Allison Sherman Counseling

04/18/2026

DBT Skills : Understanding Dialectical Thinking. Examples of dialectics - where opposites can co-exist.

04/11/2026

You can be doing well and still feel like everything is going wrong.

One small mistake turns into “I always mess up”.
One comment becomes “they must think badly of me”.
One bad day feels like a disaster.

This is how the mind can trick you. It fills in gaps, focuses on the negative, and convinces you it is all true. Overthinking, anxiety and low mood often start here.

But thoughts are not facts. They are patterns - and patterns can change.

Learning to notice these thinking traps is a powerful step towards feeling calmer, more in control, and kinder to yourself.

Free COMMON THINKING TRAPS POSTER

LIKE the photo and comment "TRAPS" and we will send you a message with a link to a free PDF of this resource.

04/10/2026

It's the one day that
you don't have to circle on the calendar,
you don’t forget this date.
It lives in you. 🖤

04/09/2026

They don’t see it…
the conversations I still have with you.

In the car.
In the kitchen.
In the silence that gets too loud at night.

I still say your name
like you’re right here beside me.

Because to me…
you are.

This isn’t something I move on from.
This is something I carry
in every breath I take.

I am still your mom.
And I will love you
in every world that exists.

04/09/2026

This one is hard to sit with because the feelings are so real. The fear, the pull, the way you can't imagine life without them even when life with them isn't good. That intensity can feel like love. It's modeled as love in almost every movie and song that's ever existed. But intensity and love are not the same thing.

Love feels like peace with moments of passion. What you're describing when you say you can't leave even though you're not happy is attachment. Possibly anxious attachment, possibly trauma bonding, but not the kind of love that's actually good for you.

We've had conversations about this with ourselves and with couples we've worked with. The question isn't how much you feel. It's what those feelings are actually made of.

You call it love but it feels more like survival. That distinction matters more than most people realize.

04/08/2026

04/05/2026

There was a time in my life where I felt guilty every time I rested.
Because needing more rest meant being less productive.
And being less productive meant less worthy.
As I was battling with chronic fatigue, brain fog, and nervous system overload for years... feeling FORCED to take "rest" felt like a punishment.
On top of that, I felt like I was missing out on life because of how much rest I needed to take
The reality that no patient wants to accept is that when you're dealing with toxins, infections, immune dysfunction, nervous system dysregulation...
Your body does not have the same energy production capacity as someone who is not dealing with these stressors.
But the comparison trap was REAL.
It didn't feel fair that my battery was constantly running on E when there were people I knew who took far less care of their bodies than I did who were 10 times more functional than me.
The guilt and resentment were too real
And honestly, when I had to rest, it didn't FEEL like rest at all. It felt like I was just constantly "pausing" my life.
And this continues to be one of the most common patterns I see with my clients in my clinic as well dealing with chronic illness, autoimmune issues, and mystery symptoms...
They live in this constant battle with themselves.
Feeling exhausted... but trying to just push harder.
Feeling overwhelmed... but doing everything possible to keep going.
Until the body eventually forces you to slow down.
And until we embrace that our physiology intelligently shifts into a conservation mode when facing toxins, infections, and stressors...
We'll continue to become more dysregulated from holding resentment that our body is requiring more rest in this season vs embracing it so we can heal
And one of the most helpful things that you can do while you're addressing whatever stressors are impacting you is to intentionally regulate your nervous system. It absolutely changes the speed at which you heal. – Biohacking Bombshell

04/05/2026

Gaslighting is a second trauma layered right over the first.
You do not have to debate your own lived experience to make someone else comfortable.

04/05/2026

When you grow up in an environment where other people's emotions determined your safety, your body learns a very specific rule:

"If they're not okay, I'm not safe."

That's why disappointment can feel so activating, even when it has nothing to do with you.

For some trauma survivors, this trigger creates panic and urgency:
→ "Fix it now."
→ "Make it better."
→ "Don't let anything fall apart."
This is the nervous system trying to prevent abandonment before it happens.

For others, the same trigger creates resentment and exhaustion:
→ "Why is it always on me?"
→ "Why do I have to hold everyone together?"
This is the nervous system saying, "I'm tired of carrying emotional responsibility that was never mine."

Different reactions.
Same wound.

Because when your worth was tied to keeping the peace, your body learned to make other people's emotions your job, even at the expense of your own needs, boundaries, and voice.

Healing this pattern is not about shutting down your empathy. It's about learning how to stay connected without self-abandonment and without absorbing what was never yours to manage. – Amy Fiedler

04/05/2026

Some children did not become quiet because that was their personality.

They became quiet because it felt safer.

In some homes, being seen meant being criticized.
Being expressive meant being shut down.
Having needs meant being ignored, mocked, or treated like a problem.

So the child adapts.

They speak less.
They hide more.
They keep their feelings to themselves.
They learn how not to take up too much space.

From the outside, this may look like independence, maturity, or being "easy."

But often, it is a survival response.

It is a child learning that visibility comes with risk.

And those patterns can follow people into adulthood.

They may struggle to express their needs.
They may feel uncomfortable being fully seen.
They may minimize their pain, avoid vulnerability, or disappear inside relationships.

Not because they have nothing to say.
Not because they do not want connection.

But because a part of them learned very early that being noticed did not always feel safe.

Healing begins when people understand that silence was not always their nature.
Sometimes it was protection.

And slowly, they can begin to reclaim their voice, their needs, and the space they were always allowed to take. —

03/28/2026

Check out Katie | Therapist | LCSW’s video.

03/26/2026

Some people believe that only the loss of a loved one should trigger a grief response but we now know that grief is not a response to death but to loss, of all kinds, and ought to be honored.