From the therapy room

You don't have to have it figured out to walk in

Many people start therapy with depression, anxiety, or a feeling that something is off. Sometimes what's underneath is a question about who they are.

Harry Dixon, MA LPCC #4340 (CA) · LPC #C8199 (OR) · LMHC #LH60684311 (WA) · LMHC #015648 (NY)
Nov 9, 2026 · 9 min read

Very few people walk into my office and say "I'm here to explore my gender" or "I think I'm gay". Far more often, they say "I've been depressed for a long time and I don't know why". Or "My anxiety is through the roof and nothing's helping". Or just "I feel like I'm watching my life from the outside".

Sometimes, as we slow down together, something underneath begins to take shape: a question about who they love, who they are, or both. It's often something they've sensed for years and haven't had the room, the words or the safety to look at directly.

I've done this work since 2016 with clients who are trans, nonbinary, gay, lesbian, bi, queer, questioning, and sometimes not sure any word fits. Their stories are different. But the path often has a similar shape:

1. You come in hurting. Depression, anxiety, numbness, or a sense that something is off.
2. We slow down. Instead of fighting the pain, we get curious about it, with acceptance and self-compassion.
3. Something gets named. Often a truth you'd sensed for years. And when we name something, we start to own it.
4. You choose what's next. Coming out, or not yet, on your own terms.
5. Freedom to be all of you. Many people describe hope, relief and self-acceptance.

Slowing down: what if your pain makes sense?

"Paradox is the appearance of contradiction between two related components"

Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart

Here's the paradox at the heart of this work. Most people arrive wanting the depression or anxiety gone, and that makes sense. It hurts. But when we treat our pain only as a problem to get rid of, we often miss what it's trying to show us. Psychologist Carl Rogers called it a curious paradox: "when I accept myself as I am, then I change". Acceptance and change look like opposites. In practice, one opens the door to the other.

I sometimes tell clients that therapy can be a bit like a trip to the dentist. You go in for a simple cleaning. Then the hygienist touches one spot, and your whole body lights up in pain. You didn't know it was there, but some part of you has been bracing around it for a long time. Taking care of that cavity isn't pleasant or easy. It's necessary, though, because it's what finally relieves the pain.

The good news is that we don't have to drill in all at once.

So we try something different. We meet the pain with acceptance instead of a fight, and with the same kindness you'd offer a friend who was struggling. That's the heart of mindful self-compassion: noticing what hurts, remembering you're not alone in it, and treating yourself gently while it's there.

From that steadier place, we can start asking different questions:

For many of my clients, these questions are where things shift. The numbness starts to look like years of holding something in. The anxiety starts to look like a part of them working very hard to keep them safe from rejection. The pain stops being proof that something is wrong with them and becomes a signal pointing toward something true.

There's another piece of advice I share often. What's the first thing we teach kids to do if they get lost? Stop moving. Stay where you are, and let someone find you.

It's good advice for adults too, and the neurobiology backs it up. When we feel lost, we get panicky. Our nervous system shifts into fight-or-flight, and the parts of the brain that help us think clearly and solve problems get harder to reach. In that state, we tend to rush, and rushing can get us more lost and more hurt. Slowing down gives the body a chance to settle out of fight-or-flight, so we can take in what's around us, make sense of it and find our way.

Feeling lost doesn't mean you're going the wrong way.

What this can look like

The stories below are composites. Each one blends many people's experiences, and names and details are changed.

Trans · Gender

"I thought I was just depressed"

Sam came in after years of depression that medication only dulled. They had tried other ways to dull the ache too, including drugs and alcohol, to quiet a sense that they weren't who they were supposed to be. They never felt at home among others who shared their sex. Mirrors were hard. Photos were harder. Each one reminded them that something about them was fundamentally broken. When we stopped trying to argue the depression away and asked what it was telling them, a question got louder: What if it's true that I'm not who I'm supposed to be? What if this disconnection is a sign that my gender is different from the sex I was assigned at birth? Naming it was terrifying at first. Then, slowly, it became a relief. The depression didn't vanish overnight, but it finally made sense.

