The Therapy Gods Are Undefeated | Season Two: Episode 4
Disclaimer: I speak openly about my experience with heartbreak, grief, and loss in a romantic relationship context. My intention is to share reflection and lived experience that may be helpful to others in similar places. I protect privacy by using [Redacted] and speak only to my own story.
What this post is
This is a small window into how I process the world and myself. The tools I describe here have been invaluable to me, though I understand they may look like overthinking or reading into things that don’t matter. For me, they were the difference between being consumed by emotion and learning how to stay present inside it.
If you have your own processes that help you navigate life and loss, I genuinely enjoy hearing about them.
A little context
Denied reality has been one of the most powerful deterrents in battling mental blocks throughout my life. Until recently, I didn’t have the language to connect those dots, and that lack of understanding caused real delays in growth and a lot of frustration.
There’s no motivation quite like having your heart ripped out and thrown into the present moment.
It wasn’t that I needed obsessive proof or evidence for everything. It was that the amount of change required for survival demanded I finally trust myself.
A breakdown of the breakdown
Trying to condense 17–18 months into one post has been the hardest part of this series. I’ve deleted large sections repeatedly because emotion took over and the writing became overwhelmed. So here we go again.
The moment of panic
I was working in an elementary school as a paraeducator, moving through my days like a zombie. I kept telling myself everything was fine; that the pain couldn’t touch me there.
I carried a notebook and wrote constantly, as if I were trying to hand the pain to someone strong enough to hold it. I couldn’t track time. I was just surviving minute to minute.
Then lunch came.
After two weeks of holding it together, the panic finally took me down. I texted my life coach asking for an emergency call. She offered a time, and I drove to Walgreens.
The goal was to buy gum.
Instead, I stood there and cried. I’m sure the employee thought I was on drugs — honestly, I wished I were. All I could say through tears was that I was trying so hard not to text my ex, but I kept messing up, and I knew she would never talk to me again.
The store was busy, and for a moment I felt exposed like everyone could see exactly what was happening. I don’t know if they saw a breakdown or something they recognized from their own lives.
The employee hugged me.
I walked out with gum (I think I paid for it) and just enough relief to get through the rest of the day.
When my coach called, I sat in my car crying. We talked for about 25 minutes like a medic rushing in to wrap a wound in the middle of a war. I wasn’t healed. I was stabilized.
For the next six months, nearly all my energy went into regulation tools, journaling, and crying. A lot of crying.
Charting the pain patterns
I began tracking patterns obsessively because I needed to understand what was happening to me. I wasn’t trying to fix the pain. I was trying to stop being confused by it.
Here’s a simplified snapshot of what I tracked:
Anxiety / Panic
Racing thoughts, jittery body, overwhelm. Often tied to time pressure or overstimulation.
What helped: slowing down, breathing, reducing stimulation, and choosing one next step.
Missing [Redacted]
Racing thoughts, gut punch, tight chest. Triggered by memories or imagined futures that would never happen.
What helped: acknowledging the memory without feeding it and avoiding behaviors that intensified grief.
Freeze / Brain Fog
Heaviness, blank mind, exhaustion, defeat.
What helped: gentle movement, small tasks, and remembering this wasn’t laziness or failure.
Some days I froze. Some days, I collapsed. Some days, I functioned while feeling disconnected. Naming these states didn’t remove them, but it helped me stop fearing them.
The moment I started leading myself
Fast forward to a sunny day in July. I was running errands with my 8-year-old daughter: haircuts, Home Depot, food for Daisy the hedgehog, lunch, and picking up three rats (yes, three).
It was a genuinely good day. Hazel was thriving. I felt present.
While driving, I felt a flicker of anxiety, maybe panic. And then I heard this inner dialogue:
Great, now I’m panicked. I’m tired. Let’s go home.
No — this isn’t panic. This is ADHD. You’ve had a full day. This makes sense.
Are you sure?
Yes. You’re okay. We’re okay.
I smiled. My body softened before my brain could argue.
And I knew I wasn’t trapped anymore.
Not healed. Not finished. But no longer hijacked.
On the other side
What surprised me was that even as I felt steadier, grief still existed, and it was deeper than I expected. I didn’t regret loving [Redacted]. I wished I had understood myself better sooner.
Then there was the part no one prepares you for:
She ended it.
She left.
She didn’t look back.
I could email and know she wouldn’t respond.
I could text, and I knew she wouldn’t respond.
I could be in crisis — and she wouldn’t come.
That realization was brutal. I don’t recommend this Masterclass lesson.
The line I avoided reading
I didn’t want confirmation, not because I didn’t know, but because I did.
The truth was written on the walls, and I avoided looking, afraid that once I read it clearly, something in me would finally let go. That the illusion that she still lived inside me would fall away.
And it did.
Slowly. Unevenly. But enough.
I’m too whole now to negotiate with reality. Too stable to play dumb. Too honest to ask for proof I don’t need.
Trust exists in me now internally and externally.
If this is you
If your mind feels blank, your body feels weak, or you can’t tell whether you’re grieving or breaking; start by naming the state you’re in. Not to control it. To stop being afraid of it.
The goal isn’t to rush out of pain.
The goal is to stay with yourself inside it.
Up next: The next right thing.
With hugs and endless gratitude,
Katie