I’m a Therapist. I Still Worry About Forgetting My Pain.

A Story About a Wild-Hearted Teen, a Soft-Spoken Healer, and the Bridge Between Them

I always cried.

In bathroom stalls at school. Alone in my room. During the beginning, middle, or end of songs I pretended not to relate to.

There was a time I didn’t understand what was happening in my body—only that it hurt. That it was so loud. Everything felt too bright, too sharp, too heavy... so heavy. My internal storm never cleared. It just lingered.

I was the teenager who walked through the world like an open wound. I felt everything. And I learned quickly that the world isn’t kind to what it doesn’t understand.

😢 The Girl Who Felt Like a Problem

I bit my nails until they bled. I disappeared into music. I exploded in arguments I didn’t mean to start. I was begging for closeness while bracing for abandonment. I blamed myself, thinking, If I could just be better, then everything would be okay. Why is being like other people so hard?

I didn’t know this back then, but I was chronically dysregulated.
My nervous system was screaming for safety in a world that never felt safe.
No one could tell me why I was like this—only that I needed to change.

They couldn’t see me. So I built walls. Sharp ones.
Sarcasm and silence became my armor.

🌱 Years Later, Something New Emerged

Now, I’m a therapist.

Sometimes I still flinch when I say that out loud—not because it isn’t true, but because part of me still remembers the girl crying behind a locked door. The one who never thought she’d be able to walk alongside anyone else’s pain long enough to matter.

I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I was trying to survive.

But that part of me grew up. She studied. She learned how to listen—first to others, then to herself.
And now, most days, she knows what it feels like to feel grounded.

Still, here’s the truth I don’t say often:

There’s a quiet fear that healing might take me too far from her.
That if I stop hurting like she did, I’ll stop understanding those who still do.

🤔 What If I Forget?

That’s the fear, really.

Not that I won’t heal—but that I’ll heal too much.
That I’ll become so practiced in presence, reframing, and nervous system regulation that I forget what it felt like to be lost.

What if I forget how loud the world feels when your body is always on high alert?

What if I forget the way shame clings to you when you believe you’re too much for everyone around you?

What if I forget her?

🕊️ But Then I Remember: I Chose This Path Because of Her

I didn’t become a therapist in spite of my pain.
I became a therapist because of it.

And healing hasn’t erased that—it’s transformed it.

It’s softened my sharpest edges.
Not dulled, not gone—just gentle now.

Compassion doesn’t require fresh wounds.
It just requires memory—and love.

That girl is still part of me.
She walks beside me every day.
But she’s no longer in charge.

I think of her every time a client looks at me and says, “I feel broken.”
And I get to say, “You’re not” and I know it.

🧘‍♀️ Becoming the Healer She Needed

When I picture my future self—the version of me even more healed, even more grounded—she isn’t distant.

She’s deeply present.
She has nothing to prove.
She listens with her whole body.
She doesn’t rush.
She doesn’t fix.
She simply witnesses.

She carries compassion not just because she knows what it’s like to feel everything,
but because she knows this is where true healing—and true love—begin.

She doesn’t rescue people from the river.
She stands on the shore, steady, and reminds them: you can swim.
Because she remembers what it felt like to drown.

💬 If You’re Afraid of Healing Too Much…

If you’re afraid healing will make you forget where you came from—I want you to know: it won’t.

If you’re afraid of who you’ll be when that old part of you is no longer in control—I understand.

Healing will make you love that past version of yourself even more.
It will help you hold others with deeper gentleness—not because you’re in it with them,
but because you remember what it was like.

And maybe, just maybe,
the parts of you that feared becoming distant
will realize—

you’ve only gotten closer to what matters most.

Knowing your presence is enough. Trusting others to find their way. Loving.
The heart of healing isn’t losing your depth—
It’s learning how to hold it without sinking.

✨ A Reflection to End With:

·         What part of you feels afraid that healing will create distance?

·         What part of you worries about who you will be when you have grown?

·         And what would it mean to believe that your compassion can grow softer, deeper, and more sustaining—without needing to hurt the same way forever?