Therapy For Chronic Illness, Anxiety, and Neurodivergence in Atlanta, and online across GA, FL, and CO

Living with chronic pain and illnesses affects your mental health, so please don’t minimize that impact or tell yourself it's "all in your head." The connection between chronic illness and mental health is real and significant.

Do you resonate with any of these experiences?:

• anxiety about symptoms

• depression from the constant grind of managing your health

• grief over life changes

• frustration with a medical system that often doesn't listen.

I want to be really clear about something - there's no "right way" to handle chronic illness mentally. Some days you'll cope well, other days will feel impossible. That's not a failure, it's being human while dealing with really challenging circumstances.

There's a lot we can do to support your mental health while living with complex medical issues. I practice an approach that helps you reconnect with your body and find ways to live the life YOU want to live, even with illness. Not by pushing through or forcing positivity, but by developing a new relationship with your body and your experience.

The best therapy for chronic pain and illness is the type of therapy that works for YOU. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s a magic cure - there’s not. But there’s a lot we can do to improve your pain and reduce your suffering.

You might hear a lot about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain. This approach is right for some people, but I think more often than not, people feel gaslit by this approach. “Think this not that,” kind of rhetoric.

I practice Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is a gold standard treatment for chronic pain due to it’s highly individualized approach to helping clients live the exact life they want to live.

I also incorporate Somatic Experiencing into my work, because learning how to reconnect to your body is going to be an important part of your healing journey.

Helping loved ones understand chronic illness is complex, and honestly, sometimes it won't happen in the way you hope. Your experience is uniquely yours, and even the most caring friends and family might struggle to fully grasp what you're going through.

I find a lot of people get caught up in trying to make others understand every aspect of their illness. This can leave you exhausted and frustrated. Instead, our virtual or in person therapy sessions will help you learn how to focus on communicating what you need in specific moments: "Today my pain levels are high, so I need to take a rain check on dinner" or "I'd love to spend time together, but could we do something low-key at my place?"

Some people find it helpful to share articles or resources about their specific condition, but remember, you're not responsible for educating everyone about your illness. Save your energy for the relationships that matter most to you. We can figure out what this looks like together in our sessions.

The reality is that some friends might drift away, and that's okay. Focus on nurturing connections with those who make an effort to understand and support you, even if they don't get it perfectly. These are the people who will ask what you need rather than telling you what you should do.

What matters most is finding ways to maintain meaningful connections while honoring your own needs and boundaries. If you’re looking for help with how to do this in a way that feels right for you, you can book a free 15-minute consultation call with me before starting therapy.

Many therapists, including myself, are moving away from the outdated and harmful idea that chronic illness is "all in your head" or caused by trauma. Your physical symptoms and illness are real and have a real physical root cause.

That said, there's a complex relationship between trauma and chronic illness that's worth understanding. Trauma impacts our nervous system and can influence how our body processes pain and illness. This doesn't mean trauma CAUSED your illness - it means these experiences can interact with each other, and it starts to feel confusing to figure out what’s actually happening in your body.

Your nervous system carries all of your experiences, including both physical illness and past trauma. They're part of the same system, which is why addressing both can be helpful in your healing journey.

In our therapy sessions, you’ll learn how to listen to what your body is telling you, which gets rid of the confusion and helps you make more informed medical decisions and choices about which coping skills to use during hard moments.

I practice a body-based approach because I believe reconnecting with your body - at your own pace, in your own way - can help with both trauma and chronic illness. Not because one caused the other, but because supporting your whole system matters.

The focus in therapy is about helping you live the life you want to live, while honoring your real physical experiences and challenges.

Living with chronic illness often creates a deep sense of isolation - and I see this come up for almost everyone I talk to which a chronic illness. It's a unique kind of loneliness that can feel hard to put into words.

Your daily experience is often invisible to others. You're managing symptoms, making constant calculations about energy levels, and dealing with an unpredictable body, while the world around you seems to move at its usual pace. It's exhausting, and it's an experience that's hard for others to truly understand unless they've lived it.

Social media and wellness culture can make this feeling worse with their "just push through" messaging or promises of miracle cures. This can leave you feeling even more isolated when these approaches don't match your reality.

There's also the physical isolation that comes with chronic illness. Having to cancel plans last minute, missing out on events, or needing to limit your activities can make maintaining connections challenging. The energy it takes to explain your situation over and over can feel overwhelming.

But you're not alone in feeling alone. There are communities of people who get it - who understand the daily reality of chronic illness without needing lengthy explanations. Finding these connections, whether through support groups, online communities, or working with providers who understand chronic illness, can help ease that sense of isolation.