Who Am I?

My name is Renee, though most people who truly know me call me Ren. I am a Chicana — part Spaniard, part Native American — a lineage often described as Mestiza. I was born and raised in New Mexico, where my family has lived for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. I often say that my family didn’t immigrate to the United States; the United States migrated to us.

Today, I live in the Pacific Northwest, a place I’ve grown to love for its quiet, its rain, and the way it holds both solitude and possibility.

If I had to name a spiritual home, I would call myself a practicing pagan, though I was raised between Catholic and Baptist traditions. My life, like my identity, has always been a blend of worlds.

Family, Love, and Becoming

I am approaching 50 — a fact that still surprises me. I have two extraordinary adult sons who continue to astonish me with their depth, humor, and resilience. In my mind, they are already legends.

I am also in a complex, hopelessly romantic relationship — something new, something real, something that terrifies me in the best possible way. I met him a few years ago and my life hasn’t been the same since – even in his extended absence. It stands in stark contrast to my 21‑year marriage, a relationship that ended but did not disappear. My ex‑husband and I still consider each other extended family. He used to say, “If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s Renee.” I’m only now beginning to believe him.

Happiness is finding its way back into my life.

A Season of Collapse and Return

Not long ago, I surfaced from a catastrophic major depressive episode — the kind that rearranges a life.

After fighting for two brutal years to complete my clinical psychology residency, my body gave out. Financial strain, menopause, an empty nest, and decades of caretaking converged. I resigned from the residency I had sacrificed so much to reach. And then I collapsed.

For the first time in my life, I rested — truly rested — supported by a few close friends who held me through the unraveling.

I am autistic (Asperger’s), typically high‑functioning, but the past few years pushed me into lower and mid‑functioning states. I’m finding my way back, slowly, unevenly, but steadily — the way I always do.

Where I Come From

I grew up in a low‑SES environment, moving between lower‑middle‑class and low‑poverty depending on which parent I was with. As an adult, I lived in poverty throughout my educational journey — a 17‑year path that culminated in earning my PsyD at age 44.

That kind of transition — from survival to scholarship, from scarcity to possibility — is disorienting at any age, let alone in the middle of a midlife transformation I still don’t have a name for.

Why I Share This

I tell my story this way because context matters.

We cannot understand someone’s perspective without understanding the landscape they come from — the histories, identities, and conditions that shape how they move through the world. This is the foundation of my work, my model, and my worldview.

We are all human, connected by shared threads of experience. And we are all profoundly different — shaped by culture, history, trauma, privilege, and possibility.

My work is an attempt to honor both truths: the uniqueness of each person’s lived experience, and the universal patterns that bind us to one another.

A Time of Polarization

We are living through a tumultuous moment in history. Many of us are discovering that unity and uniqueness are not opposites — they are interdependent. When we lose sight of either, we become absolute. We collapse into binaries: good or evil, right or wrong, in or out.

Polarization itself is not the enemy. It shows us the edges of our humanity. The danger comes when we stay there — when we forget that the space between black and white is where life actually happens.

That space is where nuance lives. Where complexity breathes. Where every strand of your experience becomes part of a larger tapestry.

What I Believe

We are in this together as much as we are in this alone.

My work — this model, this site, this language — is an invitation to hold both truths at once. To see yourself clearly, to see others with compassion, and to understand the forces that shape us without reducing any of us to a single story.

This is who I am. And this is the lens through which I see the world.