Sex: Rewriting the Conversation Around Sex Addiction
Release Date: 05/14/2025
Mental Margins: Schizoaffective Disorder
Mental Health Rewritten
When Tamika talks about becoming a mother, you can hear how it rewrote her sense of identity. But when her daughter Allegra was later diagnosed with severe depression and psychosis, that identity began to unravel—and reveal something much deeper. Behind the scenes of her family’s history was an untreated illness that had already shaped the shoreline: schizoaffective disorder. This episode dives into the space where psychosis meets mood disorder, where reality and emotion overlap in ways that can feel impossible to untangle.
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Mental Margins: When Mental Health Crashes Like a Car Accident
Mental Health Rewritten
In this Mental Margins segment, we share bonus content and confront a critical question with Jack Register from episode 106: Why do we treat mental health crises differently than physical ones? If someone has a diabetic episode behind the wheel, we rush in with the jaws of life, pull them from the wreckage, and never question their willpower. Yet when a person spirals into suicidality or psychosis, society often steps back—expecting them to “help themselves” before we decide they’re worth saving. This conversation dives into the systemic contradictions at the heart of mental health...
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Mental Margins: Director's Cut-Episode 106
Mental Health Rewritten
A breakdown of episode 106
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Suicide: Rewriting the Conversation Around Those Who Were Left Behind
Mental Health Rewritten
In this episode, we explore the aftermath of mental health crises through personal stories and expert insight. Featuring voices of Tamika Christy, Jack Register, and Ashley Holder, the discussion delves into grief after suicide loss, the challenges within mental health systems, and the emotional toll on caregivers and first responders. We also examine how trauma ripples through communities and the evolving ways we memorialize those we’ve lost online. Key Segments & Topics Grief and Suicide Loss: Author Tamika Christy shares her experience after losing a loved one to suicide,...
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Mental Margins: Before We Dive Back In
Mental Health Rewritten
In this special reflection, Dominic steps away from the usual storytelling format to speak directly with listeners. After the powerful response to Episode 105, where we shared Nia’s story, Dominic opens up about the impact that episode had on his own mental health—and why Mental Health Rewritten exists in the first place. He shares the outpouring of messages from listeners who connected deeply with Nia’s journey, and how those words of gratitude also brought a heavy reminder: that even in telling these stories, healing is not linear. The weight of these conversations can stir up personal...
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Mental Margins: Three A.M. in Mexico
Mental Health Rewritten
The call from the sheriff’s office. The Netflix notification from Baja. The 3 a.m. plea for a room. Each detail reads like a breadcrumb trail—fragile, almost surreal—marking the chaos of a loved one’s unraveling. What happens when systems meant to protect instead withhold? When family becomes both the lifeline and the witness to an impending collapse? This Mental Margin segment pulls us into that liminal space between presence and absence, where silence from a loved one becomes unbearable, and news delivered at the doorstep turns final. This preview sets the scene for our upcoming full...
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Mental Margins: Layers of Suicidality in the Hijacked Mind
Mental Health Rewritten
This Mental Margins bonus segment expands on Episode 105: Rewriting the Conversation Around Suicide. In the full episode, we heard Ashley-Lauren Elrod’s powerful story of surviving prolonged suicidal ideation. Here, Tina Aggarwal offers additional commentary that did not make it into the main release—breaking down the complex, overlapping forces that can drive someone toward a suicide attempt. Tina emphasizes a critical truth: suicidality is never the result of a single factor. Instead, it emerges from a combination of influences—mental illness, racial trauma, childhood sexual trauma,...
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Mental Margins: The Anchor in the Dark
Mental Health Rewritten
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Mental Margins: Major Depressive Disorder
Mental Health Rewritten
In this week's Mental Margin, we step back from the noise and dig deep into Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)—not just as a diagnosis, but as a lived experience. With over 700,000 lives lost to suicide annually, understanding MDD isn't just clinical—it's critical. We explore how Major Depressive Disorder manifests beyond sadness: in executive dysfunction, in physical exhaustion, in a feeling of cognitive suffocation.
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Suicide: Rewriting the Conversation Around Suicide
Mental Health Rewritten
In this episode of Mental Health Rewritten, we tackle the subject of suicidal ideation with care, nuance, and urgency. Through a combination of real survivor stories, fictionalized scenes, clinical insight, and historical framing, host Dominic Lawson guides listeners through what it means to live on the edge of despair — and what it takes to survive it. We hear the stories of: Nia, a high-functioning professional whose emotional unraveling is invisible until it’s too late. Ashley-Lauren, a survivor navigating abuse, chronic illness, and a suicide attempt that ultimately catalyzed her...
info_outlineWelcome to Episode 1 of Mental Health Rewritten!
