about me

I am a single mother to four teenagers. Three sons, then a daughter. 
My oldest son began displaying symptoms of something before he was two years old and when he was three, he had his first psychiatric hospitalization.
He has had a dozen acute hospitalizations, countless ER visits, more therapies and counselors than I can count, misdiagnoses, multiple medication cocktails and changes, alternative schooling, police interaction, and a 9 month long residential treatment stay. He has been through hell and back, and I was there to try and mother him through it- with no idea what to do. 

When he was younger, I was desperate to find someone else who was going through what we were experiencing and I couldn't find much. I felt alone, at times hopeless, and often very afraid. My passion is to share with all of you some my failures as well as hard earned wins to hopefully help you avoid some of the pain and challenges that come with simply not knowing what you don't know. 

Clinicians play a critical role in the help and treatment of mental health, but sometimes the textbook sterility can feel unrealistic when we try and implement recommendations into our daily, chaotic lives. My goal is to help bring a lived-experience voice to the conversation and offer you ideas and options you may not have considered or even known existed. Being a caretaker is so hard, and if I can help to lift your spirits and give you some new ideas and options, then I consider all of this worth it. 

I'm not a counselor; I'm a mother who has spent 17 years obsessively researching and working with the mental health care system to try and get my son the help and treatment he deserves. Your family deserves it too, and I want to share our journey with you as we walk a few steps ahead on this road. 
I hope you'll stick around. 
xo