I spent years thinking I was lazy, broken, or just not trying hard enough. Turns out, I wasn’t defective—I was carrying shame. Once I could name it, everything started to change.

Therapy didn’t just help me grow—it made some of my favorite coping strategies unusable. Detached humor, emotional shutdown, overworking? They don’t work like they used to. And weirdly, that’s how I knew the work was working.