How I Came to This Work
My professional work is inseparable from my personal experience of development, learning, and identity.
Like many children, I once imagined a future full of limitless possibility. Each day offered new roles to try on, new identities to explore, and a sense that becoming oneself was an unfolding and often joyful process. The future felt expansive. Dreaming came easily – and it was fun.
As I grew older, that sense of possibility began to narrow. School introduced expectations that did not align with how my mind worked. Differences in attention, learning, and organization became more visible, while strengths were less consistently recognized. Like many neurodivergent individuals, I learned that dreaming did not disappear, but it did require translation. Possibility was still present, but it now came with effort, adjustment, and constraint.
At the time, I could not fully articulate what was happening. What I was really learning was how identity develops under pressure, and how easily momentum can be lost when fit disappears.
I was discovering that growth is not determined by effort or ability alone, but by context, understanding, and support.
I was also learning something that would later become central to my work: that individual differences do not negate potential. They require recognition and interpretation. When differences in how a person learns, focuses, or connects with others are misunderstood, or overlooked entirely, development becomes more complicated, and self-discovery more fragile.
My own experience as a neurodivergent person with ADHD, dyslexia, and a twice-exceptional profile shaped how I came to understand this process. It also shaped my respect for the complexity of development, particularly during adolescence and early adulthood, when identity is still forming and the future feels both close and uncertain.
Over time, these experiences led me to my professional work as a child and family psychologist. In my clinical practice, my work in education, and my role as a school leader, I have focused on helping neurodivergent young people, and their families, make sense of where they are developmentally, not just where they are expected to be.
These early experiences shaped how I came to understand development. Not as a straight path forward, but as something deeply influenced by fit, timing, and interpretation.
I believe that independence is not a single milestone, but a developmental sequence. And that the “in-between” stages, so often overlooked, are where many young people quietly lose momentum, not because they lack ability, but because the path forward no longer fits.
This belief underlies my clinical work, my writing, and my ongoing efforts to help families and educators better support neurodivergent adolescents and young adults as they navigate the complex space between dependence and independence.