Why I Do This Work

I became a therapist because I needed one.

My early life was shaped by unspoken grief, emotional distance, and silence around pain. When I was twelve, my mother died after a long illness. After that, our home went quiet. Grief wasn’t talked about - we just carried it alone, each of us in our own way.

As I grew older, the emotional disconnection around me deepened. I was often told I was too much - too sensitive - not because I actually was, but because others didn’t know how to hold the depth of what I was feeling. So I learned to hide it. I learned to disconnect from myself to stay connected to others. And eventually, like many who carry invisible wounds, I turned to substances - not for the thrill, but for the escape. Addiction became a temporary relief for pain I didn’t yet have words for.

On the outside, I appeared capable. On the inside, I was unraveling.

I craved connection, but didn’t know how to trust it. Eventually, the survival strategies that once protected me began to unravel. My addictions deepened. I questioned my worth and carried shame that shaped how I showed up in my most cherished relationships. In trying to protect myself, I caused harm - I pushed people away, crossed boundaries, and lost connections that meant everything to me.

Facing that pain was sobering.

I began to see that the patterns that once kept me safe were now standing in the way of the love and belonging I most deeply longed for.

That was my breaking point - and the beginning of change.

Healing didn’t arrive all at once. It came slowly. In layers.

- 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 connection and community, and from the courage to let myself be supported and witnessed. Most of all, it came from returning to myself - relentlessly - again and again - and offering myself the love and validation I had spent a lifetime seeking from others.

Healing, for me, has meant returning to truth - remembering the self buried beneath pain, patterns, and stories that were never mine. Reclaiming what I once abandoned, and meeting it now with compassion.

That’s the heart of what I offer in this 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.