Unpopular Truths #2

People usually come to therapy feeling hurt, stuck, or misunderstood — and often they’re right. 

You’ve been wronged. Someone betrayed you, ignored your needs, crossed your boundaries, or failed you in ways that left scars. 

So you sit down and tell the story. You talk about what they did — your partner, your parent, your boss, your friend. And at first, that’s exactly what you should do. You deserve to be heard. You need space to name the harm. 

But sooner or later, something starts to crack. 

You begin noticing patterns. You realize you keep dating the same kind of person. You keep saying yes when you mean no. You keep expecting people to read your mind, or withdrawing when they don’t. 

You start to see how you’re reacting to old wounds, how you’re avoiding hard truths, how your silence, your defensiveness, your choices might actually be feeding the very pain you want to escape. 

And then it hits you: 

I’m part of the problem. 

That moment hurts. It can feel like betrayal — like you’re betraying yourself by “blaming” yourself. 

But it’s actually the opposite. 

It’s the moment you stop waiting for someone else to fix it. It’s the moment you stop handing your power to the people who hurt you. 

Because if you’re even a little bit responsible for your suffering, then you’re also capable of ending it. 

Owning your part doesn’t erase what others did. It doesn’t mean you caused your trauma or deserved your pain. 

It just means you’ve decided to stop waiting for someone else to change— and start changing yourself. That’s where the real work begins.