Dr. Nicole LePera

I was actually just texting her before I signed on.

The cycle she's been able to break with her own son are just continuously a motivation outside, of course, of the community that offers endless motivation for me.

I mean, it just, it is...

My dad of my two parents, very interestingly, maybe counter to the traditional model, my dad was always the more emotional one than my mother.

My mother, because she was so overwhelmed with her own childhood trauma that she was largely shut down to her emotions.

So I remember the first time I started to see really emotion from my dad, probably in my 20s into my 30s.

And so for me, seeing him cry, though, in understanding and in pride, just it overwhelms me.

And to be able to have

Those more real, authentic, emotional moments with a family that has been largely shut down for the majority of our experience as a family, again, is just so validating and affirming for why I do this work that I feel closer to him, right, in those moments where I feel that authentic emotion coming from him or my sister or whomever.

Starting prior to 13, socially, I was very what we would call shy.

I had very few friends.

Usually my friends were on the athletic team.

So we related, you know, it started with like my soccer friends, my softball friends.

And we would relate over playing sports together, though I wasn't popular.

I struggled even when we were out to eat at a restaurant.

When I was in my early adolescence, a waiter would come over to me and ask me what I wanted to drink.

And my mom would have to order for me.

Like I very much was overwhelmed.

socially.

And that translated to I had very few friends socially.