Mental Health and Me

I did not have a life changing "burn my records" conversion moment. I was not introduced to God as an adult with baggage from a life lived sinfully. He was just always there, the way the furniture and pictures on the hallway walls were always there, the way my father was always there. Faith was not a thing I chose. It was the water I was born swimming into, and I did not know you could drown in faith until much later. Religious trauma does not always begin with a dramatic bre

You probably did not think of it as a cult. That is almost always how it starts. You found a community that finally told the truth, or at least told a version of it that made sense of things that had not made sense before. The belonging was real. The urgency felt justified. The sense of purpose was the most organized thing in your life for a while. And then something shifted. A small thing that did not add up. Then another. The story required you to ignore things you could no

You've probably read The Body Keeps the Score, or at least have it on your nightstand judging you. You know trauma lives in the body. You've done the research. You've watched the YouTube sessions, downloaded the apps, practiced bilateral tapping in your car before a hard conversation. You've been trying to do EMDR at home because something in you is still unfinished and you are not the kind of person who just waits around for it to fix itself. I'm a trauma therapist in Las V

If you’re wondering how long therapy takes, you’re not alone. One of the first questions people ask before starting trauma therapy or EMDR is: How many sessions will I need? Does therapy take years? How long does EMDR take to work? From October 2024 to October 2025, I tracked every trauma target reprocessed in my practice using EMDR. Not estimates. Not guesses. Actual data. Here’s what the numbers show. EMDR Therapy Results: One Year of Real Data In the last 12 months: 115 tr

If you’ve started therapy, journaling, EMDR, or other trauma or nervous system healing work and found yourself feeling more anxious, raw, or unsettled instead of better , you’re not imagining it. This is one of the most confusing parts of healing: You’re finally doing the right things, and somehow everything feels harder. For many people, this leads to a quiet panic: Did I break something? Am I doing this wrong? Shouldn’t healing feel… better? What’s usually happening isn’t f

Why So Many People Resist the Word Cult. If you read my guide on high-control environments and religious trauma , you may have felt uneasy at the idea of being in a cult. That hesitation shows up in my office more than almost anything else. Many people experiencing religious trauma, purity culture harm, or spiritual abuse struggle with that word. Your resistance to using the word "cult" isn't a sign that you're exaggerating. It's a sign that your nervous system is doing exact

You hold yourself to impossible standards. You push yourself harder than anyone else ever would. You don’t celebrate your wins because you’re already focused on what’s next. You feel like no matter how much you achieve, it’s never enough . On the outside, it looks like you have it all together. But on the inside? You’re exhausted, anxious, and always waiting for the moment when you finally feel worthy . If this sounds familiar, you’re not just dealing with high standards, yo

Setting boundaries sounds healthy in theory. But in practice, it can feel isolating, guilt-ridden, even punishing. Boundaries are supposed to protect you, yet they often leave you feeling cut off. Why does doing the healthy thing sometimes feel so bad? Why Setting Healthy Boundaries Can Feel Lonely Emotional Consequences of Setting Boundaries Unspoken contracts are invisible rules and expectations that exist (usually in families, but sometimes in friend dynamics as well). The

If you grew up in a high-control religious environment, or spent years inside one as an adult, you probably already know that leaving did not fix it. The anxiety is still there. The self-doubt. The hypervigilance that has no obvious target. The guilt that arrives even when you have done nothing wrong. The difficulty trusting your own perception of things. These are not character flaws and they are not signs that you have not worked hard enough on your healing. They are what a

You second-guess every decision. You struggle to know if your feelings are valid. You wonder if you can even trust your own mind. If trauma has made you doubt yourself, you’re not alone. One of the deepest wounds trauma leaves behind is self-distrust. Maybe you ignored your gut feeling once and something bad happened. Maybe someone you trusted betrayed you, leaving you unsure of your own judgment. Maybe you were taught that your thoughts, feelings, and instincts weren’t relia

If your chest tightens when someone starts quoting Scripture... If a worship song makes your stomach drop... If the word “obedience”  makes your shoulders tense... That’s not weakness. It's your nervous system doing what it was trained to do: protect you. For people healing from spiritual abuse, it’s common to feel stuck. Your body reacts like you are still in danger, even when your mind knows you are safe. That doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means your body rem

You keep telling yourself it wasn't that bad, or others had it worse. If that's true, why can't you shake this feeling? This ache? The wondering if you'll ever feel "normal." Maybe you watch some of the many documentaries on Netflix about cults and spiritual abuse and you feel confused. Something resonates deep within even though you never lived their lives. Or maybe weren't even a part of that particular religion. If this leaves you feeling confused, let's take a look at w

If you've been to therapy before and left feeling the same, or worse, you've probably asked yourself some version of this: Is something wrong with me?  Maybe you talked for months and nothing shifted. Maybe you could articulate your pain clearly and still couldn't stop doing the thing you were trying to stop. Maybe you liked your therapist fine and still felt stuck. Therapy not working isn't the same as you being beyond help. There's usually a reason why therapy didn't work,

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has become one of the most trusted and effective trauma therapies available today. As the gold standard for trauma treatment, many people are curious about whether they can get the benefits of EMDR without seeing a therapist. The short answer? Yes and no.  You can practice elements of EMDR on your own, but the deepest trauma healing happens with the guidance of a trained EMDR therapist. Read on to learn about how self-admin

You tell yourself it's just to take the edge off. Maybe it's a drink to unwind, a pill to fall asleep, or hours of scrolling and zoning out. You're not addicted. You're just trying to get through the day. But somewhere underneath that, you wonder: is this actually helping? Or is it covering something you haven't been willing to look at yet? Self-medicating is more common than most people realize, and it rarely starts as a problem. It starts as a solution. What Is Self-Medicat

Faith was supposed to feel like home. For a lot of people who grew up in high-control religious environments, it didn't. Or it did, until it didn't. Until the questions got too loud, the rules got too heavy, or the cost of staying became higher than the cost of leaving. If you've left a high-control faith and still feel the weight of it in your body, your relationships, and the way you talk to yourself, that is not weakness. That is religious trauma. And it is real. What Reli

You don’t feel much anymore. Not sadness. Not joy. Not even anger. Just a dull sense of going through the motions. Life feels muted, like you are watching it happen rather than living it. Even when good things occur, it’s hard to connect emotionally. You want to care—but it feels like something inside you has shut down. This isn’t a character flaw. It isn’t you being broken. This is emotional numbness , and it is a protective response your nervous system created to help you s

You wake up already tired. Conversations feel like too much. You’re just trying to get through the day, but even the things that once brought you joy now feel like a chore. You are not being lazy. You are not weak. You are emotionally exhausted. Emotional exhaustion happens when your mind and body are stretched too thin for too long. If you’ve been feeling depleted, burned out, or disconnected, you’re not alone. And more importantly, you don’t have to live this way forever. L

My puppy Miley (12 years ago!) learning to listen to me and gain impulse control. Many people come to therapy not knowing what to expect. Relief can happen pretty quickly, and it’s also common to feel exhausted, emotionally drained, and even a little confused about why healing feels so demanding. Trauma-focused therapy can feel challenging, and often that's actually a sign that deep healing is happening. For many people, this exhaustion shows up when a nervous system that has

You want to trust. To feel safe with someone. To believe that love can be consistent, secure, and lasting. But no matter how much you try, something inside holds back. Maybe you feel like you always have to stay alert. Maybe you keep people at a distance before they have the chance to leave you. Maybe a part of you believes that trust is dangerous, because in your past, trusting meant getting hurt. If childhood trauma  has made it hard to trust in relationships, you are not a