Coastal Counseling LLC

10/08/2025

09/30/2025

This right here!!!

They asked me what I've been up to lately and I didn’t know how to say, “Healing generational trauma, current life trauma, slaying my inner demons, holding my inner child, expanding my nervous system out of survival mode, and becoming a literal unshakeable badass.” So instead, I laughed it off and said, “Not much, you?” Because how do you explain to someone in a casual conversation that you’ve been doing the kind of inner work most people spend their whole lives avoiding? How do you casually mention that you’ve been pulling yourself out of survival mode, teaching yourself how to breathe again without fear, and giving your inner child the love, protection, and patience they never got?

The truth is, every day feels like a silent victory. I’ve been confronting wounds that were never mine to carry, releasing pain that was passed down through generations, and learning that strength isn’t about pretending everything’s fine—it’s about facing the darkness head-on and refusing to let it win. I’ve been unlearning the lies I was told, shedding identities that were forced on me, and discovering who I actually am underneath all the armor I built to survive.

It’s not the kind of update you can fit into small talk. It’s messy, exhausting, and overwhelming at times, but it’s also beautiful. I’m rebuilding my foundation from scratch, becoming someone softer yet stronger, someone who doesn’t just survive but thrives. So yeah, when they asked, I kept it simple. But the real answer is—I’ve been busy becoming the version of myself I used to only dream of.

06/20/2025

They don’t owe us for existing. We owe them a safe space to grow, make mistakes, and become who they’re meant to be. That’s the job. Period.

04/13/2025

Childhood under a narcissistic mother is a paradox no child should face—loving the hand that hits you, depending on the person who destabilizes you, and finding “safety” in the eye of a storm. If this was your reality—if you were forced to navigate a caregiver who harmed as much as they “provided”—know this:

Your survival was a masterpiece of resilience.

You learned to split yourself in two:
The child who needed love.
And the strategist who learned to predict her moods, soothe her outbursts, and shrink your needs into silence.

You became fluent in contradictions—craving her approval while dodging her contempt, memorizing her triggers while burying your own. Every meal she cooked, every need she met, came with invisible strings that tightened around your throat.

This is the cruelest betrayal:
Being taught that love is transactional, safety is conditional, and your worth depends on how well you manage her chaos.
The child who should have been protected became the parent, the peacekeeper, the emotional custodian of a woman who saw you as an extension of her ego.

If this resonates with you—your pain is valid. Your exhaustion is justified.
The grief of mourning a mother who was there but never truly present is a burden no one should carry.

You deserved a soft childhood.
You deserved to be loved without earning it.
You deserved to feel safe in your own home.

Healing begins when we stop gaslighting ourselves:
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Others had it worse.”

Your trauma isn’t a competition—it’s a lived reality etched into your nervous system.
Those survival skills—hypervigilance, people-pleasing, emotional camouflage—weren’t flaws. They were lifelines.

You can unlearn the lies she embedded.
You can find relationships where care isn’t weaponized, where love doesn’t demand silence, where your needs aren’t negotiable.
You can parent yourself now with the tenderness she withheld.
You can teach your body that danger isn’t the default.

To your inner child:
I see you. I honor you.

And to the adult you’ve become:
I’m sending you oceans of compassion, forests of peace, and the unwavering reminder that your resilience is greater than her harm.

Keep going.

01/13/2025

If you just won at this bingo game, I can help!