My Story
Born in New England, I grew up in a small, quiet, and uneventful coastal town. My parents split when I was young. My family had its share of dysfunction – including a great deal generational trauma and hardship: abuse, addiction, abandonment, isolation, neglect, profound pain and loss.. like many families.
When I was in my mid-20s, I found myself in an abusive relationship. So I started going to therapy. I knew I had wounds from my childhood. I had been told as a child, “your father is an alcoholic” and I knew that meant certain things.. I didn’t know exactly what, but I knew it wasn’t a good, and that it caused him to behave in particular ways.
In my 20s, I was aware that I could deal with the emotional pain that led me into that relationship then, or sometime later in life, but either way I had the knowing that I was going to have to address whatever happened in my childhood that led me into an abusive relationship, tolerating abuse as though it were acceptable.
My relationship with my new therapist proved helpful at first, helping me to navigate my way out of the relationship I was in. However, years later, I found myself in yet another abusive relationship – this time with the therapist. He had become (or maybe always was) physiologically and emotionally abusive. His versions of recovery and self care were sinister, insidious, and destructive.
In therapy, I was open, honest, and vulnerable. I trusted a him. I was supposed to be able to trust him. It never occurred to me that I needed to be careful, on my guard, or protective of myself. I went to therapy to heal. I was determined to heal. I am a chain breaker.
I had offered up all my vulnerable pieces, all my wounds, and my brokenness, in what should have been a safe space – and they were used against me. Like biological warfare, only this weapon was made from me. Like an auto immune disease attacks the body, this weapon was me, designed to destroy me. My very life and essence turned against me.
Coerced by this version of psychotherapy, compounded by religious brainwashing and a narcissistic boyfriend – I wound up married – trapped in a nightmare come to life.
Believing that the difficulties in my marriage were because of my lingering unresolved childhood trauma, and my own bad choices, I sought the help of a new therapist – a trauma specialist who practiced EMDR – someone equipped to process the traumatic experiences I had sustained. Over the course of our work together I came to understand how I ended up married and how badly I had been treated by therapist #1. I also started to see my marriage and in a new light, and the un-health we had created. It was also in this season that I came to understand that I am both a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), and an Empath. Dots started to connect, and my life started to finally make sense.
It took over a year to resolve what happened in my marriage, culminating in a divorce. And it took me several years to fully see and heal from the damage that the first therapist had done.
Now divorced and fully free, I live in physical, mental and emotional safety. I have loving relationships, that nurture and propel me forward, and I have a strong Faith – trusting that I am being guided by a loving higher power. I trust myself to make decisions for my life that are right for me.
I have healed significantly, and learned an enormous amount about trauma, shame, addiction, narcissism, and emotional, spiritual, and mental healing. I am working continually to hone and integrate the gifts of being highly sensitive and empathic. I love, feel, and learn deeply, and I grow forcefully.
We humans are a collective. I believe that as we individually grow and move forward, we advance the whole of Humanity. I am here to do my part – which in part, is to help others embrace and integrate what makes them them – to embody that singular spark of the Divine that makes each person unique.
If my story resonates with yours, I would love to meet you and see if there is work for us to do together.
