thread, gets screenshotted, and gets analyzed at 2am. What used to be a conversation is now a document. So when your teen seems more anxious, more consumed, more reactive about a relationship than feels proportionate, it’s not just drama. It’s the weight of navigating something deeply human inside an environment that never fully turns off. Understanding that context doesn’t mean lowering your expectations for what a healthy relationship looks like. It means meeting your teen where they actually are instead of where you were at their age. That gap matters. And once you see it, it changes how you show up for them. I put together a free guide on teen parenting for exactly this. How to talk to them, when to step in, what to watch for, and how to stay connected through all of it.

06/06/2026

Why are parents to yelling “Jessica” at their toddlers mid-meltdown? Honestly, there’s some real science behind why it works. What parents are accidentally stumbling onto is called a pattern interrupt. A toddler in a meltdown has a brain completely locked in an emotional loop, and an unexpected neutral stimulus can break that cycle and create a window for redirection. The key word is neutral. It works because it’s surprising, not because it’s scary or threatening. The moment your child feels alarmed or confused by what you’re doing, you have added fear to an already overwhelmed nervous system. That is not a win. That makes it worse. And here’s what nobody in these videos is saying: this stops working fast. Children habituate quickly. Once Jessica is familiar, the novelty is gone and so is the effect. It is one tool for one moment, not a parenting stegy. There are so many versions of this on TikTok. The dad who suddenly starts singing and acting silly and watches his toddler dissolve into giggles is doing the exact same thing, just with humor and connection as the interrupt. The mechanism is identical. The delivery is warmer. My personal favorite is taking them outside. Get down to their level. Touch some bark together. Listen for birds. That is a pattern interrupt too, just one that also shifts the nervous system through nature, curiosity, and connection. Tantrums are developmentally normal. Your toddler is supposed to have big feelings they do not yet have the brain wiring to manage. Your job is not to shut those feelings down. It is to help them move through safely. Save this for the next meltdown. Follow for more and drop your question below. I read them and your question might be the next one I answer.

06/06/2026

The talk with your teen about their relationship doesn't have to be one big serious sit-down conversation. It probably shouldn't be. Teens don't open up on demand. They open up in the car. At 10pm when you're about to say goodnight. While you're doing something completely unrelated and the pressure is off. It's not one conversation. It's a hundred small ones. Stay around. That's it. That's the stegy. Be in the kitchen when they get home. Say yes when they ask you to watch something with them. Drive them places even when they could get a ride somewhere else. Proximity creates opportunity. And when they do share something about the person they're seeing, about a fight, about something that hurt , your job in that moment is not to fix it. It's just to stay non-judgmental long enough for them to finish the sentence. Because your teen is running a calculation every time they share something small. They're asking: is this safe? Will this turn into a lecture? Are they going to freak out? The parents who actually know what's going on aren't the ones who scheduled the conversation. They're the ones who made it safe to bring things up without it becoming a thing. Keep showing up. Stay curious. Reserve the judgment. That's how you become the person they come to when it actually matters. Follow for more and drop your question below. I read them — and your question might be the next one I answer.

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