I don’t really have an essay today, but I wanted to share some thoughts.
I’ve been thinking about how I choose to decenter my LCSW credential on Substack. It informs my writing, but I don’t lead with it.
I thought other therapists might relate to, benefit from, or be curious about what that looks like. Maybe people who seek therapy will, too.
What if there’s nothing wrong with us? And what if there never was?
What if the symptoms we pathologize are actually intelligence? What if the pain isn’t a sign of disorder, but a signal that we’ve been forced to fragment ourselves just to belong?
Consider this: one of the most common diagnoses in the DSM-5 is adjustment disorder. Essentially, we’re pathologizing people’s difficulty adjusting to systems that may be causing their suffering in the first place. We’re medicating their resistance to toxic environments instead of questioning those environments.
For years, I worked inside a system that trained me to call that fragmentation “diagnosis.” I’m an LCSW with a master’s degree, thousands of supervised hours, and the state’s permission to treat, bill, and code for the conditions I observe in people. But the longer I stayed in the system, the more I felt something essential recoil within me. The DSM didn’t feel like healing. It felt like translating human suffering into a language coded for billing that left the soul entirely out of the equation.
Then I came across a quote by psychiatrist and spiritual teacher Dr. Thomas Hora:
All problems are psychological; all solutions are spiritual.
I felt it land in my body like a tuning fork. This wasn’t about discarding clinical skills. It was about reclaiming something I already knew on a deeper level. Wholeness isn’t found through labels or interventions. It’s found through presence, through witnessing, through truth-telling without the mask.
That was the moment I stepped away from institutional roles, from insurance panels and pathology-based practice, and built something smaller and truer. I was able to step away—but I know not everyone can. There’s a privilege in being able to refuse the roles the system assigns, and I don’t take that lightly.
I don’t have a name for what I do now. I just know that when I stopped performing “therapist” and started showing up as myself, something shifted. Not just in my work. In everything.
I remember the first time I said, out loud, “I don’t know,” and didn’t follow it with theory or technique. Just silence. The client didn’t flinch. She exhaled. We met there. And it changed the way I understood what healing actually meant.
I used to think something was wrong with me. Too different. Too personal. Too fucked up. But the more I let myself show up fully, the more the work started to feel real. Not clinical. Not theoretical. Just real. And the people I sat with felt it too.
The day I realized I was expected to trade human complexity for professional credibility was the day I knew something was broken. And it wasn’t me.
Turns out I was just too human for a system built on patriarchy. Maybe that’s the gift. Being the one who doesn’t fit means being the one who can see where the seams are, and where the soul leaks out.
What I’ve come to believe is this. When we draw from our whole selves, our presence becomes the medicine. Our insights are shaped not just by textbooks but by experience. Our boundaries aren’t rigid walls. They are rooted in integrity. Our humanity doesn’t interfere with the work. It deepens it.
This is not about oversharing or collapsing into our clients. It means standing in the full truth of who we are, past and present, scarred and sovereign, and letting that authenticity shape the space we hold. There’s no certificate for wholeness. No modality to master. Just a commitment to live the integration you invite others into.
Some days you’ll feel strong. Other days, cracked open. But either way, you show up as yourself. Not as a mask. Not as a role. As a presence.
The people we serve aren’t asking for perfection. They’re asking for permission to be messy, wise, tender, angry, and alive.
If you’ve ever felt like you were too much, or not enough, or somehow defective for not fitting the mold, you’re not alone. That pressure to split yourself isn’t your failure. It’s the system’s design.
And wholeness is not a betrayal of the work. It’s what the work is for.
We give that permission by going first. We give it by living the truth:
There’s nothing wrong with us.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
(And there never was.)
For me, I could no longer contain the unbearable pain of a family narrative that marginalized my history, lineage, and truth.
Evidently, family estrangement is common. It’s just that we’ve become more aware of it. I can attest that it’s extremely painful. I don’t recommend it. Unless your life is at stake. And who gets to decide that? You do. For me, I could no longer contain the unbearable pain of a family narrative that marginalized my history, lineage, and truth. I didn’t make a grand announcement. Instead, no-contact unfolded and evolved out of the moment-by-moment choice to thine own self be true, which is my North Star. As the family scapegoat, it ultimately became necessary for my survival.
The mechanism behind this kind of family dysfunction is narrative tyranny - a system where controlling the story matters more than truth:
I release my parents from the feeling that they have already failed me.
I release my children from the need to bring pride to me; that they may write their own ways according to their hearts that whisper all the time in their ears.
I release my partner from the obligation to complete myself.
I do not lack anything; I learn with all beings all the time.
I thank my grandparents and ancestors who gathered so that I can breathe life today.
I release them from past failures and unfulfilled desires, aware that they did the best they could with the consciousness they had at that moment.
I honor you—I love you—and recognize your innocence.
I am transparent before your eyes, so you know I owe nothing other than being true to myself and walking with the wisdom of the heart.
I am aware that I’m fulfilling my life purpose, free from visible and invisible family loyalties that might disturb my peace and happiness—my greatest responsibilities.
I renounce the roles of savior or martyr, of being one who unites or fulfills others’ expectations.
Learning through—and only through—LOVE, I bless my essence and the way I express it, even if someone can’t understand me.
I understand myself because only I have lived and experienced my history; I know who I am, what I feel, what I do—and why.
I respect and approve of myself.
I honor the Divinity in me and in you.
We are free.
— Prayer of uncertain origin, often attributed to Aztec tradition
One Thing
Read this prayer [above] daily for the next week. Notice which lines feel most difficult to say or believe about yourself - those are the places where old narratives still have power. Pay attention to what comes up when you say “I respect and approve of myself” or “We are free.”
For a beautiful spoken version, listen here.
On Repeat
I love this song for the way it holds the parts, patterns, feelings- all the human contradictions- in one space:
Shout Out
We gradually realize that we are not primarily the collection of parts, patterns, feelings, and stories we've identified with, but the awareness that can hold all of these with loving presence.
Substack Scrolling is like a treasure hunt. I stumble across the most exquisite voices on a regular basis.
features three seminal posts: The Essence of Healing (linked above), The Architecture of Safety, and The Alchemy of Attunement, which I highly recommend. I look forward to reading more of Daniel’s work.If you’re new here:
I help people recognize that there’s nothing wrong with them (and there never was).
Drawing from my LCSW background and breaking free from systems that insisted I was broken, I challenge the most pervasive lie in human culture: that we’re fundamentally flawed. What we’ve been taught is backward - wholeness, not brokenness, is our starting point.
Your wholeness is the fundamental fact of your existence and cannot be violated.
For misfits, scapegoats, and conformists tired of buying into the lie of perfection - and brave enough to fulfill the blueprint of who they were made to BE.
When you press the heart ❤️🔥 it helps the algorithm so others can find my work. Your comments are gold, and your shares make me happy.
Would I also love a cup of coffee?
Kelly, I loved this whole essay. I could have quoted back to you the whole thing. But everything from this declaration on was golden: "But the longer I stayed in the system, the more I felt something essential recoil within me. The DSM didn’t feel like healing. It felt like translating human suffering into a language coded for billing that left the soul entirely out of the equation."
What a fabulous piece, written with such clarity.