South Asian & SWANA Diaspora Tech Burnout & High-Masking

Somatic therapy for South Asian and SWANA diaspora clients navigating high-responsibility work (including tech), identity stress, and the nervous-system cost of high-masking survival. We honor culture and complexity while helping your body unwind chronic bracing, shutdown, panic, and exhaustion. In person in Sebastopol (Sonoma County) & Teletherapy (California).

Private pay ($200) • Optum in-network only • Superbills available • Email: Liberation@somatictherapynorthbay.com

You can be outwardly successful and privately exhausted.
When your life “works” on paper—career, competence, responsibility—but your body is paying the cost, something needs to shift at the nervous system level. This is therapy for chronic bracing, shutdown, panic surges, insomnia, dissociation, and the quiet collapse that can follow years of overfunctioning.

I work especially well with people in high-pressure fields (including tech) and those navigating the layered internal demands of high-masking neurodivergence and diaspora identity—where the stakes of being seen, being “enough,” and staying safe can run deep.

In addition if you’re part of the South Asian or SWANA (Southwest Asian & North African) diaspora or other diasporic context with exposure to historical trauma, you may also carry a specific kind of nervous system load: high responsibility, high expectations, and an unspoken pressure to “be fine” while your body is bracing underneath it all.

This is therapy for the moment when your life looks successful on the outside—career, competence, family duty, achievement—but inside you’re exhausted, anxious, shut down, panicky, numb, or stuck in chronic stress physiology. In high-pressure environments (including tech), the nervous system can become trained to overfunction. In diaspora contexts, that overfunctioning can be braided with loyalty, survival stories, respectability, stigma around mental health, and the cost of being different.

You don’t have to pathologize your culture or any culture to heal. We can honor love, lineage, cultural beauty, harm, and complexity while also making room for what your body had to do to survive.

You might be a strong fit if…

  • You’re South Asian and/or SWANA diaspora and living with the internal pressure of success, duty, and visibility

  • You grew up in a first or 2nd generation immigrant-family or diasporic context

  • You’re in tech or another high-demand field and your nervous system never fully powers down

  • You’re high-masking—appearing “fine” while doing immense internal work to cope (often at a significant cost)

  • You suspect autism/AuDHD, burnout, shutdown, sensory overwhelm, or chronic bracing—diagnosis or not

  • You’re queer/trans, neurodivergent, trauma-impacted, or navigating layered identity stress alongside professional demands

  • You have intergenerational, ancestral, or personal experience related to war, political persecution, exile, or social, hi

What this often looks like in the body

Not just “stress,” but physiology:

  • chronic tension (jaw/neck/shoulders/diaphragm), breath-holding, gut disruption

  • hypervigilance, rumination loops, insomnia, difficulty resting

  • panic surges, freeze, dissociation, emotional flattening

  • shutdown/collapse after pushing through

  • irritability, sensory overwhelm, loss of pleasure and aliveness

How I work

I’m Setareh Azar Jinn (she/her), LMFT and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP). My work is somatic and relational—SE-informed psychotherapy paced for integration.

In sessions we track what’s happening in real time: sensation, impulse, emotion, breath, posture, boundaries. The aim isn’t to “perform wellness,” but to help your nervous system learn—gradually and precisely—that it can come out of survival mode.

My lens is clinically rigorous and liberation-rooted: healing justice + disability justice, held with tenderness and clarity. Your identity and neurotype are not treated as the problem. We work with the impacts of chronic adaptation, trauma, oppression, and misattunement—without making you smaller.

Over time, this supports:

  • less bracing, more steadiness

  • clearer boundaries without collapse or backlash

  • fewer panic surges, more capacity for rest

  • more choice in relationships (less looping, less fawn/freeze)

  • a return of pleasure, vitality, and genuine connection

Logistics

  • Teletherapy throughout California (including South Bay / Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Peninsula, North Bay, East Bay)

  • In-person sessions in Sebastopol (Sonoma County)

  • Fee: $200 per 50-minute session

  • Insurance: In-network with Optum only; otherwise private pay. Superbills available for possible out-of-network reimbursement (client verifies plan details).

Next Steps

Book a free 15-minute consult (fit + next steps)
Fees & Insurance
Start here: Individual Somatic Therapy

Mini FAQ

Do I need to be South Asian or SWANA to work with you?
No. This page names patterns that often show up in these diasporic, ancestral, intergenerational contexts for many people. If it resonates, we can explore fit.

Do I need a diagnosis (autism/AuDHD/trauma, PTSD)?
No. We can work with physiology and patterns whether or not you have formal diagnoses. If you use insurance however (in-network) or request a Superbill for out-of-network reimbursement however insurance requires a diagnosis.

Will you blame my family/culture?
No. We can honor complexity & cultures of all kinds while still telling the truth about what your body carries.

Is this “talk therapy” or bodywork?
It’s psychotherapy that’s body-based: we work with the nervous system through tracking and pacing, not pushing. I have multiple trainings in the use of therapeutic touch from an SE and somatic resourcing perspective but I don’t currently offer touch work or bodywork.

I’m successful. Why do I feel like I’m falling apart?
Because competence can be a survival strategy. Your body may be asking for a different contract with life—one that includes rest, safety, and truth.

Book a free 15 minute consult to discuss fit & next steps