In our season-opening episode, we confront one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized topics in mental health: sex addiction.
Through the story of Daniel — a man whose professional success masks a deep internal struggle — we explore how compulsive sexual behavior impacts relationships, careers, and personal identity.
Along the way, we challenge misconceptions about sex addiction, examine its clinical roots, and highlight the hidden pain it causes across gender lines and around the world.
Featuring clinical insights from Havi Kang, Dr. Justin Dodson, and Dr. Alexandra Katehakis, alongside research from Mayo Clinic and YouGov, we uncover:
What defines sex addiction and compulsive sexual behavior
Why shame and secrecy make healing harder
How societal stigma silences both men and women
The global scope of this often-taboo disorder
Rooted in research from the DSM-5 and ICD-11, and grounded in real-world stories, Mental Health Rewritten opens conversations where silence once reigned.
Tune in to hear how Daniel’s journey toward healing begins — and how, together, we can start to rewrite the narrative about addiction, identity, and hope.
Listen now and subscribe for upcoming episodes exploring suicide, racial trauma, and more. Reminder: Mental health challenges are as real — and as serious — as physical ones.
If you or someone you know needs help, please reach out to a mental health professional.
Mental Health Rewritten, created by the OWLS Education Company, in collaboration with The Ummah Collective Group, is hosted, written, and produced by Dominic Lawson.
Executive Producers: Kenda Lawson and Dr. Whitney Howzell
Cover Art: Alexandria Eddings of Art Life Connections
Some music was provided by DJ Krate Digga of The Mighty Sound Champz Crew
Referenced & Supporting Sources
Does Society Have a Sex Addiction Problem?
Mayo Clinic Health System
https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/does-society-have-a-sex-addiction-problem
Is Sex Addiction a Real Disorder? Majority of Americans Believe It Is
Newsweek / YouGov Poll (2018)
https://www.newsweek.com/sex-addiction-real-disorder-majority-americans-believe-it-1037560
Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder in ICD-11
World Health Organization / ICD-11 Browser
https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http://id.who.int/icd/entity/1630268048
Why Sex Addiction Was Not Included in DSM-5
APA DSM-5 Task Force Discussion via Cleveland Clinic
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21934-sex-addiction
AASECT Position on Sex Addiction
American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (2016)
https://www.aasect.org/position-sex-addiction
Brain Activity in Sex Addiction Mirrors That of Drug Addiction
Cambridge University Study (PLOS ONE, 2014)
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140711095956.htm
Is Sexual Addiction the Real Deal?
UCLA Brain Study – EEG Research on Hypersexuality (2013)
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/study-casts-doubt-on-sex-addiction-246011
Sex Addiction and Childhood Trauma in Men
University of Georgia, College of Education (2024)
https://coe.uga.edu/news/2024-04-study-links-childhood-trauma-emotional-abuse-to-sex-addiction-in-men
Infidelity Statistics (U.S. Marriages)
Cooper Trachtenberg Law Group – Updated 2024
https://www.mcooperlaw.com/infidelity-stats-2024
Compulsive Sexual Behavior and Culture – A Clinical View
APA PsycNet – Middle Eastern & Global Treatment Challenges
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-89404-008
Assessment and Treatment of CSBD: A Sexual Medicine Perspective
Springer / Current Sexual Health Reports
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11930-019-00189-9
Sex Addiction in the UK: Rebecca Barker’s Story
BBC News – Personal Narrative
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-43921760
Understanding Denial in Sexual Offending and Addictive Behavior
Washington State Sex Offender Policy Board
https://sgc.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/SOPB/conference2018/Borg_presentation.pdf
CDC Historical Divorce Statistics – U.S. Marriage Trends
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/95facts/fs_439s.htm
Referenced Articles & Research
Majority of Americans Believe Sex Addiction is Real – Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/sex-
Does Society Have a Sex Addiction Problem? – Mayo Clinic Health System
https://www.
UK Woman Shares Experience with Sex Addiction – BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-
National Center for Health Statistics on Suicide Trends – CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/
Study Links Childhood Trauma to Sex Addiction in Men – University of Georgia College of Education
https://coe.uga.edu/news/2024-
Infidelity and Relationship Statistics (2024) – M. Cooper Law
https://www.mcooperlaw.com/
Sex Offender Policy & Research: Compulsive Sexual Behavior – Washington State SOPB Conference
https://sgc.wa.gov/sites/