Chris Colbert, 34

#MyTherapyJourney

Chris Colbert, 34

📍 New York, New York

“I have felt exhausted from life. Though I wasn’t suicidal after the age of 13, I wanted the burden of life to be lifted from my shoulders. By the time I was 20 years old I had known 13 people who had died. I had grown up around overt racism and struggled with racial identity issues as a black boy in a predominantly white suburb. Even though I had a step-father in my house from the age of 5-16, I felt like the man of the house, while also understanding I was already becoming the patriarch of my mother’s side of the family, so at an early age I felt the weight of my necessary career success, so that I could be in a financial position to help my other family members. And all that was before being jumped by multiple people and completely fracturing my orbital bone.

My therapist helped me understand that I do not have to carry the lives of everyone around me on my shoulders, even if I feel I have the strength to do so. My therapist helped me create boundaries for myself, that allow me to clearly see when I am taking on other people’s energy, and that if I continue to drain myself emotionally, I am of no help to myself or others. My therapist also helped me understand that I had been through a lot of trauma, which was important, because I had always qualified my experiences as not being that bad because others had been through worse than me. By accepting what I have been through, I can take the proper steps to address the affects each traumatic experience has created in my life. So that now I can truly move forward.”