About Emily Caster, Psy.D.

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I am the  second born of Mark and Pam Caster. Mandy and I were raised in Spokane, Washington. We both left when we were 18.

It's easier to write about myself by defining my academic past, professional progression, and timeline of events in the third person... it feels less egotistical. So, Dr. Emily Caster, Psy.D. is a Clinical Neuropsychologist in Northern Virginia/Washington DC. 

After graduating as Valedictorian from Mead High School, she went on to attend college at Tulane University. During her time there, she became an EMT and joined her school's college EMS squad. Emily decided to study abroad in 2014 and moved to London, England where she worked nights at a pub as an under qualified bartender, attended classes during the day  and traveled to different countries on weekends. She considers her time in London to have been one of the best times in her life. 

Emily lived in a basement department in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005. We can forgive her poor foresight and attribute the decision to not fully developed frontal lobes. In August of 2005, Emily was part of a school-sponsored Disaster Response Team and was activated a few days before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Long story made short, Emily lost everything in her apartment and continued doing disaster response in the area for several weeks. Because Emily was obsessed with graduating on time, she ultimately left the Natural Disaster zone to continue her education on the quarter semester system at the University of Washington in Seattle. 

During her time in Seattle she battled with depression and anxiety over her Hurricane Katrina experience. She lived in a studio apartment and had no assets. For unknown reasons (perhaps still due to the lack of full development of her frontal lobes), Emily decided she was going to take the GRE and go to graduate school to study Clinical Psychology. After returning to NOLA for the spring semester, Emily graduated and was accepted to graduate school in Washington, DC at The George Washington University. Again, for unknown reasons, she decided to do an accelerated, year-round education in search of a doctorate in Psychology. She completed an internship at LSU's School of Medicine in New Orleans (because she felt she had unresolved feelings about the city) and then moved to Washington, DC for postdoctoral fellowship. 

She obtained her Commonwealth of Virginia license to practice Clinical Psychology in 2012. During these years, Emily and Amanda seemed to be in competition academically. They spoke regularly and had regular disagreements about most things. Sometimes, Mandy would do surprising things that pissed Emily off. For example, she accepted three proposals for marriage without telling Emily. Emily found out that her sister was married (and she hadn't been invited to the wedding) twice (yes, two times) via Facebook posts. She never met Mandy's first husband (but did have to make an awkward call to him in 2014, per Mandy's request to tell him she was dying- that's another story). 

Emily was largely amused by her sister's impetuous nature but in awe of her accomplishments along the way. She was ferociously dedicated to her studies and lab work, in a way that Emily could never fully understand. On November 1, 2014 Emily married her college sweetheart and although she had been asked to be a maid of honor, Mandy was not in attendance at her wedding. Emily foolishly was insulted that her sister did not come to her wedding, but only later learned that her sister would die two months later. 

When Amanda was undergoing her second treatment for leukemia, and her health deteriorated, Emily flew to her location nearly every weekend. On weeks that she couldn't physically be present, she curated boxes of trinkets and bobbles to entertain her sister. There became an obsession with Hello Kitty and unpatching drawer pulls. 

After her sister's Irish goodbye from life, Emily tried to engage in life. She felt like a large piece of her was missing. The next thing Emily knew, she turned 40. She was professionally successful, twice divorced, and tending to the care of her parents who quite conveniently lived an hour away from her home. Emily now leads a very private life and spends most weekends with her parents in Fredericksburg, Virginia. She has two beloved dogs and is trying to make sense of what her future holds.