Every Sunday around 5pm, something in my chest used to tighten. Nothing bad had happened. Nothing bad was actually happening. But my body had already started rehearsing Monday—the emails waiting, the meetings lined up, the small uncertainties about how the week would unfold. It took me longer than I would like to admit to learn … Read more
I was eleven the first time I talked my mother down from a panic attack, and by thirteen I had a mental map of which of my father’s moods meant I should get my younger brother out of the house. Nobody sat me down and assigned me this role. I just became the one who … Read more
A client once told me, almost apologetically, that she felt lonelier lying next to her husband than she ever had living alone in her twenties. She expected me to be surprised. I wasn’t. Relational loneliness — that specific ache of being physically close to someone while feeling emotionally unreachable to them — is one of … Read more
A couple I worked with once apologized for having a fight in front of me during a session, as if the conflict itself was evidence of failure. I remember the wife looking embarrassed, the husband’s jaw tight with frustration. I told them what I have come to believe after sixteen years of listening to people … Read more
For years I described my closeness with my mother as “we’re just really close.” We spoke every day, I ran every decision past her, and any distance she showed me could ruin my whole week. It took a long time, and a fair bit of discomfort, to recognise that what I was calling closeness had … Read more
I don’t have children. I’ve never changed a nappy, negotiated screen time, or sat through a parents’ evening. So when I first picked up Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gabor Maté and Gordon Neufeld, I approached it with the kind of curiosity you reserve for books … Read more
I first heard about Gabor Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry approach during a particularly difficult year. A friend kept mentioning it in conversations about therapy, about why she kept repeating the same patterns, about why her therapist kept asking questions instead of giving advice. I was curious—and, if I’m honest, a little skeptical. Could a method that … Read more
I finished The Myth of Normal on a Tuesday evening, sitting on my kitchen floor with a cold cup of tea. Not because I was devastated — though parts of it were hard to read — but because I needed to sit with what Gabor Maté had just articulated so clearly: the exhaustion I’ve felt … Read more
I was sitting in a coffee shop when my sister mentioned her ex-partner’s latest stint in rehab. We’d known him for years — bright, funny, capable of real kindness. And completely consumed by alcohol. I remember feeling the familiar frustration rising: Why can’t he just stop? What’s wrong with him? My pick: Stops blaming addiction … Read more
I found Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté on a Tuesday afternoon, pulled from a library shelf by nothing more than curiosity and a vague sense of recognition. I don’t have a formal ADHD diagnosis. But as I read the first chapter, something shifted. Maté wasn’t describing a disorder or a character flaw—he was describing me. … Read more