I've always felt proud of my tolerance for complexity. Even at a young age I could see the beauty in mistakes, potential harm caused by good intensions, and the extraordinary power of what seemed mundane. But I mostly resented being called an ‘out of the box’ thinker. Truth is, I felt blind to what or where the box even was. So I mostly held back, terrified of being dismissed or called crazy.  Instead, I became an expert at finding patterns in chaos trying desperately to figure out how to 'fit in'.

 

I eventually gravitated toward psychiatry specializing in the care of suicidal and self-harming adolescents -- a group that never shied from expressing a similar distaste for the enigmatic ‘box’. But it became clear quickly that psychiatry too struggled to properly delineate its contents (e.g., diagnoses were broad, symptom management relied on imprecise trial and error treatments, and there wasn't enough relevant science from which to make effective and timely decisions).

 

So I applied my skills to research, studying the application of precision medicine to mental health care and ways to know what we actually mean when we say that we feel 'anxious' or 'depressed.'

 

Once again I'm attempting to outline the damn 'box', but this time there is no 'inside' or 'outside', no 'crazy' or 'sane'. This time, I work across mediums and industries to make sure each of us fits well within our own bounds, getting exactly what we need when we need it.