Hi, I’m Lydia

It started with a textbook and a question I couldn’t shake: why do some people get the support they need, and others spend years searching for it? Studying psychology gave me the language to understand human behavior, development, and disability — but it was volunteering alongside individuals with IDD that gave me something the classroom never could. I saw firsthand the joy, resilience, and full humanity of people who are far too often underestimated. Every interaction deepened my conviction that this community deserved more.

Community internships pulled back the curtain on the system itself — where it worked, where it failed, and how much a single knowledgeable person in the right moment could change everything for a family. Then came the crisis line. Talking with caregivers at their most overwhelmed was clarifying in a way nothing else had been. They weren’t asking for a hotline. They were asking for answers — plain, trustworthy, human answers. The information they needed existed somewhere, but it was buried, scattered, or written for someone else entirely. That gap felt like a problem I had to try to fix.

Lantern Path was born from all of it — the curiosity, the fieldwork, the late-night crisis calls, and the quiet certainty that this community deserves a real place to land. Not a PDF. Not a form to fill out. A warm, honest, welcoming space where the Texas IDD world finally makes sense. I’m still learning — the BCBA certification I’m working toward is one part of that — and I expect I always will be. Every new thing I understand becomes one more lantern on the path for someone who needs it.