Therapy for When You Feel Like You're Falling Behind
(and need help figuring out why)
Shawna Sullivan, MSW, LICSW
Maybe you're doing okay
Or okay enough
You get up, you go to work, you make it through the day. But somewhere underneath that, something's off.
And you can't quite name it.
Maybe it's that you feel like you work and you sleep, and not much else. Maybe it's that you go through waves of being on top of things, and then completely scattered; like you become a different person overnight. Maybe you're the one who keeps the peace, who bites your tongue, who's gotten so good at not causing a problem that
you've forgotten how to say what you actually need.
None of that makes you broken. It makes you a person who's been holding a lot, for a long time,
without much room to put it down.
How I work
I won't just nod along. If something you're doing isn't working for you, I'll tell you, gently, but honestly. Clients tell me that's what they end up valuing most: having someone on their side who's also willing to say the harder true thing.
That kind of honesty doesn't come from nowhere. Before and alongside this work, I spent years advocating for people going through some of the hardest chapters of their lives — including families facing a loved one's serious illness, where I saw firsthand how much gets missed when no one's willing to say the whole truth out loud. It's part of why I show up the way I do in a session.
You don't have to have the right words yet. You don't have to know what's "wrong." You just have to be willing to start.
New to therapy? Or it didn't work before?
Both of those are okay to bring into the room.
If you've never done this, you don't need to know how it's "supposed" to go. There's no script to get right. We'll figure out how to talk to each other as we go.
And if you've tried therapy before and it didn't help — that's not a sign that something's wrong with you, or that therapy just isn't for you. Sometimes it's about fit. Sometimes it's about timing. Sometimes the person across from you wasn't willing to be honest when it mattered. Whatever it was, it doesn't mean this time has to go the same way.
You don't have to be ready to talk about everything in the first session. You don't even have to know where to start. That's allowed.