BIPOC & LGBTQ+ Folks

Therapy for People of Color and People in the Queer Community Living with Depression, Anxiety, and Recovering from Trauma.

Culturally affirming therapy for individuals with a desire to live fully in the present with the dark cloud of what happened to you looming with daily visits from the anxiety and depression fairies.

You are emotionally exhausted. Anxiety makes it difficult to get things done. Depression makes it difficult to get out of bed. Memories and nightmares about past traumas interrupt your sleep and distort your reality. You just want to feel normal again.

But you know that you have never felt normal. You know something has always felt off.

Why do I feel sad all the time for no reason? Why am I always nervous?

The answer may be traumatic experiences. There can be several reasons you feel sad and/or depressed throughout the day, during the week, or during specific times each year.

Trauma can cause you to feel hopeless and exhausted from the darkness and sadness of depression and the discomfort in your body when you are anxious (tension in neck, back, shoulders, stomach aches, migraines or headaches, emotional eating or no appetite at all).

Waking up and not wanting to face the day can make you feel fatigued before you get out of bed. Thinking of the endless tasks that have to be completed at home, at work, at school, in the community…it can be overwhelming.

Do you know what else is overwhelming and exhausting? Reliving your past traumas over and over in your head, unable to be present in the life you created that you kinda like. You remember all the childhood traumas/rejection from friends and love interests/one or more hostile work environments/that as*hole teacher from 3rd grade that said you were useless. Not fun memories.

Life does not have to be lived like this.

Schedule your free 30-minute video or phone consultation now.

Schedule Your Free Consultation Today

You are not going crazy.

Are you scrolling social media trying to figure out your diagnosis?

“Do I have depression?” Let’s not focus on diagnosing yourself if you are sad most days of the week, it does not feel good. I don’t care what they call it.

“Do I have an anxiety disorder?” If anxiety pays you a visit 1000 times a day for any reason under the sun, it does not matter what we label it.

“Do I have PTSD?” You do not need a healthcare professional to tell you that experiencing abuse or neglect in childhood, sexual assault as an adult, witnessing horrific things happen to people we know and love, getting fired unfairly, suffering police brutality, experiencing interpersonal violence within our relationships, etc. has a fancy acronym.

“If I am depressed, talking about it won’t help.”

OR maybe you can feel less sad for shorter periods of time. Some people describe depression as a darkness that comes over them or a heavy dog lying on their chest when they first wake up in the morning. The heaviness of the sadness/depression makes it difficult to navigate your day. Therapy can help you climb from under the heaviness.

“I’ve always been a nervous person, no one can stop being anxious in a world like this.”

OR maybe we can work together to eliminate some of the stress that entered your life without your consent. We can create a plan to resolve the worst-case scenarios you are so good at predicting.

If you have experienced something traumatic once or more in your life, depression and anxiety are the side effects. I have worked with BIPOC and LGBTQ+ folks who want relief from the darkness of their past. You, too, can experience therapeutic relief.

Schedule your free 30-minute video or phone consultation now.

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Let Someone Help You

Your past trauma experiences do not have to be re-lived every freaking day. Maybe you can experience happiness, hope, and feel emotionally connected to the people in your life. We can work together to remind you of the people/places/things that bring you joy and create an intentional plan to incorporate those experiences into your life.

My trauma-informed approach to counseling is different with decolonized therapy: We talk about what happened to you, what you needed to happen at that time, and discuss ways you can meet your own emotional needs as an adult.

Therapy can be scary and life changing. We can discuss your diagnosis versus a response to your environment. Do you have major depressive disorder OR are depressed because your family cannot accept you as you are? Do you have depression OR is living with oppression, racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, heterosexism, homophobia, or capitalism is dragging down your mood?

Do you have generalized anxiety disorder OR do you feel anxious when you do not know what to expect, when things are not within your control, and when the chips seem stacked against you no matter how hard you try? People who were abused and neglected as children crave emotional stability in adulthood, when stability is absent, anxiety spikes.

You are not broken or damaged.

People may have told you that you cannot experience joy or happiness because of your childhood experiences. You may have read a book that said because you were abused, you will always have depression or because you were neglected, no one will ever love you because you do not love yourself. I call BS on these conclusions.

What someone does/did to you is not your fault. Your job is to survive the trauma and learn to heal from it so that you can become whole. You are not broken, you are healing. You are not damaged, you are healing.

What Surviving Looks Like

To survive your trauma, you probably became a high achiever and a perfectionist. Maybe you used to be determined to be a trailblazer at your company (the first BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ to do it), but you are no longer interested in allowing capitalism to dictate how you feel about yourself. The approval of others at work no longer determines your self-worth. Capitalism demands exploitation and you want to learn to say no to opportunities and people who want to exploit you.

Let’s figure this out together.

Imagine Waking Up Excited About Your Life

Now, look at you, I can sense a little hope poking through. Maybe you are nonbinary and told your parents that you want to be called by your own name. You told them you want them to use pronouns that affirm who you are, who you have always been.

Maybe you are dating or building new friendships, and it hurts when people reject you, but you know they were not the people you need in your life. In the future, you may realize that you only want people in your life who will love you unconditionally, who will be there for you when you need them, and people who believe in emotional reciprocity.

Imagine creating an exit plan to leave a hostile work environment steeped in white supremacy that is forcing you to return to humiliating and isolating office environments after remote work helped improve your mental health and productivity.

