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Disconnection Can Show Up Like…

Crippling Anxiety- every choice seems to carry an immense impact. So everyday choices may feel too risky or like life and death. 

Depressed Mood- low and hopeless as if you’re trapped in a joyless life that you have no control over. 

Shame- you may feel like you’re bad or worthless and need to hide your true self.

Resentment- you may find yourself angry with others and blame them for problems in your life.

Dissociation & Numbness- you might not feel able to name your feelings or find you go through life feeling like you’re not really in your body

Chronic Pain & Health Issues- high levels of stress and cortisol can manifest as health problems and often when you’re stuck difficult life patterns, doctor visits and self care may be last on your priority list, further exacerbating illness and pain.

Sound Like You?

Common Challenges

Role Reversals- perhaps you were a parentified child and took up significant and frequent responsibility for things typically handled by adults like offering emotional support to your parent, managing the household tasks with little or no support, needing to source food and necessities, and raising younger siblings.

Lack of Emotional Support- you may notice that you lacked understanding and comfort from your parents or caregivers when you felt sad, mad, anxious, or overwhelmed. As an adult you may notice you have trouble knowing what to do to support your loved ones or handle ruptures in your relationships when they happen.

Resentment- you may notice that you take up responsibilities that aren’t yours and you don’t feel able to communicate your needs or feelings. You’re afraid of the response you or the impact you’ll have if you do voice your needs.  When you choose to stuff it down, you’re crippled with overwhelm.

In-Law Dynamics- when marriages happen, there are a lot of assumptions. If you’re fortunate, there’s also a lot of benefit of the doubt given and flexibility about differences from each family. Otherwise, you may experience the roller coaster of anxiety, disappointment, and disconnection of unmet (sometimes unspoken) expectations of family. His parents expected Christmas to be spent at your husband’s childhood home every year. Your parents expected a phone call or visit with the kids every week. You’re stressed and exhausted thinking about being together.

Cultural and Value Differences- it drives you crazy that your family member(s) believe or vote differently than you because it represents values you abhor or traditions you don’t want to hold onto. When you voice disagreement they panic and assault you with opinions. When they voice their opinions, you don’t have much patience either and you wonder how you’re supposed to keep a relationship at all.

Consequences of Avoidance

Relationships are really challenging to navigate and sometimes the hardest part is dealing with our internal world- how we feel about the relationship or the people we relate to. Sometimes people get lost in loops of thought, feel disconnected or in contention with people they care about, and suffer silently alone while feeling misunderstood.

The thing about letting it brew or trying to stuff it down, though, is that it doesn’t go away. Eventually it leaks or explodes out. It shows up as health issues, misbehavior, divorce, and/or estrangement. 

Who You’re Working With

My name is Priscilla and I’m an associate marriage and family therapist. Some particular things that have shaped my worldview and posture towards life and healing:

Married

Mom to a preschooler.

I’m Chinese-American and a Bay Area native

I grew up in the Chinese church and am a practicing Christian. 

Worked for a number of years in my family’s business, both as a child and as an adult. 

I’ve always desired to love my people well- family, friends, community, and my neighbor. I love connecting with others authentically and it’s always given me a sense of purpose to do so. In my context, though, I somehow came to believe that in order to honor those around me, I would have to shrink myself.

While intending to care better for others, I ended up hyper-focused on monitoring myself. That meant that internal shame and judgement became my closest companion. I learned to read between the lines of every interaction with people or my environment to make sure I knew what was needed to do “good” things and make others comfortable and happy.

The problem is that this kind of caring often results in making assumptions about needs and expectations that don’t exist. Even when expectations from others are present, it becomes easy to forget ones own needs. In turn, it becomes a breeding ground for resentment and leads to disconnection from oneself and others.

Before I knew it, I wasn’t sure what I wanted, where I started, and where I ended. But my own therapeutic journey (individual and family btw!) led me to a place where I had to confront my fears, assumptions, and shame. I had to take ownership of the permission I already had to take up a little more space.

I found that nurturing my own sense of self was an integral part of living life aligned with my values and connecting better with others.

If you’re wanting to do this work together,

Process:

Therapy can have a number of benefits, including cultivation of your self-esteem/identity, improvement of interpersonal relationships and the resolution of the specific concerns that led you to seek therapy. However, working towards these benefits requires active involvement and intentional efforts to achieve the changes desired. 

Often the process of therapy involves remembering and talking about unpleasant events, feelings, or thoughts and it is not unusual for clients to feel considerable discomfort or strong feelings of anger, worry, fear, etc., or to experience increased anxiety, depression, insomnia, etc for a time.

Attempts to resolve issues that lead a person to therapy in the first place, such as trauma, low self-esteem, or strained relationships, may result in changes that were not originally intended. As a result of your own personal transformation, some of your relationships may become healthier, while other relationships may become more limited or even come to an end depending on the values and needs that you develop or discover.

Changes can sometimes be easy and swift, but often they will be slow and frustrating. Many clients are understandably anxious for change to occur right away, but emotions, thoughts, attitudes, habits, and relationship patterns that have developed over years (sometimes decades) takes some time to change. 

Timeline:

Length of therapy varies depending on what you’d like to work on. To address a single trauma that happened fairly recently for example, can take a few sessions or even a single session to resolve. Processing old trauma or childhood abuse can take longer and can be affected by how it shows up in the present (like if perpetrators are still in your life or if you’re dealing with ongoing medical treatment).

Some people may prefer to do more rigorous, intensive work to resolve things that sometimes require sitting with unpleasantness internally for an extended time together within one session. Others may need a gentler approach that allows plenty of safe space in between sessions to do personal processing and learning.

Cost:

$160/session at Havenly Counseling Collective

What to Expect