Reflection: Coming Out, Carefully

It took me seven years to tell the truth.
Not to my partner. Not to the public.
To my therapist.

I’m a therapist myself. I believe in this work with my whole heart. I’ve sat with hundreds of people as they’ve shared their most painful truths. I’ve witnessed what can happen when someone is finally seen—without judgment—in all their mess and contradiction.

And I thought I trusted my therapist from the beginning. I did trust her.
But still—it took seven years to tell her the full truth about my eating disorder. The real truth. The kind I barely let myself admit to myself, let alone say out loud.

When I finally did, I expected to feel shame. Maybe rejection. Maybe regret.
What I felt instead was… relief.

Something cracked open in me. The sky didn’t fall. I didn’t crumble. I was met—gently, steadily, and without flinching. And in that moment, after decades of secrecy, I realized how much I wanted to come out of hiding. Not just in therapy. But in my life.

That’s when I started writing this book.

At first, I told myself it was a personal project. Just for me. But almost as soon as I started, the story pulled me forward—insisting on being told. Because once you’ve experienced the freedom of being seen, it’s hard to go back to burying the truth. Hiding starts to hurt more than exposure.

And yet, I’m not fully out. Not yet.

I’m sharing this story anonymously—for now. In part, to protect my family. In part, to protect my patients. But mostly, if I’m honest, to protect myself. Because I’m still learning how to live without the shield of performance. Still learning how to tell the truth, even when it terrifies me. Especially when it terrifies me.

This space is part of that learning.

I know I said I’d wait to post. That I’d take my time. But today, something in me didn’t want to wait. And maybe that’s the point—learning to follow the part of me that’s ready, even if it’s just by a few steps.

So if you’re here, reading this: thank you. For making room for a story that I’m not quite ready to name. For being part of the slow undoing. The careful coming out. The quiet becoming.

Next post, I’ll share a summary of Chapter 1: The Outside – Surface Me.

For now, I’ll leave you with this:
It took me seven years to tell the truth.
I hope that in hearing it, something in you begins to heal too.