For years, I searched for the one who would save me.
As a combat veteran with PTSD, I’ve lived through decades of anxiety, panic attacks, and nightmares. I’ve cycled through therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, EMDR specialists, CBT experts, trauma consultants. I’ve sat on dozens of couches—leather, fabric, minimalist Scandinavian design. Always chasing the same thing: relief. Hope. The tiniest crack of light.
Each time, I walked into the office filled with cautious optimism. The therapist came highly recommended. He worked at a top hospital. She had studied at Harvard. He had written books. She was the best in the field. I believed, over and over again, that this time it would work. That all the degrees, the polished diplomas, the framed certificates on the wall—they meant something. They had to.
But I learned, over and over again, that not every credential equals care.
I’m not here to bash mental health professionals. There are good ones. Compassionate ones. People who truly want to help. But in my experience, they are far fewer than we’d like to believe.
The problem isn’t always the training. It’s the tone. The distance. The cold professionalism that’s praised in clinical programs but feels, to someone in agony, like abandonment.
I remember one therapist whose credentials read like a dream: PhD in trauma studies, decades of experience, headed the PTSD clinic in a major hospital. His office was silent, sterile, intimidating. I sat five feet away from him as he nodded quietly while I poured my heart out. He never said much. He didn’t want to “interfere with the process.” When I asked if I could have a cup of tea before we started, he looked puzzled. “We usually don’t… do that here.”
The irony is, what I needed was so simple.
I needed warmth. A little humanness. A voice that said, “You’re not crazy.” A moment of shared humanity. A safe place to be not a diagnosis, but a person.
Eventually, I stopped looking for the best therapists. I started looking for the kind ones.
The ones who sit close. The ones who ask how your day was. The ones who don’t hide behind silence. The ones who, sometimes, if needed, will even give you a hug.
That’s taboo, I know. It goes against every boundary in the textbook. But trauma doesn’t read textbooks. It breaks them.
The therapists who helped me most weren’t the ones who dazzled with their knowledge. They were the ones who made me feel less alone.
They were the ones who spoke plainly, who didn’t pathologize every word, who didn’t shrink back when I cried or dissociated. They didn’t pretend to have all the answers. They just stayed with me, patiently, as I searched for mine.
I came to realize something that many trauma survivors will recognize: the more luxurious the clinic, the less likely I felt seen. The more prestigious the degree, the more clinical the interaction. The bigger the gap between chairs, the harder it was to connect.
I needed less expertise. I needed more presence.
I’m not dismissing training. Trauma work is delicate and dangerous, and it requires skill. But empathy is not a skill you can measure in exams. It’s not something you can frame on a wall. It’s something you feel—or you don’t.
Today, I’m still navigating the terrain of recovery. The symptoms haven’t vanished. But I’ve found a few safe harbors—people who sit with me like friends, not gatekeepers. And in those rooms, healing finally feels possible.
So here’s what I wish someone had told me years ago:
Don’t just look for the expert.
Look for the human.
The one who knows that healing doesn’t always happen through a theory.
Sometimes it begins with a warm voice, a listening heart, and a quiet cup of tea.