Gay · Later in life

"I have a whole life built around this"

Marcus, in his forties, came in for panic attacks. He had a marriage, kids and a church community. He also had a feeling he'd kept in a locked box since he was fourteen, a secret so big and so scary that it threatened to upend his life. He had private rituals for the times he "slipped up" and acted on what he called his "homosexual urges": specific prayers he felt he had to offer for absolution. He had believed that marrying a woman and having children would make the attraction go away, because that was the solution his church offered. It didn't. Late at night, Marcus found himself on Grindr or porn sites. He never dared to meet anyone, but it was starting to affect his marriage. He was more irritable, depressed, lonely and deeply ashamed.

Therapy wasn't about blowing up his life or telling him to leave his church. It started with letting himself begin to love and accept himself as he was, using what his faith taught about Jesus' unconditional love as a bridge. Then, carefully, he decided what came next. We centered his autonomy rather than an expected or prescribed path. Together we found a solution that made sense to him, and he chose a path, an interpretation of his faith and a life in which he could truly be his full self. Shaming himself was never the answer. Self-love was.

Bi / Queer · Family & culture

"My parents gave up everything for me"

Grace, the daughter of immigrant parents, came in burned out and anxious. She was the child who did everything right: the grades, the career, the steady paycheck she partly sent home. Her parents had given up their country, their language and their careers so she could have a better life, and she carried that debt everywhere.

She'd known she was attracted to women since high school. She also knew what her family thought. She'd heard her mother call a gay couple on TV "disgusting". She'd heard her father say being gay was a Western thing, something people pick up in America. When a cousin came out, the family stopped saying his name, and an aunt warned Grace, "Don't you ever do that to your parents". Underneath every family gathering sat the same question: what will people say?

So Grace kept achieving and kept quiet. Being queer felt like a betrayal of everything her parents had sacrificed. Her anxiety, it turned out, was trying to protect a bond she loved: if she stayed perfect, maybe she wouldn't lose them.

We didn't rush her toward coming out, and we didn't ask her to choose between her family and herself. We worked on holding both truths at once: love for her family and love for herself, along with grief for the acceptance she might not get. Over time, the shame she'd absorbed started to sound less like the truth and more like fear passed down through generations.

Psychologist Jenny Wang, in her book Permission to Come Home, writes about how many Asian cultures teach us to seek permission from our parents, our culture and our community, and how healing often means claiming that permission for ourselves. For Grace, part of the work was realizing she'd been waiting for a permission her parents might never give, and that she could begin to give it to herself. You can honor where you come from. And you have permission to be who you are.

All stories are composites drawn from many clients' experiences. Names and identifying details are changed, and none depicts a real individual.

Why RCCC is here

These stories are drawn from many I hear in my practice. Alongside them, I hear one thing again and again: "It's been so hard, almost impossible, to find a therapist where I can talk about all of it".

That's why RCCC is here. It's a therapy space where you shouldn't have to wait for your therapist to "get it" before the true therapeutic work can start. You deserve to be understood for all of who you are, and to work with a therapist who can draw on shared cultural understanding, so therapy feels deeply resonant and personal. You deserve a space where your journey, your choices, your identity and your heritage are included, respected and celebrated.

If this sounds like you

You don't need to know who you are, what you want or what you'll do about it before you reach out. "I'm not sure what's going on" is a perfectly good first sentence.

More support

• Trans Lifeline: a peer support line run by and for trans people, open to anyone questioning
• Q Christian Fellowship: community for LGBTQ+ Christians and their families
• Asians for Mental Health: Dr. Jenny Wang's community and resources for Asian American mental health

Related on our site: Transgender & nonbinary therapy · Religious trauma therapy · Asian American therapy · LGBTQ+ therapy

We don't provide emergency services. If you're in crisis, call or text 988, text START to 678-678 (The Trevor Project), or call 911.

Harry Dixon, MA, LPCC #4340 (CA) · LPC #C8199 (OR) · LMHC #LH60684311 (WA) · LMHC #015648 (NY), is the founder of Rainbow Connection Counseling Collective and a Certified Sex Therapist (CST), a certification rather than a state license.

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