Therapy has played an important role in my healing journey. It wasn’t always easy for me to be vulnerable. I avoided the thought of sharing my emotions with someone else. I carried the fear of being misunderstood or judged.

But as I slowly allowed myself to step into the safety of being held and guided by a therapist, I began to see how transformative the process could be. Therapy helped me navigate emotions I didn’t even know I was carrying, offering me a space to feel seen, heard, and supported in a way I had never experienced before.

I hope that by sharing this part of my story, I can help shift the perspectives of those who might feel hesitant about therapy and the healing process. Vulnerability isn’t easy, but it’s one of the most powerful tools for growth and healing.

Trigger warning: This series will trigger you in one way or another, please read with care…and be gentle with yourself.

The Role of Therapy in My Growth

The third time I decided to go to therapy, it was for me. No one was telling me I had to, there were no external pressures pushing me. I was burned out from community mental health work, and my family was going through a lot. I found myself holding on to deep resentment, particularly toward my mom, dad, and one of my sisters. These emotions were affecting me in ways I couldn’t ignore, but the one thing I knew I couldn’t do was cut ties with my family. It was deeply ingrained in me that family comes first and was everything. I couldn’t even imagine walking away from that connection, no matter how painful the dynamics had become.

Later in life and deeper into my healing I was faced with this dilemma again, and I did cut ties with my dad for a year. This decision inevitably changed the dynamics in my family where many of us did not speak to each other and could not be in each other’s presence. My family is not perfect, but we tried family therapy and we are doing our best to heal now; slowly and with a little more distance.

The enmeshment in my family was so strong, I felt I was at a crossroads. I could let this unresolved anger and resentment push me further away from my family, or I could work through it. I decided to work on it. I knew that working on my relationships, especially with my mom and sister, was an important part of my healing. I walked into therapy with the intention of healing my relationships, starting with the relationship I had with myself.

At that point, my therapist introduced me to EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a therapy technique that helps process trauma and difficult memories. It was the first time I had ever heard of it, and it opened a new door in my healing. Through this process, I began to work through the trauma I had experienced in my own family, particularly the domestic violence that had been a constant presence in my life.

Working in community mental health, I was exposed to a whole new layer of trauma. I started to work with clients who had experienced severe abuse similar to my own, and their pain began to mirror my own. This was a pivotal moment in my journey. I realized that I couldn’t separate my own healing from the work I was doing with others. My experiences in therapy began to shape the way I approached my work, and vice versa.

Through this journey, I learned one of the most important lessons of my life:

I didn’t have control.

I had spent so much of my life trying to control the outcomes of my relationships—trying to fix people, to change their minds, to make them happy. I thought if I did everything right, others would heal too. That was a hard lesson to learn, especially with my family, but it was needed.

Now, I was learning to accept the things I couldn’t change and focus on what I could—my own healing, my own growth, and the peace that came from letting go of control.