I'm Claire-Madeline
I’m a writer, editor and resident counselor* who is all about listening for the unspoken narratives we’ve inherited, and doing the generational work of re-claiming our stories in what we write and how we live.
hey, there!
I guess you could say giving voice to silenced, inherited stories is in my DNA.
I was raised by two generations of women in a town where three generations of my family had lived since they “got off the boat” from Italy, as they say.
*Note that as a Resident in Counseling in the state of Virginia,I currently practice under Licensed Supervision (0704016061) under Rachel Jones (0701010442) at The Relationship Center of Hampton Roads. For a detailed explanation of the regulations governing my practice, please review the statutes.
My story really began the moment I finally stopped waiting for permission to tell my story.
Well...it *literally* started on an island called Kismet (yes, really). My mother packed 9-month-old me up for a family vacation shortly after her father's passing. And at the end of the trip, she did not return to the home she made, but the home where she was raised.
The rest was someone else's version of my history. Every single re-write had a man at the center of the narrative.
If it wasn't told through the point of view of a man, the plot centered me in the narrative in relationship to a man who was absent. And this had consequences.
It wasn't that I felt unlovable. It was that I felt like I could not locate myself in my own life.
Kismet, LI, 1990
☑️ I tried earning my purpose (perfectionism).
☑️ I tried loving other people into my own sense of belonging (co-dependence).
☑️ & then finally I lost the plot.
Maybe you've been there too: you've reached the limit of your origin story and don't know how to start over without abandoning yourself in the process.
For me, I dropped out of college and got *curious* about every self-sabotaging decision I had ever made: the relationship patterns, the abandonment plot-line on repeat, the unshakable feeling that I was an exile in my own life.
(Queue that Runaway Bride moment when Julia Roberts hops on that Fed Ex truck, but without the wedding dress and a lot more therapy.)
I'm a big Believer that growth requires empathy, which comes out of taking a deep & real interest in the things that make us human.
Owning my story meant telling the version I didn't have the language for (& no woman in my family had ever given herself permission to tell)
Of my grandmother, my mother, and I, I was the first to complete college. Honoring the women before me meant using the privilege of my education to claim authority as the first person narrator of my own life.
THIS MEANT BEING CURIOUS ABOUT my pain, but also about my desire. it meant learning that I am inherently, unconditionally worthy of what sets my heart on fire.
I went from college drop out to double masters after finding healing from the complex trauma of this inherited abandonment narrative.
In short, I didn't know how I liked my eggs.
and so are you!
Photobooth Outake # 198
I'm here to help you become your own biggest fan in writing & in life so that you can trust yourself to take life-giving risks on & off the page.
I believe that writing is a vehicle for self-transformation.
I believe that we have a God-given right
to celebrate ourselves with joy & reverence.
I believe that taking interest in ourselves and in our work is our responsibility as humans and creators.
And most importantly you already have everything you need inside of you. You just need to learn to trust yourself through intentional relationship.
Today, I frame an M.F.A in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.Ed in Counseling from William and Mary in my office, but I took road-less-travelled approach to these two degrees, homing in on a few core beliefs.
...and it went like
I couldn't succeed in college as a first generation college student until I recognized I was one. I drop out of college in 2009, raise my GPA at our community college in 2010, and in 2011, move to NYC for B.A program in Psychology & Creative Writing.
2011
I was offered a spot to put me on track to earn a Ph.D in Psychology which at the time was *the* dream. As someone who tried to earn her worth, I wasn't sure the dream was my dream. After plotting a deeply internalized abandonment narrative through a series of almost relationships and breakups that echo some earlier sadness, I decide to make being in therapy (and writing my way through the process) a way of life.
2013
I establish a personal relationship with Jesus through prayer and this is transformative. I enroll in an MFA program in creative writing where I begin re-claiming my family history - and my identity - through my creative process.
2015
I fly to Iceland to deliver a paper alongside my mentors at an international psychoanalytic conference. The paper is about what role art and therapy have in repairing a sense of self. My gram always used to say "this too shall pass" and in this moment I know what it feels like to be on the other side of a hard thing.
2014
I "cross the pond" to lead a panel on my two favorite subjects: psychoanalysis, and religion. While there, I visit Virginia Woolf's country home and express gratitude to this woman writer who taught me that to survive, we have to make meaning and that to make meaning, we have to believe our inner-most thoughts are worthy of writing down.
2016
home is a place I'm always returning
this is me feeling belonging for the first time
2011-2022
Gentle reminder: Growth does happen in a straight line.
doesn't
I move back to the home where I was raised to make memories with my grandmother as a dementia diagnosis unfolds. We talk about God, and grief, and the joy of being a child & in the end, she tells me this brings her great comfort. This is my life's greatest accomplishment.
2017
I walk across the graduation stage a few months before my grandmother makes her walk to heaven. My life changes, and so does the subject of my memoir. I don't shop the book and instead keep writing. A story about care-taking for a loved one with dementia evolves into a story about inter-generational trauma, patriarchy, and how grieving is a vehicle for self-reclamation.
2018
I learn forgiveness.
I lean into reconciliation.
I (clumsily) seek interdependence.
I find faith - real faith - maybe for the first time.
2019
I begin working with young women who are grieving loss, older women who learning to admit what they *want* (and deserve) for the first time; women of all ages who are seeking to claim ownership over the narrative of their life and history. Facilitating their growth is an honor.
2020
I graduate with a counseling degree & create The Journal, chronicling my journey to here. You, my friend, are a keeper of the secret passcode. My prayer is that we may we find ourselves in one another's stories and feel a sense of belonging in our shared humanity.
2022
turns out I'm not a surferbut...
beach drives for life
I'm ALL ABOUT
Straight talk, with a side of sarcasm.
Jesus.
Letter-length emails,
Helping you find
that "I-was-created-for this" belief in yourself.
I'M NOT ABOUT
"Should-ing" the way to the future.
Perfectionism.
Taking it for granted:
the divine grace in our flaws & our failings.
Either/0r thinking.
"Be unafraid of the ocean of memory. Its force is your power & your strength.
— CLAIRE-MADELINE
words to live by
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