About Me
Hi, I’m Meagan (she/they). I’m a therapist, yes, but I’m also a person. I believe therapy invites vulnerability, and by sharing who I am, I am giving you more control in deciding who you open up to.
Personal Values & Lived Experiences
I share a number of identities and lived experiences with many of the people I work with. Some of these include:
I’m Queer (I'm especially familiar with the experience of having a queer identity that isn't always visible to others. For me, that includes existing on the asexual, bisexual, and non-binary spectrums.)
I’m Neurodivergent (Understanding my own mind has helped me more intentionally consider neurodiversity and the many ways people think, learn, process the world, and engage in therapy. For me, that includes being a former gifted kid with ADHD, autistic traits, and a brain that doesn't think in images or have an inner voice.)
I’m Chronically Ill (I understand what it's like to live with invisible illness, juggle high-care treatment routines, and navigate the challenges of getting diagnosed or feeling heard by doctors. For me, that includes living with Type 1 Diabetes, POTS, hypermobility, and PCOS.)
If any of these experiences resonate with you, I want you to know that you don't have to spend our early sessions explaining or justifying them to me. While our stories will never be exactly the same, I understand how these identities and experiences can shape the way we move through the world and how the world often responds to us.
That shared understanding doesn't replace my curiosity about your unique story. Instead, it simply means we can spend less time establishing common ground and more time exploring how your experiences have shaped you, what you're carrying, and where you want to go from here.
Given these identities and experiences, you might be able to guess some of my values, but I won’t make you guess, I’ll share them openly:
I value the importance of questioning our own perspectives, exposing ourselves to different ways of thinking, and I don’t pretend to be all-knowing. I strive to keep a learner’s mindset and actively welcome feedback.
I believe in recognizing how systemic oppression shapes our world, especially for marginalized communities, and believe it is important to notice what we’ve internalized.
I want to know what you think you’re struggling with. You know yourself best, and there’s no harm in having a word to describe an experience. Words help to connect us with others and aid us in finding more resources to support ourselves. You don’t need to worry about me thinking you’re diagnosing yourself or judging you for using a term you’ve picked up from social media. DSM diagnoses are a tool to categorize struggles, but they can't capture the full breadth of the human experience. I care more about your experience and appreciate words to help me understand that.
I value your comfort, which I see as your boundaries. I’ll encourage you to prioritize them, and I’ll always ask for your input in our work together.
I will react, with my tone and face, with concern and excitement – I show up authentically as a real human! Rest assured, that human will always see you with a kind compassionate lens, and I welcome seriousness, cringe, and silliness alike.
I am open and transparent with my clients, so you always know what to expect from the therapeutic process. Many of my clients appreciate how I outline my line of thinking, and how I take the time to explain certain interventions work. If you ever have a question, please, ask it!
Now that you know a little about my values, here are a few things that make me... well, me!
Fun Facts About Me
To give you a glimpse of who I am, here’s a few of my favorites:
Video Games: Life is Strange, The Walking Dead, Detroit: Become Human, Minecraft, Pokemon, and The Sims 4
TV Shows and Movies: Severance, The Last of Us, Squid Games, Stranger Things, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Back to the Future, The Matrix, and Jurassic Park
Hobbies: Photography, Metalsmithing, Jewelry Making, Lapidary Arts (rock shaping and polishing), Collage-making, Researching Symbolism and Mythology, and Loom Weaving (I do have many more hobbies, as all ADHDers tend to, these are just more recent ones that lasted more than a week)
Collections: Crystals and fossils (which inspired my practice name), vinyl records, and a ridiculous amount of psychology books (I’m a non-fiction reader)
Miscellaneous: I love my 2 dogs (rescues), I love the Tucson Gem Show, I am a chicken sandwich connoisseur and will order one at most restaurants I go to, fondue and Korean BBQ are some of my favorite meals because I like to cook my food in front of me as I eat it, and I love redecorating my house for each season
Why Ammonite?
You might be curious about why I named my practice Ammonite Counseling LLC. If you didn’t know, an ammonite is a fossilized sea creature with a spiral shell. One, I like crystals and fossils, and so I wanted to decorate my space with them, but I also found a lot of meaningful symbolism in the ammonite.
When you see the direction of a spiral, as it goes towards the middle a spiral symbolizes going deeper, much like we do in therapy—exploring the depth of your feelings and their origins. We can also observe the spiral leading outwards, ending the cycle one has been in. Spirals are often symbolic of change and transformation, and that is what I seek to provide in my practice: healing and transformation found after looking within.
If you are like me and also enjoy learning about symbolism, I’ll detail even more. Water symbolizes the emotional world, and Earth the physical. The ammonite fossil, a creature of both realms, represents the blend of healing emotions and building the world you want for yourself, which is what I hope for everyone who enters my practice.
I also just really enjoy all of the wordplay and metaphors I can use with ammonites. We can “dig up” or “unearth” old feelings, and “dive” right in to those “ancient” wounds before you “spiral” out of control and really feel “under water”. I could go on, because it gives me great enjoyment, but I’ll spare you the cheesy dad jokes… for now.