Like many of the people I now support, my early life was shaped by conditional love, emotional neglect, and family dysfunction. I grew up in a family where emotions weren’t safe and I was labeled the “scapegoat”. By the age of 10 I had become a caregiver—cooking meals, tending to siblings, and trying to earn approval that never came.

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My parents passed away young, before there was time to repair the relationship and space to heal what was broken. Around the same time, my youngest daughter was diagnosed with intellectual disability and cerebral palsy—another kind of grief I had to learn to hold.

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I share this not to center my pain, but to say: I understand how layered and lonely grief can be and how hard it is to begin the healing process. These experiences shaped me deeply—and they’re part of why I feel so called to create spaces where others can begin to process their own grief and trauma.

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Years later, in my fifties, I enrolled in graduate school for counseling. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was surrounded by people who spoke my language—the language of emotions. I began my own healing journey, and I haven’t looked back. I chose to specialize in grief and relational trauma because these are the kinds of wounds I understand both personally and professionally.