Yesterday, my therapist let me know that I had been seeing her for two years. It was time to reevaluate what was needed as we moved ahead. My gigantic insurance reimbursement spreadsheet shows that we met weekly for 9 months and have been meeting every other week since then, for a total of 24. 

20 years ago, when I was a newlywed beginning my career, I was referred to a therapist who saw me for the duration of my pregnancy with Emma. We worked on some key things that helped me adjust to adulthood with a better awareness of myself and my emotions. That was a great foundation for my adult life.

But then I entered a different season: the second half of life.

When the Old Tools Stop Working

Around age 40, the familiar strategies that once worked for me became ineffective. Changes in my work, home, and lifestyle intensified by the pandemic made it clear that I needed new approaches. 

Unprocessed trauma surprised me and seeking help turned out to be a complex journey, not a quick fix.

2022: The First Attempts

Still COVID-cautious in this part of the country, I found an in-network licensed social worker to meet on Zoom. She taught me how to do box breathing for anxiety, but also told me to “just talk” to family members if things were stressful. It was like I had a piece of the puzzle (breath work) but not the other piece (actual strategies for my situations). 

I don’t think she’s ever lived in a home with neurodivergent people, much less trapped during a pandemic in the same four walls together. 

I asked Jeff to find a couples therapist with me to work on the new dynamics around raising teenagers. I didn’t care that this licensed marriage and family therapist wasn’t in-network. I just found the nearest Asian American available right away, hoping that would cover any cross-cultural nuances. We met with her for 18 months, nearly every week.

If I were to describe these 18 months, it would be like every member of our family was drowning. One domino would go down and the others would follow. It became clear that perhaps trauma was making each of our lives harder. We never got past showing up every week in survival mode to learn any strategies or repair anything.

2023: The Breaking Point

During that time, I started meeting with a new personal therapist. She worked with me on Zoom, asking me what I was feeling and where I felt it in my body. I felt no emotion in my body. I could name simple emotions like sadness, frustration, and stress.

I told her it felt like we were pummeled by relentless hardships with no time to catch our breaths. If one more giant wave hit, I felt I would go under.

Shortly after, I hit my lowest point when I was blindsided by a decision that did not work out in my favor. At the time, we were waiting for a favorable decision that would give us a new season and alleviate many of the stressors in our lives. 

One day, desperate for relief, I took a walk, but was barely able to move. Despite regular exercise, I felt 80 years old. I stopped and lay down under a shady tree, staring at the sky. Despair caused my muscles and joints to move like old machinery, barely able to turn on.

Late 2023: A Realization

After 18 months with the same couples therapist, we left to find a neurodiverse couples specialist. Looking back, it seems odd we stayed as long as we did despite the cost and minimal progress, but we clung to any support we could find while the issues accumulated. We felt surprised that we had worked with so many people in crisis, but could not find the right kind of help for our own collapse.

If only my plan had worked 6 years before when I asked if we could do couples therapy while things were going well, to work off the habits of the PhD we had pushed through. The only problem was our insurance approved 8 sessions with a therapist WHO FELL ASLEEP during the sessions.

When my personal therapist moved, I reevaluated. I realized traditional talk therapy was not working for me. 

I talk for a living. I do conflict resolution much of the time. I manage high-level situations. Jeff and I were not the type of people who have no self-reflection or people skills, and then get the opportunity to finally tend to it in therapy. I realized the disconnect was happening in my body. 

During the pandemic, I read a book that focused on healing the body from experiences of racial trauma and violence. In the process, it introduced me to the concept of somatic (body) therapy. At the same time, the algorithms guided me, populating my social media feed with information about why some people don’t heal with talk therapy alone. 

This sounded like me. I decided to Google “somatic therapists” and found one. She called me and I jumped in. She is the therapist I have been meeting with for 2 years. I am thankful for the way she integrates all kinds of therapies into trauma-informed care.

2024 Learning to Feel Again 

In our very first few meetings, she validated my experiences and said most of her patients were experiencing a flood of post-COVID anxieties or trauma, especially those who had parented in difficult situations. She diagnosed me with chronic PTSD, and over time, we began to find safety in my body, even as I continue to live amidst a number of unresolved issues day-to-day.

One day, I attended a training on Zoom to learn about a new ministry program. It was the first time I had been in an all-day online meeting in five months. My body got exhausted and I felt myself slightly shaking. I had to turn off my camera and lie in bed. I realized I was experiencing some sort of PTSD from working day and night on Zoom during a prolonged crisis. 

I brought this insight to my therapist and recalled to her the distracting and disturbing noises in the house that I experienced when I would try to work in the office during our pandemic year. I noted chewing, slamming, crying, barking, laughing, doorbells, and my family rustling as they searched for food. She helped me understand why these noises were so distressing to me. 

I was present to a camera, showing active listening to others elsewhere, while inwardly suppressing what I felt and worried about in my home. 

I had no idea I had been affected this way.

I began to learn the language of healing a nervous system. Did you know that when you go into fight, flight, fawn, freeze, or flop as a trauma response, your nervous system is either getting activated into hyper-arousal (like the fight mode) or hypo-arousal (flop or exhaustion)? You either can’t calm down or you crash out.

As difficult situations continued to unfold, I went through over a year of terrible symptoms of hyper-arousal such as shaking uncontrollably from the time I woke up. I could only exert myself for a short period of time each day and then I would go into hypo-arousal of needing to lie down.

Couples Therapy Rounds 2 & 3

We tried an online neurodiverse couples therapist. Despite his gentle efforts, he was moving slowly and progress was minimal. Then he went on a leave of absence indefinitely due to a house remodel.

Exhausted by being let down, we stopped seeking couples therapy and continued with our individual therapists for a while. 

Then, a church we had been quietly attending for a few months announced that they were going to give 150 couples 12 free sessions of marriage therapy. I signed us up. Jeff agreed. It gave us the boost we needed. My husband chose a therapist from their generous list of approved facilities. It was finally a fit. We continue to meet with her every other week, even as we have switched to out-of-pocket payment.

Thank God. It took three years, but I have two good therapists. 

Healing in the Second Half of Life 

I am learning, for the first time, to cry a little in the moment instead of becoming dysregulated months later, when things compound. I am learning how to feel a wider range of feelings than sad, frustrated, or stressed. I am teaching myself that I am safe right now, even if my brain is telling me I am not. I am learning that I can go for a walk or go to Trader Joe’s when I am getting flooded with a bodily sensation that feels traumatic. (A trick for teaching yourself that you are not trapped in a cycle like your brain may be telling you).

I am trying to teach my brain that just because a family member is having a bad day does not mean they hate me, don’t love me, or that I am going to wither up and die. I am learning not to be hypervigilant to control or manage others around me, but to manage myself and the sensations that come with moving through discomfort. 

My body and brain demanded that I take care of myself this way when everything got to be too much. It has felt at times like I am dying on my way to a resurrection, but when I look back with my therapist at all that I have accomplished, I know that deep healing has begun to take root. 

Many of us probably come from cultures and places that assume you only go to therapy if you have an out-of-the-ordinary type of problem. But since I have been working with people for over 25 years, I know the truth is that all humans have problems and need help navigating them. Everyone should go to therapy, and there should be no stigma for needing couples, individual, or family therapy. I work with parents every day who tell me about their grief, frustration, bodily overwhelm, dread, and confusion. We all need help.

I hope my story helps you stay on the road to healing in whatever way you need.