The Moment My Therapist Got Honest With Me—and Everything Changed

I thought I was the problem.

I came into therapy with a lot of self-awareness—years of reflection, reading, writing, observing. I could articulate my patterns, name my inner parts, and understand where it all came from. But I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t access the pain beneath the insight. And for a while, I thought that made me unhelpable.

When I didn’t feel connected to my therapist, I assumed I was projecting. That I was playing out my mother dynamic—expecting warmth and getting distance, and then pulling away before I could be rejected again. I told her I didn’t feel connected to her.

And she didn’t dismiss it.
She didn’t get defensive.
She said:

“I feel thrown off by our work too.”

That moment changed everything.

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She could’ve hidden behind her training. She could’ve pathologized me. She could’ve stayed in control and interpreted my response through a theoretical lens.

Instead, she stood in it. She owned her side of the disconnection. She met me.

And in doing so, I realized something I hadn’t allowed myself to believe:

It wasn’t just me.
She didn’t know how to connect with me either.

Not because she didn’t care—but because I came in with so much insight, she didn’t know how to reach me at first. I think a part of her may have been intimidated. But when she realized that what I needed wasn’t more analysis—it was attunement, everything shifted.

She softened.
I softened.
And from that point on, something real began to grow between us.

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This is what I wish more people knew about therapy:

It doesn’t have to be perfect.
You don’t have to get it right on the first try.
There can be rupture. There can be silence. There can be doubt.

But if both people are willing to stay with it—and tell the truth without blaming—there can also be repair.

And sometimes, that’s where the deepest healing begins.

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