Some Therapy Sessions Don’t Have Answers — Just Openings
June 06, 2025
Not every therapy session ends with clarity. Sometimes it opens a doorway to a deeper truth, one we’re just beginning to feel.
Today’s session didn’t give me any clear answers.
But something opened.
We talked about the grief — the slow, heavy grief — of growing up without a mother who loved me in the way I needed.
And the absence of a real relationship with my father.
Not the kind of absence that’s always physical.
But the kind where presence feels unreachable.
Where love, if it was there, was buried under shame and silence.
I found myself wondering: maybe he did love me.
Maybe he just felt like he failed so deeply that he couldn’t face it.
So he withdrew, disappeared without physically leaving.
I don’t know if that’s true.
But I’m letting the question exist without rushing to the answer.
We explored family dynamics —
My parents.
Their parents.
My grandparents’ parents.
All of it tangled in a web of emotional illiteracy, avoidance, and trauma passed down like an heirloom no one wanted, but everyone carried.
It feels like it stops with me.
And even though that’s a heavy thing to carry, it’s something I can be proud of.
Because the cost of continuing the pattern is greater than the cost of breaking it.
At one point, I almost cried.
Not about my parents.
But about my old therapist — the first person who ever truly held me emotionally.
The first person who helped me stay upright when everything inside me was collapsing.
The first person who gave me a glimpse of what it might feel like to be… loved.
Before them, I don’t think I had ever been loved in a way that didn’t carry conditions or confusion.
And that hit me today in a way that felt surprisingly tender.
I also found myself saying things I hadn’t quite put together before:
- “I’ve never really understood why my parents stayed together.”
- “Maybe my dad stayed to protect me. I don’t know.”
And maybe I’ll never really know.
Maybe that part isn’t mine to understand.
But what is mine is this:
To give my son the life I didn’t have.
Not in a performative, overcompensating way —
but from a place of quiet strength.
A place where love is felt, not just assumed.
Where presence is chosen, not avoided.
Where grief isn’t hidden, but honored.
So no — today didn’t bring tidy insight.
No breakthroughs. No clean arc of resolution.
Just a doorway.
And that’s enough.
Because some therapy sessions don’t have answers —
They just offer openings.
And that’s where healing begins.