Natasha Bussey

You're not attracting users by accident—you're unconsciously selecting for them. You trained people that this relationship is one-directional: you give, they receive. When you finally burned out and stopped, they left. Not because you were only valuable when useful, but because that's the only relationship you offered. You created a transactional dynamic, then felt betrayed when the transaction ended."

Your brain can't distinguish between things that are possible versus probable. That 0.00007% risk? Your nervous system treats it like certainty. Research reveals anticipatory anxiety doesn't buffer against disappointment—it just makes you suffer longer. If bad news comes, you feel it just as intensely whether you worried beforehand or not. Meanwhile, you've exhausted your nervous system, impaired problem-solving, and missed your actual life happening right now.

"The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived." —Robert Jordan A Therapist's Reflection: When the Ground Shifts Beneath You I'm writing this during a time when I'm watching more clients than ever navigate sudden, involuntary change. Layoffs. Health diagnoses. Relationship endings. Financial crises. The kind of changes nobody chose, nobody wanted, and nobody feels prepared for. And here's what I'm noticing: the people who collapse aren't the ones who face...