Caring Bridge

Blessings come in many shapes and forms. I am very blessed and privileged to witness the healing, growth and resilience in my therapy room. When we can heal our life, we heal others in our lives. Caring bridge is a place my patients can write to those who have similar struggles in life, and how therapy helped them. My hope is to destigmatize mental health service, and more people can read the healing stories...

" I can look at my heart and allow myself to deal with the guilt, profound loss, and powerlessness"
  As a nurse who has served on the frontlines overseas in an extremely underprivileged area of the world, COVID rocked us in ways that we never could have predicted or been prepared for. Being surrounded by complete desperation and constantly facing death became exhausting. I knew that I was suffering from moral injury as well as some PTSD, but there was never time to deal with it. I had a job to do and so I kept moving forward.
  As medical providers we learn how to compartmentalize; we give all we have for one patient and then we have to put our emotions and that situation in a neat little box off to the side so that we can put on a happy and brave face to start all over again in the next room with the next patient, but sometimes we aren’t so good at going back to those neat little boxes where all of our emotions and hurt and grief reside.
  When I could finally look up and breath I knew that I needed help, but I never knew just how much help I needed and how profoundly I had been affected. Counseling has helped me to finally start to heal. It has provided a space and a time where I can look at my heart and allow myself to deal with the guilt, profound loss and powerlessness that I pushed aside for months on end. If you have experienced any of these same feelings, or have been on the fence about whether or not it would be beneficial to seek out help, I would like to encourage you to let counseling help you. Just because we’re the ones who are supposed to be level-headed, strong and respond to need, doesn’t mean that we are not going to be marked by the hard things that we see and deal with on a day to day basis. Counseling has been such a blessing to me and I know that it will be a blessing to you as well.

“The ability to build up a complete core self is fundamental to live a joyful
life”
I grew up in Mainland China and came to the US for graduate school in the 2010s. I was fortunate to have received the best education I could ever imagine. I was also unfortunate that my original family was broken, with a left father and a manipulative mother. These two backgrounds shaped me; although I was envied by many for my knowledge and job, I lacked self-worth very severely. I came to Chiajou with all these problems. Throughout the 1.5 years I worked with her, she has helped me learn many priceless things that will carry lifelong benefits. I summarize the three most significant components below:
First, she helped me figure out how my lack of boundaries in my original family was affecting me. I gradually realize that I don’t need to be responsible for other people’s emotions or behaviors. Because of this, I can leave the long-term enmeshment with my mom. This helps me feel a lot of freedom when interacting with intimate ones. With this freedom, I no longer feel obligated or suffocated in these intimate relations, and I can start to receive and give love genuinely.
Second, the ability to build up a complete core self is fundamental to whether I can live a joyful life. This includes developing a clear awareness of my own emotion, building a healthy relationship network around me, having things that I enjoy doing when I am with myself and seeing a purpose for my career and my life.
Last and most importantly, as I am a Christian, Chiajou guided me to deeply root my self-identity in the love of Jesus Christ, my Savior. This means that now I believe from the bottom of my heart what Bible teaches me, that God loves me so much not because of what I have done or who I am, but because God is love.

“I look forward to continuing my journey of self-love”
My time with Chiajou has been invaluable. In our time together, I have learned to work through my childhood traumas, nurture my inner child, and face my emotions instead of running away from them. My relationships with my family and friends have significantly improved because I now understand myself better. I have learned how to navigate difficult conversations and clearly
articulate my feelings, wants, and dislikes.
I feel more secure and confident about myself, which was an initial goal I had set before starting therapy with Chiajou. At the time, I was about to enter a leadership role and take on the next step in my career. I knew feelings of self-doubt and imposter syndrome would come up as I transitioned into this new chapter of my career, and that I would need help processing and
overcoming these feelings. Chiajou helped me work through these emotions, question them, and
explore them more deeply, and she challenged me to reframe my negative self-talk.
I am not a finished product- a work in progress, still. But I have grown so much since my first therapy session with Chiajou, and I feel proud of the progress I have made so far. I am excited and look forward to continuing my journey of self-love together with Chiajou.

“Therapy taught me I do have the power to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma”
Growing up in an abusive home, a bad neighborhood, and in a Latin culture where talking about your emotions was not accepted, it was really hard to feel happy, joy or even heard. Therapy was frowned upon and as I got older, I asked myself how can I break this vicious cycle? The cycle of violence in my family, the cycle of stigmatism of mental health, the cycle of always thinking my traumatic childhood was my fault. I started therapy in my 30's and never had an ounce of regret. It has taught me that I do have the power to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma. I have the power to make my life better. Now a year later of therapy I feel stronger, happier than I ever have felt. 

