gokc Healing Center

Maybe you searched "how to start therapy" late at night. Maybe you opened a scheduling page, stared at it, and closed the tab. Maybe you have wondered for months, or years, whether what you are dealing with is "serious enough" to bring to a counselor.

Or maybe the hard part is not you alone. It is the two of you. The same argument keeps coming back. Conversations end in silence. You live in the same house and feel like roommates.

This is Part 3 of a three-part series introducing Kate Ottley, a Provisional Licensed Professional Counselor (PLPC) at gokc Healing Center in Brookside. If you are just joining us, Part 1 covers people-pleasing, anxiety and self-esteem, and Part 2 covers trauma and depression. This post is for first-time therapy clients and for couples. Kate has been in your shoes, and she is glad to be the person you start with. If you are ready, you can request a time here.

Some people come to therapy because something terrible happened and they know it. Others come because nothing seems wrong on paper, and yet they feel flat, jumpy, disconnected or stuck. They have a job, a home, people who care about them. They keep telling themselves they "should be fine."

If that sounds familiar, you are not being dramatic and you are not alone. Many adults across Kansas City, from Brookside and Waldo to the Northland and Lee's Summit, carry the weight of old experiences or long stretches of low mood while continuing to show up for everyone else.

This is Part 2 of a three-part series introducing Kate Ottley, a Provisional Licensed Professional Counselor (PLPC) at gokc Healing Center in Brookside. If you missed it, Part 1 covers people-pleasing, anxiety and self-esteem. In this post we are talking about trauma and depression, two things that often travel together and are often missed. If you are ready to talk with Kate now, you can request a time here.

You are the person people text when they need a ride, a favor, an opinion or a shoulder. You are also the person who types "no worries!" when something was, in fact, a worry. If you have ever spent twenty minutes drafting a three-sentence message just to turn down an invitation, or left a conversation replaying whether you sounded rude, this post is for you.

Plenty of adults across Kansas City live this way every day, from Brookside and Waldo to Prairie Village, Leawood and Overland Park. From the outside it looks like reliability. On the inside it can feel like anxiety that never fully switches off, with a quiet question running underneath it: does anyone like the real me, or just what I do for them?

This is the first post in a three-part series introducing Kate Ottley, a Provisional Licensed Professional Counselor (PLPC) at gokc Healing Center in Brookside. Kate works with adults and couples, and people-pleasing, anxiety and self-esteem sit at the center of her work. If you would rather skip the reading and just talk with her, you can request a time here. If you want to understand what is going on first, keep reading.