If you’ve found yourself asking whether it’s normal to feel worse after therapy, you’re in good company. As a licensed therapist of over 15 years, I’ve sat with enough clients who worried about whether they were doing therapy “right” after a long cry in the car or an hour lost doomscrolling. And most of the time… no, you’re not doing anything “wrong.” The tears and the zoning out are normal when you’re finally sitting with stuff you’ve avoided for so long.

Eldest Daughter Syndrome is a viral term describing the pressure and chronic people-pleasing experienced by the oldest female sibling who often becomes the family’s “CEO”. This phenomenon is real and exhausting. [Internal Link to EDS Post: “Eldest Daughter Syndrome: How to Recover from Chronic People-Pleasing”.