Schedule your free 30-minute video or phone consultation now.

Schedule Your Consultation Today

Talking with a therapist who gets it is a completely different experience than someone going through the motions and telling you to use affirmations to overcome adversity. Trauma, depression, anxiety, and living in a marginalized body is not that simple. We cannot just get over it or move past it.

To experience an amazing life, you are going to need a thought companion. You are going to need someone to point out your blind spots. You will need someone to help you remain focused on your values, what is important to you, so that you do not forget who you are. You need a therapist to provide emotional support when sh*t hits the fan, and everything falls apart. You need a therapist to remind you of the people in your life who are there for you, so that you focus less on trying to persuade people to love you, accept you. Stop chasing external validation.

We all live in a system with three soul-crushing ingredients: patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism, you are not The Problem. The System is The Problem, and you alone cannot fix it or overcome it. What you CAN do is learn how to be authentic inside these systems. You can learn how to live a values-based life within these systems. With decolonized therapy, you can experience freedom and liberation on your own terms.

Decolonized Therapy is Culturally Affirming

How does it work?

Therapy sessions focus on what you can control. While we will discuss what happened to you, we will not remain in this space because you cannot change what happened to you in the past. All your emotions and feelings tied to your trauma are not within your control. They kind of just sneak up on you. However, you can control what action you take because of those emotions.

Therapy sessions will not tell you not to think this way or that. Oppression is real, not an imagined experience and in therapy sessions, I promise to constantly call it out. I will not allow you to take responsibility for systems that were not designed to support you in the first place.

Therapy sessions will be about making different choices. You can change your mind. Everything and everyone that you have allowed to dictate how you move in this world will receive eviction papers in therapy. I will teach you how to listen to your own voice, do what is best for you, and prioritize your mental health.

If Past Therapy Was Helpful but You Hit a Wall, Decolonized Therapy is For You

Capitalism, white supremacy, and the patriarchy are not your fault. You did not create these systems of oppression, and you cannot dismantle them. Someone told you that you can get a degree, get a respectable job, and earn a high salary, and the systems will work in your favor. This is a cruel lie.

I want to invite you to consider a different way of being in this world.

You might be asking yourself, “How is therapy going to solve my problems?” You still think you are The Problem. The System is The Problem. Therapy helps you make decisions that benefit you and improve your emotional well-being despite the systems that are in place to rob you of your joy and freedom.

If you think you are too busy to address these issues, this is the time to start therapy.

You may experience hopelessness about feeling better. Therapy does not guarantee you will feel better. Most people feel like sh*t when they start therapy because of all the baggage they unpack in their sessions. Trauma-informed therapy provides a container for emotional distress so you can safely discuss the past without be re-traumatized by it.

Schedule your free 30-minute video or phone consultation now.

Schedule your free consultation today.

Therapy is Useful

Feedback from BIPOC and LGBTQ+ Folks

While I can’t share specific testimonials due to confidentiality, I can tell you what past and current folks say:

“This therapy session was helpful in lots of ways but particularly because I felt validated. Most therapists downplay what’s going on by saying, ‘think of all the positive things in your life’ or ‘other people have it worse.’ I needed someone to say, ‘I hear you’ because it makes me feel like I’m not being overly sensitive or weak.”

“Words can’t express how helpful and supportive you have been. I can’t imagine going through my divorce alone.”

“Thank you for lowering my anxiety level during this therapy session.”

“You’ve unlocked something in my mind, and I am grateful you went to school for this. I feel so empowered when talking to you.”

Do you want to create a better future for yourself?

Anxiety, depression, and trauma do not have to rule your life:

Imagine waking up without that knot in your stomach or the panic in your chest. You are looking forward to what you have planned for the day.

Imagine knowing who you are without your family roles and work titles. You have watered other parts of your life and now enjoy spending your free time doing things and being with people who bring you joy.

Imagine a day when you have released the worry about making sure everyone else is comfortable. You have surrendered to the concern that you are not lovable. You now accept and give love freely to people who reciprocate.

I am not promising false hope.

You have the power to live inside those moments of depression and anxiety. You have the power to remember the trauma but not get sucked back into that time and place. You are safe now. It is okay to frolic, experience joy, and let things be good.

Decolonized therapy is for you if:

You are a woman of color and/or a person in the queer community who has created a life you love, but you cannot enjoy it because of the anxiety, depression, and trauma swirling around your mind.
You want to understand how to be authentic in the face of capitalism, the patriarchy, and white supremacy.
You want to start experiencing life differently by taking actions that change how you live each day.

Decolonized therapy might not be for you if:

You want to be told what to do and have someone else make your decisions.
You want to be happy without changing anything about how you interact with the world around you.
You prefer to be color-blind and assimilate for approval.

We can start now.

Who you are is more than good enough. Step into your life and live the f out of it.

Do you want to learn more?

Schedule your free 30-minute video or phone consultation now. It’s time to take the first step towards feeling better.

Not sure if you are ready for therapy?

Let me share what happens in a free consultation:

o We will meet via video or phone for about 30 minutes.

o I will ask about why you want to start therapy now.

o We will discuss past therapy experiences, what worked, what didn’t.

o I will explain how a typical session will go.

o We will find a day and time to start your first therapy session with me.

Click here to schedule a free consultation