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Dr. Kimberly S Benson LMHC CAP CCTP

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Sarasota County, FL
Dr. Kimberly S Benson LMHC CAP CCTP

Specializing in psychodynamic psychotherapy for trauma, ptsd, disorders of the self and addiction. Dr. Benson works with Individuals, Couples and Families.

Today you are one step closer to a new you where you feel empowered and on a positive path to growth, well-being and connected to your true self. As an object relations and self-psychology therapist, Dr. Benson's goal is to help you uncover your true potential and lead a life that is worth celebrating. While difficult situations of the past cannot be changed, they can be worked on and processed to

understand and resolve challenges in your life by understanding your mind and developing your true sense of self. By applying complementary therapy approaches and techniques, Dr. Benson will help you unearth long-standing behavior patterns and negative perceptions that may be holding you back from experiencing a more fulfilling and meaningful life. Dr. Benson, whom is a long standing Sarasota Psychotherapist and Counselor, works collaboratively with other local therapists in Sarasota to offer comprehensive marriage, couples and family therapy as well. Dr. Benson specializes in the treatment of trauma, grief and loss, body images & eating disorders, anxiety, depression, phase of life issues, and disorders of the self. She is also an approved addictions provider for Major League Baseball. Providing Private individual, couples and family counseling via face to face, phone sessions and long distance skype counseling.

07/25/2025

🖤 TGIF: Fun? We Put the Dys in Functional

“Mom said I could be anything when I grow up… so naturally, I became an issue.”

Issue? Baby, I’m the whole damn publication.

Here’s to the real ones—the families that didn’t come wrapped in perfect bows and Sunday dinners, but in trauma responses, chaotic dinners, unspoken pain, and that weird, uncomfortable tension that somehow became our normal.

To the parents who did the best they could with what little they were given.
To the siblings who turned into part-time therapists.
To the cousins who became our emergency contacts before we could even spell “emotional regulation.”

To the ones who got called “the difficult one,”
The “too sensitive one,”
The “why can’t you just be normal?” one.

And yet…
WE. FU***NG. GREW.
Not in spite of the mess—but through it.
We learned to name the pain, rewrite the rules, and flip the generational script.
And the wild part? Some of us even grew closer because of the chaos.
Because when you survive that much s**t together, you build a bond deeper than any cookie-cutter sitcom ever could.

So cheers to the dysfunctional families who faced the fire and didn’t burn—
you healed, you roared, you broke cycles with laughter, therapy, and probably some good ol’ karaoke screaming.

Thought for the Day:
Even the most cracked soil can grow the fiercest damn flowers.

Reflection Song:
“Family Affair” – Mary J. Blige

Has*tags:

07/24/2025

🧺 Moody Master Post: Dirty Laundry (Don Henley)
Title: * airing the mind’s dirty laundry *

🌀 Quote:
“Kick ‘em when they’re up, kick ‘em when they’re down…” – Don Henley

🌌 Reflection:
You ever feel like your mind is a goddamn spin cycle that never stops? Old grief, shame-soaked regrets, and those crusty-ass beliefs from childhood that no longer fit—but somehow still hang in the mental closet like that moth-eaten sweater from 1997? Yeah, we all got dirty laundry.

But most of us are too scared to wash it.
We Febreze it with perfectionism.
We shove it in emotional hampers labeled “I’m fine.”
We fold it up neatly and hide it under a smile.

Truth is, the mind has a basement.
And baby, it reeks.
Mildewed memories. Moldy inner critics.
Sour socks of betrayal.
And let’s not forget the trauma towels we never wrung out.

But here’s the kicker—healing means we gotta open that basement door.
Drag the s*t upstairs.
Smell it. Name it.
Throw it in the wash and watch it spin.
’Cause airing your dirty laundry isn’t weakness—it’s fcking liberation.

So go ahead. Hang your shame on the line.
Let the sunlight of awareness bleach the lies you’ve lived under.
And when the neighbors stare?
Tell them healing smells like fabric softener and freedom.

