Hi there! My name is Rew Berry. I’m a 28-years-young neurodivergent trans-feminine person, and the sole-proprietor of Rew Berry Consulting. RBC is a culmination of all of my dreams and goals for both myself and my life, and I’m thrilled to offer my services to those who can benefit from them. Combining chaos, professionalism, and empathy, I’m a person who thrives working with people who struggle with life, and have myself struggled greatly.
My story begins in Kansas City, MO. I was born into a fundamentalist Christian household to my then closeted father and my Christian mother. Having been brought up in an environment that limited what I was exposed to early on, I never quite knew what was “wrong” with me – but I did know that I didn’t quite fit what was required of me by my family and peers. Little did I know, I was neurodivergent!
If you’re here, then you probably know what it’s like to not have access to the right resources for your neurotype growing up, and I can relate! All throughout school I excelled in all subjects, but always struggled with homework and time-management. I learned some basic masking techniques, but still ran into trouble with authority figures when it came to things like homework, pleasantries, small talk, and motivation. As is all too often with ND folks, I was repeatedly told things such as: “You’re so smart! You just need to apply yourself more…”, “Why can’t you just do what you’re told?”, and of course, “I can’t understand how you are so smart and yet so foolish!” I learned quickly to keep my head down, and to speak in circles so as to not get caught having a “foolish” moment. Later in life I would come to figure out that this “foolish”-ness was actually one of my greatest and most misunderstood traits.
Over the course of ages 10-16, I began to greatly question my place in the world. I would start experimenting with drugs, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and psychedelics of all kinds. I learned a great deal during this time, and was able to keep a low profile as my parents had great struggles of their own.
At 17 years old, I dropped out of high school, got my GED, and moved to California and began to establish myself. I then spent roughly three years hitchhiking, traveling, living in the forest, and learning about myself and the natural world. During this time, I developed myself spiritually – searching for the gaps that were created by my fundamentalist Christian upbringing. At 20, I reentered the work force – working a variety of entry level positions, living in various places, and developing myself through my career. I worked in machine operation, menial labor, dishwashing, cook-line, prep-line, ski patrol, concessions, contract labor, political campaigns, gig-labor, prehospital EMS, phlebotomy, door-to-door sales, and many others. I started to realize how hard it was to maintain with my own neurotype, and begin to try to remedy and understand it.
During my time as an EMT, it became obvious that my ADHD symptoms were a bit more than just quirks, and it was during this time I started on ADHD medication – and to my surprise it monumentally increased my quality of life. Medication gave me the ability to not only excel at my job, but caused me to realize how much I had been missing out on due to symptomatic ADHD.
In 2019, I broke my femur while loading cargo, this resulted in my having to learn the lesson of slowing down, and gave me a great deal of time to reassess my life so far. This was followed up by my relationship at the time of four years ending, and the pandemic in 2020 which caused me to return to Kansas City to further reassess and be near family if anything were to happen. What I found in Kansas City was a deep depression – coming to terms with my fractured family, considering my changing perspectives, and in early 2021, the death of my father.
In the midst of deeply grieving and struggling with isolation and suicidality, I slowly began to commit to finding help with my depression and ADHD. I came to find that resources for the latter were severely lacking, and when they existed were completely unaffordable (upwards of $6,000/month, to $250/h for specialized services). Because I couldn’t afford any of these resources, I decided to do the next best thing: learn everything I could about my own brain, and about brains like mine. Therapy filled in the gaps for the trauma I was brought up with, and my studies kept my “motor-driven” brain sated for information and purpose. I quickly realized that I could be what I needed, and I could help people just like myself.
During this time I also committed to addressing my gender, and would eventually come out to most of the people in my life as time charged forwards.
Today, I have a wealth of knowledge and a library of work under my belt working with people just like myself, helping to befriend their own chaos as I did, and work towards harnessing the beauty that is neurodivergence. Although it isn’t easy to sate the culture surrounding us in a way that people understand, it’s important that we find communion with the mundane, and a passion for the interesting, and in doing so come to live healthier, happier, and sustainable lives for ourselves and our families.
In solidarity; in chaos; in unity; and in neurodivergence,
My name’s Rew and it’s so nice to meet you ^.^