My Story
I became a therapist because I didn’t really have a choice.
Life sucked. It all seemed so pointless. I gave it a try. Then another. I failed again and again. Everyone else seemed to be doing just fine.
I heard therapists help. Do they? Muttering to myself that this is one expensive waste of time, I decided to give it a try.
Nothing changed. I’m still myself. The same fears, the same scars. It feels different though. I’m less ashamed of the scars. Some of them I even like now. My fears have faded, a bit. That feeling of being heard, understood – of being able to be myself – something of that slips out, from the clinic into life.
Everything changed.
After a few years of therapy, with life continually getting better, I decided to retrain as a therapist. I scaled back my career as a product manager in a software company and started my new story.
My experience began in a student placement in a residential care home, working with children and young adults who had been removed from their homes by social services. I came for a year and stayed for six – progressing from student to staff.
I learned the depth and darkness of the pain we carry with us and how connecting to that pain brings growth that’s beautiful, strange and powerful.
I chose bibliotherapy because life is a story. We learn from stories and think in stories.
Will I give you a poem for homework? Heaven forbid. Will we find echoes of your struggles in a tale? Will you look at your story in a new light? I hope so.
It’s hard to explain without vagueness. Confidentiality. I can’t tell another person’s tale; I’ll never tell yours. Therapy works in practice. Seen from the outside, it can be daunting. The promises so grand, the cost so high, the rewards so ill-defined.