Dr Colette Lord: Trauma Therapist

02/23/2026

Sometimes trying to get yourself out of survival mode can become an unintentional stressor.

02/20/2026

Sadie and I will be taking it easy and not spending time focused on making content the next 6 weeks. That’s because our Precision EMDR Basic training starts today and that is where my tine and attention will need to be focused.

See you all on the other side!

02/18/2026

Black History month reminders

Black History is American History.

Black Trans Lives matter.

Black disabled rights matter.

The history of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation are white history and it is a history that white Americans such as myself must grapple with. We may not have been responsible for the bad things that were done, but we continue to benefit from the results of the things done and the systems that were built for us as a result.

02/16/2026

02/09/2026

In need of a letter for gender affirming healthcare?

For adults in California: I provide evaluations & letters of support for gender affirming medical care (hormones and/or surgery).

I charge a one-time fee or accept San Diego Medi-Cal to cover this service.

Here’s my process

Step 1: We schedule to meet (in person or by video) for the one hour evaluation, although we often don’t use all that time.

Step 2: I'll invite you to set up an account through my electronic health record. This is how I will share forms to complete (Informed Consent, demographics, etc).

I'll also ask you to complete a few symptom surveys. It's ok to be honest about how you're doing.

Having symptoms or a mental health diagnosis will not keep me from writing you a letter. Just because you have symptoms or a diagnosis does not disqualify you from receiving the care you are seeking.

Step 3: We meet for the evaluation.

It's my job to verify you are generally a competent adult who is able to make informed decisions for yourself & that you are in contact with reality.

If I have no concerns about your ability to make an informed decision about your healthcare, then I will draft a letter for you within a week of our meeting.

If I do have concerns we’ll talk about them and discuss if there are any steps that can be taken to address these concerns (I have yet to have this be necessary).

Step 4: I'll send you the draft letter, asking you to review it so that you know what's in it & to verify there are no inaccuracies. If there are concerns or inaccuracies I will address them and then send you a signed, PDF version of the finalized letter.

This letter will remain good for one year (that’s an insurance thing, not me). If you need another letter because more than a year has passed, then I am available to set up a short (30 minutes, for a fee) re-evaluation to ensure that nothing has changed and then update the letter.

02/07/2026

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02/04/2026

Distress tolerance skills are strategies we use to cope with emotional upset or distress.

Everyone in life has experienced emotional upset or distress. It is inevitable. However, not everyone has learned healthy or useful distress tolerance skills.

This is especially true if you grew up in an environment where negative emotions (sadness, anger, etc.) were not acceptable. In this case children learn to suppress or deny such feelings.

This can happen when we grew up without reliable or emotionally attuned caretakers to help us learn how to cope with emotions.

Sometimes it happens when the home environment is so toxic and overwhelming the only options we have available to us are extreme, such as dissociation, substance use, or self-harming.

Kids with neurodivergence can also really struggle with distress tolerance due to their nervous systems already being easily overwhelmed by stimuli. When caretakers don’t realize or acknowledge this neurodivergence, they may offer unhelpful skills, not recognizing that the child’s window of tolerance for distress might be narrowed due to sensory overload, or why the child may need mor specialized or nuanced skills.

Since it seems like there is a heightened need for distress tolerance skills I will be going into more depth about them in future posts.

02/03/2026

Take care of yourself!

02/02/2026

I want to be really clear that when I am sharing about how to regulate our nervous systems, it is not to make accepting the status quo more palatable.

It is not intended to support complacency or accommodating to systematic oppression and violence.

What is going on in our neighborhoods and this country is not okay.

And we need to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others.

It is not an either/or proposition.