Cathy Tremblay, MC:AT, RCC-ACS

Hey, my name is Cathy.

​

I am a mom of 2 adult daughters, a twice divorced woman, only daughter to an aging single mother, a Registered Clinical Counsellor with a Masters degree in Counselling and a specialization in Art therapy, a mature person that can (sometimes) be immature, someone that wants to exercise but struggles to do it, although, I have completed 3 half-marathons and joined a co-ed soccer team at 53 (having never played soccer before ~ EVER!) (I think that was a run-on sentence!).

 

I am real, down to earth, approachable, kind, patient, funny, non-judgmental and understanding. However, below is why I am so passionate about helping women and children...

 

There was a time that I couldn’t imagine that I could experience happiness and joy in my life.

​

In the early ‘60s, my mom was forced to raise me all by herself. She had to work full-time as there were no social service benefits for single mothers. I felt ashamed because divorce was not a common occurrence. I felt personal blame for my parents’ divorce. I also felt invisible and alone. As an only child, I was alone most of the time and in that era ‘children were to be seen and not heard’. I wasn’t allowed to have a voice to share how I felt or share the trauma that I was experiencing. ​As a small child I felt alone, dreamless and depressed.

 

As a teen I struggled with ‘fitting in’. I escaped my pain and lived trauma by turning to food, drugs and alcohol. In hind sight, I see this behaviour was my coping mechanism. A survival technique that I used to hide my feelings of my trauma experiences. When I eventually married and had two children, at first glance everything about my life looked perfect, I had followed the rules. We lived in our own home, had 3 cars, a boat, a dog and 2 kids. However, behind closed doors everything was slipping through my fingers. I experienced severe post-partum depression and my sense of hopelessness grew. My marriage was falling apart and my children were expressing the difficulties in our family home and eventually we divorced.

 

Desiring to understand my children’s struggles and knowing that I wanted to help my children and others, I began my journey into the helping profession, and decided to go back to school. I knew I wanted to show my clients that they had a voice and could share what they were experiencing in their lives. I wanted them to be seen, heard and validated.

 

Throughout my school journey to earn my master’s in clinical counselling. I was a single mother at one point on welfare, living in government housing and lining up for Christmas hampers, working part-time as a cashier. I have walked a journey that has brought me to the place I now stand; and I stand here without judgment of others. We all have our own journey and I truly believe that my job on Earth is to help others and support them as they learn and try to make sense of their own life lessons.