People who knew me during my thirty years in education would probably have described me the same way.

Hard worker.

Determined.

Idealistic.

Pretty fun most of the time.

They wouldn’t have been wrong.

They just wouldn’t have known the whole story.

Underneath all of that lived another version of me.

Scared.

Anxious.

Lonely.

A people pleaser.

A perfectionist who never felt perfect enough.

Someone trying desperately to hold together an entire world with a school-issued laptop and a practiced smile.

And for a very long time…

I thought that was just adulthood.

I worked.

I raised my kids.

I survived divorce.

I figured out finances.

I celebrated victories that felt wonderful…for about fifteen minutes.

Then I went right back to worrying.

The disappointments lasted much longer.

My brain could replay them like a Netflix series with unlimited seasons.

The days peeling off the calendar toward Friday, Christmas vacation, Spring Break, or summer weren’t just something to look forward to.

Sometimes they felt like the only thing keeping me moving.

I didn’t realize it then, but somewhere along the way I had disappeared.

Not physically. Personally.

I couldn’t have told you what I enjoyed anymore.

What genuinely rested me.

What I wanted to do simply because I wanted to do it.

I knew who everyone else needed me to be.

Teacher.

School counselor.

Mom.

Wife.

Daughter.

Problem solver.

Caretaker.

But me?

I had no idea.

Even my world had become smaller than I realized.

I had my teacher bestie.

I had my family.

That felt like it had to be enough.

Building friendships outside of school became harder every year. When you’re the school counselor, sooner or later life intersects with someone else’s child, and relationships can become…complicated.

My husband is wonderfully content staying home.

I slowly became content staying home too.

Until one day I realized I wasn’t content at all.

I was isolated.

Mostly inside my own head, which wasn’t always a pleasant place to live.

For decades I believed I knew exactly what was standing between me and happiness.

My body.

It sounds ridiculous now, but at the time I really believed it.

If I could just lose the weight…

If I could finally figure out food…

If I could just become disciplined enough…

Everything else would fall into place and I could find peace in my mind.

That belief had been with me since adolescence.

It wasn’t a passing thought.

It was a deeply worn path my brain had traveled a bazillion times.

Then one day I stumbled across a podcast by a southern, foul-mouthed, hilarious woman named Corinne Crabtree.

To this day I swear she had hidden cameras in my house.

She knew exactly how I talked to myself.

She knew how exhausted I was.

She knew how hopeless I felt.

For the first time in years, I realized I wasn’t the only person living this way.

Around that same time, something else started to change.

I developed friendships with two incredible women outside of school.

Not “teacher friends.” Just…friends.

Women who knew me beyond my job title.

Women who reminded me there was a whole person underneath the counselor, the teacher, the wife, and the mom.

I didn’t realize it then, but they were part of my restoration too.

I still reached for food and wine whenever my emotions got loud.

But it gave me something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Connection.

For a couple of years, knowing I wasn’t alone was enough.

Until it wasn’t.

About three years before I retired, everything started cracking.

I cried at work. A lot. (I’m so sorry, teacher friends.)

At home, I wasn’t just tired.

I was paralyzed.

If someone had handed me an entire Saturday with nothing scheduled, I honestly wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

My work and my family were my identity.

Without being needed to organize, instruct, defuse, encourage, or manage,

I didn’t really know who I was anymore.

My husband wanted to help. He truly did.

But he couldn’t fully understand what was happening inside my head.

Then one day my teacher bestie gently suggested something that changed my life.

“Maybe you should talk to somebody.”

By the grace of God, I found an incredible therapist on the very first try.

Shout-out to Lindsay from BetterHelp.

Best investment I have ever made.

We certainly did therapy.

But what changed me most wasn’t digging through my past.

It was learning how my mind worked.

The coaching.

The journaling.

Learning to notice the thoughts quietly running my life.

Questioning beliefs I had accepted as unquestionable truth.

Realizing that a thought is just a thought.

Not a fact.

Not a prophecy.

Not the gospel.

The irony still makes me laugh.

For years I had taught cognitive behavioral strategies to students and families.

I had helped kids challenge thoughts that kept them stuck.

I’d even coached colleagues through the exact same process.

I simply couldn’t see my own thinking.

There’s a phrase I used with students all the time.

“When you’re in the hole, you can’t see the hole.”

Now I finally understood what I had been saying all those years.

I wasn’t weak.

I wasn’t broken.

I was human.

I couldn’t see what I was standing inside.

That realization changed everything.

Not overnight and not magically.

But one small thought at a time.

One journal page at a time.

One conversation at a time.

One tiny act of courage at a time.

Today I look back and realize something I wish someone had told me years earlier.

I wasn’t actually searching for a better body.

I was searching for myself.

I had spent so many years serving everyone around me that I quietly disappeared from my own life.

To be clear, I chose those roles.

I wanted to be a teacher.

I wanted to be a school counselor.

I wanted to be a mom.

I wanted to be a wife.

If I had the chance to do it all over again, I’d choose them every single time.

The problem wasn’t that I loved those roles.

The problem was believing they were the only parts of me that mattered.

And I don’t think I’m unusual.

I think there are tens of thousands of educators doing exactly the same thing.

Showing up for students.

Showing up for coworkers.

Showing up for spouses.

Showing up for children.

Showing up for aging parents.

Showing up for everyone…

except themselves.

Eventually our roles become so loud that we can’t hear our own voice anymore.

The writer disappears.

The runner disappears.

The musician.

The artist.

The reader.

The adventurer.

The creator.

Those parts don’t die.

They simply get buried beneath years of responsibility.

The Teacher Restoration Room exists because I believe they can be found again.

Not by becoming someone new.

But by remembering who you already were.

Sometimes that starts with a journal.

Sometimes it starts with coaching.

Sometimes it starts with therapy.

Sometimes it simply starts by telling another human being the truth.

If you’re reading this and thinking, I don’t even know who I am anymore…

I want you to know something.

I’ve been there.

And I promise you this.

The person you’re looking for isn’t gone.

She’s still in there.

She’s just waiting for someone—and that someone is you—to make room for her to step back into the light.

If any part of my story felt uncomfortably familiar, I hope you’ll do one thing.

Tell the truth.

Maybe it’s in a journal.
Maybe it’s to a trusted friend.

Maybe it’s to a therapist.
Maybe it’s to a coach.

You don’t have to solve your whole life today.

You just have to stop pretending you’re fine if you’re not.

That’s where restoration begins.