My Story

My journey into the world of mental health began at an early age, as I attempted to navigate the terrain of an emotionally turbulent environment.

By the time I was in my teens, my emotional operating systems were so hard-wired, they spoke in absolute, irrefutable truths.

Everyone leaves.
You’re on your own.
People will hurt you.
Don’t trust.
Don’t be vulnerable.
Just survive.

Even if I’d had any inclination to question those beliefs, I would have found evidence everywhere – when you constantly shut people out, they do tend to walk away. But I didn’t question, and so the pattern continued.

Trauma is a great example of classical conditioning; when something hurts, we learn to be careful. When something really hurts, we learn to protect ourselves against it ever happening again. The impact is stronger, the learning is deeper, and the protective strategies are more rigid, broader reaching, and longer lasting.

I had learned well. I didn’t trust. I wasn’t vulnerable. I did survive.

It worked.

And I was sick of surviving.

Healing was a process of unlearning and relearning, of challenging old beliefs and uncovering new truths. And somewhere between delving into my emotional history and coming out the other side, I fell in love with the process.

Fixing and healing became discovering and transcending.

Surviving became thriving.

And thriving – my own and others’ – became a calling.