You love your family. You just don’t feel like yourself anymore.
Therapy in Wisconsin for parents who are overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted, and tired of disappearing inside the constant demands of caring for everyone else.
Somewhere along the way, you stopped existing as a person outside of what everyone needed from you.
The mental load never really shuts off. You’re keeping track of appointments, schedules, meals, school things, emotional needs, household tasks, relationship stress, and everything else nobody sees you carrying.
Even when you finally sit down, your brain keeps going. Someone always needs something. And when you do get a second alone, you don’t really know what to do with it anymore.
Most of your energy goes toward getting through the day, managing responsibilities, and trying not to fall behind.
You miss parts of yourself you can’t fully explain.
You love your kids.
You also feel burnt out, touched out, overwhelmed, resentful, guilty, or emotionally drained sometimes.
That doesn’t make you a bad parent.
It makes you a person carrying a relentless amount of responsibility without enough support.
What This Often Looks Like Day to Day
You spend more mental energy thinking about food than anything else.
The patterns are there, whether they're loud or quiet.
Your mood shifts based on your body or the scale.
You cancel plans or show up but feel completely in your head.
Photos don't feel like memories. They feel like evidence.
Getting dressed feels harder than it should.
Sometimes it's more obvious, like restriction, bingeing, purging, over-exercising, or sticking to a rigid set of "safe" foods. Sometimes it's quieter than that. But it's still there, taking up more space in your life than it should.
Whether you have a diagnosis or just know something about your relationship with food or your body isn't working anymore, it counts. You don't have to be in crisis for this to matter.
If this sounds like you, you're in the right place.
I work with people who are tired of feeling this way.
Some come in with a diagnosis. Some don't. They just know something about their relationship with food, or their body isn't working anymore.
A lot of my clients are used to pushing through. They're high-functioning, responsible, and hard on themselves. From the outside, things look fine. But internally, there's a constant level of noise, pressure, or self-criticism that doesn't really let up.
Some have been dealing with this for years. Others feel like it crept up more recently. Either way, they're at a point where they know they can't keep doing it the same way.
You don't have to fit into a specific category for this to matter.
I work with clients ages 16 and up, of all genders and body sizes. Whether you have a diagnosed eating disorder, would describe it as disordered eating, or are struggling more with body image, this still counts.
I've worked with some of the most severe versions of this.
My background includes higher levels of care, including inpatient and intensive outpatient eating disorder treatment. I've sat with people through some of the most severe versions of this, so nothing you bring into this space will feel like too much.
Your body isn't the problem. But the way you've been taught to think about it might be.
My Approach
We're not going to focus on fixing your body. We're going to focus on changing your relationship with it and the way food and self-criticism show up in your daily life.
That starts with understanding what's actually going on beneath the surface. Not just what you're eating, but what's driving the patterns, the rules, and the constant noise in your head.
Here's how we start shifting it:
01
Health at Every Size (HAES)
Your body size doesn't determine your worth or your health. We'll work on separating what you've been taught from what's actually true for you.
02
Intuitive eating
Relearning how to listen to your body again, hunger, fullness, and satisfaction, without the layer of rules and judgment that's been built on top of it.
03
Radical acceptance
This isn't about loving your body. It's about getting to a place where it no longer controls your life. It is what it is, and you don't have to like it for it to stop taking up so much space.
04
Practical tools that actually help
We'll use approaches like CBT and DBT to interrupt the thought loops, challenge the patterns, and give you something to do in the moment when things feel overwhelming.
When nutrition support makes sense, I'll connect you with eating disorder-informed dietitians I trust. Therapy and nutrition work best together, and I know how to work collaboratively with that kind of team.
What Changes When You Do This Work
You don't walk out of therapy suddenly loving your body. That's not the goal, and it's not realistic.
What does change is the amount of space this takes up in your life.
The constant food noise starts to quiet down.
You're not planning your day around avoiding your body.
Social situations with food stop feeling like something to get through.
You start making choices from a place of care, not punishment.
The thoughts don't disappear completely, but they don't control everything anymore.
It doesn't happen all at once. But over time, things feel lighter, more manageable, and a little less consuming.
A note about GLP-1s and body image
If you're navigating the current conversation around GLP-1 medications and weight, you're not alone.
This is something I'm seeing more of in my practice, and it can bring up a lot of mixed feelings. Curiosity, pressure, hope, confusion, and even conflict with how you want to relate to your body.
You don't need to have a clear stance on it. And you don't need someone telling you what the "right" choice is.
You deserve space to talk about it without shame, and to figure out what actually feels right for you.
Getting started
You've been carrying this longer than you should have to.
You don't have to have it all figured out before you reach out. Most people don't. You just have to be ready, even a little, to try something different.
You don't have to keep doing this alone.
Reach out by email or use the contact form to find a time that works for you. We'll take it from there.
FAQs About Body Image & Eating Disorder Therapy
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No. Many people struggle with food, body image, guilt around eating, or obsessive thoughts about their appearance without having a formal diagnosis. You don't have to wait for things to get "bad enough" before reaching out for support.
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Food noise refers to constant mental thoughts about food, eating, weight, exercise, or body size. It can feel exhausting and distracting, especially when it starts affecting daily life, relationships, or your ability to enjoy things.
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Yes. Body image struggles can affect confidence, relationships, social situations, and overall mental health, even without a clinical eating disorder.
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A HAES-informed approach recognizes that health and worth are not determined by body size alone. Therapy focuses on improving your relationship with food, your body, and yourself rather than pursuing shame-based or restrictive approaches to eating.
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Yes. Lauren works with adults of all genders, including men who struggle with body image, food concerns, and self-esteem.
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No. Lauren is a therapist, not a dietitian. When appropriate, she may encourage clients to work alongside a trusted eating disorder dietitian as part of a supportive treatment team.