“I started to think more positively”
It's an amazing recovery journey with Chiajou. It was the most important four months of my life. I couldn’t imagine what will happen if I didn’t ask Chiajou for help.
I’m a full-time mother and housewife. My baby was born in the year of the Covid-19 outbreak. The arrival of the new life and the outbreak of the pandemic have made a huge change in my life. I want to make sure my baby safe from the virus, so I didn't dare to meet too many friends, I kept them away from me, even though I really need social connections. I felt very depressed and irritable. I lost myself and had a lot of quarrels with my husband. I started sinking deeper and deeper into unhealthy thinking patterns and worried about everything.
Luckily, I decided to ask Chiajou for help. Chiajou is very supportive, patient, and professional. With her help, I gradually changed myself. I started to think more positively instead of negatively. I started to act; do it right now rather than just worry. I'm so grateful for Chiajou's help. Therapy changed me better and simpler. If you're suffering from postpartum depression and struggling a new mom, I encourage you to seeking help. Don't care other people’s thoughts, you deserve a treatment to help you find a better self.

“Grief has no endpoint, but I learned how to carry it”
When I was 19, I lost my mom to advanced Multiple Sclerosis. She was diagnosed when I was around 2 or 3 years old, and we had a very special bond. She was an immigrant from Iran, so I helped her navigate life in America while figuring it out for myself too. Despite her illness, she was the most amazing mother a girl could ask for. She never let her disability get in the way of
being a good parent, sister, friend, and wife….

I decided to go to therapy 2.5 years after her passing when I was amidst a breakup from a long-term relationship and dealing with workplace conflict. I would call this my “low.” At this time, I was using drugs regularly and drinking. I was associating myself with people who didn’t respect me or care about me. When I started working with Chiajou, she could tell that my issues with
self-respect and low self-esteem were just unresolved grief. I wanted to deal with it and be better, but I didn’t know how. I even asked her if she could give me a timeline for when “I would be better.” Chiajou couldn’t give me a definitive timeline for when I would be “better” but she certainly gave me the tools and care I needed. I’ve learned that grief has no endpoint,
the only thing that can change is how you carry it. I will always carry the sadness of losing my mom. I hate that she won’t be here to see me defend my Ph.D., get married, and have kids. But through therapy, I have learned that I also carry her love and warmth. I am constantly reminded of her in the way that I live my life. Chiajou reminds me that not living my life to the fullest
would be an injustice to my mom and her sacrifices. I still have work to do but I truly feel like it’s moments like these that make life worth living when you can come out of the “fog” of grief and sadness and start to genuinely enjoy and appreciate life.

“I acquire self-regulate skills, and increase self-awareness, self-acceptance”
  Therapy was (and in many ways still is) anathema to me as I am a very private and reserved person. I am so grateful, however, for the opportunities that therapy has provided me. 
  Therapy has had an immediate and important impact on my life. I've noticed a weight lifted off my chest - specifically, negative feelings about myself and uncertainty about my own identity (as an adopted child grew up in a different racial background family). The biggest difference for me has been acquiring the skills to self-regulate and increase self-awareness. I am now more conscious of my own thoughts and emotions and how my thoughts and emotions interact and reinforce each other.  Although I foresee implementing these changes to be a lifelong process, I feel that my relationships with family, friends and myself have grown deeper and more fulfilling through my discussions and self-exploration with Chiajou.

“Everyone can benefit from therapy”

As a survivor from the China Cultural Revolution many years ago, my work with Chiajou has completely changed my life. Therapy transformed me from a person with a low self-value and low self-esteem, to a self-respected and confident person. I understood the importance of self-care. I was overly anxious, and always communicating in a very negative tone with my family members. As a result, my family relationship suffered for many years due to my own unsolved trauma. Now I am willing to let go of my rigid standards of how others should be (or should live their lives). I believe and trust each family member can live a good life, I don’t need to be too worried about things.
I want to say I believe everyone can benefit from therapy, as long as you have the willingness to change. It is very important to be honest with your therapist, and not be paralyzed by self-shame (I was not honest with my first therapist before Chiajou). I hid my true feelings and genuine thoughts thus I suffered more years.
I enjoy my life very much now as I threw away two decades of hiding from trauma. I finally live like a normal human being!