What I Help With
Therapy for Chronic Pain
You Do Not Have to Prove It
You do not have to convince me that your pain is real.
I live with chronic pain myself. I do not have perfect answers for it, and I will not pretend that therapy can make a medical condition disappear. Chronic pain needs appropriate medical care when treatment is available, but the reality is that medicine does not always have an answer. Sometimes there is no clean explanation, no treatment that fixes it, or no way to make the body behave the way everyone thinks it should.
Therapy should not become one more place where you have to prove how much you hurt.
Sometimes the first thing we do is simply acknowledge it. Believe it. Sit with it. You can talk about the pain, the exhaustion, the brain fog, the strange sensations, the things your body suddenly will not do, and the sheer frustration of living in a body that can feel unpredictable or uncooperative. You can hate what chronic pain has done to your life while also working toward some degree of acceptance of the reality you are living in. Those things are not contradictions.
The Person Inside the Pain
Pain can take up an enormous amount of space. It can affect work, relationships, sleep, identity, independence, plans, and the things you once assumed you would always be able to do. Sometimes the losses are obvious. Sometimes they happen so gradually that you wake up one day and realize how much of your life has begun revolving around what hurts, what you cannot do, or how much energy you have left.
And sometimes it can feel as though the pain is swallowing the person you used to be.
That is one place therapy can help.
I want to see the pain, but I also want to see past it to the person living inside it. More importantly, I want to help you continue seeing that person too.
Your pain is part of your experience. It is not the whole of who you are.
Pacing and Energy
We may use mindfulness, cognitive or behavioral approaches, pacing, self-compassion, or other tools when they are useful. Sometimes that means learning to notice what drains you, what restores you, and how to use your energy in ways that do not leave you paying such a high price afterward. Pacing can be part of that: not as giving up, but as learning how to work with the body you actually have instead of constantly forcing yourself past its limits.
A Life Around What Is Real
Some approaches may help change how you respond to pain, reduce additional distress around it, or help you function more consistently within the limits your body gives you. But we are not going to pretend that you can think, meditate, or therapize your way out of a physical condition.
Instead, we can look for ways to build a life around what is real.
That may mean finding the spaces where the pain is quieter, learning how to pace yourself, using supports or tools that make daily life easier, grieving what has been lost, asking for what you need, adjusting expectations without giving up on yourself, and recognizing the difference between pushing yourself and punishing yourself.
It can also mean making room for the things that chronic pain has not taken.
Moments of joy. Humor. Relationships. Curiosity. Meaning. The parts of you that still show up, even on bad days. The moments when you feel like yourself again.
Chronic pain can teach you things, but the cost of those lessons can be terribly high. You do not have to be grateful for it. You do not have to turn it into a gift. You do not have to make it inspirational.
You are allowed to hate it.
Where and How We Meet
Virtual sessions are available while you are located anywhere in Texas. In-home sessions are available within about a 45-minute radius of Killeen when meeting in your own space is a good fit.
Send a message through the contact page with a general idea of what you are looking for, and please leave private health details out of the form. I handle my own scheduling, and you can start with a free 15-minute introductory conversation if you'd like.
How I Work