A Note from the Author

I spent my career unknotting other people’s lives. It took me a lifetime to realize my own was a tangled mess.

For years, I sat in the chair across from the pain. As a therapist, I was trained to see the patterns, to hear the “Loud Silence” in a marriage, and to spot the “victim mentality” before a patient even sat down. I was the “Fixer.” The “Strong One.” The woman with the map and the compass.

But there is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from holding up the walls for everyone else while your own roof is slowly cave-in.

I wrote The Therapist Diary because I wanted to explore a character who knew all the answers but had forgotten how to ask herself the right questions. Nory isn’t a victim of her past, her ex-husband, or her childhood—she is a survivor who realized that endurance is not the same thing as love.

This story is for the “Fixers.” The ones who pack the school lunches, sign the forms, manage the bank accounts, and carry the heavy stones of “duty” until their backs are ready to break.

In these pages, you won’t find a lecture. You won’t find big, academic words or a 10-step plan for happiness. You’ll find the raw, messy, and sometimes funny reality of what happens when a woman finally stops waiting for a “permission slip” to be happy and decides to hold the pen herself.

Nory’s journey from the humid streets of Yogyakarta to the sharp glass of Singapore is a reclamation. It’s a story about walking tall, even when you’re walking into the dark without a map.

I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome to the “Waiting Room.” We aren’t here to be fixed; we’re here to be found.

With love and a little bit of grit,