Before becoming a therapist and coach, I was you.
There’s a particular kind of humiliation that comes from sitting on the edge of a bed at 2 a.m., your partner’s side empty, and realizing you have no idea how to stop yourself from unraveling.
That was me in 2015.
I was the pursuer. The one who sent long messages full of “healthy communication” language I’d picked up from books and podcasts. I thought I was doing the noble thing, the “emotionally literate” thing. The thing good partners do!
But he walked out anyway.
Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes for the night.
Each time, I went to places inside myself that felt unbearable.
One moment I’d collapse inward: This is my fault. I’m too much. I ruin everything!
The next, I’d turn it outward: He’s the problem. He never shows up. Why can’t he do this one simple thing for me?
It was like watching myself split apart and scatter in real time.
On the surface, I was arguing with him. But underneath, I was battling something older, heavier. The terror of being left with myself, the silence that always rushed in when no one was there to steady me.
I thought love was supposed to be the salve!
I thought that if I worked hard enough, if I spoke the right words, followed the right advice, someone would finally stay long enough to stitch up the hurt in me.
But I soon learned that what I called safety was only quicksand; the harder I clung, the faster it swallowed me up.
Because when he walked out, it wasn’t only a body leaving the room. It was my entire system buckling under the weight of having no anchor of my own.
What I didn’t understand then, but know now, is that this is exactly what happens when you grow up with our specific type of wounding.
You learn to hand yourself over, piece by piece, without even realizing it. Your steadiness. Your worth. Your very sense of Self. So the second they’re gone, you go too.
I was a ghost inside my own life, unaware I even existed.
My turning point wasn't even found in the fights or triggers.
It came in a quieter moment, when I could no longer outrun the truth I'd been avoiding my whole life:
No one is coming to rescue me.
The realization hit like a bell in a silent room. My own mind turning against me with a reality I never wanted to confront:
Nobody is coming, Morgan.
Not him.
Not anyone.
If you’ve ever had to say that to yourself, you know it doesn’t just end with those words.
That realization really is the burial of a long-held hope — that if you were only patient enough, loving enough, someone would be there.
And I didn’t bury this hope gracefully. I dragged my feet. Argued with myself. Clawed at the dirt.
But when the fantasy finally crumbled, it made way for something else to come forward; another truth that had been waiting all along, steady and insistent:
If no one is coming, then it has to be me.
Not as a sentence. Not as a punishment. As a kind of beginning.
I stayed with those words until they settled in my body.
If no one is coming, then it has to be me.
Eventually, it felt less like loss and more like direction. From there, the work of learning how to love without losing myself began.
I started small.
I went back to the books and podcasts, but not in the same way I had before.
I wasn’t looking for the perfect sentence to convince my then-partner of anything anymore. I wasn’t trying to win the argument.
This time, I was searching for something else entirely: how to stay in my relationship without abandoning myself.
I devoured the research. On the nervous system. On attachment. On why some of us learn to disappear the second someone else has a feeling.
(Keep in mind that back then, I wasn’t a therapist or a coach. I wasn't a scientist. I was just like you — a survivor, wishing for a love that could be a safe place to land).
I turned what I found into small, clumsy nervous system experiments: noticing my breath, pausing before reacting, soothing the core fear inside.
It was messy. Imperfect. Sometimes I fell right back into the old panic. But little by little, those scraps of practice gave me something I’d never had before: the capacity to steady myself; to ride out the waves of fear and hurt without handing them off to someone else.
And because I wasn’t drowning in fear anymore, I finally had the space to learn the skills I needed all along.
Like how to trust myself instead of second-guessing everything I felt.
What was fair to ask for (and what wasn’t) in a healthy relationship.
How to stay true to what I needed even when he pulled away, instead of twisting myself smaller to keep him close.
What my needs actually were and how to effectively communicate them.
How to create healthy boundaries without slipping into over-relying or over-controlling.
For the first time, I wasn’t too consumed by fear to take in what healthy love actually required.
At first, nothing looked different. He still shut down the way he always had.
But instead of panicking or chasing after him, I stayed with myself. I gave him space without abandoning what I needed.
That consistency began to matter. The less I spiraled, the less he felt cornered. The less he felt cornered, the less he braced.
Little by little, he came back sooner. He stayed longer. He listened with more openness.
It was the slow undoing of our entire survival pattern.
We weren’t trapped in spirals anymore. We could actually talk.
I shared what I was learning and held my boundaries firm. And with the panic no longer running the show, he had room to meet me with more presence, steadiness, and willingness than before.
Our relationship wasn’t a tug-of-war anymore.
We were finally on the same team, because of a choice I made.
Change doesn’t happen when both people are holding their breath. Someone has to exhale first. And thank god I did.
Because with that foundation, we could finally do something new: actually enjoy our life together.
Not keeping score. Not fighting with our ghosts. Just two imperfect humans choosing each other, and finding love that felt good again.
I am telling you all of this because I need you to see what happens when you choose yourself.
When you decide to steady your own ground first, the love you’ve been chasing finally has somewhere to land.
And listen, I read the emails you send me.
I know some of you are already thinking: “Okay, great for you, Morgan, but what if my partner refuses to change?”
And maybe that’s fear speaking, or maybe it’s true.
But do you think I would have regretted doing this work, even if he never rose to meet me?
Not for a second.
Because what I gained can’t be undone. The ground under my own feet, the knowledge that my needs aren’t a curse but a map, and the love I once thought I had to beg for alive in me instead.
This experience is what led me to create How to Love After Childhood Trauma.
Yes, it’s a relationship program — but it’s so much more than that.
It’s a homecoming.
A place where you learn to meet yourself with the kind of steadiness and care you once thought you had to earn from someone else, and in doing so, finally create the love that lasts.
Three months of living the work, until silence no longer undoes you and love no longer slips away.
Consider this your loving invitation to join me for the only 2025 cohort before we close up enrollment.
Forever with you in this work,
Morgan