I used to think therapy was a last resort.
A thing you did when you were broken beyond repair. When the crying didn't stop, when friends got tired of listening, when even the self-help books started to feel like judgment instead of help.
But it wasn't a breakdown that brought me to therapy.
It was boredom.
Not with life—but with my own story. With hearing myself repeat the same patterns. Same excuses. Same sentences that started with, "I guess I'm just the type of person who…"
The first session felt like stepping onto a boat I didn't know how to row. My therapist was a soft-spoken woman in her early 40s who looked like she wore yoga pants even when she wasn't doing yoga. Her voice was calm, like the kind that can cut through a storm.
"Tell me why you're here," she asked.
And for the first time, I didn't perform. I didn't crack a joke. I didn't give a TED Talk answer.
I said, "I'm tired of being the red flag."
She didn't flinch. Just nodded. "Let's start there."
That was the beginning of something I didn't expect: not clarity, not comfort—but chaos. Internal chaos. The kind you feel when the dam breaks and you realize how many things you never allowed yourself to feel.
The kind that makes you lie awake at night, not from heartbreak—but from the weight of all the love you never gave yourself.
Week after week, we peeled back layers.
We talked about my fear of being ordinary. My tendency to intellectualize every emotion. My obsession with being the "cool girl," the composed woman, the one who never needed too much.
"You mistake withholding for self-control," she said once.
And I felt that like a slap.
I started journaling again, not in curated Instagram-ready pages, but in raw, messy handwriting that sometimes spilled over the margins. I lit candles. Not for ambiance. But because something about the flame made me feel more present.
On one assignment, my therapist told me to write a letter to my inner child.
At first, I rolled my eyes.
But that night, I sat on my floor with a pen and a blank sheet of paper. I closed my eyes and tried to remember her—the girl I used to be.
She came back to me in flashes: playing Chinese garter barefoot in the street, crying in the school restroom because someone called her "too loud," hiding in the corner during family reunions when the adults started yelling.
I wrote:
Dear little me,
I'm sorry I made you grow up so fast. I'm sorry I taught you love had to be earned. I'm sorry you had to be strong before you even knew what soft felt like.
I wept. Quietly. Not in a cinematic way. Just a slow, steady release.
The next morning, I went to Quiapo. Not for religious reasons—but because I wanted to be among people who believed in something. I bought a small wooden Santo Niño, not because I was devout, but because it reminded me of the altar my Lola kept, with her yellowing novenas and the lingering smell of sampaguita.
Something about it felt grounding.
I stopped pretending healing had to look beautiful. That I had to glow up. That I had to write a book or post a carousel on Instagram every time I had a breakthrough.
Sometimes, healing looked like brushing my hair. Like finally buying that water filter I kept putting off. Like calling my sister and letting her talk, even when I didn't know how to comfort her.
I began to say no. Not the polite kind. But the firm, grounded kind.
I said no to men who offered attention but not affection.
No to jobs that praised me for burning out.
No to being everyone's emotional crutch but my own.
I also started saying yes.
Yes to hobbies that didn't promise productivity.
Yes to pottery classes where I ruined more mugs than I made.
Yes to dating—not to find "the one," but just to experience presence, not performance.
One Friday, after therapy, I passed a taho vendor and bought two cups.
I gave one to a street kid who had been watching me curiously. He took it without speaking, but nodded in gratitude. That simple moment—two strangers eating warm taho under the Manila sun—felt more real than half the relationships I'd chased in my twenties.
Because healing, I was learning, wasn't always loud.
Sometimes it's a whisper:
"I don't have to keep proving I'm lovable."
Sometimes it's a pause:
"I don't need to text him back."
Sometimes it's a rewrite:
"I wasn't abandoned. I just kept choosing people who didn't know how to stay."
I printed out a photo of myself as a child—taken during a summer outing in Batangas. I taped it to my bathroom mirror. Every morning, I'd look at her and say, "You deserve better."
And slowly, I started to believe it.
One day, my therapist said, "You're not broken. You're just unfinished."
And for the first time in my life, that didn't scare me.
Because being unfinished means I'm still writing. Still becoming. Still learning that my softness isn't a liability. That my needs aren't shameful. That love isn't something I have to earn with perfection.
This was her side of the story. The girl I used to be.
Not just the strong woman in heels and lipstick.
Not just the one with the achievements and the polished answers.
But the girl who danced to OPM songs in the living room.
The one who still hoped. Still believed. Still wanted more.
She's not gone.
She's here.
Finally, I'm listening.