Why I Do This Work

I became a therapist because I needed one.

I was raised in a house where death lived with us. My mother was dying for much of my childhood, and I learned early how to carry fear, hope, and responsibility in a very small body. When she passed away when I was twelve, grief wasn’t something we spoke about, we just carried it alone.

As I grew older, I was often told I was “too much.” Not because I was, but because others didn’t know how to hold what I felt. So I learned to quiet myself. I learned to disconnect from my inner world in order to stay connected to others. And eventually, like many who carry invisible wounds, I turned to substances, not for thrill, but for relief.

On the outside, I functioned. On the inside, I was losing myself.

The strategies that once protected me began to cost me everything. My coping mechanisms became self-destructive. Shame shaped my relationships. In trying to protect myself, I hurt people I loved and lost connections that mattered deeply.

Facing that reality was sobering. It changed me.

Healing didn’t happen all at once. It unfolded through therapy, through grieving what I never received, through learning to trust my body again. It came from naming shame and meeting it with compassion. From allowing myself to be supported instead of self-reliant. From returning to myself, relentlessly - again and again - with honesty.

Healing, for me, has meant reclaiming the parts I once abandoned and learning to meet them with care. That is the heart of my work.

I won’t sit across from you with all the answers. I’ll sit beside you - as someone who knows the terrain of complex developmental trauma, anxiety, depression, addiction, shame, non traditional ways of loving, queer identity, disconnection, and the long, often difficult journey home. My work is relational, trauma-informed, and grounded in deep compassion and respect. If you’re seeking a therapist who understands the complexity of survival - and the courage it takes to come home to yourself, I’m here.