Peer Support

For me, peer support is personal.

I didn’t become a Certified Peer Support Specialist because I only wanted to learn how to support people. I became one because I know what it is like to have to rebuild a life from the inside out.

In 2015, I made a decision that changed the direction of my life. I had been living with chronic pain and taking prescribed narcotics through a pain clinic. I reached a point where I knew I needed something different. I checked myself out of the pain clinic, stopped taking narcotics, and began my recovery.

That decision did not suddenly make everything easy. It began a much bigger process of learning how to advocate for myself, understand what I was feeling, question things I had been taught, and figure out who I actually was.

Over the years, my life has included recovery, chronic pain, therapy, mindfulness, spiritual abuse and religious deconstruction, coming out later in life, understanding myself as queer and nonbinary, divorce after a long marriage, parenting, becoming an empty nester, and starting over at 50.

I know what it feels like when one change starts pulling on every other part of your life.

I know what it is like to realize that the person you were expected to be is not necessarily the person you are.

And I know that sometimes you do not need someone sitting across from you trying to fix you. Sometimes you need another human being who understands what it means to have lived through something, changed because of it, and had to figure out what comes next.

That is the kind of peer support I offer.

What Peer Support With Me Looks Like

I am not here to tell you what your life should look like.

I am here to listen, ask questions, share from my own lived experience when it is helpful, help you notice what you already know about yourself, and support you while you figure out what feels true for you.

Some days we may talk about something heavy.

Some days we may work through a decision, identify what is overwhelming you, make something feel more manageable, or find a way to get through the next few days.

And sometimes you may simply need somewhere to say the things you have not been able to say anywhere else.

You do not have to arrive with a goal.

You do not have to know exactly what is wrong.

You do not have to explain yourself perfectly.

We can start with what is happening right now.

You May Find My Lived Experience Especially Helpful If You Are Moving Through

• recovery or questioning your relationship with substances

• chronic pain or learning to advocate for yourself

• LGBTQ+ identity or coming out

• coming out later in life

• gender identity or changes in how you understand yourself

• divorce, separation, or rebuilding after a long relationship

• major identity shifts or life transitions

• religious deconstruction

• spiritual abuse

• changing your relationship with faith or spirituality

• grief and loss

• feeling overwhelmed, stuck, disconnected, or unsure what comes next

• starting over when you did not expect to have to start over

Your experience does not have to look like mine for us to work together. Shared lived experience can open a door, but your story remains your own.

Adults

A large part of my work is with adults whose lives no longer look the way they once expected them to.

Sometimes that happens because of recovery. Sometimes it is divorce, coming out, grief, religion, identity, family, chronic pain, an empty nest, or simply reaching a point where you realize something has to change.

It can be disorienting when an old version of your life no longer works but the next version has not completely taken shape yet.

Peer support gives us room to stay with that.

We can talk about what happened, what is happening now, what you want to keep, what you are ready to question, and what you may want to build next.

Teens 12+

I also offer peer support for teens 12 and older, including LGBTQ+ and gender-expansive teens.

Young people are often carrying much more than adults realize while also trying to understand who they are, where they belong, what they believe, and how to put words to experiences that may still be confusing.

My role is not to analyze or diagnose them.

I offer another safe adult relationship where they can talk, be taken seriously, ask questions, explore what they are feeling, and have some room to be themselves without having to perform or have everything figured out.

As a parent of three young adults, I also understand that supporting a young person can involve the whole family learning when to help, when to listen, and when to give them room to develop their own voice.

What Peer Support Is — And What It Is Not

I am a California Certified Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist.

Peer support is different from therapy. I do not diagnose mental health conditions or provide psychotherapy, medical treatment, or clinical counseling.

My work is grounded in lived experience, self-determination, recovery, strengths, practical support, and the belief that you are the person who gets to decide what your life becomes.

I may bring tools from my training into our conversations, but I am not trying to turn our time together into a clinical appointment.

You are still a person sitting with another person.

That matters to me.

At this time, services are offered on a private-pay basis and are not billed through Medi-Cal or insurance.

Rates listed on this website apply to services booked directly through Zoe Ella Designs. Rates for services provided through a partner practice or referring office may be different.