The Question I'd Never Been Asked
Earlier this year, I started working with a new therapist. A few sessions in, she got really curious about something I had never once thought to be curious about.
How did I do it?
How did I apply to college? How did I know what to do, what forms to fill out, what questions to ask? Who showed me?
And I just… sat there. Perplexed. Because nobody did. And I had genuinely never considered it.
Nobody Handed Me the Map
The interesting thing is… I'd always noticed that other people didn't know how to do things I knew how to do. I just never connected the dots on why.
In high school, I had friends who couldn't get themselves across town. (These were the MapQuest days, friends. Printed directions sitting on the passenger seat.) Friends who didn't know how to start a dishwasher. Later on, I watched peers who had no idea how to cook a meal or call and schedule their own doctor's appointment.
I noticed. I just never thought it meant anything about me.
It didn't click until that moment in her office. I didn't know how to do those things because someone taught me. I knew how to do them because I had learned how to figure things out.
The Pattern I Kept Repeating
I didn't always know who to ask. I didn't always know how to ask. But I always knew it was going to be my job to find out.
So I learned a pattern, and I kept repeating it.
I've always loved to cook, so I watched everyone I could, including the fun cooking shows of the '90s and early 2000s. Call the office and have them explain the process to me. Call again if I still didn't understand. Try it. Get it wrong. Try again.
Don't even get me started on FAFSA.
I figured out college applications, financial aid, grocery lists, insurance, how to make my own appointments, how to be the adult in rooms where I was still very much a kid.
Not figuring it out was never an option.
What It Looks Like From the Outside
From the outside, this looks like a success story. And in a lot of ways, it is. You figured out all the steps to adulting, learned the rules, and built a life with no blueprint. People see that as proof you "turned out great."
People love that story. I love parts of that story too.
But underneath, it can feel like you're still the only adult in the room. Like if you don't figure it out, nobody will. Like asking for help is something you only do after you've exhausted every other option (and then you apologize for asking).
When you grow up without a blueprint, figuring it out stops being just a skill. It becomes your job. Then it becomes who you are. Your nervous system learns that being resourceful is what keeps you safe, and honestly, for a long time, it does.
Until you're exhausted. Until you can't remember the last time you let someone else hold the map.
Doing It Alone
I learned how to apply to college.
I learned how to make the phone call.
I learned how to ask the question twice when I didn't understand it the first time.
What I didn't learn was that I didn't have to do all of it by myself.
I was so busy figuring it out that nobody noticed I was doing it alone. Including me.
Practicing What I Teach
It's a little funny to be a therapist whose own therapist is pointing out her blind spots. But that's exactly the point. I'm a first-gen cycle-breaker, and my own therapy is a big part of how I keep learning the lessons I teach every day.
Here's the one she handed me this year: being the one who figures it all out doesn't have to mean doing it alone.
I'm still resourceful. I'm still the one who will call the office twice. That part of me isn't going anywhere, and I don't want it to. She got me here.
But sitting in that office, letting someone else get curious about my story instead of quietly handling it myself? That's its own kind of figuring it out. Maybe the most important kind.
If You're the One Who Figured It All Out
If you recognize yourself in the kid who called the office one more time because not knowing wasn't an option, you don't have to keep figuring it all out alone. That's the work I get to do with people every day.
I provide anxiety therapy, relationship therapy for adults and couples, and grief counseling for adults in Colorado and Tennessee, as well as in-person therapy in Denver.
Related Reading
Reparenting My Inner Child: Why I Became a Therapist →
Tori Brothers is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and National Certified Counselor (NCC) providing virtual therapy for adults and couples throughout Colorado and Tennessee as well as in-person services in Denver, Colorado. She specializes in anxiety, relationships, and grief.