💭 Thought for the Day:
You’re not a mess—you’re a masterpiece in the middle of a rinse cycle.

🎵 Reflection Song:
“Dirty Laundry” – Don Henley

🏷 Has*tags:

07/24/2025

🎇 Title: Street Lights, Grief, and Goddamn Survival

🌀 Quote:
“Light a fire, a flame in my heart…” – Charlie Brown, Coldplay

🌌 Daily Reflection:
Seven years ago, I walked into a Coldplay concert carrying fresh grief—heart cracked open, unsure how the hell to stay alive in a world that just took something precious from me. That night, under those neon lights, something shifted. I felt the pulse of music where pain had made me numb. And my niece was beside me, just like she will be again this weekend.

Full circle.
Same band.
Same venue.
Different loss.
This time, it’s the deepest loss of my adult life—the kind of rupture that guts you from the inside out. A loss not by death, but by betrayal, silence, and the shattering of a relationship I thought was unbreakable.

I was 38 then. I’m 45 now. And in that gap of years, I didn’t just survive—I burned. I loved, unraveled, rebuilt, collapsed again, and found shards of self I never knew were mine to begin with.

So yeah, it’s ironic as hell. The same stage, the same lights, the same song—hitting my bones in a new way.

But maybe that’s the twisted poetry of life.
The universe sends us back to where the light first cracked through,
just to remind us it can break through again.

So here’s to the wounded.
To the ones dragging their hearts through concrete.
To the warriors who show up with mascara-stained cheeks and fists still clenched around hope.
This isn’t just a concert.
It’s a fu***ng resurrection.

💭 Thought for the Day:
You might be bleeding, but you’re still glowing in the dark.

🎵 Reflection Song:
Charlie Brown – Coldplay

🏷 Has*tags:

07/23/2025

🎸 WEDNESDAY WOLFPACK—LET’S RUMBLE 🔥

Title: Highway to Hell… and I Took the F**kin’ Wheel

Quote:
“It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll.” – AC/DC

🌪 Daily Reflection
It’s Hump Day, baby. That halfway mark where the universe dares you to tap out. But not us. Nah. We’ve been dragged by life, chewed up by expectations, side-eyed by fake friends, and gaslit by people who swear they had good intentions. And yet here we are—still walkin’, still cussin’, still standing on our goddamn stage, mic in hand, heart on fire.

This ain’t no self-help whisper circle. This is survival. This is stitching up your own wounds in the dark while the world keeps spinning like it gives a damn. You’re not broken. You’re bruised brilliance. You’re the glitch in the system that didn’t die, just rebooted with fangs.

So crank the volume, grab the wheel of your life, and let ‘em all watch while you peel out of every toxic storyline they tried to trap you in. This ain’t their narrative anymore.

Dr. Kimberly Benson

💭 Thought for the Day:
Your pain didn’t kill you—but your comeback might scare the hell outta them.

🎵 Reflection Song:
“Back in Black” – AC/DC
Because today, you’re not just surviving—you’re headlining.

🏷 Has*tags:

07/23/2025

🖊️ They Don’t Get the Fu***ng Pen Anymore
Because this story? It’s mine now.

“You gave them the pen. They drew blood. Now you write with it.”

Today in session, my client said:
“I realized I’ve been handing people the pen to my life.”
And I swear, my whole nervous system screamed:
“Same.”
God, same.

I’ve handed over the pen to people I loved. People I needed.
People I thought were safe.
And they rewrote my story like I was theirs to edit.
They gaslit me into silence, spiritualized my trauma, and turned my mind into a battlefield I couldn’t win.
They didn’t just write in the margins—they ripped out the fu***ng pages.

But here’s what I know now:
They don’t get the pen. Not anymore.
They don’t get access to the sacred parts of me they only wanted to control.
They don’t get to rewrite my rage into “overreacting,” my intuition into “sensitivity,” or my grief into “weakness.”

The pen was handed over by my wounded child—the part of me desperate for a savior, willing to believe the illusion.
But now?
Now the adult in me has arrived.
The woman in me.
The storm in me.
The fu***ng wolf in me.

