+Childhood Emotional Neglect

You grew up in an affluent home. Your parents fed, clothed, educated and provided you with good experiences and opportunities. Now, you feel guilty complaining about what seemed like abundance in childhood. But you have a feeling deep down that the difficulties you’re experiencing now - low self-esteem, depression, and feeling like a failure - have a lot to do with how you were raised.

Because true riches aren't material. While they took care of your basic needs, your parents rarely asked about or noticed how you felt. And you got the message that your feelings don't matter.

So you survived by retreating inside a shell.

You may be saying, “They were doing their best” or “I’m too sensitive and needy.” Which makes sense because you were told you have nothing to complain about.

But by shutting out your emotional needs, you’re disconnecting from yourself. And it’s preventing you from connecting meaningfully to other people, to your work, and to pursuing your life with purpose.

The absence of emotional support in childhood can be as damaging and long-lasting as other traumas. Your parents meant well, but they had difficulties dealing with and expressing their own emotions and didn't pay sufficient attention to yours. As a result, you missed out on essential emotional skills, like learning to identify the source of your anxiety, how to properly express your anger, how to process sadness, or how to show you care about someone.

In therapy, we'll explore the vital information your emotions provide to you. You'll learn how to use them to jumpstart your work, relationships and connection to yourself.

+Childhood Abuse

You’re not the person your abuser(s) said you are. You remind yourself regularly that you are actually good. But it’s hard to shake those powerful core beliefs that you're not worthy, not lovable, and not good enough. This makes sense 'cause as a kid, you assumed the adults were right and you were wrong. Their messages and mistreatment formed your first ideas of what you deserve. And that doesn't get undone overnight.

You want to live true yourself, but internalized gaslighting causes you to second-guess your instincts. You strive for healthy relationships, but get stuck in trauma bonding patterns. The intensity of going through extremely emotional situations with your abuser has biologically changed how you respond to relationships and connection. While you want change, growing up in an unsafe home has given unsafe situations today more holding power.

Here's the thing: you didn’t become strong because you were abused and manipulated. You survived being abused and manipulated because you were already strong. In therapy, you will learn how to notice, honor and feel your emotions so that you are responding to them rather than reacting out of them. You will learn to navigate the balance between personal responsibility, asking for support and honouring both your needs and the boundaries of others in your relationships. We'll process the anger, grief and sadness that has been stuck for so long in a safe and healing way.

+PTSD and Complex PTSD

You can’t talk about a single moment that changed your life or caused you to lose yourself. What is particularly cruel about your trauma is multiple experiences ate away at your sense of self bit by bit over several years.

Now, no matter how much you remind yourself that you're safe and surrounded by nice people, you still listen for footsteps, your heart races when the phone rings, and you panic when the door slams.

you can unstick yourself from this enormous spider web, breaking one thread at a time. You're allowed every emotion in the book. Our first step together will be establishing trust and safety in the here and now so that you can gently and courageously attend to wounds from the past with support at your side.

+Loneliness

When you were a kid, being alone meant you were safe. Safe from teasing and bullying. Safe from criticism and erratic mood-swings. Alone is where you didn’t have to be self-conscious, where you could just be yourself without worrying what anyone else thought. You became used to seeking refuge in a quiet space, not a shoulder to lean on.

In order to hear your own thoughts, you had to isolate.

You learned to be quiet and passive, or else draw attention to yourself and be threatened.

A safe life has been a solitary one. You feel the pangs of loneliness, but the risk of being seen, judged and rejected is too much to bear. You crave to be known while never wanting to be seen.

Together, we can navigate the push and pull that is leading you toward both aloneness and connection. We'll honour how your instinct to keep to yourself has served you all these years. And we'll create the opportunity for you to explore your innate ability to safely and meaningfully connect in the way you desire.

+Depression

Living with depression is like running a marathon with a broken leg while everyone runs past you hollering “Yeah, yeah, broken leg, boo-hoo, we’re all tired.” And you run this same race Every. Freaking. Day.

You're exhausted trying to be fine. You want to be alone, but not lonely. You want friends but hate socializing. You want success, but have no urge to be productive.

You feel like you don’t belong in the circus of this world. You don’t care much for it either. You're like a traveling visitor who hasn't decided whether you're going to stay. Because the world seems like a cold and cruel place. The chasm between who it expects you to be and who you truly are is making you miserable.

