Eldest Daughter Therapy for Washington State

Eldest daughters hold up the world, what happens when your world needs holding?

You are responsible, organized, successful, and juggling more balls than you can quite keep track of right now. You might be caring for elderly parents, raising and launching children, running a business, volunteering for nonprofits, running a household, and so much more and you have done it all for so long. Many eldest daughters find themselves a default extra parent in their families far before that is appropriate. They learn to keep the peace, to organize chaos, and to make sure everyone else's needs are met, and their own needs are often forgotten.

You might feel like you are walking on eggshells, that asking for what you need is met with resistance or confusion. Or maybe you never ask because it feels selfish to even think about doing something that is just for you. These are learned patterns, things that developed slowly and without anyone noticing and those patterns are the hardest to change. Your foundational beliefs and values feel stacked against you, and your family system relies on you over functioning, over giving, and not caring for yourself in order to stay upright.

You aren't alone. Eldest daughter therapy provides a container for your experiences and an alchemical container to transform the beliefs that have left you burned out, stressed, and lonely.

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Eldest daughter therapy: a woman stands in the ocean

The Eldest Daughter Wound

  • Eldest daughters often forget themselves. Eldest daughter therapy helps you meet yourself again.
  • Eldest daughters were taught to put everyone else first, often that meant their own needs were ignored or even considered shameful.
  • No one ever said it, but you got the message that everything would fall apart without you and you've been shown over and over again that asking for help doesn't help.
  • Your nervous system holds a lonely truth: you have always been on your own even amidst people you love dearly.
  • Living for others was never sustainable, but it has ceased to be bearable. This is the time for eldest daughter therapy.

Healing Eldest Daughters

  • You've been going on grit and determination for so long you don't remember what ease feels like. In a safe therapeutic relationship experience support, acceptance, and a healthier way of relating.
  • You are accomplished, organized, and efficient. In my office you get to be messy and vulnerable as you begin the process of relational healing and practicing new ways of being.
  • Years of unseen and unmet needs have piled up, we will practice nervous system regulation, boundary setting, and reevaluating what is healthy and reasonable.
  • The trauma of parentification has become too much, through EMDR we will rewire your nervous system and undo harmful self beliefs.
  • You no longer recognize yourself, maybe you don't even like yourself and you are beginning to ask: is this all there is to life? As healing begins we will also work through the meaning making that let's you build meaning and joy for your future.
Eldest daughter therapy a path leads away
I'm Ready!

My invitation...

It can be hard to take some of the time, energy, and resources you have given to others for so long and invest in yourself, I know, I've been there.

Eldest daughter therapy can feel selfish, it isn't, it is an investment. That investment is the seed that can grow something new, something sustainable, something life giving for not just yourself but for the people you love.

For information about cost, insurance, and to check your benefits click here

I'm Ready

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If you've ever asked: "how do I stop feeling selfish for having needs?" or "how can I learn to take care of myself the way I take care of my family?" you are in the right place. Your needs are not selfish, but the messages of our youth are slow to change and you don't have to (yet again) do it by yourself.

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The Heroine's Journey

Eldest daughter therapy: Sun rises over blurry water

We're all familiar with the Hero's Journey, a grand adventure, full of adventure and monsters and great battles to change the whole world! Nevermind all the lives that get trampled so the hero can have his day. The heroine's journey is different. She starts it because she can no longer stay the way she has been. 

In great hero myths (across many cultures) the hero sets out to conquer the world and win for himself power and fame. But there are other stories, stories of women who have finally had enough of the walls and chains others have built for them and set out not to change the world, but to reclaim themselves, to come home to their own souls. When the eldest daughter at last looks up from her endless striving, at last hears the yearning call of her heart, there is nothing that can stop her from taking that journey. 

She strikes out into the unknown with only hard won wisdom, a quiet sort of strength grounded in the ways she has suffered and sacrificed for the sake of everyone she loves, and her readiness to suffer and sacrifice for her own heart. On her journey (which will be long and filled with challenges) she will not be alone, the heroine's journey is always accompanied by wise women who have walked that way before her or who are on their own journey of discovery in this season. 

Unlike the hero, the heroine's story has never been about solo conquest. She has, after all, been alone too long. She has carried the world for too many years. In the midst of busy families, or bustling communities, or businesses she has been the silent pillar that held up the world for everyone in it, but who often felt utterly invisible and unseen. When the eldest daughter sets out on her heroine's journey her wise guides appear, not to seek her help, but to at last be the supports she needs to set down her lonely work.

I walk with women on their way out of their too tight existence, their isolated lives of care and giving, and into the country of their own souls. We discover the marvelous, magical, and powerful being you truly are. Together we reclaim your voice and joy one piece at a time.

I'm Ready