About Matthew:
Get to Know Us
I did not begin by writing about cosplay.
I began by noticing something.
In therapy rooms and convention halls alike, I watched people come alive inside stories. Posture shifted. Confidence surfaced. Grief softened. Individuals who struggled to speak about themselves suddenly found language while wearing armor.
Eventually I stopped pretending those were separate worlds.
Again and again, I watched people feel more honest inside story than they could outside it.
That observation became a question:
What if costume is not concealment — but rehearsal?
A Search for Belonging
Long before I began asking these questions professionally, I knew what it felt like to be a misfit.
Faith communities were one of the places I first tried to find belonging. In many ways, they shaped how I think about story, formation, and identity. But they were also places where I learned how complicated belonging can be — how easy it is to feel out of step with the community around you.
That experience left me with a lasting curiosity about where people actually find recognition and safety.
Years later, I began seeing something familiar in fandom spaces. Cosplay conventions and story communities often create the kind of recognition many people struggle to find elsewhere.
Not perfection.
Not escape.
But the freedom to experiment with who you are becoming.
Cosplay is one of the places where questions about story, identity, and embodiment become visible.
Photo Credit to Docker Cap Photography
The Work I Do Now:
As both a licensed therapist and an active cosplayer, I explore how story and embodiment shape identity development, belonging, and healing.
My professional work focuses on trauma, identity development, and neurodivergence. Increasingly, that work intersects with fandom culture and the ways communities built around shared stories create space for recognition and growth.
The book I am currently completing examines how cosplay can function as a form of identity rehearsal — a structured space where people experiment, integrate, and sometimes discover parts of themselves that were difficult to access elsewhere.
I am a licensed therapist based in Ohio and the founder of Misfit Refuge, a counseling practice focused on trauma, identity, and neurodivergence.
