Dr. Susan Santiago-Turner, Ph.D., LMHC, LPC, BC-TMH, NCC

Welcome! My name is Dr. Susan Santiago-Turner. I work with middle-aged women who are considering or are now serving as their parents' primary caregiver/carer—a role-reversal few are prepared for. This can be especially true if there is a history of unreported sibling physical and/or sexual abuse. I am licensed to practice as a mental health counselor in the Evergreen State of Washington and as a licensed professional counselor in the Natural State of Arkansas. I graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Master’s degree in counseling psychology. I earned a Doctorate in counselor education and supervision from the University of Rochester. I have the privilege of counseling cisgender females, age 50 and older, who have worked hard to rise above the horror of incest.

I invite you to imagine the following composite of my brave clients throughout the years.
Petra spent her formative years living on the east coast during the 1980s. Her father believed female children are responsible for any form of abuse they experience while male children should be allowed to do as they please with impunity. Petra’s mother tried to shield her, but in the end, she was not strong enough to protect Petra from being emotionally and sexually abused. Nor did Petra’s mother know how to address the eventual anger that would surface in Petra because of her abuse. Despite this, Petra’s mother found ways to nurture her ambition and paved a way for Petra to thrive. Because of her mother’s will to protect her, Petra chose to serve as her mother’s primary and long-distance caregiver. Petra’s mother endured for many years but finally succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. Because Petra served as her mother’s caregiver, she was expected to care for her father as well and she did, for a while. A few years later Petra saw her father and her significantly older brother, who sexually abused her with impunity, for the last time. Petra could no longer pretend that everything was fine or that this kind of family dynamic is ‘normal’ in front of her sister-in-law, extended family, healthcare providers, neighbors—frankly, anyone.
Today, after doing the hard work involved in psychotherapy, Petra is at peace knowing she could no longer serve as her father’s caregiver and made the right decision to relinquish this obligation to her brother. It was the right thing to do given how her father protected her brother over Petra’s personal safety and mental health for decades.
Do aspects of Petra’s story resonate with you? If it does, I can help you work through feelings of ambivalence and anger you might feel towards a parent who did not protect you from abuse but now expect you to care for them as they age. I have nearly 25-years of clinical proficiency and foundational knowledge working with intergenerational trauma. I practice from a strengths-based framework coupled with a blend of liberation therapies. Together, working with your existing strengths, you’ll see a clearer path to take as you face the ambivalence of caregiving for a parent who failed to protect you. This clarity will compel you to live your life the way you want—not how others want. This is hard work but necessary especially for women who were raised to believe they were at fault simply for being female in a misogynistic family.
Believe this: you have within a sacred wisdom; a wisdom that has likely been silenced by years of intergenerational family secrecy. Such secrecy only serves to protect predators. Let us work together and heal so we can create a safer world for ourselves and subsequent generations.