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Rock bottom has surprisingly decent Wi-Fi, which makes it easier to avoid human contact while maintaining the illusion of professional productivity.

I’m three months into my Phoenix exile, treating anxiety disorders and relationship conflicts from my beige therapy office, when my neighbor decides to become the universe’s most persistent do-gooder.

Frank Morales is seventy-two, a former high school basketball coach who apparently thinks my hermit routine needs intervention.

“You can’t hide forever,” he says, cornering me by the mailboxes with the determination of the social old man that he is.

I smile. “Hello, Frank. So, I’m not hiding. I’m working.”

“You’re existing. There’s a difference.” He hands me a flyer that looks like it was designed by someone who learned graphic design from a cereal box.

“I need to ask a favor of you since you are part of this community now, and you are smart as a whip. It’s a speaking opportunity. You can change some kiddos lives.”

“I don’t think—”

“These kids deal with more stress before breakfast than most adults handle all day. Gang pressure, family addiction, academic expectations they can’t meet. Sound familiar?”

The comparison stings because it’s accurate. I know about impossible expectations, about the weight of disappointing people who claim to love you. But these kids’ stakes are higher—survival instead of just success.

“I’m not exactly an inspirational speaker, Frank.”

He adjusts his glasses, fixing me with the kind of stare that probably made point guards confess to skipping practice. “These kids don’t need perfection. They need honesty.”

“What would I even talk about?”

“Mental toughness. Resilience. How to keep going when everything falls apart.” He pauses. “How to rebuild when you think you’ve lost everything.”

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

He laughs. “Atta girl!”

The Phoenix Community Center is exactly what you’d expect—linoleum floors, fluorescent lighting, and the kind of folding chairs that guaranteed discomfort.

Forty kids aged twelve to seventeen fill the small auditorium, all attitude and skepticism, arms crossed like armor against whatever bullshit adult wisdom is about to be dispensed.

“This is Dr. Chelsea Clark,” Frank announces with more enthusiasm than the situation warrants. “She’s going to talk to you about mental performance and handling pressure.”

I step to the makeshift podium, scanning faces that range from bored to hostile. A girl in the front row rolls her eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t fall out. A boy near the back is already texting, clearly planning his escape route.

“How many of you think therapy is bullshit?” I start.

Half the hands in the room shoot up. The other half look like they want to but aren’t sure if it’s a trap.

“Good. So do I, most of the time.”

That gets their attention. The texting stops. Even eye-roll girl looks curious.

“Here’s what I know about pressure,” I continue, abandoning my planned speech about goal-setting and positive thinking. “It doesn’t care about your age, your background, or whether you think you’re strong enough to handle it. It finds your weak spots and pushes until something breaks.”

“So what’s the point?” calls out a boy from the middle section. “If it’s gonna break us anyway?”

“The point is choosing what breaks. Do you break and rebuild stronger? Or do you break and stay broken?”

I tell them about Chicago. Not the sanitized version where I’m a victim of circumstances, but the real story—a woman who had everything mapped out until she met someone who made her want to throw the map away.

How I chose feeling over safety, chaos over control, and lost everything I thought defined me.

“You fucked up,” observes a girl with purple hair and the kind of direct gaze that cuts through pretense.

“Majorly. And now I’m here. Starting over. Building something different.”

“Better different or just different?”

“Ask me in a year.”

They laugh. Not at me. These kids understand reinvention as survival mechanism, identity as something fluid rather than fixed.

“What I learned,” I continue, “is that mental toughness isn’t about never falling down. It’s about getting back up even when everyone’s watching, even when you’re embarrassed, even when you’re not sure who you are anymore.”

“That’s some fortune cookie shit,” mutters the texting boy, but he’s listening now.

“Maybe. But fortune cookies don’t usually mention that getting back up hurts like hell and takes longer than anyone tells you.”

For the next twenty minutes, I answer questions about anxiety management, dealing with family pressure, finding motivation when everything feels pointless. These kids are sharp, insightful, asking the kinds of questions that would challenge experienced therapists.

“My mom wants me to be a doctor,” says a quiet girl near the back. “But I want to study art. She says that’s not realistic for people like us.”

“What’s realistic?”

“Safe. Stable. Something that guarantees money.”

“And what’s art?”

“Everything I actually care about.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a choice to make. Safety or meaning. Both are valid. Only you can decide which one you can live with.”

“What if I choose wrong?”

“Then you choose again. That’s the thing about choices—most of them aren’t permanent, even when they feel like it.”

After the Q&A, kids file out slowly, some stopping to thank me, others just nodding acknowledgment. I’m packing up my notes when a boy approaches—maybe fourteen, wearing a Bulls jersey that’s seen better years.

“Dr. Clark?”

“Chelsea’s fine.”

“You helped my brother. Miguel Santos. He was getting into fights, failing classes, acting crazy.”

My chest tightens. Miguel. Sixteen-year-old kid from the south side, dealing with his father’s deportation and his mother’s depression.

“I remember Miguel. How is he?”

“Good. Really good. He’s in counseling with someone else now, but he talks about you sometimes. Says you taught him that anger doesn’t have to be destructive.”

“Miguel taught me that too.”

“He’s graduating this spring. Early admission to UIC. Says he wants to study social work because of what you showed him about helping people.”

Wow . Miguel—angry, desperate Miguel—choosing a career in service because of our sessions. Proof that the work mattered, that I was good at something beyond destroying my own life.

“Tell him I’m proud of him,” I manage.

“I will. And Dr. Clark? Thanks for coming tonight. Half these kids have been through shit you wouldn’t believe. Hearing from someone who survived falling apart... that matters.”

He leaves, and I stand alone in the empty auditorium, surrounded by folding chairs and the ghost of my former professional confidence. Frank appears with the practiced timing of someone who’s delivered countless post-game speeches.

“How do you feel?”

“Like maybe I remember why I became a therapist in the first place.”

“To help kids like these?”

“To help people figure out that breaking doesn’t mean staying broken.”

“Think you might want to do more of this?”

I look around the community center—shabby but functional, serving kids who need advocates more than they need perfect facilities. It’s not the prestigious sports psychology career I planned, but it’s real work with real impact.

“Maybe. If they’ll have me.”

“They’ll have you. Question is whether you’ll have yourself.”

That night, I sit in my beige apartment with a notebook I haven’t touched since Chicago. My handwriting looks foreign, like a skill I’m relearning after injury. But slowly, words come. I write out all my feelings, and it feels freeing.

Tomorrow, I’ll call Frank about volunteering regularly. I’ll research community programs that need psychology consultants. I’ll start building something new from the ashes of what I destroyed.

Tonight, I sit with my notebook and the revolutionary idea that maybe—maybe—I don’t need to earn my way back to who I was.

Maybe I can just become who I’m meant to be.

Even if that person is someone I’m still figuring out.

Even if she’s imperfect and scarred and nothing like the woman I planned to become.