What does it mean when we have internalized homophobia? When someone internalizes their family’s, religion’s, or culture’s negative attitudes and beliefs about being queer, this results in feelings of shame, guilt, and self-hatred. It is a common side effect of being raised in evangelical purity culture. When someone is raised in a high-control religion, they…
So you want to see a therapist. But how do you find the right one? Where do you even start with that? If you have health insurance coverage, you can go to your insurance website and get a list of names, but that tells you little-to-nothing about the actual therapists themselves. How do you know…
Purity culture. I didn’t have that name for it when I was young. I just heard over and over again that sex is only for married men and women, the end, full stop. To reinforce this, when I was 13 my parents gave me a gold ring to wear, with a little rose on it…
Clients often come to me utterly frustrated with their own negativity. They’re annoyed with their inner critic. They’re tired of a fearful outlook regularly ruining their days. They’re able to identify “negative self-talk,” and they want to know how to make it stop. They’re exhausted by worry and the thought of worst-case scenarios, and then…
I recently had the privilege to be interviewed by Savio P. Clemente at Authority Magazine, for his series entitled Taking the Leap: How to Learn to Believe in Yourself. In the series he interviews people from various disciplines and industries about why it’s important to believe in yourself and how you can get better at…
You’ve deconstructed and deconverted and haven’t been in a church in years, except for weddings and funerals. You’re pretty clear on your beliefs – or lack thereof. So is it possible that the old programming is still impacting your daily life? Absolutely. Here are several ways you may be seeing this stuff show up long…
Therapists are always learning. We are required to obtain ongoing education in order to maintain our licenses, but many of us learn because we love it. And I am one of them. So I recently completed a two-day intensive trauma treatment certification workshop. This trauma training was led by Dr. Arielle Schwartz, one of the…
Grief is a Rollercoaster. It takes us on a wild ride through multiple emotions. And not the fun kind of ride. Losing someone significant is never easy, and it can get more complicated when you’ve left behind your religious beliefs. Grieving when you are exvangelical, ex-Mormon, or any other “ex,” you may feel like you…
Florida’s state government has done at least one thing right (despite some of the horrible moves it has been making recently). It allows licensed, out-of-state mental health clinicians like me to provide telehealth (online) services. Now that I have been officially approved, I am excited to be able to connect with Florida clients, especially members…
CW: abortion ”Why should I care if my therapist is identified as secular? Don’t all therapists have to be unbiased with their clients?” This is a reasonable question. Psychotherapists do try to be unbiased about a great number of things, but we are also human beings. As licensed professionals, we are ethically obligated to, as…
For many LGBTQ+ exvangelical individuals, the process of leaving the evangelical Christian church and coming to terms with their sexuality can be a tough process. Often, the teachings of the church can instill feelings of shame, self-doubt, and self-criticism that linger long after leaving the faith, and this is even more true for queer and…
I had a recent, not-so-fun surprise: my appendix suddenly decided to freak out and ruin my week. I’ve never had to “listen to my gut” more acutely, when, within an hour or so, I went from thinking, “Is this just gas?” to wondering if I was actively dying. Fortunately my wife and I were both…
Do you struggle with feeling like nothing you do is ever quite good enough? Do you find that doing something 99% correct still feels like a failure? If so, you might be a perfectionist, and you are not alone. The good news is that we can challenge that tendency in a variety of ways, and…
Behavior change is hard. It can be so frustrating when we catch ourselves doing the old thing when we desperately want to be doing a new thing. Often we are painfully conscious of our patterns, watching them play out like a movie we have seen a thousand times before. It might be something mundane like compulsively checking your phone, or something complex like the way you express emotional reactivity in a relationship.
“And then, I just broke down.” We know this phrase. You’ve probably said it. I know I have. “I broke down” doesn’t mean you became sick, or that you suddenly couldn’t move your body, or that your brain stopped working. There’s no actual breaking down of anything. It simply means you cried. That’s it. More…
We all have bad days. Some worse than others. You might be feeling anxious, stressed, sad, disappointed, or all of the above. It’s a bit easier to cope with all of these big feelings when we have someone nearby to vent to, a therapy session scheduled for that afternoon, or a family member to call for…
The term “exvangelical” was coined in 2016 for folks who have walked away from the evangelical Christian religion. You might be an exvangelical if you feel a twinge of discomfort just seeing me refer to Christianity as a religion. I left the faith more than two decades ago, but that old trope still pops up…
Imagine being in a crisis, being brave and vulnerable enough to seek help, being persistent enough to actually connect with help, paying good money to access that help… only to find that the therapist you found doesn’t approve of who you are. This story recently surfaced about a young man named Caleb who was living…
If you’re considering Text Therapy among your approaches to better mental health, take a moment to read this article and consider what’s right for you.
We humans are independent thinkers… mostly. We have also evolved as social, tribal creatures, and we are hardwired to fit in with our group. We learn from the people around us – family, friends, classmates – whether we want to or not.
Check out my posts here for resources, links, suggestions, and reminders that you are not alone!
