Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Donohue Tona.
Hi Katie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
After a lifelong, arduous journey of surviving my own story of a dysfunctional childhood, various traumas, suicide attempts, and overcoming the mental health conditions that resulted from it all, I felt called to spend time with others amid their story. I graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Creative Writing and from Palm Beach Atlantic University Orlando Campus with a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Since 2015, I have worked with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Greater Orlando and NAMI National, speaking at conferences, serving on various boards, and writing articles for their magazine and website. I volunteered as a mental health professional and teacher in the third-world country of Sri Lanka. After returning to the States, I worked in a hospital for those struggling with addiction and substance abuse. I have also done over 100 speaking engagements, locally, statewide, nationally, and internationally, speaking at events, conferences, and trainings, sharing my story, and educating communities about mental health, mental illness, suicide awareness, warning signs, and coping skills. Today, I am the founder and owner of Seek First Counseling, a counseling practice serving Florida residents both virtually via telehealth and in person out of an office in Winter Springs.
It wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not at all. I moved to Orlando when I was seventeen years old. Financial hardships plagued me for the first 6 or 7 years of living in Central Florida. Until I graduated from grad school, I moved almost every year, chasing affordable housing and living in a house with 3 or 4 other girls at a time. Most homes I lived in were run down, with unreliable appliances and working air conditioning. One home was in a poor neighborhood; another had cracks running through the ceiling and openings in the floor where we could see outside. We also faced severe infestations of bugs, cockroaches, and huge rotting trees that would fall and land on the small property. One that nearly crushed my roommate’s car in the driveway.
I also was always young with a severe lack of guidance and support in life, and attempting to navigate life with decades of unresolved trauma. After finding myself in an abusive relationship during my first 2 years of college and experiencing a suicide attempt, I knew I needed professional help. I found low-cost counseling by seeing graduate students working on their counseling degrees. It was on this journey that I would strive for success while battling eating disorders, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder, learning how to do away with unhealthy coping mechanisms and adopt healthier ones so I could live well and thrive, not just survive.
Aside from financial and psychological hardships, I did not come from a family that could provide emotional support or encouragement for the journey along the way. My parents and I have had broken relationships, and we went years at a time without speaking to one another or seeing each other for the holidays. It wasn’t until I found my community of friends that I realized how important it is to have support from others and do life alongside others. We need others to encourage us, be there in the good and bad, make us laugh and cry, see the best in us, hold us accountable through our shortcomings, and help sharpen us into better versions of ourselves.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about Seek First Counseling?
I am a clinical mental health counselor, better known as a therapist. I offer individual and group counseling services virtually via telehealth to Florida residents and in person for our local Central Floridians. The arts have always been my first love, and I find that creatives need creative outlets to process and work through their struggles. I offer 3 different counseling groups: an art group, a writers’ group, and an improv comedy group. I specialize in working with young adults and women who are either experiencing relationship issues, recovering from childhood trauma, living with an existing mental health condition, or just seeking personal healing and growth to live well. I am incredibly comfortable working with individuals with a history of or who are currently struggling with suicidal thoughts, self-harm, depression, and anxiety, as well as individuals who have experienced abuse, neglect, domestic violence, a narcissistic parent, or a parent who struggled with addiction or substance abuse. And for my faith-based clients who believe in Jesus and seek Christian counseling, I enjoy bringing that spiritual faith-based element into our sessions.
I want readers to know that one of the bravest things you can do is begin to understand your own story. I seek to create a safe space for you to navigate the darkness you’ve been facing: pain, suffering, confusion, relationships, mind, and heart. There is hope, even when you don’t believe it, that you are loved even when you don’t feel it, and that you’re worthy of a life worth loving, even when we must create it. I would want them to know that at Seek First Counseling, they will not find judgment, shame, someone who only listens, or someone who only tries to “fix” them. I believe counseling is a journey, and I aim to create an environment and process that works for them, exploring the impacts of trauma on our bodies, thought patterns, emotions, behaviors, and relationships, and sharing the psychoeducation needed for greater self-awareness, knowledge, and wisdom in navigating their experience outside the counseling room.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was a child of the arts at heart—writing, crafting, painting, drawing, sculpting, singing, dancing, and acting. I always had a big personality but a deep sense of introversion and, of course, had some stereotypical “emo kid” years. I always loved making people laugh, though. When I came out to friends about my struggles with depression and suicide in high school, I remember most of them cried because they said I was always the happy kid laughing and joking around; they had no idea what I was hiding behind the mask of joy and comedy I always wore.
Pricing:
- Sliding scale of $100-$150 for individual sessions
- I accept donations to help underprivileged clients afford counseling.
- Group sessions are $35 per 1.5 hours.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.seekfirstcounseling.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551355705939
Image Credits
Jacob McCool Photography