And she’s done asking for permission.

💭 Thought for the Day:
If they couldn’t handle your power, of course they wanted to hold the pen.

🎵 Reflection Song: “In a Vein” – Carly Simon

🏷 Has*tags:

07/22/2025

💥I Didn’t Heal to Become Easier to Swallow
(I healed to stop shrinking myself for people who never learned how to chew on truth.)

📸 Daily Reflection

If you think healing is supposed to make you quieter, gentler, or more agreeable—
You’ve been sold some watered-down, Instagram-filtered, spiritually sanitized bulls**t.

Healing doesn’t mean becoming more palatable to other people.
It means becoming more you.
Messy. Bold. Boundaried. Awake. Raw. Sovereign.
And yeah—sometimes that’s loud, inconvenient, and hard to digest for people who only knew you as the quiet one, the accommodating one, the “safe” one.

Let them choke.
You’re not seasoning your soul to suit their taste anymore.

You didn’t crawl through hell to come out a goddamn Hallmark card.
You came out a force.

So stop apologizing for who you’re becoming just because they can’t keep up with who you used to be.

🎵 Reflection Song:

“The Wolf” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
(Because this kind of healing has claws.)

🏷 Has*tags:

07/22/2025

Do you suspect that you--or someone you know--is facing a mental health crisis. Here are the signs to seek help to avoid a downward turn.

07/22/2025

🧨🧨 Title:
Check Your Halo, Babe

🌀 Quote (Opening Line):
“Your advice isn’t divine. It’s just your unprocessed s**t in a prettier outfit.”

🌌 Body of the Reflection:
Be honest—have you ever handed someone a sermon when what they really needed was a hand?
Yeah. Same.

We’ve all been there.
They’re in the pit, calling out—and instead of climbing in, we throw down a spiritual quote, a moral checklist, or a “you just need to…”
But let’s call it what it is: that wasn’t love.
That was control.
That was you needing to feel safe in your healing, so you slapped your blueprint onto their mess.

Truth bomb:
Your journey is sacred—but it’s not universal.
What saved you might drown them.
And when you preach instead of witness, you’ve stopped being a support and started being a spotlight.

You’re not evil. You’re human.
And maybe, just maybe… it’s time to check your halo at the door and ask:
“Am I trying to help—or am I trying to be right?”

Because nobody’s asking you to save them.
They’re asking you to see them.
And that? That takes more courage than any sermon you’ll ever give.

💭 Thought for the Day:
Sometimes the kindest thing you can say is nothing at all.

🎵 Reflection Song:
Judas – Lady Gaga

🏷 Has*tags:

***ngHuman

07/21/2025

🌀 Spirit Animal: Slightly Unhinged

📜 Quote:
“I’m not sure what my spirit animal is, but I’m confident it has rabies.”

🌌 Daily Reflection:
It’s Monday. Again. The coffee is weak, the emails are stacking up, and your inner peace is somewhere under a pile of laundry and existential dread.

You don’t bounce into the week; you crawl in with wild eyes, a sarcastic inner monologue, and the spiritual energy of a raccoon that’s been through some things. You’re not broken—you’re just operating on caffeine, muscle memory, and a dash of spite.

Some people greet Monday with yoga mats and gratitude journals. Others—us—come in hot, muttering under our breath, trying not to scream into the void before 10 AM. And that’s okay.

The truth is, healing doesn’t always look graceful. Growth can feel like chaos. And some weeks, you survive not with elegance—but with your claws out and your humor intact. Your spirit animal doesn’t need to be majestic. It just needs to be honest. Scrappy. Slightly rabid. Still fighting.

So if you’re starting this week feeling more “help me” than “let’s do this,” welcome to the club. You’re not alone. You’re just human—and a wildly resilient one at that.

💭 Thought for the Day:
You don’t have to be graceful to grow. Sometimes surviving the week is the win.

