Affordable therapy in Kuilsriver - Counselling and Coaching

I had become so used to planning around my anxiety that I did not realise how small my life had become. The Guidance Session helped because I did not have to know what kind of practitioner I needed. The person I chose understood social anxiety straight away, which made that first session much less intimidating.

I thought depression meant being sad all the time. For me it was more that I did not care about anything anymore and even small things like packing the kids' lunchboxes or answering routine client emails felt like work. I was also very sceptical about doing sessions online. Turns out being at home actually made it easier to talk. I am not suddenly a different person, but I am functioning again and things do not feel quite so heavy.

I came to Headroom after my second panic attack at varsity. What helped was being able to choose someone whose profile actually mentioned panic and stress, not just ‘mental health’. At first we worked on understanding what was happening in my body and noticing what set it off. I took the bulk-session option because I knew I would probably stop if I had to decide again every week. It was not quick, but I am not scared of every anxious feeling now.

For ages I kept saying ‘but he has never actually hit me’ so I did not think what was happening counted as abuse. I was constantly explaining myself, checking his mood and changing plans so there would not be an argument. Talking it through helped me see the control much more clearly. I was not pushed into making any big decision before I was ready, which mattered a lot.

School bullying was years ago and I felt stupid still being affected by it. At varsity I would literally rehearse a sentence before saying it in a group because I was waiting for people to laugh. My counsellor gave me small stuff to try between sessions. Some weeks I did it, some weeks I did not 😂. But slowly I stopped treating every new group of people like the old one.

I did not go looking for ‘trauma counselling’. I went because I was exhausted, angry all the time and not sleeping properly after months of being targeted at work. The first few sessions helped me connect those things. More importantly, I stopped asking myself why I was not coping better and started looking at what the situation had actually done to me.

When I was retrenched I kept telling people ‘it is just a job’, but honestly it knocked me sideways. I had worked there for 14 years. Suddenly I had no routine, I was embarrassed around friends who were still working and I started avoiding LinkedIn because every post made me feel worse. I thought I needed career advice. The counselling helped me see I was also dealing with a proper loss.

The breakup was definitely the right decision, which made it confusing that I was struggling so much afterwards. I was not missing the relationship exactly. I was grieving the house, his family, our friends and this whole future I had already pictured. Once I understood that it made much more sense.

My brother had been sick for a long time and I thought I had prepared myself. I had not. But I also felt relieved that he was not suffering anymore and then guilty for feeling relieved. Being able to say all of that somewhere without somebody trying to make it nicer was probably what I needed most.

I kept using the fact that I did not drink every day as proof that I was fine. Friday drinks, celebrating, bad day, good day, dinner out — somehow there was always a reason. I was still working, exercising, doing everything I needed to do, so in my head that meant there could not really be a problem. What changed for me was looking at how often alcohol had quietly become the answer to something — relaxing, rewarding myself, socialising, switching off. I really appreciated that nobody immediately turned it into ‘you can never drink again’. We looked at what was actually happening first, and I could decide what I wanted to change from there.

Talking about porn was much less awkward than I expected. No judgement, no big label. We got into what was happening around it and what it was doing to my relationship. That was the useful part.

My son was not interested in counselling. I was desperate for him to go. Eventually someone asked me what I was going to do differently if he did not change. I hated that question at first. It turned out to be the one I needed.

My brother always had a reason he needed money and usually it sounded completely reasonable. Petrol. Rent. Groceries. I knew drugs were part of the picture somewhere, but saying no felt cruel. Counselling helped me get my head around the difference between helping him and protecting him from every consequence. I am still learning that one.

I did not quit drinking — I just stopped letting every weekend turn into Monday's problem.

The biggest surprise was realising I was spending more energy managing his gambling than he was.

We came in arguing about money. I was convinced he was irresponsible; he thought I controlled everything. After a few sessions it was pretty clear the fights were not really about the spreadsheet. I needed to feel I could rely on him and he needed to feel like an adult in his own house. Once we saw that, we had something to work with. We still disagree about money btw. We just do not turn it into a referendum on the whole marriage anymore.

I genuinely thought I was helping my husband. Paying something when he had spent too much, covering for him with the kids, sorting out the mess afterwards. I thought that was what you did when somebody you love was struggling. Then one day in a session I realised how much work I was doing to make sure he did not actually experience the consequences of his drinking. Yoh. That one stayed with me. I started noticing all the small things — what I explained away, what I fixed before anyone else saw it, how quickly I stepped in when things went wrong. Changing that was uncomfortable because it felt like I was abandoning him. Eventually I understood that I could care about him without taking responsibility for everything his drinking caused.

I kept choosing people who were unavailable and then working twice as hard to get them to choose me. When my counsellor pointed out how familiar that feeling was from growing up, I wanted to argue with her 😂. She was right though.

My sessions did not save the relationship. They helped me stop trying to save it alone.

By the time we asked for help we had already decided to separate. I assumed that meant counselling was pointless. It actually helped us have some very hard conversations without blowing up in front of the kids and gave us a much clearer way of handling the next few months.

Learning to say ‘I need time to think’ instead of either agreeing or exploding changed more than I expected.

Our son had become so angry at home. Every tiny request turned into a fight and we were honestly convinced he was just pushing every boundary because he could. It took a while before we understood how stressed he was at school and how much he was holding together all day before falling apart with us. That did not mean there were suddenly no rules. We just stopped treating every meltdown like a character problem. The whole atmosphere at home changed.

I went because I thought I needed a better matric study timetable. Mostly I needed to stop treating every prelim and exam like it was going to decide my entire life.

Co-parenting was a mess after the divorce because literally every message from my ex felt loaded. I learnt to answer the actual question instead of the argument I thought was hiding inside it. Sounds small. Huge difference.

