Life is hard, plain and simple. Life is even more difficult when you or a loved one are struggling with mental health and people around you are constantly invalidating and dismissing those real emotions. The stigma that surrounds mental health is powerful—it can make the idea of therapy seem as though there is something wrong with you, when in reality, there is such power in realizing you need help and reaching out for it. I am someone who would have highly benefited from therapy growing up, to help me understand what I was experiencing and to help normalize it, rather than sit with the feelings alone and internalize them – which led to me creating a narrative about myself that induced major shame and guilt. I knew I wanted to be a therapist when I finally began to acknowledge and reflect on the parts of my life that I had avoided in the past, and desired to help others do the same, so they could free themselves of those burdens and move forward.