Therapy

And if you’ve been following along, you’ll know my answer. It depends on how it feels for YOU.

Are you in a place where this type of treatment toward growth feels good? Sure, therapy is hard, its outcome is growth, and growth is hard. But there are challenges that feel good, necessary, and refreshing and ones that feel terrible, unsafe, and draining. Only YOU can know which is which in your bones. (Hint, it is much easier to decipher that if you’re tuned in—cue mindfulness in your everyday life.)

In high school, my depression got bad enough that my parents sent me to a counselor (and this is back in the day when it had to be pretty bad for anyone to act on it). Again I want to reiterate this was an extremely different time for mental health, the public was not nearly as educated and treatments were more intense.

My memory is fuzzy from this time in my life (a common trauma response) but what I do recall is hating it. I remember coming home one day and saying to my parents, “Well, if you want me to hate you I should keep going, because that’s all she is teaching me is that everything is your fault.” That ended that.

(Again caveat here, this lady could’ve been the best counselor in the world, but I was young, in the depths of depression and I can’t remember much else about it.)

The counselor referred me to a psychologist she thought might be a better fit and because he could prescribe medication. I have no idea what he prescribed me (and again medication has come so so far since this time) but all I know is that too was not for me. I remember feeling far more angry when taking it, more clouded and confused. Then one day I was so dizzy from it, I couldn’t get out of bed. And that ended that.

The final attempt was a 5-day stint at an outpatient mental health center, my mom drove me there each day instead of going to high school. The days were filled with crafts, cards, and counseling, not much school work or learning. It was absolutely what some kids there needed, it was too severe of a treatment for me. I told my parents, “I don’t know what I have, but I’m not at this point, I don’t have what they have and I shouldn’t be here.”

My parents were trying their best to find a solution but had zero understanding or education. And the treatments of today just simply weren’t available.

“Are you depressed today?” my dad would ask. As anyone with depression will tell you, that’s about the worst question you can ask.

So we all just kind of gave up on fixing this thing, and I went back to my best attempt at navigating life with this untreated disease.

From that point on, I considered this therapy portion of my life a part of my trauma. I didn’t have much interest or trust in trying again, I didn’t even think of it often honestly.

Fast forward to post-college, early career, when I was finally ready to face this thing again. That’s when I found a book on depression that started the path towards understanding and healing (remember this blog?), then cue mindfulness that skyrocketed that journey.

It was not until just last year, that therapy made its way back into my healing journey. How that came to be is another story I’ll save for another blog. But for now I’ll say this, my friend introduced me back to it and this time, wow oh wow would I one million times over recommend THIS.

The therapist my friend recommended specializes in trauma and achievers, a perfect fit for me. And what therapy helps me with now is:

Better understanding my feelings and reactions and where they come from
Acknowledging and validating my feelings (still a big struggle for me but absolutely key to self-compassion)
Processing my past, and inching toward accepting it
Learning to like myself and understand my worth no matter what is happening externally

I can truly see a continued shift in my growth from therapy. And the really cool thing is those that I know that are also in therapy, I can see their growth too. And I can’t express how awesome that is, for this little empath heart to enjoy the growth in others.

And while the benefits I’m finding from therapy now are truly life-changing and balance-enhancing, this is HARD work. On many post-therapy nights, I lose my super precious sleep while I’m in the thick of processing. And there are times when that challenge in my heart and in my mind carries on through the week.

But the benefits on the other side of it far outweigh these bumps in the road, and that’s saying a lot (especially losing sleep which can be a huge trigger for me, a fear that I might be slipping back to that dark place of insomnia).

And my words at the start of this blog hold true. Know thyself. If the growth feels powerful, necessary and worth it, then get yourself a therapist and get ready to sprout into the next level of you. If you’re not quite there yet, or your nervous system simply can’t stomach this path toward balance, then try something else. Keep trying things, again and again, and again until you find the one that fits.

Then go easy on yourself friend, this might be your time, this might not be. Forcing a solution will not stick and can often cause more damage than good. You’ll find it, I promise. And I’m here to walk with you until you do.

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Balancing a Brain that’s Fighting Back

By Katherine Warren • April 6, 2025

Your brain will straight up lie to you. There’s no way to sugar coat that, friends, there just isn’t. But your brain also creates beautiful ideas and inventions, and well, everything you see that surrounds us. It’s the power of the AND. Your brain is the king of the “and.” The first step in finding balance is recognizing this. The second step is discerning the beautiful part of your brain from the beast. The third is not reacting to, judging or negotiating with the beastly part. It’s tough, tough work. It’s lifelong work. And even if your friends start calling you things like the “definition of balance” (a term so kindly bestowed on me by some friends recently). You’re still gonna have to work your a** off on this part for the rest of your life as you sway back and forth, in and out of balance. Does it get easier? Yes and no. The beauty of understanding the feeling of balance is that you don’t have to rely on your brain so much. You know how it feels to be in a place of solid, grounded peace, no matter what your brain is shouting you “should” or “could” be doing. The harder part is that the more you find balance, the more likely it is that you are upleveling your life. Your focus and pure presence have likely brought about more of whatever you define as a successful life--mentally, physically, or materially. That uplevel can mean those brain lies cut a little deeper, make you question every decision you make to protect your peace. If you’ve learned to sit with that pain in your belly, it might fight a little harder to make you pay attention to it. It might put up a bigger fight to try to force you to listen to those untruths. This is when you have to remind yourself, your brain will straight up lie to you. Under no circumstances should you negotiate with these thoughts. That’s where spiraling lives, that’s where lack of balance lies. Sometimes holding hard to your balanced routines will do the trick.