Last week, my therapist prodded me (again) about my reticence to thinking about the future, what my life looks like when I complete this stage of my recovery and am ready to return to… what exactly? I’ve come to realize that there is no “going back” in the sense of resuming my pattern of existence exactly the way it was prior to January 13 of this year. For starters, the world we live in is radically different. There’s also the subject of me. I’ve changed. And, I’ve come to the realization that if I return to my old habits and reengage with my previous stressors without making any changes, the outcome will be worse than it was the first time.
For whatever reason, I am creating barriers to thinking about the future. It’s as if I can’t get my mind to focus on it. Perhaps it’s a manifestation of denial, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels more like cowardice, driven by a fear of abject failure. That said, I’m not sure what I’m worried about failing at. Historically, my biggest worry has been disappointing others. I know there are things that I want to say, but I’m not even sure of what I’m holding back.
From history major, with side quests in Medieval Studies and chemical engineering, to nonprofit finance leader, Big 4 tax partner, technologist, researcher, and now co-founder of Divine, nothing about my career has been linear. The throughline has always been systems: financial systems, organizational systems, technological systems, and human systems. I have an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management and a PhD in Organizational Leadership Psychology, and I’ve spent my career trying to understand how complex systems shape people’s choices, opportunities, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. Today, my work sits at the intersection of psychology, technology, human-centered design, and digital trust. I am co-founder of Divine, an open-source, decentralized social video app built to put creativity back in human hands and replace doomscrolling with joyscrolling. Divine is part of a bigger question I care deeply about: how do we create online spaces that support safety, creativity, identity, and belonging without defaulting to surveillance, extraction, or control? At Divine, I wear a lot of hats across engineering, finance, operations, and strategy, while helping shape the app’s trust, safety, and values work. I focus especially on teen online safety, human-generated content, participatory design, and healthier relationships with technology. I am a postdoctoral alum of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Computer Science, where I worked with Dr. Pam Wisniewski’s Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab. I continue to write, speak, and research at the intersection of online safety, digital trust, decentralized technology, and youth wellbeing. I was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Data Integrity in 2023. In 2025, I had the honor of serving as President of Division 13 of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Consulting Psychology. I also live with major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2020, I took a leave from PwC to focus on my mental wellness, and I now speak and write openly about mental health, especially in the workplace and in relation to digital wellbeing. This blog, Seriously Jerk Brain, chronicles much of that journey.
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It is fear, fear that you will fail. Fear that you won’t satisfy whomever (or whatever) the implacable and invisible person(s) or thing(s) upon which your life depends, and which you can never satisfy because they (or it) don’t exist outside your brain.
It is fear, fear that you will fail. Fear that you won’t satisfy whomever (or whatever) the implacable and invisible person(s) or thing(s) upon which your life depends, and which you can never satisfy because they (or it) don’t exist outside your brain.
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