Our Stories,
Our Words
Mason
I’m Mason, I’m a 35 year old non-binary trans guy from Portland, OR.
I grew up in a lower class, chaotic alcoholic home. I was drinking and smoking weed at age 12, and doing hard drugs with my parents by the age of 14. I essentially stopped going to school after 8th grade and officially dropped out during my sophomore year. I moved out of my Mom’s house at 15 and got into unhealthy (and sometimes violent or abusive) relationships with older men to survive.
When I was 27 I got sober from drugs and alcohol in AA. I’ve maintained that program and my sobriety over the last 8 years, along with different forms of therapy. I tried four therapists before Fumi. Each of them helped me for where I was at, but it was mostly talk therapy and I wasn’t finding any solutions. My last therapist practiced EMDR, and it seemed to be a little bit helpful, but I still didn’t feel like I was making any progress. I actually found myself lying to my therapist about it being affective because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings!
About nine months ago, I sought therapy with Fumi. She seemed like someone who would challenge me and guide me, and she was experienced with IFS. One of the first things Fumi guided me through was making a memory queue, where I write a few short memories for every year of my life from since I was born. Not only did that help me solidify a timeline for my significant life changes and traumas, but we refer back to it on a regular basis during sessions to spark thoughts about what could be triggering me.
For example, today we worked through memories where my critical parent part was protecting me from abandonment. I came to realize, with Fumi’s guidance, that at age 8 (we referred back to the memory queue) two different friends had told me they didn’t want to be friends with me anymore. This caused my authentic part to shut down, and caused my critical part to protect me by masking my autistic traits/weird behaviors/poor family.
Since working with Fumi, I have started to unmask my autistic traits. I’m learning to connect more with my anger, which has been coming out a lot this year since starting to unmask. I’ve also come to realize all the different parts of me are only trying to protect me, and that I can be grateful for them. Leaning into self compassion and gentleness has been a big part of this year as well. I’m feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time.
Donovan
For years, I was against therapy. Growing up, I learned to distrust the state and anyone paid to care for me — foster parents, case workers, therapists, even the drivers who took me to visits and watched as I met with my mom. These relationships were fleeting, chosen for me, and constantly changing. I felt like a plant ripped from its soil.
It was difficult to grow up not knowing where I came from, feeling disconnected from my family, and burdened with sadness, anger, confusion, and distrust. These emotions grew so large within me that they felt impossible to manage. I was depressed for a long time, gripped by loneliness and thoughts of suicide. But as an adult, I finally had the power to seek help on my own terms. I chose therapy.
At first, I was cautious, unsure if this process would lead to anything real. But over time, I discovered a space where I could reclaim my sense of self. My therapist, Fumi, taught me tools to validate my experiences and shift my perspective toward greater compassion and understanding. Some might call this soul-searching; I call it talking to myself.
I’ve cultivated a little garden within me — a sanctuary where I can explore my thoughts and feelings. There’s a couch made of sand with a small fire pit in front of it. When parts of myself rise to the surface, I invite them to the couch. I ask, “What brings you home today?” And they tell me. In this space, I feel heard and seen.
This practice combines body scanning, kintsugi — the Japanese art of repairing brokenness with gold — and Thich Nhat Hanh’s perspective that our true home is inside of us. Through these teachings, I’ve learned to transform disruptive inner dialogue into meaningful conversation. I can acknowledge my feelings and gently say, “You can sit here for as long as you need. I have to go back to work now, but we’ll talk later.” This garden is not just imagined — it’s a real place I can access within myself.
I am growing, and I take pride in that growth. Therapy has given me consistency, care, and a sense of rootedness. I no longer feel like a plant torn from soil. There are still moments of struggle, yes, but now they come with understanding and love. Sometimes that understanding takes time. The thoughts and habits I developed for survival are difficult to change, even when they no longer serve me.
But I am continuing this journey because I see growth, I feel wholeness, and that excites me.
