People come to therapy wanting something gone.

The anxiety.

The anger.

The numbness.

The noise.

As if it’s a bad tenant you can evict without touching the building.

But most of the time, what they want removed is the very thing that’s been holding everything together from below.

That’s why I sometimes think Real Therapy has more in common with The Phantom of the Opera than with self-help.

The Phantom isn’t chaos.

He’s structure.

He knows the building better than anyone.

He operates in the dark because the stage above demanded perfection.

Symptoms work like that too.

They don’t want attention.

They want control.

This podcast isn’t about getting rid of parts of you.

It’s about what happens when you stop pretending the building doesn’t have a basement.

The moments that matter most in therapy rarely look like progress. They feel like something old finally stopping.

Insight isn’t slow. Your nervous system is. And it doesn’t care about your calendar or your motivation.

It's Jurassic Age old - and it will not budge just because you want it too....

You can still get things done. You hold a tight ship - too tight..

You’re organised, capable, reliable.

Nothing has collapsed, so nothing gets named.

This episode is about the phase before labels arrive.

Before burnout, anxiety, depression, or anything else people reach for.

The phase where you’re still functioning — and that’s exactly what hides the cost.

I talk about compression becoming normal.

About regulating yourself through speed, control, and usefulness.

About why insight, language, and “doing the work” don’t change much when the system keeps tightening.

This isn’t about diagnosis.

And it’s not about techniques.

It’s about recognising the moment where everything still works,

but it’s working too hard.

That’s where my work starts.

https://real-therapy.online

I’m a therapist and a long-term caregiver.

In this episode I speak about what doesn’t show up as a crisis, but quietly reshapes daily life.

About being “on” even when nothing is happening.

About functioning without an off-switch.

About how carrying becomes normal, and how competence can hide the cost.

This isn’t a teaching episode.

There’s no advice, no method, no solution.

Just a lived reality that many people recognise, long before they would ever name it as a problem.

If this stays with you, you can reach out to me via DM or WhatsApp.

If you prefer to read along quietly, I write once a week here:

https://realtherapy.kit.com/8c147507b7

In this episode I talk about a phase that often goes unnoticed.

Everything still works. You respond, decide, carry responsibility. From the outside, nothing looks off.

What disappears isn’t competence or energy, but margin. Tolerance shrinks. Decisions are made to close pressure, not because they fit. Timing becomes something you manage instead of feel.

This isn’t a crisis, yet.

It isn’t burnout.

It isn’t depression.

It’s the phase before anything earns a name — where functioning itself becomes the camouflage.

I don’t explain, fix, or conclude here. I’m naming what tends to be normalised, long before it breaks... when it is sometimes too late...

A Stallion runs away from the Chinese farmer.

Everyone knows immediately what it means.

Bad.

The farmer answers with a question.

What is good and what is bad?

The next day the horse comes back. With more horses.

Now it’s good. Obviously.

What is good and what is bad?

His son breaks his leg riding one of them.

Bad again.

What is good and what is bad?

Then war breaks out.

All the young men are taken.

Except one.

What is good and what is bad?

This episode isn’t about the story.

It’s about how fast we decide what something means — and how uncomfortable we’ve become with waiting.

About the moment where nothing has settled yet.

Where acting too soon feels responsible.

And where not acting looks like doing nothing.

This is where therapy quietly goes wrong.

Not because it doesn’t help.

Because it helps too early and only short-term.

Press play if you recognise the urge to decide, label, fix or reframe — before the story has even had a chance to unfold.

If this stays with you, you can reach out to me via DM or WhatsApp.

You can read where I stand and how I work here: https://real-therapy.online