My journey in mental health is rooted in surviving systemic racism, child trafficking, wrongful incarceration, and a late diagnosis of Autism and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. These experiences, along with breaking barriers in academia, film, and athletics, drive my commitment to dismantling oppressive systems and advocating for culturally competent, liberation-focused indigenous centered care. While visibility for BIPOC individuals has grown, U.S. policies still fail to address the needs of our diverse population especially in the realm of mental wellness. My work challenges these systemic gaps, offering care grounded in lived experience—not the detached, one-size-fits-all approaches of corporate or government-run mental health systems.

     Swell Sessions embodies this mission by viewing trauma as an injury, not an illness, and addressing PTS as a nervous system pandemic that has been historically downplayed. Our approach dismantles systemic violence and reconnects clients to their true selves and natural communities, particularly those marginalized by traditional therapeutic environments: people with disabilities, BIPOC individuals, queer communities, those living in poverty, and our elders and children. In addition, Swell Sessions views advocacy as an integral part of mental wellness.​

     My foundation is deeply tied to the cultural teachings of my mother, Bunny, and the stories of our ancestors, who were among the first communities of mixed-race individuals. Bunny shared the legacy of Green Grass Woman Dress, my great-great-grandmother, a Stolen Sister who was trafficked after the murder of her husband, Washakie. Enslaved by a French Canadian fur trapper, she bore 17 children, and her resilience lives on in me. Her brother, Chief Gall (Matohinsa, later Phizí), a Hunkpapa Lakota leader, survived starvation as a boy by eating the gall bladder of a buffalo, earning his name "Man Who Goes in the Middle." He later became a key military leader in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, resisting colonial forces that sought to erase our people.​

     Bunny also passed down the stories of Louis Riel, the Métis leader who fought for the recognition and dignity of his people, and his wife, Marguerite Monet dit Bellehumeur. Together, they resisted the systemic erasure of bi- and multi-racial identities, founded Manitoba, Canada and the Metis Nation. Riel's fight cost him his life but left a legacy of justice and resistance. My lineage also includes Hokoleskwa, or Chief Cornstalk, a Shawnee leader who defended his people during Pontiac’s War, and other ancestors like Running Horses (Takes Many Sisters), Wakínyahsnala (Rattling Sighting), and Cajeotowin (Walks-With-Many-Names), whose stories of survival and strength continue to guide me. I have come to terms with the duality of race making peace with the colonizer bred into me through generations of genocide. Mainstream public still does not accept that we are still under occupation with our indigenous populations dwindling.​

     I still have more of my identity to unravel through my paternal lineage. Growing up, my dad referred to us as Black Polish, and Italian, but the truth of our heritage remains shrouded in mystery—I learned quickly that we were brown and that was bad. I was instructed not to discuss my lineage in public school settings and even threatened with punishment. In elementary school I was mostly nonverbal until junior high when I bloomed through sports participation that would later earn me a track and field scholarship.

     I left home early, embarking on my own vision quest, during which I rejected my identity in an attempt to find healing. I convinced myself that I could be white, learned to straighten my hair and adopted many masks for safety. What I didn’t realize then was that reconnecting with my lineage would become the cornerstone of my survival.​ Over time, I’ve come to appreciate my father’s refusal to take a DNA test, bound by those same unspoken rules of secrecy. Yet, when my identity was called into question, the truth emerged—turns out, we’re not Italian at all, but Slovenian and West African. This means nothing to me and still does not answer questions around my experiences with involuntary expression of ancestral trauma as it coincides with research on epigenetics. My grandfather Frank was a first-generation American, his father having immigrated to the U.S. and changed his name. My father, with rich stories of his life making ends meet, not fitting in and finding remarkable pathways, regardless, charge my path as well. He was a world chess player in the Army where he was chosen to contribute to the psychological fitness as a trainer. He worked for Manke Lumber on the cusp of technology implementation into the industry. Despite my parents divorce after the discovery of abuse and later trafficking, they both prepared me well for finding my way back to my roots. They did that by instilling in me my rights to self-determination and autonomy. ​

     All my relatives shaped my understanding of trauma as ancestral and systemic, and rarely due to individual failings. Their struggles against colonial violence and prejudice echo in my own experiences navigating race, neurodivergence, and the erasure of mixed-race identities. They also taught me to honor the resilience and wisdom of those who came before us, even as I live in the tension between my Native heritage and the deeply racist academic institutions I attended as well as the agencies I had to protect my true self within. My natural healing instincts are tied to my heritage, and I live in the middle of these two worlds, much like Phizí, dismantling systems that no longer serve us—like the current state of mental health care.​

     Bunny’s own struggles with the mental health industrial complex, including a misdiagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder, further inform my work. Her vibrant spirit and untold brilliance were overshadowed by a system that failed to see her humanity and gatekept important discoveries such as the suppression of Autism in women. I honor her legacy by creating spaces for healing that challenge colonial narratives and embrace the complexities of identity, history, neurodivergence and spirit. Her storytelling, her fight for our lineage, and her belief in the sacred journey of the soul through the hole in the sky remain central to my mission.​

     Inspired by the struggles of my ancestors, I am committed to fostering care that celebrates cultural identities and dismantles oppressive structures. This work is not just about recovery—it’s about liberation, reconnection, and walking a shared path of healing across generations. Together, we can reclaim our authentic selves and create a future rooted in justice, resilience, and community.