My idea of happiness

For years, I believed that my happiness depended on whether I found a partner, started a family, and lived the way I “was supposed to.” I thought that once I met my husband and had children, everything would finally fall into place and I would be truly happy. That's what we were taught — that “a prince on a white horse will come,” and then life becomes complete.

When relationships didn’t work out, and my attempts to build something lasting ended in disappointment, I started blaming myself. Thoughts like: “What’s wrong with me? Maybe I’m different, maybe I’m weird?” kept showing up. I even heard from partners that I had “too many requirements,” that something always bothered me, that I didn’t accept things they considered normal — like drinking or other addictions. But I simply had my own values and boundaries.

All of this created enormous pressure — time pressure, social pressure, and pressure from my own expectations. And at some point, I just started to lose myself in all of it.

A moment of pause and inner questioning

There came a moment when I started to feel the weight of it all. The sadness, the heaviness, the sense of emptiness. A feeling that something was off, that there was something within me I didn’t fully understand. On top of that came a sense of loneliness — friends were moving forward with their lives, one of the closest people to me left, and I felt like I was staying behind, alone with everything.

I began asking myself questions: “Why is this happening? Why do I feel so unhappy? What is going on inside me?”
That was the moment when I realized I didn’t want to fight on my own anymore — that I wanted to understand myself, my emotions, and my reactions.

Stepping onto the path of therapy

Before I started therapy, I tried to work on myself on my own — I read books about happiness, personal development, emotions. I was always interested in those things. But despite all of this, I still felt it wasn’t enough, that there was something I still didn’t understand.

One day I was talking to a friend, and she told me she was in therapy and recommended Regina to me. And that’s how I found myself in the therapist’s office — with a deep need to understand myself, my emotions, my reactions, and why I cared so much about everything around me. I knew I had to pause and look within — because trying to “fix my life” on the outside wasn’t helping.

Understanding the roots of my world of emotions

Therapy helped me see something very important: my emotions have origins. The way I react, what I feel, and what I fear did not come from nowhere. I grew up in a home where my father struggled with alcoholism. That shapes a person — it creates excessive responsibility, a need for control, constant vigilance, and the urge to fix everyone and everything.

I learned that I had to earn love, attention, and acceptance. I believed that if I was good, patient, and loving enough, then someone would value me and stay. In therapy, I realized that I don’t have to earn love — I have the right to feel it and receive it simply because I exist.

I came to understand that happiness doesn’t come from the outside — it grows within me. And that my life doesn’t have to look the way someone once imagined it should.

A new me — freedom, agency, peace

Today, I can say I am happy because I am myself. Not because someone is standing next to me. Of course, I enjoy relationships and people, but I no longer tie my self-worth to them.

I do things that bring me joy. If I want to go to the cinema — I go. A concert? I buy a ticket and go. If I share those moments with someone — wonderful. If not — it’s still good.

I have people around me who like me and support me, and I have a dog who brings so much joy into my life. Today I remind myself: “I don’t have to. I can.” And I truly believe it. Limitations often exist only in our minds — now I see that.