i don't know who i am

A lot of people come in to therapy for what can feel like a vague reason. Maybe they say it's a relationship issue. Or work. Or just feeling kind off or anxious. They've done what they were supposed to do. They've checked the boxes.

And then at some point, there's this quiet question: Is this all there is?

Sometimes it shows up like a crisis. People call it a mid-life crisis or a growing awareness of mortality. But a lot of the time, it is not really a crisis. It's more of a growing awareness and an opportunity. An opportunity to start feeling more connected after maybe feeling disconnected for a long time. Like you have been living a life that makes sense on paper, but feels like you have just been going through the motions, on autopilot.

I think a lot of people never learned or were never modelled how to be connected to themselves in the first place. We learned how to function. How to achieve. How to adapt. How to be what was needed to survive the environments that we grew up and existed in.

But we weren't taught to ask: What do I actually think? What do I actually want? Who am I when I am not playing a role? So when the question shows up later, it can feel unsettling. Not because something is wrong, but because it is unfamiliar. That doesn't have to be a negative thing. It doesn't have to mean everything is falling apart. It can be a kind of waking up.

Therapy can be one of the places where you're not playing a role. You're not trying to be a good partner, a good employee, a good friend, a good parent, a good neighbor. You're not managing how you're perceived. You're just there to figure out: What do I really think and feel? What parts of me were created for survival but now are no longer need? What do I need to grieve? What do I want to create now?

Therapy is one place you can start to figure out who you are when you are not performing or adapting.