Why a Therapist (Me) Who Grew Up In Chaos Does What She Does

If you're new here, hi. I'm Mika.

I'm a licensed therapist and relationship coach, and I've been in private practice for over 20 years. I work with couples, parents, and people who are generally really good at holding everything together — until they're not.

But here's the part that doesn't usually make it into a professional bio.

I grew up in a house that was, let's say, a lot. My mom — brilliant, intense, probably undiagnosed neurodivergent, possibly a little narcissistic — and my dad, who was gentle and warm and also an alcoholic who avoided conflict like the plague….which meant he was avoiding my mother like the plague. 

Neither of them had any real tools for what was happening inside them, let alone inside a marriage, let alone inside raising kids or managing a blended family.

It wasn't movie-worthy chaos. Not enough dramatic scenes I can package into a Netflix pitch. Well, there was that one time my usually cool-as-a-cucumber dad launched a raw turkey from the kitchenette to the laundry room trash can (probably 20 feet away) after my mom had pushed JUST the right button in an argument… 

Mostly (when turkeys weren't being launched), it was the low-grade, chronic kind of chaos — where you learn early that the emotional temperature in the house is something you need to track at all times. Where nobody's really talking about what's actually happening. Where love is real and present, and also completely insufficient on its own.

When I look back at both sides of my family, I see undiagnosed ADHD everywhere. I see people who were genuinely trying and genuinely dysregulated and genuinely had no idea what to do with either of those things.

That's not a sob story. It's just my origin story.

It's exactly why I've been obsessed with relationships and what makes them work (and what doesn't) since age 14 and why I do what I do — and exactly why (I think) I'm weirdly good at it.

The people I work with tend to fall into three groups, and they have more in common than they think.

There are the parents — usually overwhelmed, often neurodivergent themselves or raising kids who are, running households that feel like they're one meltdown away from total collapse. They're not bad parents. They're exhausted parents who never got a manual that actually applied to their specific kid.

There are the couples — smart, high-functioning people who are great at their jobs and quietly drowning at home. They're not in crisis necessarily. They're just… distant. Repeating the same fight. Feeling more like roommates than partners. Wondering if this is just what midlife is (meh), and hoping it will get better when ______________. 

And then there are the individuals — people who can't quite point to one thing but know something feels off. Maybe it's a relationship they can't figure out how to leave or fix. Maybe it's anxiety that hums in the background of everything. Maybe it's realizing, somewhere in their 30s or 40s, that they've spent so long managing everyone else's feelings that they have no idea what they actually want. People still untangling themselves from a childhood that maybe looked fine from the outside. People who are smart enough to see their patterns clearly, and somehow still can't stop repeating them.

What they share is this: they're carrying a lot, they've been carrying it for a long time, and somewhere along the way, the tools they have stopped being enough. 

That's the struggle bus I talk about. That's who I built everything for.

If you're a parent who's tired of yelling being the only thing that works, I made a workshop for you. It's 80 minutes, $37, and it comes with our exact family rules, habit builder cards, and chore system — everything I built for my own house after gentle parenting alone stopped cutting it for my kid with ADHD. Ten thousand families are using it. Results usually show up within days. 

→ Family Rules Workshop: www.mikaross.com/familyrules

If you're a couple — or both, because a lot of you are both — the relateWELL Membership is $84 a quarter and includes everything: the conflict workshop, the Learn How to Fight course, boundaries, sex drive, managing screens, date nights, and yes, the Family Rules Workshop too. Forty-plus hours of content. Cancel anytime. 

→ relateWELL Membership: www.mikaross.com/relatewell

If you're interested in private therapy or couples counseling, that's available too, though there's about a 6-month wait right now. If you want to get on the list, you can do that here: 

→ Private practice waitlist: www.mikaross.com/call

Either way — I'm glad you're here.

Also, if a big-feeling, people-pleasing, formerly conflict-avoiding, raised in a NOT-Beaver-Cleaver household person can climb this mountain…anyone can.