Therapy Blog
Thoughts from a therapist on anxiety, trauma, embodied living, and mental health
Fawn Response and Relational Trauma: “I lose me so I don’t lose you”
Most of us have heard of flight, fight, and freeze. Fawning gets mentioned too, but it's often misunderstood. If you haven't yet, read this first for an introduction to the fawn response. Here, I...
How Control Becomes A Protector: Healing Complex PTSD For High Achievers
If you've spent a majority of your life feeling like you have to hold everything together, control can start to feel less like a choice and more like a necessity. Maybe your calendar is color-coded. You stay busy because slowing down feels uncomfortable. You...
Why Do I Feel Like Something Is Wrong With Me?
Shame is not who you are. It is what you learned. Shame often feels deeply personal. It shows up as a quiet but persistent sense that something is wrong with us at our core. Not just that we made a mistake, but that we are the mistake. Because shame lives in...
When The Holidays Feel Emotionally Complicated
Why time with family can trigger old patterns The holidays often come with an unspoken emotional weight. Even when we genuinely want to connect, spending time with family can reopen old wounds or activate familiar patterns of behavior. You may notice yourself...
Perfect on the Outside, ADHD on the Inside
Ever catch yourself trying to get everything just right and wonder why it matters so much? What if it’s not really about being perfect, but about holding things together when life feels like too much? Many of my clients at Embodied Living Therapy describe...