Ascent Healing

Growing up, for many reasons, I was taught to hate or be afraid of therapists/therapy. I assume this was to stop me from ever telling the truth about the abuse so it could continue. I was told many different things about Psychology such as “Its of the devil” “You will be excommunicated from the church” “They put lies in your head” “They ruin your faith” etc. From the time I was little, I was deathly afraid of certain words like “depression” and other mental health topics. I would have nightmares of therapists trying to get me to talk and almost torturing information out of me which I would resist. Despite all these barriers, however, I was always fascinated by the topic while at the same time it was terrifying because that fear was pretty much engrained.

In my picture, I use lyrics from Moana because in a lot of ways I was like Moana being drawn or “called” to the water even though I knew it was forbidden by my family. My family wanted me to become a concert pianist and I was very good at the piano and won many competitions at a college level. But something kept drawing me to Psychology or “to the water” so to speak and I couldn’t drop that fascination. I took my first class in Psychology in high school and it came very easily to me. Everything made sense.

When I went to college, I was mainly studying music as a major but I kept taking Psychology classes on the side as almost a hobby of sorts. One day, a friend of mine asked me “why Psychology?” I told them I “craved it” like it was in my blood. And so they asked me then why I was taking music classes. I realized they were right. I loved music. But I loved Psychology more. So much to my family’s dismay, I changed my major to Psychology. Of course, this made them furious at me. I was going against everything I had been taught my whole life. I wanted to be the thing my family hated so much.

When I was 18 years old, I started seeking my own private therapist in secret at Weber State University in efforts to resolve my own depression and figure out what was wrong with me mentally. That was the start of my journey of healing from the profound abuse that had occurred in my family and all around me. I was able to keep it a secret for about 6 months before my parents found out and at first they wouldn’t even believe I was capable of doing this. I know it sounds silly- like seeing a therapist is such a basic thing now-a-days but in my family this was like a huge betrayal.

26 years later, here I am a therapist myself, and I feel like this is my calling in life. I love being able to help people and am humbled by their trust in me at sharing their pain and grief as I walk on their healing journeys with them. So in answer to this question of why I became a therapist, it probably had a lot to do with facing my own inner demons and my desire to heal, but also I wanted to be that “healing helper” for other people as well.