Aria Mental Health Counseling Center

Aria Mental Health Counseling Center Compassionate, culturally attuned care

Supporting trauma survivors, including those with CPTSD, dissociation, OCD, anxiety, depression, medical & mental health professionals, individuals facing chronic pain or illness, and people from collective cultures.

07/23/2026

I’m so excited to announce that I’ve been invited to present at National Association of Social Work in San Francisco in Oct.
The topic is: From Survival to Symptoms: Recognizing Complex Trauma and Dissociation in Medical and Mental Health settings

Excited to meet many therapists there and share my passion about the impact of trauma on the body - somatoform dissociation as physical symptoms, “lack of compliance” in medical settings and etc.

07/01/2026

Every part of you is welcome. Not every part gets to make the decisions.
A part of you may still want to scream.
Another may have withdrawn in silence.
Another may be trying to protect you, even at the cost of exhausting you.
These parts are not your enemies.
They are you.
They are parts of you that once had to become this way in order to survive.
👂 Listening to them means honoring them,
not obeying them.
🏡 Every part of you deserves a place at the table.
But not every part belongs in the driver's seat.
🌱 Healing is learning the art of listening without surrendering.
It's leading with Self while making space for every part.
It's holding boundaries with compassion.
It's choosing not to become your own enemy.

06/25/2026

Looking at the person on the right, you’ll see how they move from sympathetic nervous system- screaming and panic - to dorsal which is fainting and passing out. This fluctuation in the nervous system is very common for people with CPTSD but maybe not this drastic and obvious. If anxiety and panic comes, the system sees it as a threat and dissociation and shut down happens more, and vice versa. That’s one of the reasons people with CPTSD - for example Borderline Personality Disorder - feel overwhelmed by the roller coaster of emotions they feel throughout the day or week. Seeing a specialist that knows how to activate their Vagal nerve, bring the Self energy and collaborations between the internal parts is beneficial and important.

06/17/2026

Not everyone with Complex PTSD looks emotionally overwhelmed.
Some become highly intellectual, successful, and exceptionally good at analyzing themselves. They can explain every emotion, but struggle to actually feel it.
These protective intellectual parts often develop to keep overwhelming emotions out of awareness. They help people excel, overfunction, and stay in control, but they can also keep the nervous system disconnected from the body.
Because these clients appear insightful, articulate, and high-functioning, Complex PTSD may go unrecognized for years, even in therapy. They may spend years in talk therapy gaining insight without experiencing the deeper healing that comes from working with the body, emotions, and protective parts.
Sometimes the very strengths that helped someone survive are the same strengths that hide their trauma.
Healing isn’t about becoming less intelligent. It’s about helping those brilliant protective parts feel safe enough to let emotions be experienced, not just understood.
Have you seen this pattern, in yourself?

05/29/2026

One of the simplest ways I explain Complex PTSD is this:

An extreme sense of internal polarization.

Parts of you pulling in completely opposite directions, often at the exact same time.

A part that desperately wants connection…and another part that wants to disappear from everyone.

A part that feels deeply needy and afraid of abandonment…and another part that feels suffocated when people get too close.

A part that over-shares quickly to feel safe…and another part that regrets it immediately and withdraws.

A part that craves rest…and another that panics the moment you slow down.

A part that people-pleases to avoid conflict…and another that secretly resents everyone for how much it gives.

A part that longs to be seen…and another convinced visibility is dangerous.

A part that wants intimacy…and another that interprets intimacy as loss of freedom, engulfment, or eventual pain.

This is often what chronic trauma does to the nervous system: it creates survival strategies that contradict each other because different parts learned different ways to survive.

And many people with CPTSD aren’t “confused” or “too much.” They’re carrying multiple survival systems trying to protect them at once.





Happy Mother’s Day!!! Mother’s Day is often celebrated with flowers, brunches, and sweet photos. But behind so many moth...
05/11/2026

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Mother’s Day is often celebrated with flowers, brunches, and sweet photos. But behind so many mothers is an invisible workload that rarely gets fully seen.

Many moms are not only raising children, they are also carrying the mental map of the entire household.

Remembering doctor appointments.
Tracking school emails.
Buying groceries.
Planning meals.
Cooking Whole Foods meals.
Doing laundry.
Cleaning.
Mopping.
Doing dishes.
Keeping track of schedules, emotions, routines, birthdays, forms, homework, sleep, medications, and the thousand tiny details that keep a family functioning.

This is labor.
Physical labor.
Emotional labor.
Mental labor.

And for working mothers especially those balancing careers, businesses, caregiving, and motherhood, the load can become overwhelming.

But this conversation is not only about working mothers. Stay-at-home mothers also carry an enormous and often invisible burden that is too frequently minimized because it is unpaid. The work of caring for children and managing a home is relentless, repetitive, emotionally demanding, and essential.

Modern parenting and healthy marriages require shared responsibility. Not necessarily “50/50” in a rigid transactional way, but true partnership.

Partnership means both adults are mentally invested in the home and children. It means one partner is not forced into the role of household manager who must constantly remind, organize, delegate, and supervise.

Because having to repeatedly ask for help is also labor.

Many men, often unconsciously, still carry cultural and intergenerational beliefs about gender roles that were passed down through families, communities, religion, and society. These legacy burdens can quietly shape expectations around emotional labor, caregiving, and household responsibilities.

But awareness matters. Growth matters. Healing these inherited patterns matters.

A healthy family system is not built on one exhausted person carrying everything silently.

This Mother’s Day, I hope we celebrate mothers not only with appreciation, but with deeper recognition of the invisible work they carry every single day.

And perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can offer mothers is not simply gratitude, but shared responsibility.

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Sacramento, CA

Opening Hours

Monday 3pm - 8pm
Thursday 8am - 8pm
Saturday 3pm - 6pm
Sunday 3pm - 6pm

Telephone

+18019318800

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