Chapter 16 - Therapy and Hard TruthsThe following week, we attended our first family therapy session. We sat in a semi-circle in the brightly lit office of Dr. Marisol Grant, a calm, observant woman in her fifties who possessed an uncanny ability to cut through our polite, practiced deflections.
During that first hour, I laid out my grievances: my family had excluded me from a crisis. David countered immediately, stating that I had been emotionally absent long before I ever packed my bags for St. Louis. Noah sat between us and quietly told Dr. Grant that both statements were entirely true.
I hated therapy. It stripped away my armor of competence. But that was exactly why it worked.
Over the next few months, Dr. Grant helped me see that my instinct to solve problems wasn't inherently evil—it had kept a roof over our heads and food on the table—but it became toxic when I used it as a shield against vulnerability. I could color-code a spreadsheet for Noah's care, but I couldn't look him in the eye and say, "I am terrified of losing you."
David had to face his own ugly truths. By hiding Noah's panic attacks, he thought he was protecting my career. In reality, he was stripping me of my right to choose my family over my job. He also had to admit that throwing himself into caring for Noah had given him a convenient excuse to avoid facing his deep depression over losing his architectural career.
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Noah, too, learned that asking for help didn't make him a burden. He began attending specialized trauma-focused therapy and joined a support group for young adults who had survived severe automotive accidents. He officially took a medical leave of absence from college, refusing to run to Seattle.
Recovery was not a cinematic montage of immediate progress. There were nights Noah woke up screaming at 3:18 AM, and there were days when David couldn't get out of bed. We had arguments that ended with slammed doors. But the fundamental difference was this: we always came back to the table. We no longer let silence have the final word.
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