In therapy, we will explore what is essential for you and each one of us - belonging.

+Religious Trauma

The toxic aspects of authoritarian religions - intimidation, coercion, fear mongering, guilt-tripping, shaming, gaslighting, purity culture and bigotry - can cause long-term psychological damage. But there is little public recognition about the trauma or emotional abuse of religion. Except for Twitter and Reddit, making sense of your experience with religion and your faith community has been a lonely journey into the unknown, questioning over and over again what is true or untrue. And you feel guilt and fear for daring to trust your own instincts and reasoning.

Your beliefs and religious community have been the cornerstone of your social life. Its consistency grounded you. It was a one-stop-shop for meeting all your major needs – social support, a coherent worldview, meaning and direction in your life, structured activities, and emotional and spiritual fulfillment. Questioning the fold risks loss, including the loss of friends and family. It can mean the loss of

You deserve support at this crucial time of transtion. It makes sense that you're grappling with every emotion in the book because of how closely wound your identity has been with your beliefs. In therapy, you'll find support, validation, connection and healing through your justified anger, guilt, sadness, grief, longing, fear, and relief. Whether you are deconstructing or demolishing your old assumptive world, with patience, connection and compassion, you can reconstruct a new worldview and identity. You can explore and develop your sense of self outside the shadow of shame and accept personal responsibility for your life.

+Social Anxiety

You get anxious whenever you show that you're upset by something. You're afraid your friends will run off the moment you show frustration or anger, even if it's not directed towards them.

You learned early on that keeping quiet was the only safe option that didn’t result in ridicule or physical punishment.Everything that came out of my mouth was labeled wrong, stupid, ridiculous, whining, or just laughed at.

You have anxiety telling a friend "no" when they ask you for a ride when you have other plans. You're afraid they would hate you and be upset with you.

As an adult this isn’t serving you well. You fear asking questions and asking for help, but it’s so much worse when expressing an opinion or setting a boundary with someone.

Same thing when I told someone even indirectly that I really didn't agree with them. And I’d never challenge friends or partners because I was conditioned to put everyone else’s needs and opinions first.

where I was taken advantage of and treated badly, but putting my foot down and standing up for myself felt impossible through the feelings of worthlessness

And that causes panic, self-doubt, and the compulsion to run away and never say anything ever again.

+Shame

Shame is one of the biggest and most insidious lies from trauma. It’s amazing how the most simple truths - that none of this was my fault - can be the hardest to truly internalize. I can’t remind myself too often that it wasn’t my fault and still isn’t.

In therapy, we will bear witness and undo the shame that trauma has caused you. Because what shame cannot withstand is being seen, known, and loved.

+Systemic Racial Trauma

The field of psychology was established by old White men. A few women had influence here and there, too. But the lack of diverse voices the creation of psychology has perpetuated massive flaws, including ignoring race-based trauamtic stress until Robert T. Carter drew attention to it in 2007.

There is unfair pressure placed on minorities to Be Okay With How They Are Treated. You grew up not voicing your discomfort when you experienced microaggressions to not shatter the harmony and comfort of those around you. Society often resents the voices who spotlight the injustices of systemic trauma because it forces each one of us to reckon with our illusions of a safe and just world. But no view of trauma is complete without recognizing the impact of sociocultural forces on you and considering how the community has succeeded or failed in addressing their role in perpetuating your trauma.

Therapy has often failed communities of colour. It can be retraumatizing if the therapist suggests you change how you interpret the world so you are not as hurt, angered and aggrieved by it. But you have very good reasons to be hurt, angered and aggrieved. You carry not just your trauma, but that of your loved ones, your community and those who came before you. It's not a therapist's place to suggest you calm your hypervigilance and mistrust. Because how can you not be hypervigilant in a society that doesn't acknowledge it's crimes against you?

If I look like you and you want a therapist who can share in the experience of what it is to be Asian presenting in Canada, I'm here for you. If I don't look like you and you're hesistant about doing therapy with me, I'm here for you and your caution is valid.

Because no amount of empathy, sympathy, or validation from me as your therapist will make your pain from race based trauma disappear. What I can provide is a soft place for you to a land in the chaos where you can co-create a space of safety that suits you and revitalize. Because you deserve rest. You deserve support. You deserve healing. You deserve a space where you can be you.