I heard her, but I was more concerned that they had taken my phone—and what felt like my freedom. When I arrived at the emergency department, I told them I had taken too much medication because I desperately wanted to sleep. In an instant, I was no longer just a medical patient. I became someone they believed needed protection from herself. (Continue)
The days, months, and years that followed changed my life. For the first time, my pain had a name. I became determined to understand trauma—to learn everything I could about why my body, my nervous system, and my life had been shaped by experiences I had never fully understood. I wanted to heal, not simply survive.
As I searched for answers, I struggled to find people explaining trauma in a way that felt both compassionate and practical. I found clinical language. I found diagnoses. I found research. But what I desperately needed was someone to help me understand what all of it meant when I went home and had to live my actual life. So I made a decision. I would become the person I needed. That decision eventually led me back to school, where I earned my doctorate in traumatology.
Today, I combine lived experience, academic training, storytelling, and a healthy dose of curiosity to help people make sense of stress, trauma, and burnout. But since this is an About page, you should probably know a little more about the person behind The Trauma Doc.
I should probably warn you about a few things.
I ask a lot of questions.
If you tell me something interesting, there is an excellent chance I am going to ask why. Then I may ask what happened before that. And somewhere along the way, I might connect it to your nervous system, a survival strategy you learned twenty years ago, a story from Scripture, burnout—or possibly basketball.
I think fast.
Sometimes very fast.
There may be six ideas happening at once, and I am probably trying to figure out how four of them connect.
I am deeply curious about people—not because I believe everyone needs to be “fixed,” but because I believe there is almost always a reason we learned to respond to life the way we do.
That matters to me.
Because when we replace judgment with curiosity, we can begin asking a very different question.
Instead of:
“What is wrong with me?”
We can begin asking:
“What happened, what did I learn, and is that still serving me?”
That question changed my life.
My work is deeply personal to me because I know what it is like to survive things and then discover that survival strategies don't automatically disappear when the danger does.
Sometimes the behaviors that helped us endure one season follow us into another.
I want people to understand that there is information in those patterns.
Your body has a story.
Your nervous system has learned things.
And understanding those things gives you something trauma once took away: choice.
I am an educator.
I am a storyteller.
I am a survivor.
And yes, I am a doctor—but I have very little interest in sitting above people and telling them how they should live.
I'd much rather sit beside you and help you become curious about the life you are already living.
I believe complicated ideas can be explained in ordinary language.
I believe laughter belongs in difficult conversations.
I believe faith and science do not have to be enemies.
I believe healing should create freedom, not another list of rules you are terrified of getting wrong.
And I believe caring about people does not require carrying them. I learned some of those things in classrooms. I learned others the expensive way.
Both matter here.
The Trauma Doc exists to educate, empower, and encourage people who want to better understand stress, trauma, burnout, and the ways those experiences can show up in everyday life. Not just in your thoughts. In your body. Your relationships. Your work. Your energy. Your boundaries. Your faith. Your choices. Your ability to rest. And sometimes even in the things you have always dismissed as, “That's just how I am.”
Maybe.
But maybe there is a story there worth understanding. My goal isn't to make trauma the center of your identity. Quite the opposite. I want to help people understand what happened so that what happened doesn't get to make every decision about what comes next. Because surviving something should not mean it gets to own the rest of your life.
You matter.
Your story matters.
And I am very glad you are here.
Welcome to The Trauma Doc. My work with people is deeply rooted in the understanding that knowledge is power. As an educator, survivor and someone who deeply cares about others, my goal is to educate, empower, and encourage you!
THE REST OF THE STORY:
She waited for me to respond. When I didn't, she stopped typing, turned her chair toward me, and gently warned me that if I didn't find relief from chronic work stress, I would eventually crash out. Crashing out was not an option. I had been down that road before, and I had no desire to walk it again. I slowly lifted my head and looked at her. The only words I could recruit from my swirling brain were, "Thank you."
The weeks and months that followed are still somewhat of a blur. Although burnout is not recognized as a medical diagnosis in the United States, I knew exactly what had happened. More than six months later, I am still learning what recovery looks like. Time away from work gave me something I hadn't had in a very long time—space to think. It also gave me the opportunity to ask a different question. Not, "What should I do next?" but rather, "How can I use everything I have lived through and everything I have learned to help someone else?"
That question became The Trauma Doc Academy.
The Trauma Doc Academy was founded with one purpose: to make stress, trauma, and burnout understandable. By combining lived experience with academic training, my hope is to provide compassionate, practical education that helps people understand their nervous systems, become curious about their stories, and discover that healing begins with understanding.
I am so glad you're here. Welcome to The Trauma Doc Academy.