Therapy Wasn’t for People Like Her (Part 2)
Jan 20, 2026
This story is part of a series drawn from my upcoming book, You Don’t Have to Be Crazy to See a Therapist. I’m sharing these narratives to help make therapy feel more transparent and approachable—especially for those who have been taught that therapy is only for people who are “really struggling.” Identifying details have been changed, and some stories are composites of clients with similar experiences or themes.
This is part 2 of Nia's story: What surprised Nia most about therapy was how ordinary it felt.
A few sessions in, she said it out loud, almost disappointed.
“This isn’t what I thought it would be.”
I asked her what she had expected.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Someone analyzing me. Telling me what’s wrong. Maybe telling me what I should be doing better.”
That wasn’t what happened.
There was no couch. No interrogation. No rush to disclose anything she wasn’t ready to share. What Nia encountered instead was space—something she hadn’t realized she was missing.
Early on, she said,
“I keep waiting for you to tell me what the problem is.”
What we did instead was slow down. We paid attention to language. We noticed patterns. We talked about how much energy it took to keep everything running smoothly without support.
“I didn’t realize how tired I was,” she admitted one week. “I thought this was just adulthood.”
One of the first things we explored was her definition of strength.
“I’ve always been the strong one,” she said. “If I don’t hold things together, who will?”
That belief hadn’t come out of nowhere. It had protected her for a long time. Therapy wasn’t about taking that strength away—it was about expanding it.
Over time, strength began to look different.
It looked like pausing instead of pushing. It looked like asking for help before reaching exhaustion. It looked like listening to her body instead of overriding it.
At one point she said, surprised,
“I thought therapy was about digging up the past. This feels more like learning how to live now.”
We didn’t spend sessions blaming her family or reliving every painful memory. We talked about context—where her coping strategies came from and why they had made sense. We honored what they had protected her from, while also noticing when they were no longer serving her.
The changes didn’t announce themselves loudly.
She slept better. She paused before reacting. She felt less resentful and more present.
One day she said,
“I don’t feel lighter because things are easier. I feel lighter because I’m not carrying everything by myself anymore.”
That mattered.
Therapy didn’t turn Nia into someone else. It helped her come back to herself.
There were weeks when the work felt heavy and weeks when it felt surprisingly light. Therapy didn’t remove stress from her life—but it gave her a place where she didn’t have to perform competence or strength. A place where she could tell the truth and be met with clarity instead of judgment.
At some point—not all at once—she realized something quietly powerful.
Therapy wasn’t for people who couldn’t handle life.
It was for people who had been handling too much, for too long, on their own.
Once that story shifted, everything else followed. How she showed up at work. In relationships. With herself.
Nia didn’t come to therapy because she was broken.
She came because she was ready to live with more ease, intention, and self-respect.
And once she experienced that, there was no going back to the old belief about who therapy was for.
Client details have been changed to protect confidentiality.
If this story resonated, I encourage you to share it with someone who may be curious about therapy—or hesitant to consider it. These stories are part of my upcoming book, You Don’t Have to Be Crazy to See a Therapist, which explores common myths about therapy, what actually happens in the room, and how people use therapy not because they’re broken, but because they want to live with more clarity, ease, and intention.
If you’d like a practical next step, you can download my free guide, How to Interview a Therapist (So You Actually Find the Right One)—a practical guide to choosing a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You’ll also be the first to know when the book is released and when new stories in this series are published.
