Reclaim Your Strength.
Release what is burdening you, reframe what has protected you, and strengthen what is within you.
Specializing in compassionate, curious,
and intensive therapy for adults with PTSD,
and partners of adults with PTSD.
IN-PERSON THERAPY IN
COLORADO SPRINGS
ONLINE THERAPY IN
42 STATES
Who I Work With:
I work primarily with individuals in careers exposed to aversive and traumatic incidents: former or current military, first responders, law enforcement officers, disaster/crisis responders, and helper professionals. I also treat survivors of disasters, childhood trauma, birth trauma, and sexual trauma.
I work separately with spouses of these individuals. While living with PTSD is its own challenge, so is supporting a loved one with PTSD.
Do These Sound Familiar?
Your body and/or mind are betraying you.
You don’t trust anyone, even yourself.
You feel numb and detached much of the time, but also angry.
You keep it (mostly) together at work but at home it seems to implode.
Your children are SO LOUD. Their energy is chaotic. They make messes - you get angry and yell. Their crying sets you off.
Your partner doesn’t get it. If only they knew how much you were holding back, and what was actually going through your head.
Your sleep is a shitshow.
You are forgetful, easily distracted, and constantly accused of “not listening.”
Are You the Partner?
You feel like the perpetual punching bag.
You walk on eggshells. You are not sure what will set them off, so you try to keep the kids quiet and the house clean to ward off the next explosion.
You also realize it isn’t possible to keep this up. You are exhausted. You feel resentful, drained, and overwhelmed.
Sometimes, you also explode. Maybe in sadness, rage, resentment, or fear.
You make yourself smaller. You contain and minimize your own emotions. Every interaction becomes about keeping the peace.
They just never seem to hear you. You are tired of reminding, repeating, and requesting.
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Exposure Therapy
EMDR, Written/Narrative Therapy (WET), Prolonged Exposure (PE), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
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Team Rubicon Disaster Response
Wellness coordinator and field-based leadership with 5+ years deployment experience
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PhD in Clinical Psychology
Trauma emphasis from the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs
Trauma changes us.
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You experienced injustice, and now you just can’t get seem to get over it.
You had a panic attack, and now you are frightened of chest pressure.
You had a nightmare, and now you don’t want nighttime to come.
You don’t feel love when you look at your partner or children, and now you avoid them.
You feel sad when you should feel happy. You are more reactive and edgy. You feel panicky and anxious all the time but also depressed and exhausted.
Your body is betraying you. You can’t control what it is thinking or feeling. The reactions are extreme or misplaced. You don’t fit in anymore. You can’t do what you used to anymore. People are noticing.
What is happening? How do we make it stop?
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Traumas overwhelm our coping skills, shatters our previous beliefs, and alter our lives. During or after the trauma, you might have done or experienced things that don’t make sense, you feel shitty about, or that continue to haunt you.
Maybe you screamed. Or fought back. Maybe you ran. Maybe you didn’t, or couldn't. Maybe you were scared, cried, paralyzed. Your body responded in a way that now embarrasses or even disgusts you. Maybe you don’t remember at all. Maybe you're enraged.
Nightmares, hypervigilance, intrusive memories, sleep disruption, social detachment, and panic/arousal sensations are just an example of symptoms that can develop afterward. There are more, and they can cluster into different presentations. Yours may not look and feel like someone else’s, and it may change over time.
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You are stuck in a body that won’t move forward and a mind that won’t let you forget. Extraordinary events lead to extraordinary reactions, and extraordinary reactions lead to extraordinary perceptions.
You are damaged. A burden. Unlovable. Worthless. Why can’t you just get over it? What is wrong with you? You’re a magnet for abuse. You’re better off alone. You can’t really trust other people anyway. What is the point?
Scary thoughts create scary feelings. You may feel guilty, humiliated, angry, disgusted, resentful, ashamed about what you went through, and how it continue to affects you.
Here we go again on the emotional rollercoaster….
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In the most simplistic terms, our job on this planet is to stay alive. Since you are reading this, *high five*. Our body’s job is to take in stimuli, but our mind’s job is to make sense of those stimuli. This is where we can get stuck.
Bodies are fluent in sensation; minds are fluent in words. They speak different languages.
They both want to protect us. They both want to keep us alive. In fact, they went through this trauma with you, they are scared too, and they are doing their best to keep that from ever happening to you again.
Symptoms are signals. They are scary, but they are not inherently dangerous.
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I know – right now they are. But they are not trying to be.
We need to learn the language. What makes language powerful is not just the words themselves but the emotions behind them. Both are important. Words and emotion. Mind and body.
The stories we tell ourselves about what we survived, why we survived – and how we survived – are important.
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No judgment for however you arrive to my office – you have arrived. No judgment what you have done to survive, what you are still doing to survive – you have survived.
We start there. That has served you, and it will continue to serve you.
We only work to change what is no longer serving you. Because you are in a different place now. You can no longer be the person who didn’t go through that. We are not trying to return to pre-trauma you – we are trying to find post-trauma you.
We are honoring the body and mind that brought you this far, however they did so. And we honor that they have led you here, on a search for someone who can help you.
How I can help
My specialty is understanding and treating PTSD in individuals, whether you are the one with PTSD or the partner of the one with PTSD. I can help you better understand the memories and experiences that led us here, what it is like to live with and around PTSD, and how to begin to contain the pressure that PTSD puts on you and your relationship.
Using an assortment of traditional, skills-based, and exposure therapy modalities, we trace the roots of the modern-day issues, increase tolerance to uncomfortable sensations, and choose how your future will unfold. We practice regulating what we can and enduring what we can’t.
You and your relationships will be healthier, communication more assertive and respectful, and intuition more trustworthy. PTSD does not have to be an intrusive third party in your and your loved ones’ lives.
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Schedule your free 15-minute consult
In this phone call, we briefly discuss what you are struggling with, how I may be able to help, and any logistics (e.g. scheduling). This conversation helps us both determine if we are a good fit. If we decide to move forward together, we schedule the intake appointment and send paperwork to be reviewed and completed.
What happens next?
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Attend your intake appointment
Think of this initial appointment as a “broad overview”. We briefly discuss current issues, but the bulk of session focuses on history-gathering and other “need to know” information throughout your past. Questions vary from medications to childhood trauma to legal history.
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Start the therapy journey
You’ve already overcome big hurdles. Moving forward, I will help guide you through the rest, especially in these early sessions when you may not know what to talk about, how to start, or if you even want to be here. Bring all that with you, and we’ll get started.
