Why I became a therapist
I have a vivid memory from my early childhood of my momma plopping me down on the pale pink tile of my bathroom counter, wiping my tears and reassuring me that it’s ok - that I have a big heart and that is why I feel so deeply. I have held these big feelings for as long as I can remember, and they have always propelled me toward empathy. This is, however, not the whole story of my entry into a graduate program to study mental health counseling.
I have struggled with anxiety since long before I had a word or label for it or even knew that this constant low-level fear which had me jumping out of bed (so as to avoid any monsters grabbing my ankles) and running to my parents’ room until an embarrassingly old age was anything other than perfectly normal. I was blessed by a loving and supportive family that allowed me to skate through the fears of my youth relatively unscathed, but when I went out on my own and encountered roommates and friends with other backgrounds I began to realize that I was much more fearful than the average bear. “This is just who I am,” I reasoned, and did not think there was anything to be done about it.
Later, after the traumatic birth of my first child, the fear began to grow so large I could hardly move about the world. Friends and colleagues were present and supportive, but I was not able to live life with the kind of freedom and joy I hoped to experience. Someone I respected recommended therapy and EMDR, and I agreed that it was probably time for that step, but as I was pregnant with my second and completely overcome with anxiety around the near-approaching birth, I put it off for a while. After another traumatic postpartum experience, I finally entered a therapist’s office and was greeted by the warm embrace of her soft couch, plentiful tissues, and warm, loving presence.
Therapy was not what I expected. It was not a list of objectives or goals that made me feel like I would never measure up, nor was it a person from outside of my life telling me what to do. In that little room I encountered for the first time the full breadth of my own emotions surrounding my trauma stories, my spiritual doubts and questions, the frustration and feelings of inadequacy I was experiencing at work, and even my sense of communal and cultural dissonance and disconnection.
It is painful, hard, intentional work to become present to your own life, and the tears I’ve left in my therapists’ offices are proof of that. Despite the difficulty, however, through years of engaging in therapy (and a little bit of medication, which I never thought I would be willing to try) I finally entered a place where fear was no longer driving the vehicle. Sure, she churns up a ruckus from the backseat sometimes, but I am able to make intentional, value and desire driven choices about how I live my life. I was able to walk through the experience of a third birth, navigate life in a new state, engage in a hospital chaplaincy internship, and somehow make it through grad school as a mother of three - and none of that would have been possible without the therapists who have gifted me with their skills and presence over the the last five years.
It is my deepest hope to be able to provide a space for my clients to experience this kind of deep transformation and freedom. It is my innate capacity for empathy and the skills I have developed through clinical and academic experience that allowed me to step into this work, but it is my own belief-through-experience in the possibility of change when a person is able to bear witness to their story and their pain in a safe, supported environment that gets me out of bed in the morning.
Photo by Nathan Fertig on Unsplash