Why I Started Mosaic Minds Therapy

Written By Brittany Kirk

Making Space for the People the South Often Overlooks

There is a particular hush in the South — a polite nod towards “tradition” that too often translates into fewer welcoming doors for the people who need care the most. I started Mosaic Minds Therapy because I kept meeting brilliant, kind, aching humans who had been told to shrink; LGBTQ+ folks who feared medical spaces, neurodivergent minds repeatedly misunderstood, people bruised by religious harm, and those practicing ENM, polyamory, or kink who couldn’t find therapists who spoke their language without judgment.

This isn’t just my impression. Data shows we’re failing a large quantity of people who are most at risk.

The problem in plain numbers

  • LGBTQ+ youth mental health is in crisis. Recent national surveys report that roughly 4 in 10 LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and many who wanted care could not access it. These are not just theoretical numbers on a page — they are neighbors, students, and the next generation of adults. (The Trevor Project, 2023).

  • Healthcare discrimination causes real harm. Sexual and gender minorities report higher rates of unfair treatment in medical settings, which directly discourages help-seeking and worsens disparities in care. (Williams Institute, 2022).

  • There simply aren’t enough clinicians. Millions of Americans live in Behavioral Health Professional Shortage Areas; rural and Southern counties are disproportionately affected. Workforce shortages and insurance/network gaps mean many people cannot get timely, competent mental health care. (AAMC, 2022; HRSA, 2023).

  • Neurodivergent adults face service gaps. ADHD and autism are genuinely common disorders: recent CDC analyses estimate millions of U.S. adults with ADHD and increasing prevalence estimates for autism in children — yet many adults are undiagnosed or unsupported and a sizable fraction of those diagnosed do not receive treatment. (CDC, 2024; CDC, 2025).

  • Religious trauma is widespread. Conservative estimates suggest around one-third of U.S. adults have experienced religious trauma—an invisible wound that standard therapy settings aren’t always equipped to address. (Singh, 2024).

These data points are not a litany of despair — they are a mirror. They tell us where systems fail, where compassion is absent, and where a practice like Mosaic Minds can step in to fill a needed space.

Why the South matters (and why it’s urgent)

The Southern U.S. includes large rural areas, under-resourced clinics, and communities where political and cultural pressures add additional barriers to identity-affirming care. When public policy, provider shortages, and stigma collide, people who are queer, neurodivergent, non-monogamous, kinky, or deconstructing faith find themselves with fewer safe options. Telehealth can help bridge geography — but only if the clinician on the other end truly understands and affirms these lived realities.

Mosaic Minds exists to be that clinician: to hold telehealth spaces that are not merely tolerant, but actively celebratory and provide truly competent for the communities that the South too often ignores.

How Mosaic Minds Therapy answers the call

We build practice around a few non-negotiables:

  1. Affirmation before assumption. Your identity, desires, and experiences are not problems to be fixed. We create therapy that affirms LGBTQ+ lives, sex-positivity, kink, ENM/polyamory, and neurodivergence.

  2. Trauma-aware, faith-sensitive care. We hold space for religious grief, deconstruction, and spiritual rebuilding without pushing for belief or against it. For many, religious harm is a form of trauma requiring culturally informed, compassionate work.

  3. Nervous system & neurodivergent-informed approaches. At Mosaic Minds, therapy adapts to how your brain and body work — accommodating masking (as well as teaching ways to unmask), accounting for potential sensory needs (and helping you ground when sensory overload occurs), recognizing executive function differences (as well as teaching how to improve executive functioning), and taking each case, session, and situation into consideration.

  4. Access-minded delivery. Telehealth across Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia reduces geographic barriers. We also offer sliding scale options and superbills to increase affordability in a region with documented provider shortages.

  5. Community voice & advocacy. We are a practice that listens to the needs of community and speaks out when systems fail—because clinical care and social justice are connected.

A few stories, and a promise

I could provide you with fictional case examples, but you deserve something simpler and truer: people who arrive here often say the same thing after one or two sessions — that they finally felt like someone understood the shapes of their interior life. That they no longer had to translate themselves into safer, smaller sentences. That relief looked ordinary: a deeper breath, a forgotten laugh, an idea that the future could hold gentler mornings.

That is the work I wanted to do when I founded Mosaic Minds. That is the work we still do.

If this resonates

If you live in North Carolina, Tennessee, or Virginia and you’ve been waiting for a clinician who sees your whole life — the faith, the queerness, the sensory brain, the messy relationships — we’ve saved a space for you. Come as you are. There is room in the South for people like you, and there is room in therapy for your whole story.

If you feel heard, follow the link to request an appointment now.

References

Brittany Kirk
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