I was taught not to cry
I help women who hold everyone else return to themselves.
This is the moment I learned to be held.
I was taught not to cry.
As a little girl, the message was clear:
Tears were inconvenient.
Feelings were too much.
Grief was something you did alone.
At my grandfather’s funeral, my mom said,
“If you’re going to cry, go to the back.”
When I lost two classmates at 11,
“Quit your crying,” she told me.
So I did.
I quit crying in front of people.
But I still cried.
In the shower.
In my car between appointments.
Late at night, muffled by a pillow.
By myself.
Because somewhere inside, I knew those feelings still needed somewhere to go.
A rupture and a repair
One day in May, my body said enough.
I couldn’t stop crying.
Sobbing, I called her.
Incoherent. Panicked. Undone.
“I’ll be there in 5,” I said.
When I walked in, she held me.
And I cried in her arms for an hour.
For the first time in my life, she didn’t tell me to stop.
She didn’t offer advice.
She didn’t fix.
She just held me.
Something rewired.
The part of me that thought I had to be strong all the time.
The part of me that believed I wasn’t safe to express grief.
The part of me that never learned to fall apart and be witnessed.
If you are the one who holds everyone else
You do not have to keep doing it alone.
Therapy is not about talking endlessly about the problem. It is about finally having somewhere safe to be witnessed, the way I was in that room, the way you have probably never let yourself be.
If that is what you are ready for, I would be glad to sit with you.