MY STORY

I spent a third of my life riding the highs and lows of extreme depression, bulimia, body dysmorphia, low self-worth, sexual trauma, and suicidal ideation. I confidently assume that I could have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, ADD, and borderline personality disorder. 

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However, I was never "diagnosed" with anything because I was raised in a Chinese family where mental health was never really discussed. I never made it into a therapist's office in my adolescence.

My dad was an alcoholic, and I was told that he was destined to be an alcoholic forever. And that was that. 

I had no language to explain the cocktail of emotions I experienced in my teens as a result of my dad's alcoholism - the sneaking around, lying, explosive arguments with my mom, gaslighting, depression, and rage. All of this mixed with the loving, funny, child-like spirit that he was when he was sober.

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I didn't have the knowledge to make connections between my family dynamics and my own behaviors, blaming myself for being a complete failure of a person. 

When I moved to New York for college, my concoction of drugs, alcohol, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, promiscuity and Vyvanse were my escape from the emotions that I had yet to process.

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I went through many tumultuous relationships, and used my body sexually as a means to receive the "love" that I craved so badly. But the deep feeling of emptiness that I'd always felt only magnified, while re-triggering sexual trauma I experienced throughout my early adulthood.

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I was exhausted living in the prison of my restrictive eating disorder, but my stomach would not hold food down and extended to three times its normal size for months at a time. Any doctor I went to told me that this bloating was “normal.”

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I experienced ongoing suicidal thoughts and intense social anxiety since beginning Vyvanse, but when I expressed my concern to the psychologist who wrote my prescription, he told me these side effects were also “normal.”

I knew something was up, and I was desperate for help.

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My alternative path of healing led me to understand the intimate tie between our bodies and our emotional world, specifically trauma. I learned that I had dissociated and "escaped" my body at an early age in order to cope, and I was living much of my life in a state of immobility and freeze. All of my symptoms and "disorders" were tied to much deeper emotional wounds that I had suppressed for many years. 

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My practice is informed by the tumultuous highs and lows I've faced through my own lived experience, spiritual journey, and the transformative alignment that I found through somatic therapy.

I had no idea that the path of healing my trauma would open me up to a profound connection with my intuition and inner guidance. It resulted in me finding purpose in my work, art, relationships and led me to the place I now call home.

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My deepest desire is helping women remember their sovereignty, so they can live from a place of intuition instead of fear. I am in awe every day by the inner wisdom that emerges, as I witness people like myself coming back home to their bodies.