Client Stories

BRON

Bron* had spent her whole life trying to be “easy to love.”
Never a burden. Never too loud. Never asking for too much.

She was the friend who always showed up, the daughter who never rebelled, the colleague who said yes to everything, even when she was drowning.
But behind the smiles and people-pleasing was a woman silently falling apart.

By the time Jade came to counselling, she was running on empty. Tears would catch her off guard in the car, in the shower, mid-conversation. She didn’t recognise herself anymore. “I feel invisible. Like I’ve become a ghost in my own life,” she whispered in our first session.

Underneath the exhaustion was grief; for the years she’d spent performing, for all the times she said “I’m fine” when she wasn’t, for the little girl inside her who learned early on that love had to be earned. Jade’s goal was simple: “I want to stop abandoning myself just to be liked.”

In our work together, she began meeting herself with compassion instead of criticism. She grieved the childhood she never got to fully live. She learned to hear the difference between fear and intuition. She began asking new questions: What do I want? What do I need? What do I feel?

And slowly, things began to shift.

She started saying no, with guilt at first then eventually without guilt. She caught herself mid-apology and chose silence instead. She stood up to a family member who had always made her feel small. She cried in session and called it healing, not weakness. By the time our work ended, Jade wasn’t just functioning,she was reclaiming herself, her life.

She told me, “I used to shrink myself to be loved. Now I’m learning that I was never too much. I just needed to feel safe enough to be all of me.”

I saw a bright, funny, emotionally intense boy who was trying desperately to keep it together. Who wanted to do well—but couldn’t always explain why he exploded in anger, or why his mind wandered off mid-task, or why shame followed him like a shadow.

Ben told me, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I try to be good, but it never works. I always mess it up.”

He wasn’t lazy. He was overwhelmed.
He wasn’t broken. He was misunderstood.

In those early sessions, we worked on trust. On making the therapy space feel like somewhere he didn’t have to wear armour.
We used humour to help him name his emotions like rage, fear, guilt, shame. We explored how his brain worked differently, and how that didn’t make him “less than, just in need of different tools.So we built his “toolkit” together:

• Emotional regulation strategies that made sense to his nervous system
• A visual system for task-planning
• Body-based grounding when anger surged
• Scripts he could use to ask for space before he exploded

And slowly, Ben started to change how he spoke to himself.

He stopped calling himself “stupid.” He started noticing his triggers before they took over. He asked for help. He apologised without spiralling into self-hatred. He even started studying again, something he hadn’t done since the teacher told him he’d never focus long enough to finish school.

When our work wrapped up, he said this:
“I don’t feel broken anymore. I get why I am how I am. I just needed someone to help me figure it out.”

“It’s like I live in a constant state of ‘what if?’” she told me in our first session.

What if I upset someone? What if I fail? What if I can’t handle it?

Her heart raced for no reason. She struggled to sleep. She felt disconnected from joy, but deeply connected to guilt. Every decision felt like a trap. Every mistake felt like a crisis. She didn’t call it anxiety for years. She just called it being “responsible.” But the truth? She was exhausted from trying to control everything so she didn’t fall apart.

Jamie came to counselling because her anxiety had started to take over. She was withdrawing socially, second-guessing everything she said, and feeling like a shell of the person she used to be. “I don’t even know who I am underneath the worry.”

Together, we slowed everything down.

We explored how anxiety wasn’t her enemy;it was her nervous system trying to protect her in the only way it knew how.
We uncovered the roots of her over-functioning: childhood fears, past betrayals, the belief that rest equals laziness.
We gently reintroduced her to the concept of safety; not just physical, but emotional.

Jamie began to notice the signs before the spiral: the tight chest, the buzzing thoughts, the way her shoulders lived up near her ears.
She learned to breathe; not just shallow survival breaths, but deep, grounding ones. She practiced tolerating uncertainty. She found pockets of joy, those tiny moments where she let herself be still without guilt.

And slowly, she started to trust herself.

She stopped chasing perfection. She said no to things that drained her. She started doing things just because they felt good, not because they were productive. And she began showing up in the world not as the anxious version of herself but as the woman she was becoming.

When our work came to a close, Jamie said something that stayed with me:
“I used to think anxiety was who I was. Now I know it’s just something I experience and I’m learning how to breathe through it, not run from it.”

Feeling seen in their stories?
You’re not too broken. You’re not too much. You’re not behind.
You’re just human—and healing is possible for you, too.

If you're ready to stop surviving and start reconnecting with who you really are beneath the overwhelm, I’d love to walk alongside you.

Let’s start your journey today.
Book your first session or get in touch with me.
Because you deserve support that actually understands you.