Hi, I'm Megan. I used to spiral before I even got out of bed, and somehow still had it together on the outside by 8am.

I'd wake up already behind, already anxious, already running through every worst case scenario before my feet even hit the floor. And then I'd get to work, smile at my students, and act like everything was completely fine. I was no stranger to rampant anxiety and often struggles to control my thoughts. More often, my thoughts controlled me.

By the time I got home I needed somewhere to put it all. So I'd scroll. Sales tabs open, cart full, that little hit of dopamine every time something went into the basket. Semi-annuals sales and Prime Day Deals always did a number on me. It didn't matter if I needed it or even really what it was. It just made the noise a little quieter for a minute, and helped me feel in control, or like I was making progress of some sort.

When the shopping didn't do it, when I was still buzzing with that anxious unsettled feeling, I'd just need to talk and be heard. To have someone sit with me in it for a second. But I couldn't say that out loud, so instead it would come out sideways. A small thing my boyfriend said that normally wouldn't register would turn into a whole thing, not because of what was actually said but because I had so much under the surface that had nowhere to go. I always struggled to put my spiraling thoughts into words. Perhaps because I didn't want to face them, and saying them out loud made them feel more real.

I wasn't trying to fight. I was trying to feel better. I just didn't have the tools yet.

So I built them, for myself first. Checklists, systems, little interrupts I could actually use in the moment when everything felt like too much. The late night scrolling slowed down. The spirals got shorter. The conversations stopped going sideways as much. I feel so much more secure in these aspects of my life that felt so beyond me at one point in time.

And now I want to build something bigger than just tools. A real community of women who get it, who feel everything, who have been there with the full carts and the conversations that went left and the exhaustion of holding it all together on the outside. Women who want to figure it out together instead of alone.

Welcome to The Regulated Woman. You're not too much. You're just not regulated yet.

Start here — it's free.