Therapy Center for Transformative Growth

10/16/2025

When we base our choices on what others might think, we’re often trying to manage anxiety through an illusion of control. For some folks, the brain tells us that it's possible to guarantee others will think of us only in certain ways. It imagines, predicts, and rehearses future interactions while over-analyzing and criticizing us about past social interactions. Our mental processes mean well in this effort to reduce the discomfort of uncertainty. For folks who grew up in environments where being misunderstood came with real consequences, managing other people's opinions of us once served a purpose. While navigating oppression, social rejection, shame, chronic invalidation, or even danger, this hypervigalence kept us safe.

When Ryan’s coworker asked if he’d like to join the team happy hour, his stomach tightened. He liked the idea of going for a brief moment. Nearly instantly, his brain started spinning: If I say no, they’ll think I’m stuck up. If I say yes, I’ll have to act like I’m totally fine being aro...

10/16/2025

Overthinking often feels like we have control and as though we’re protecting ourselves from mistakes. But in reality, it traps us in cycles of analysis that keep us from making any choice at all. This kind of mental overdrive is common for people who are conscientious and care deeply about doing things right. The problem is, it turns every decision into a moral test. This is a type of perfectionism that is disguised as problem-solving. It keeps us stuck. It feels productive, but it’s actually form of avoidance.

When Maya’s friend asked her to help plan a surprise party, she wanted to say yes. But then came the flood of what-ifs: What if she overstepped? What if someone got left out? What if she messed something up and everyone blamed her? Within minutes, she’d talked herself out of participating. It's ...

10/16/2025

Taking on too much responsibility for other people’s feelings or problems isn't healthy and will cause us to become stressed, anxious, or feel guilty all the time. So many of my clients in this position say to me, "I don't have a straightforward way of determining what I actually do and do not owe to others. I need some sort of different process or structure for my brain to grab onto." Together, we embark on a process of adding to their internal moral code their answer to the question, "what do I actually owe to others?"

Taking on too much responsibility for other people’s feelings or problems isn't healthy and will cause us to become stressed, anxious, or feel guilty all the time. So many of my clients in this position say to me, "I don't have a straightforward way of determining what I actually do and do not owe...

06/30/2025

When you’ve lived through relationship trauma, survival becomes second nature. This includes hypervigilance, people-pleasing, shrinking yourself to stay safe. You responses make sense. You did what you had to do to make it through.

Now you get to do something bolder. You get to choose yourself.

Survival was your instinct. Self-love is your revolution that begins with small, fierce acts of kindness toward yourself.

06/29/2025

Grieving someone who hurt you (whether a parent, partner, or both) is a deeply complex and often invisible kind of loss. This is true even if you are the one who ended the relationship. When a relationship carried both harm and attachment, grief doesn’t follow a clean path. You might mourn not only the person but also the safety, love, or closure you never received (or only received sometimes).

This kind of grief - traumatic grief - can stir guilt, anger, even relief. All of your emotions are valid. You're allowed to hold pain and truth at the same time.

06/29/2025

For those who grew up in families where love was conditional, practicing self-compassion or self-love can feel unnatural or even threatening. That’s not a personal flaw. It’s a reflection of how your nervous system learned to survive in an environment where safety was tied to pleasing others.

Healing from complex trauma often means learning to offer yourself the unconditional care you were denied. Take your time learning it and practicing it. Any time you choose self-kindness over self-criticism, you're rewriting a story that began long before you had a say.

06/28/2025

One of the most common and misunderstood effects of psychological abuse is the trauma bond. It’s a powerful cycle of intermittent reinforcement where moments of cruelty are mixed with affection, apologies, or promises of change.

Our nervous system learns to associate these brief “highs” with relief, mistaking them for love or safety. Over time, this keeps us emotionally tethered, even when logic says leave.

We didn't keep going back because we weren't smart enough or strong enough not to return. Going back doesn’t mean we wanted the pain; our brain was doing what it could to survive unpredictable emotional terrain.

Understanding this is a key step in recovery. You weren’t failing. You were adapting.

06/26/2025

Rumination is a common experience for survivors of emotional abuse. This means we find ourselves replaying conversations, questioning our choices, or wondering if how we were treated was really that bad. It's not abnormal for this to happen and it's a sign that we are trying to recover mentally and emotionally from how someone's words and antagonism injured us.

Rumination for survivors is the mental residue of experiencing antagonism, bad faith arguments, gaslighting, blame-shifting, and emotional invalidation. Our mind is desperately trying to find logic in a relationship built on distortion. Rumination is the aftermath of being made to question our reality for so long.

Release yourself from self-judgment for ruminating. Please know that your healing doesn’t require you to make sense of another person's chaos or cruelty. It requires you to honor the fact that how they treated you was wrong, that it hurt you, and that you’re still here showing up for yourself.

06/21/2025

Sometimes, we really need someone but the words just won’t come out. Maybe we learned, somewhere along the way, that needing people wasn’t safe. Or that asking for help made us feel like we were too much. So we keep quiet, even when we’re aching for connection. Therapy can be a space to slowly, gently explore that. And to practice reaching out in ways that feel right, safe, and real.

06/19/2025

In a world that has tried to silence, oppress, and erase, joy becomes an act of defiance. Joy is not denial of pain but a declaration of life, love, and legacy. This Juneteenth, we honor the grief and the glory, the history and the hope.
⁣
To our Black clients, colleagues, families, and communities: your joy matters. Your rest, your laughter, and your dreams are sacred.
⁣

01/08/2025

Not every imbalanced relationship is codependent. Sometimes, overperformance comes from necessity, external pressures, or even unhealthy dynamics like instrumental dependency or emotional abuse. Understanding what’s really happening can make all the difference.

Not all imbalanced relationships are codependent. Explore dynamics like instrumental dependency, ROCD, and emotional abuse to learn more.

01/06/2025

Stay safe out there!

We value the safety and well-being of our clients and therapists above all else. We understand that some of our clients travel from as far a