When I was between the ages of 11 and 16, I was exposed to a significant amount of crime in my neighborhood. Our cars were regularly broken into or stolen, and I’ll never forget the day burglars broke into our home while I was inside. At the time, childhood PTSD wasn’t commonly recognized, so I was diagnosed with depression and began seeing therapists off and on throughout my life.

As I grew older and immersed myself in trauma-informed care, I began to understand the truth of my experiences—I had lived through complex trauma and had been misdiagnosed for many years.

This realization fueled my passion for making healing more accessible, which led me to the field of school social work. While I poured myself into supporting students, I also witnessed how deeply unsupported educators often are. At many schools, I found myself in near-constant crisis mode, conducting suicide and homicide risk assessments almost daily. Then the unimaginable happened: a student died by suicide. That loss shook me to my core. It made me realize how fundamentally fragile we all are and how we need each other to keep going through the challenges in life.

While work was stressful, I also was undergoing fertility treatment—a four-year journey that opened my eyes to the emotional toll and lack of mental health support for women and couples in the perinatal space. The hormonal changes during fertility treatment, pregnancy, and postpartum can dramatically affect a woman’s mental and physical health, and yet these needs are often overlooked. With firsthand knowledge of this experience, I became determined to support others through it with empathy and understanding.

After facing one more round of burnout in the school system, I knew it was time. Time to step into a different space to support others.

That’s when HEAL Together was born.