My story goes back a long way. I'm in my 40s, and grew up in south-east England.

I'm neurodivergent, and while I've chosen to remain undiagnosed, I believe that I'm autistic. I was born in the early 1980s, when autism wasn’t understood as well as it is today. Because of this, it wasn't picked up, and I grew up feeling different without being able to explain why. Alongside my neurotype, there was narcissism and misogyny in my family of origin, which added to my adverse childhood experiences.

Now that I'm an adult, I have a better understanding of why I felt like the odd one out. Having travelled through and healed from these experiences, I'm passionate about supporting others to heal too. When we understand ourselves, we have more empathy and ease, and life gets much more pleasant, and sometimes easier. I would love to support you on your own journey towards healing.

If you’d like to talk with me, click here.

How I Became A Counsellor

When I was 19, I had an online friend. We had one thing in common: we were both unhappy about how our lives were going. We bonded over that quite often. One day, we joined an online Christian forum together, and as I started looking at the posts, I noticed that almost every solution to a member's problem was "pray/I'll pray for you." Although it was well-intentioned, I wondered how much those replies were helping.

I began replying to a few posts myself. 24 hours later I returned and saw that some people had replied to me sharing: "That's a really good idea!" I answered some more posts, came back the next day, and got more of the same positive feedback.

Contributing to the forum became a major interest and I spent hours supporting others in ways that felt meaningful. I felt valued, like I belonged, and like I could use my life experience for good.

One day I thought to myself: "I'd be so much happier if I could do this for a living. What's the professional version of this?" I did a Google search, and it quickly came up that what I was thinking of was counselling and psychotherapy. So I looked up local courses in counselling, and enrolled into the next one.

I trained at City College Brighton and Hove, then The Link Centre, and finally The Berne Institute. During my training I worked for Help! Counselling (no web site available), and have recently enrolled at the EAP Health Assured. I’m a founding member of Attention Allies, which specialises in offering non-medical therapeutic support to people with ADHD and other neurodivergencies.

I set up Cactus Counselling, my private practice, in 2022. Why did I call it that? Here's the explanation! In my private practice now I work with individuals, couples, and groups. My specialies include childlessness and childfreedom, thriving while neurodivergent, supporting those with invisible and long-term illness, estranged or soon-to-be-estranged folk, and adult survivors of childhood bullying. If you’re interested in having therapy with me, click here to book a chat.