Michiko
For as long as I can remember, my world felt gray and heavy, like a constant fog that refused to lift. I moved through my days numb, weighed down by invisible chains that tightened around my throat whenever I tried to speak. The words were there, trapped inside me, but they never made it out. My body wouldn’t listen, and my mind was tangled in despair. At times, I wondered if simply existing was harder than not existing at all. I questioned if someone like me deserved to live.
Over the years, I met many counselors—kind faces who listened patiently. I liked them all, and I was grateful. But still, something inside me remained locked away. Understanding things in my mind was one thing, but living them was another. The world remained a muted blur.
Then I met Fumi, a therapist who changed everything.
Fumi was different. Her presence didn’t just comfort me; it sparked something I hadn’t felt in a long time—hope. She introduced me to peer support specialists, people who knew the weight of the same darkness I carried. Slowly, almost without realizing it at first, I began to reconnect—with people, with life, and with the possibility of color.
It startled me. After years of drifting without dreams or goals, a forgotten desire began to stir within me—the desire to help others. The idea of becoming a peer support specialist took root. Once, I would have dismissed it with a bitter, “I’m just me anyway.” But now, a small, brave part of me whispered, “Why not?”
The journey hasn’t been easy. Recovery, I’ve learned, isn’t a straight path. Some days, overwhelming anxiety creeps back in, wrapping me in its suffocating grip. But Fumi gave me tools—ways to ground myself, like tapping my fingers or using panic-coping techniques. More importantly, she gave me something less tangible but infinitely more powerful: the assurance that I am not alone.
With Fumi’s support, I started to see the strength within me. The connections I made, the people who walked beside me, became anchors in my world. Each connection brought a little more color, a little more clarity. I’m learning, step by step, that my story is worth sharing, that my life has value, and that I am part of something greater than myself.
Every day, I remind myself that the gray fog might return, but I’m no longer wandering in it alone.
Dominic
Hey, my name is Dominic.
The only exposure I ever had to therapy most of my life came from television and movies, therefore it was always portrayed by white therapists and white clients. So because of that I never considered that therapy could be for me. I always told myself “that’s for white people.”
I grew up in a Hispanic household in East Los Angeles. I was mostly raised by women and even with that, I still felt the strong machismo culture. I witnessed it firsthand and accepted this false truth that you don’t talk about your feelings as a “man” because it makes you weak and vulnerable.
The way you handled any negative emotions was by bottling them up and you kept them bottled until you had kids of your own and eventually you lashed out on your kids because you didn’t know what else to do with these bottled up emotions and then the cycle continued and now the children inherit this compounded trauma.
I can’t blame the generations before me and the way they chose to handle themselves because they had no tools. I know it’s not an excuse, but they really didn’t know any better.
When I moved to Portland, Oregon, there was a paradigm shift in culture for me. The idea of therapy seemed less taboo. It was around this same time that I learned my estranged father had died. Maybe therapy wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Fast forward about 3 years later, I’m glad I invested into myself by finding a therapist. It’s been everything for me. Helped me in countless ways. I used to deal with a lot of overwhelming feelings, and I never knew where to direct that energy. I eventually started using writing as a tool.
I’ll wrap this up by providing a piece I wrote about my dead dad and by saying I wish more people of my culture would consider the practice of therapy as an option.
Well anyways, here’s that poem:
“Granted you have been dead for what seems to be one hundred years, you still haunt me. Your hands force their way through 6 feet of dirt, reaching at my ankles, attempting to hinder every step I take. If only I could outrun you. Your stench of death plaguing me and corrupting all life. So many days have passed but you still wither the flowers at my feet. It took years before I realized that I was in pain, it took years before I noticed the scars. You abandoned me so long ago but I feel your presence in every one of my actions. You’re attached to me like a shadow and you whisper a language I don’t understand, spewing black tar into my ears. I’m unsure, uncertain and insecure. I navigate the world with a broken compass that you left behind. I’m lost and I could feel the earth about to swallow me. After all this time since your death, I’m reminded that I’m buried up to my neck.”