According to LinkedIn, my post about returning to work after my year-long mental health leave of absence has attracted nearly 1.5 million views. It’s an astonishing figure and one that’s hard to wrap my head around.
Dozens of people, nearly all of whom I have never met, have privately messaged me about it. A theme has emerged among some of the notes. Even though I explicitly stated that I am on a journey rather than at a destination, people are asking me how I came to be “cured” of my depression and OCD. My answer is not one they want to hear. I’m not “cured” of anything.
I recognize the place from which they are coming. Having hope that things can improve because you see someone else whose story resonates with your own is powerful. It breeds optimism. And, at the same time, it doesn’t necessarily feel like enough. The fear of relapse is real. It’s scary. I’ve been asked how I know that I’ll “never go back” to where I was. Again, my response is painfully unsatisfying. I don’t.
I know that I have a degree of in-the-moment self-awareness that I have never had before. I know that I have resources and support available to me and I do not hesitate to call upon them. I know that although things are currently sunny, at some point it will rain. And, I know that the rain is temporary and the sun will come out again. That does not mean that I will welcome the rain or that the rain will make me feel good. (Please hang on, this tortured analogy is almost done.). It means that I know that I have the perseverance and the resilience to live through the rain with the hope and optimism that the sun will shine again.
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’s a voyage of discovery, as a colleague told me more than 40 years ago. And like the Starship Enterprise, you are eternally on patrol, because neither you nor the universe is anywhere near Absolute Zero. Don’t expect there’ll always be friendly planets and no breakdowns. But keep going and discovering. It’s worth the effort.
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Seriously, Jerk Brain?! 
Love the insights within your posts!
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It’s a voyage of discovery, as a colleague told me more than 40 years ago. And like the Starship Enterprise, you are eternally on patrol, because neither you nor the universe is anywhere near Absolute Zero. Don’t expect there’ll always be friendly planets and no breakdowns. But keep going and discovering. It’s worth the effort.
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LikeLiked by 1 person