Fat, Black, Neurodivergent, Queer. This is your safe space to feel seen, heard, validated, affirmed, and celebrated. Experiencing oppression, a lack of safety in who you are, living in a world deeply not made for you. I understand how painful this can be, and I also understand that it’s possible to build your own world. Surrounded by the right people, and with a profound sense of self-worth.
I knew from a young age that I wanted to help people, though I struggled with knowing how. I admired my own therapist though struggled to see myself as being able to give advice when I felt so disconnected, alone, and out of control myself. As an adopted, fat, Black, undiagnosed Neurodivergent young woman with a deeply unsupportive family, I worried I could never help anyone in the way that I had needed help.
Despite those insecurities, psychology was deeply interesting to me from the moment I took my first psychology class in high school. “This is interesting enough to study for four more years,” I thought to myself. In college, I learned more about Neurodivergence, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and my identity as a Black woman. Learning Black psychology at an HBCU was deeply impactful in building my identity and helping me to feel close to my community.
Shortly after graduation, I was diagnosed ADHD (as well as finding out about a math learning disability). As I learned more about myself, I focused my graduate studies on populations and modalities that connected with my own lived experience. I felt more and more as if I could help, in part because I knew what it was to feel hopeless, isolated, and have such big emotions they felt they could blot out the sun. I finally found how I could help people. I could listen, and validate and teach the skills that helped me build my life worth living.
In therapy, I am an authentic, open, direct, funny and caring support on your journey. You know your life, your feelings, and your experiences. I know the skills and can view your life in an unconditionally positive and validating way. As we walk together on this journey of self-exploration there will be laughs, and sighs, and tears, and I hope, growth.