🎵 Reflection Song:
“The Wolf” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

🏷 Has*tags:

07/21/2025

🌀 Daily Reflection
Title: The Ones Who Rise Anyway

Quote:
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” – Rumi

🌌 Body of the Meditation:
Some mornings, the ache is louder than the sunlight. You wake up with a heaviness you didn’t invite—anxiety threading through your chest, sleep clinging with strange dreams, your heart whispering questions that don’t yet have answers.

But still, you rise.

You move through the fog, breathe through the weight, and reach for grounding—maybe through meditation, maybe just through not giving up. That, too, is sacred. That, too, is healing.

This is the part of the journey no one applauds—the quiet fight to keep showing up for your life when you’re still raw, still tender, still unraveling what was once familiar.

Sometimes the pain we carry isn’t about a specific person anymore. It’s about the space they once occupied, the mirror they once held, the parts of us they activated. Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. It means you stop offering your energy to the place that keeps bleeding you.

You are the safe place now. The one who listens. The one who stays.

Even when anxiety hums and memories flicker…
You. Are. Still. Rising.

💭 Thought for the Day:
You don’t need perfect peace to be healing—just the courage to keep meeting yourself as you are.

🎵 Reflection Song:
“Breathe Me” – Sia

🏷 Has*tags:

07/20/2025

🖤 Title: Spinning, Surviving, Still Showing Up

🌀 Quote: “Some days healing looks like doing the work. Some days it looks like surviving the storm.” — Unknown

🌌 Moody Master Reflection:

So you’re finishing up Sunday… maybe you crushed it.
Or maybe you didn’t do a damn thing except spin in a trauma loop while your nervous system ran the whole damn show.

Here’s the thing they don’t tell you: survival is the work.
You made it through the day.
You didn’t self-destruct. You didn’t shut down the whole system. You stayed.

That’s not nothing. That’s everything.

Healing isn’t always breakthroughs and journaling under moonlight.
Sometimes it’s lying in bed thinking, “Why the hell do I still feel this way?” and still waking up the next day trying again.

You’re not failing. You’re gaining more awareness.
You’re catching the patterns.
You’re fishing trauma out of the undertow and choosing not to reenact it.

So maybe today didn’t go “perfectly.”
But you kept going.
And that… is what breaks the f*cking cycle.

💭 Thought for the Day: Awareness without shame is the first step toward breaking every generational chain.

🎵 Reflection Song: “Heavy” by Linkin Park

🏷 Has*tags:

07/20/2025

The Art of Letting Go & Letting God (Whatever That Means)

🎤 Quote:
“Sometimes you gotta drop the rope, not because you’re weak—but because it’s time to set the battlefield on fire and walk away like the goddamn Jedi you are.”

💣 Meditation (Raw & Unfiltered):
Letting go ain’t soft. It’s savage. It’s choosing silence over one more scream into a void that doesn’t echo back. It’s realizing that holding on might actually be what’s been drowning you all along.

You don’t have to understand God to make room for it. You don’t have to be religious, holy, or fu***ng zen. God is complicated. Mysterious. Chaotic. Cosmic. God is love, grief, death, rebirth. God is Yoda in the swamp whispering “You must unlearn what you have learned.”

See, when you start connecting with your real self—the one underneath the fear, the people-pleasing, the scripts—you begin to tune in to something deeper. Call it Spirit, Universe, The Force, Source, or just… Truth. But it’s there. And it can’t move through you if you’re still trying to hold on to s**t that’s already rotted.

Letting go isn’t defeat—it’s alignment. It’s making room for something sacred to anchor you instead of the chaos you’ve grown addicted to. And baby, that’s when the real healing begins. When you stop begging for someone else to throw you a lifeline and realize—you’re already floating.

🖤 Thought for the Day:
Letting go doesn’t mean you stopped caring. It means you started choosing you—and maybe, just maybe, letting something divine choose you too.

🎵 Reflection Song:
Godspeed – Frank Ocean

🏷 Has*tags:

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Sarasota County, FL

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 9pm
Tuesday	8am - 9pm
Wednesday	8am - 9pm
Thursday	8am - 9pm
Friday	8am - 9pm

Website

http://www.drkimberlybenson.com/

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