Leslie Bermingham, PhD

Do you hide your feelings from yourself and others, even without intending to? Maybe certain emotions were discouraged or disallowed during your childhood. Maybe you have endured traumatic experiences that make some feelings seem dangerous. Maybe you have been impacted by systemic inequality or prejudice as a result of your identity. For these reasons and others, you may avoid noticing and expressing sadness, loneliness, or anger. Instead, you try to keep yourself busy, mask your pain with jokes and laughter, or rationalize that “it’s not so bad” or “others have it worse.”

Rejecting these parts of yourself comes at a very steep cost. Efforts to defend against your feelings can result in depression, anxiety, emptiness, and many other symptoms. Most importantly, remaining hidden compromises relationships. After all, it is hard to connect meaningfully with others when you are disconnected from yourself.

Slowing down to make contact with your true feelings is worth the effort. In therapy, we will work together to observe and name the ways in which you have been ignoring your inner experience. As you become aware of your defenses, you will learn to deploy them flexibly rather than automatically. You will grow to tolerate and maybe even appreciate the feelings that used to feel frightening or shameful. With time, you can come to understand yourself better and feel a sense of ease being you.