What happens when the “good girl” realizes she can’t pass therapy?

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Did I mention I found a therapist?

Yes. Life coaching and therapy happening side by side.
Because apparently I’m the kind of high-achiever who tries to optimise her unravelling too.

This was my first therapy session, and I thought I was just going in for maintenance.

I was nervous.
Not really sure what I was walking into.

But I was ready to go into it.

If I’m honest, part of me had always been curious about human behaviour.
Back at that crossroads in school, when everyone was deciding what they wanted to become, I actually wanted to study psychology.

By then my grades had already started slipping.
I wasn’t the perfect A-star student anymore.

But I still looked like I was trying.

In reality, I was mostly zoning out.
Going to school for the social part.
Submitting everything at the last minute because I had to.

I had no real interest.

But I still played the part.
The good, likeable student.

When I told my parents I wanted to study psychology, they scoffed.
“You want to talk to mentally ill people?”
The way they reacted, you’d think I had just told them I wanted to go to the moon.

Since they were paying for it, I did what they told me to do instead.
I studied business.

Growing up, I had seen therapy on Western TV shows.
So it must be somewhat helpful, right?

In Asia, we don’t talk about feelings.
We sweep everything under the rug.

Turns out when you spend decades doing that, eventually you trip over it.
In some ways, that moment had already started when everything cracked open in my near-death experience in Catalyst.

So imagine how unfamiliar this all felt to me.
Sitting there, talking about myself, my feelings, my thoughts.

Therapy, in my head, was cinematic.
Tears. Breakthroughs. A tissue box moment.

Something that would justify the fee.

When we started, she looked adorable.
A white woman, brunette. Friendly. Approachable.
Like someone I could trust.

We started talking.

By this point I had done some reading.
Listened to podcasts.
Started learning the language.

Boundaries. Nervous systems. Attachment styles.

I knew the words.

I am, after all, a good girl.

Functional.
High-performing.
Self-aware.

The kind of person who goes to therapy as the next step of growth, not collapse.

She started explaining her approach.

She’s a CBT therapist.

Structured.
Grounded.
Calm.

There are frameworks.
Worksheets.
A plan.

I like that.

It feels efficient.
Contained.

We will identify the distorted thoughts.
We will challenge them.
We will optimise.

See?

I can do therapy well.

Then the topic of childhood appears.

Neutrally…

And I start speaking.

At first it feels normal.
Factual.
Like I’m narrating someone else’s life.
The kind of calm that feels stable on the surface.

The way you do when you’ve been running on autopilot for years.

Then suddenly I start sobbing.
Not the controlled kind. Not the composed kind.
The kind that comes out of nowhere and takes over your body, where you can’t breathe properly.

She stays quiet.
Watching.
Waiting.

Then she asks, gently,

“Have you experienced childhood trauma?”

The word lands in the room like it doesn’t belong to me.
Trauma feels… excessive.
Like a word meant for someone else’s story.

I didn’t have one of those stories.

No headline.
No courtroom drama.

Just… a collection of small, sharp things.

I cry even harder.
The air feels thinner.

Eventually I calm down.
She looks at me carefully and says,

“I don’t think CBT will be enough for you.”
“You might need a therapist who specialises in trauma.”

Suddenly I’m back in the room.

Excuse me?
I barely said anything.
I hadn’t even explained what happened to me yet.

So I’m too messed up for you then.

The good girl in me wants to pass therapy.
To be fixable.
Manageable within six to eight sessions.

I don’t want to be the case that needs referring out.
I don’t want to be “too complex.”

Damn it.

I guess this won’t be a quick, easy fix.

But what if therapy isn’t about becoming better at surviving…
what if it’s about realising
I shouldn’t have had to survive like that
at all.