Hi, I’m Nicole.

I’m the founder of anjoRENEW and the person behind The RENEW Table. I used to be a psychotherapist (LADC and LMFT, if you’re collecting letters).

I started in men’s residential treatment, went to an opioid treatment program, then joined an ACT team, which is basically Fight Club with treatment plans. Then came a juvenile detention center and, eventually, my own private practice. Big personalities, big trauma, big stories. I had the street cred.

Personally, my world was quietly detonating.

One week after I signed the lease on my new office, my younger brother died. The next morning, I went to work. Because that’s what we do. Therapist culture even has a badge for it. It’s called competence. It’s really just self-abandonment with a good reputation.

So I kept going. I called my grief “busy.” I called my coping “fine.” I was great at reframing, even when the reframing was delusional.

What happened

About nine months before everything came apart, I was sexually assaulted.

I did what we tell people to do. I asked for help. I told my friends, and nobody knew what to do. I told my therapist, and she downplayed it and made me feel like I was blowing it out of proportion.

So I stopped asking. I was a professional with a license, a practice, and a lot to lose, and the one thing I’d tried hadn’t worked. I held it together until I couldn’t. Then I lost my footing, and eventually the career I’d been trying to protect. I was forced out of it.

I wasn’t weak, and I wasn’t in denial. I reached out, and the people around me didn’t know how to catch it.

Why I built this

I didn’t need someone to talk at me. I needed a place where I could take the mask off, people who got it, and a few who could help me sort out the actual mess.

We don’t fall apart from the big things. We fall apart because nobody’s helping with the small ones, like the mail, the dishes, or the Cheerios.

So I built The RENEW Table for actual help. Not another room where everyone nods and no one knows what to do. Just real people, real conversation, and a few who know a guy.

I don’t want anyone to hit rock bottom before someone knows how to help. I want you to have a place to land while there’s still something to protect: your job, your family, your sense of who you are.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out - I’m here for anyone willing to help themselves.

-Nicole Thacker

Connect with me on LinkedIn!