I found a photo that stopped me cold


I had a rough weekend.

The kind where getting out of bed feels impossible, your phone becomes a lifeline, and the harshest voice in your head won't stop screaming at you to get up and do something.

I'm a therapist. I know better. And I still couldn't stop it.

So I did what I do? I got curious. I started asking that voice where she came from.

She took me all the way back to a condo I grew up in. My mother's addiction. A smell I couldn't scrub out no matter how hard I tried. And a photo I found while writing this - me and my brother, in that apartment, that made my stomach drop when I saw it.

I'm holding a sponge.

Was I always cleaning?

This week's essay is the most personal thing I've written. It's about my inner critic, the part of me I've spent 30 years running from, and what my own therapy finally helped me understand about both of them.

See you next week,
Randi

600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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Notes From Randi 🤍

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