Let’s discuss the unexpected emotional kick to the gonads that happens when your past randomly pops up, like one of those meerkats coming up for air out of its burrow, right when you’re starting to feel the tiniest flicker of pride about how far you’ve come. Maybe someone brings it up in conversation, casually or […]
CPTSD Emotional Resilience Mental Health Personal Growth Self-Awareness Therapy & Healing Trauma Recovery
The Mental Health Myth That Needs to Go
There are a ton of myths floating around about mental health. Some come from a good place, some are wildly off, and some just make you want to gently bang your head against a wall. But if I had to pick one to blast off into the sun, it’d be this: “You have to look […]
The Pressure to Reinvent vs. the Power of Just Being
There’s something that’s always puzzled me: the need people seem to have to constantly reinvent themselves. New year? Reinvent. Breakup? Reinvent. Got bangs? Reinvent. It’s like we’re all supposed to be our own PR team, constantly rebranding to stay relevant, like some sort of personal SEO strategy. (See what I did there? Threw in some […]
When Therapy Turns into an Emotional Excavation
When I started therapy, I thought I just needed a tune-up. I knew there were things inside me I needed to work on. What I got instead was an emotional excavation. Turns out, growing up in chaos teaches your brain some pretty creative survival strategies, hypervigilance, dissociation, people-pleasing, and the uncanny ability to anticipate everyone’s […]
The Truth About Healing No One Told Me
Here’s something I wish someone had told me early on, like, tattoo-it-on-my-forearm early on: Healing isn’t linear. Like, at all. I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably say it a hundred more times before I’m done, but that’s because it’s one of the most grounding truths I’ve learned. The sooner you realize it, […]
Why I Hated Therapy Before It Helped Me Heal
If you’re like me, small talk isn’t just boring; it’s torture. It feels forced, unnecessary, and exhausting. So imagine how I felt when I walked into therapy for the first time, ready to dump all my insides on some stranger who began with, “So… how’s your week been?” Talk about awkward. Especially if you’re not […]