I’m excited to share a FREE educational resource about Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and aging in our LGBTQIPA2+ communities! On the second Wednesday every month at 4-5pm PST via Zoom, the Alzheimer’s Association of Northern California hosts live webinars about Alzheimer’s Disease, brain health, and the unique experiences in our queer and trans communities.

Mother’s Day is a good day for me of late. It’s often a day filled with things I love to do - sleeping late and spending time with my wife and daughter. It didn’t used to be such a happy day for me though and I remember acutely the pain I felt watching others have that role I desperately wanted - to be someone’s mom.

In my work as a hospice grief counselor, patients would sometimes be reluctant to speak up to ask questions or voice what they need, even though patients, not the doctors or loved ones, are at the center of care.

signs you’re experiencing disenfranchised grief:

● You doubt yourself: “Should I be as devastated as I am?” “Or why am I not crying like everyone else says I should be?"

● You’re vacillating between a strong visceral pain and dull sadness (feeling numb), so your emotions can be hard to pin down. It’s like the unhelpful friend that’s been around for so long that you tolerate them, but you’re not ever actually used to them being unhelpful.

I wanted to be in a field that squashes stigma of behavioral health, promotes life-long growth and learning, and shifts my social justice activism to providing anti-racist shoulder-to-shoulder healing spaces for (my) queer and trans communities.