I have over 20 years experience helping others heal from trauma, depression and anxiety. I work with scrappy women who were raised in emotionally chaotic homes and first responders. I offer weekly therapy and EMDR intensives to free clients from the thoughts, history and behaviors that hold them back.
A letter to my future client…
I see you
You made a deal with the universe years ago – if you could escape the messy life you were living, you would become respectable. You held up your end of the deal. Leaving those memories in the rearview mirror was so liberating – until recently. Now you wake up with a familiar sense of dread, a cynicism about your future. You are swept up in waves of worry over small things. Is it depression or anxiety?
We both know you have let go of a lot – where you grew up, your old friends, self destructive extracurricular activities, the person you used to be, and the struggle to be understood by the folks who contributed to your DNA. It’s a badge of honor/guilt/shame.
You are good at leaving, forgetting and moving on. Maybe too good.
The few who know bits of your sketchy backstory have totally bought into the happy ever after assumption – but that’s the sick joke – you are not. I mean you have great times, wouldn’t want to trade this new world you curated for the one you left, but you don’t spend too much time unoccupied as the unhappiness goes technicolor.
And what is the unhappiness about – the old flame that left you battered and bruised, the scenarios that make you shudder even now, the parents that took free range parenting way too far when you needed them the most, the situations that were so messed they defy words and the sinking feeling that you aren’t a good person, just someone faking it. A good person would be happy with your life now, and you feel empty.
People think of the homeless folks muttering to themselves when they hear the word crazy but you know the truth – it is the little things that are your proof. You obsess over inconsequential things, making small moments extra in ways no one seems to get. Your feelings get hurt so fast. You feel rubbed raw and then someone bumps into you, not recognizing you are on your last layer of skin.
Sometimes you hear that song, or get a whiff of that smell you dodge and BAM some kind of ugly is playing in your mind – like a movie but you are locked in the theater no matter how loudly you bang on the emergency exit.
The fact is you need an experience, many in fact, to combat the memories of old ghosts.
We can do that by showing up each week as there is something sacred about two humans trying to solve a puzzle together in the therapy room. I offer EMDR to unplug your reactions from your memories. And EMDR is not a requirement, just one of the more effective ways to break free from what holds you back.
Oh and I am excited to work with you.
See you soon,
Kimberly