What I’ve Learned From 40 Years of Therapy

Eight therapists. Four decades. One moment that changed everything.

14-week Rewired Healing Series- Week 2

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📚Summary

After four decades and eight therapists, I began to think, maybe healing just wasn’t for me. But then one moment — one pause — changed everything.

In this post, I reflect on the six types of therapists I encountered throughout my journey, what each stage taught me, and how one trauma-informed therapist finally helped my nervous system feel safe enough to open up.

We explore:

• 🌿 The 5 stages of therapists many survivors meet along the way

• 🧠 How your nervous system responds differently at each stage — with real neuroscience insight

• 💡 What real trauma-informed care feels like (not just what it looks like on paper)

• ✍️ A guided worksheet to reflect on your past support — and what safety means to you now

This isn’t just my story — it’s a mirror for anyone who’s ever wondered why therapy didn’t work... and what it feels like when it finally does.

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🌿 I’ve been in therapy almost my entire life.

It started when I was 7, after my parents divorced. My mom put me in therapy hoping it would help — and in some ways, it did. But for decades, it never felt like the place where true, deep healing happened.

After so many years of trying, I started to believe maybe healing just wasn’t meant for me.
That maybe I was too complicated.
Too much.
Too far gone.

I worked with at least eight therapists across four decades.
All of them were kind.
All of them wanted to help.
But I never felt truly safe.

I didn’t know I was hiding the deepest parts of myself — not out of stubbornness or resistance, but because my nervous system was still in protection mode. I didn’t have the words for it back then. I just knew I left most sessions feeling like I’d failed at therapy again.

It wasn’t until I was 42 that something changed.

It wasn’t about finding the most experienced therapist.
Or the one with the most certifications.

It was about finding someone who felt safe — in a way my body had never experienced before.

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Looking back now, I can see the pattern.
Each therapist reflected where I was in my healing.
Each one met a version of me that didn’t yet know what safety felt like.

And somewhere along the way, I began to realize:
Not every therapist was “wrong.”
Some of them were just part of the path.

I now see that many of the therapists I worked with were doing the best they could with the tools they had at the time— and I was doing the best I could with a nervous system still wired for survival.

This isn’t about blame.
It’s about recognizing what was missing: the feeling of safety.

And when that finally arrived — everything began to shift.

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Then came the session I’ll never forget.

It wasn’t a breakthrough I had — it was the way my new therapist responded.
Or more accurately… how she didn’t respond.