There is nothing wrong with you.

As a therapist, people come to me with what clinicians refer to as “presenting issues."

These presenting issues assume all different forms but could be any number of things: medical symptoms, relationship struggles, situational obstacles or challenges, conflicts, etc., that are interfering in the person’s life in some way.

Whatever it is they come to me with, these issues are categorically labeled as “problems” and treated as some form of deficit or dysfunction.

Stated very plainly, the medical model/system operates on the idea that there is something wrong with you, and you need to be fixed.

Folks, I am here to say these labels around “dysfunction” are bullshit.

The truth is at any given moment there is far more "right" with you, than there is ever "wrong" with you, by virtue of the fact that you are still here.

I’ll take it a step further and say there is actually nothing wrong with you at all.

I'll say it again: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU.

Your brains are doing exactly what they need to do to help you survive what would otherwise be destructive to your emotional, physical, and mental well-being.

We live in a fucked up world. We are over-worked, overstimulated, and under-resourced.

We are raised individualistically, and then thrown into the chaos that is life to fend for ourselves.

We are exposed to violence, pressures, unrealistic expectations and standards, and then fed the messaging that “This is life; deal with it.”

It's the ultimate form of gaslighting.

Some people experience isolated traumas, and for others, every day is a series of emotional overwhelm.

We are told it is normal.

But it's not normal, and our brain knows it.

In response to this, our brain says, “Wait a minute, this is pretty fucked up”, which is actually quite perceptive.

Then our brain says, “This is crazy, I’m out of here” and it learns to go elsewhere. We call this "dissociation" and label it a symptom.

OR our brain says, “This is too much, I need to escape” and it seeks out something that will make it feel better. We call this "addiction" and label it a disease.

Or maybe our brain says, “This isn’t working for me, let me go find something that will work better.” We call this "ADHD" and label it a diagnosis.

The truth is your brain is responding very adaptively to what are abnormal and unhealthy situations.

It's helping you survive unhealthy, traumatic, or otherwise overly taxing and stressful situations that are contrary to our nature as human beings.

It's showing its resiliency, not its dysfunction.

One of the things I’ve learned through becoming an EMDR Trained Therapist is that we can trust our brain to do what it needs to do to help us heal. This is true when it comes to healing, and it’s also true in the midst of our so-called “dysfunctions."

Learning to trust the brain is a powerful part of trauma treatment and EMDR.

When you understand how the brain works, you realize its awesome brilliance in shaping our reality.

You can trust your brain to do what it needs to do to both survive this dysfunctional world, and heal from it.

You can read more about EMDR Therapy here: https://www.emdria.org

If you are interested in beginning EMDR Trauma Therapy to help your brain heal from past trauma, please email me at Carrie@carriemosko.com.

Out.