Marlo Drago, RSWshe/her

So much of what weighs on you began long before now. The parts of you that never felt seen. The body that still braces before you understand why. You learned early how to read a room, to keep the peace, to be what others needed, because feeling fully yourself never felt safe. Maybe you were never really heard or believed. Maybe things happened that you can barely remember, and yet your body remembers for you. So now you are anxious, overwhelmed, endlessly accommodating, and underneath it all you just want to feel loved and to believe you are enough. That can change.

I'm a Registered Social Worker with fourteen years in this field, and I work with women across Ontario who are carrying more than they were ever meant to carry. Old wounds. Motherhood. A nervous system that learned, a long time ago, how to survive. Here's what you should probably know before you decide whether I'm your person: I'm a wife and a mom of two. I've lived my own trauma, not just studied it. I got my ADD diagnosis late, after years of being told I was too much. I'm a recovering perfectionist and a fully practicing overthinker. I have no poker face, so you will always know what I'm thinking. I don't speak in jargon. And I swear, a lot. I say all of that because you deserve to know who is actually in the room with you.

The way I work is trauma-informed and paced to your body, not to my plan. I draw on EMDR, Internal Family Systems, somatic and polyvagal-informed approaches, and the practical skills of ACT and DBT when that's what's needed. You don't have to know what any of that means or which one you need. That part is my job. What you'll actually feel is much simpler: no fixing, no rushing, no performing for me. A place where you can finally say the true thing out loud and watch someone not flinch.

You might be a mother, depleted and touched out, with your own childhood rising up through your parenting. Or your struggle might have nothing to do with motherhood at all: a past that was not safe, a body that still responds to things your mind cannot fully explain, a lifelong habit of disappearing so that everyone else could be okay. Maybe part of what you want is to break a cycle rather than pass it on. That is some of the bravest work there is, and you do not have to do it alone. Whenever you're ready, I'm here.