Before We Talk About the Whole Person, You Should Know My Whole Story

I didn’t get here by following a straight path. I got here by asking question after question - and slowly realizing that every detour was teaching me something about what it means to be human.

If I’m going to write a publication called The Whole Story, I think it’s only fair that I start by telling you some of mine.

Not the polished biography. Not the list of degrees, certifications, jobs, or accomplishments. But the story behind them. Because if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can know a lot about someone without really knowing them.

You can know their job title without knowing what brought them there. You can know their diagnosis without knowing how they experience the world. You can know what they’re struggling with without knowing everything they’re carrying. You can know what they accomplished without knowing how many times their plans changed along the way.

Somewhere along my own winding path, I became fascinated by that space between what we see and the whole person underneath it.

I Thought I Knew Exactly Where I Was Going

For as long as I can remember, I loved animals.

Ten years ago, if you had asked me what my future looked like, I probably would have given you a confident answer: I was going to become a large-animal veterinarian. I was going to school for it. I loved what I was learning.

But there were parts of college that were much harder for me than I understood at the time. It wasn’t the academics. It was everything surrounding them - group projects, constant meetings, trying to form relationships with people I barely knew, knowing a semester later everything would change again. Figuring out expectations that everyone else seemed to understand without anyone actually explaining them.

At the time, I didn’t have the language I have today. I didn’t know I was autistic. I didn’t know I had ADHD. I just knew that some things seemed to require an enormous amount of energy from me.

So I kept trying. I kept adapting. I kept trying to figure out the rules.

When paying for school became another obstacle between me and the dream, I found another route: I joined the Army. It was one more attempt to keep the dream alive. During basic training, though, my body started telling a different story. I experienced repeated stress fractures, was diagnosed with osteopenia, and was eventually medically discharged.

The plan changed again.

Then I became very sick with gastrointestinal problems, and the future I had pictured for myself looked very different.

What Happens When the Plan Changes?

We talk a lot about finding your purpose. We talk much less about what happens when you thought you already found it - and then life takes you somewhere else.

For a long time, I kept trying to figure out what I was supposed to do next. But looking back, something important was happening underneath that search: I was asking questions.

Why is my body responding this way? Why does stress affect so much more than our thoughts? Why can two people experience the same environment completely differently? Why do some people thrive when they receive the right support? Why do we separate physical health, mental health, relationships, environment, identity, purpose, and community when they’re all happening inside the same human life?

One question led to another. And another. And another. Eventually, those questions started changing the direction of my life.

Then Motherhood Changed the Questions Again

Becoming a mother gave me another perspective entirely. Suddenly, development wasn’t something I was only learning about - I was watching it happen.

I learned what it meant to advocate. I learned how important the right supports can be. I watched my daughter grow and excel with support around her, and it reinforced something I was beginning to understand: support isn’t about forcing someone into a predetermined version of who they’re supposed to become. It’s about understanding the person in front of you and helping them have what they need to grow.

That idea would eventually influence almost everything I wanted to do professionally.

Working With Children Taught Me to Look Closer

I spent years working in early childhood education before eventually entering the world of Applied Behavior Analysis. Children have a way of making theories very real.

A child might be struggling to participate - but why? Maybe they don’t understand the language being used. Maybe the room is overwhelming. Maybe they’re tired. Maybe the task is too difficult. Maybe they don’t know how to communicate what they need. Maybe they don’t feel safe yet. Maybe they’re still developing the skill we’re expecting them to demonstrate.

Behavior tells us something. Development tells us something. Environment tells us something. Relationships tell us something. Communication tells us something. The challenge is that we don’t always stop long enough to ask what all those pieces are telling us together.

The more I learned about children, behavior, psychology, development, and neurodiversity, the more I started recognizing pieces of myself, too.

Learning My Own Brain

Receiving an autism diagnosis later in life gave me language for experiences I had spent years trying to understand. ADHD added another piece. Things from childhood, school, relationships, work, and everyday life began looking different when I could finally view them through another lens.

I thought about how much of my life I had spent observing. Adjusting. Trying to figure out what was expected. Trying to fit into spaces that didn’t always feel naturally designed for the way my brain worked.

But understanding my neurodivergence didn’t suddenly answer every question. If anything, it gave me better questions. And I’ve come to appreciate good questions - they’ve gotten me this far.

Health Became Bigger Than Health

Along the way, my education took me into psychology, integrative health, health and wellness coaching, child development, behavior, and related areas. At first glance, those subjects might seem disconnected. I don’t see them that way anymore.

Psychology asks us about the mind and behavior. Health asks us about the body. Development asks us how people grow. Behavior analysis asks us to examine behavior and environment. Coaching asks what matters to a person and what helps them move forward. Relationships ask us to consider connection. Community asks where we belong. Spirituality asks questions of meaning, values, purpose, and something beyond ourselves.

They’re different lenses. But they’re looking at the same thing: a person.

That’s when the idea that has become central to my work really started taking shape. What if we stopped looking at people as collections of separate problems to solve? What if we looked at the whole person?

Faith Has Been Part of My Story, Too

There is another part of my story that I can’t leave out: my faith. My relationship with Jesus has been a source of meaning throughout some of the most uncertain parts of my life.

My plans have changed more times than I could have predicted. There have been chapters I would never have chosen. There have also been people, experiences, opportunities, and moments of belonging that I never could have planned.

Faith hasn’t meant having every answer. For me, it has meant continuing to search for meaning when I don’t. And perhaps that is another reason I’m so interested in the whole person. We’re not only bodies. We’re not only brains. We’re not only diagnoses, careers, parents, children, employees, patients, students, or clients. We have values. We have relationships. We have histories. We have communities. We have things that give our lives meaning. We have stories.

And That Brings Me Here

Today, I’m still learning. I’m studying psychology. I’m continuing to learn about behavior, education, wellness, development, and what helps people thrive. I’m building ideas around whole-person wellness and thinking deeply about how we care for the people who spend their lives caring for others.

But I’m also writing. Because I’ve realized that I don’t want to only collect information - I want to connect it. I want to ask questions about it. I want to hear other people’s experiences. I want to explore what research tells us, and what happens when those ideas meet actual human lives.

That’s what The Whole Story is going to be. We’ll talk about health, psychology, stress, neurodivergence, parenting, development, relationships, community, belonging, spirituality, purpose - and probably quite a few things I haven’t thought of yet.

Some posts will be educational. Some will explore research. Some will be resources you can actually use. And some will simply be stories. Because I’m becoming increasingly convinced that if we want to understand someone’s health, behavior, choices, struggles, strengths, or growth, we have to be willing to look beyond the piece that’s easiest to see. We have to become curious about everything else.

Everyone Has a Whole Story

So that’s where I want to begin. Not with an expert standing at the front of the room telling everyone else how to live. With a person who has taken a very winding road to get here and still has plenty of questions.

My story includes dreams that changed. A body that forced me to slow down. Motherhood. Neurodivergence. Education. Children who taught me to look closer. Work that made me ask better questions. Faith. Community. Belonging. And an ever-growing curiosity about what helps human beings thrive.

Individually, those might look like separate chapters. I’m beginning to see that they aren’t. They’re pieces of one story.

The whole story.

And now, I’d love to hear some of yours. What’s a chapter of your life that didn’t make sense while you were living it - but changed the person you eventually became?