My daughter stopped wanting to go to school and all I wanted was to get her back there before she fell behind. I was so focused on attendance that I missed how frightened she had become around a group of girls. Once we understood that, the plan had to change.

I lost my grandmother, who was the person I phoned about every big decision. By then I was living in another country and culture and I felt much more unanchored than I expected. I matched with a counsellor on Headroom who has become a steady person I can check in with when life gets complicated. We have had more than 40 sessions now. Some are serious, some honestly feel like having coffee with a wise elder who already knows the whole backstory. I do not book because something is wrong every week; I book when I feel that gap and need perspective. I never expected counselling to become this kind of long-term support for me.

I did not realise how often my yes meant ‘please do not be disappointed in me’.

Nothing was technically wrong. Good job, good relationship, kids were fine. I just felt like my whole life had become doing what needed to be done. It felt almost indulgent to book counselling for that. It was not. I needed somewhere to work out what I actually wanted the next part of my life to look like.

I have started and abandoned more routines than I can count 😅 — gym before work, meal prep on Sundays, reading every night. We stopped designing the perfect week and made the habits so small I had very little excuse not to do them. Boring but effective.

My partner and I were fine with being from different religions. Our families were definitely not fine 😂. Suddenly every decision about a wedding, holidays and future kids felt like it carried 200 years of history. It helped having someone who did not treat either family as ridiculous but also kept bringing us back to what the two of us actually wanted.

After my brother died I was angry with God and then guilty for being angry. I was not looking for somebody to restore my faith or talk me out of it. I needed somewhere I could say both things honestly.

I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone, including the people at our church and half my extended family. There was something I needed to talk about that I just could not risk becoming community information. Having an online session with someone completely outside that circle was such a relief. I could finally say the whole thing without editing myself or wondering who might hear about it later.

I spent years changing my hair and how I dressed for work because I knew exactly what looked ‘professional’ in that environment. I did not realise how exhausting it was to be constantly translating myself until I had somewhere to talk about it without being told I was imagining things.

I knew I was gay long before I was ready for anyone else to know. Online counselling gave me one place where I did not have to edit every sentence.

The hardest part of varsity was not academics, it was feeling like I was too much of one thing in one group and not enough of it in another. I came for confidence and ended up talking a lot about belonging.

There is one counsellor in our town and she knows my mother, my ex and half the people I was trying to talk about. The pastor was the other obvious option and that felt even less possible. Finding someone online in another province was honestly such a relief. I could talk about my sexuality, my family and how I felt about myself without constantly wondering how all the people in the story connected to the person listening.

The purging was the secret I thought would make somebody judge me immediately. My counsellor was calm about it, but also clear that I needed medical support as well. I hated hearing that at first. She was right.

My daughter's eating disorder had turned every meal into a negotiation and every family member into a detective. Getting support for ourselves helped us stop making the whole house about food while still taking her recovery seriously.

I still train hard. The difference is that missing a session no longer feels like I have failed some moral test.

After the miscarriage I really did not want to talk to anybody who was going to tell me everything happens for a reason. My practitioner thankfully did not do that. Some sessions I spoke about the baby and some I did not. I appreciated that I could just arrive wherever I was that week.

The birth was medically labelled uncomplicated, so I felt ridiculous saying I was traumatised by it. I had felt trapped, unheard and scared. Once somebody took that seriously I could finally stop arguing with myself about whether I was allowed to be affected.

Menopause was not the end of anything for me. It actually started a much bigger conversation about what I wanted the next twenty years to look like.

I did not think I was depressed because I was not sitting around crying. I was working twelve-hour days, snapping at everyone and then wanting to be left alone when I got home. My wife called it depression before I did. Counselling helped me see that being productive and being okay were not the same thing.

My libido dropped and then I started having problems with erections. I panicked. I had basically understood sex as intercourse my whole life, so once that became unreliable I could not even imagine what intimacy was supposed to look like anymore. I withdrew from my wife because every touch felt like it might become a test I could fail. My psychologist helped me see how narrow my understanding of our physical relationship had become. I asked for homework, read what she suggested, and for the first time in my life actually learnt about desire, arousal and female sexuality rather than assuming I knew. She also suggested I speak to my doctor; after an assessment he prescribed treatment for the physical side, which definitely helped. But the biggest change came from the conversations. My wife and I became curious again instead of frightened of sex. At 58 I feel slightly embarrassed by how much I did not know, but mostly I am grateful somebody helped me catch up.

My anger was not random. It was basically the only emotion I allowed to make noise.

I can focus on something interesting for six hours and somehow still forget to renew my vehicle licence for three months. That contradiction used to drive me mad.

I had spent so long learning how to look comfortable in social situations that I did not know where masking ended and I started. Counselling did not make me stop masking overnight. It helped me notice when I was choosing it and when I was automatically disappearing into it.

Our son's ADHD assessment made me realise I had built my entire adult life around exactly the same problems. That was a slightly awkward family plot twist 😂.

My study problem was not that I did not care. I cared so much that every economics essay became this massive thing in my head and then I could not start. We made the starting point almost stupidly small. It worked.

Online sessions suit me because there is no waiting room, traffic or extra social energy before I have even started talking.

My wife and I found some of the material our 16-year-old son was watching online and we were horrified. The way he spoke with his mates had also changed — really degrading stuff about women that was completely at odds with how we thought we had raised him. We both saw the problem, but my wife expected me to be the one to tackle it because I was his father and I had absolutely no idea how. That became an argument between us as well. I do not hold those views, I have never spoken about women like that, and yet somehow I felt accused of having failed to teach him something. We spoke to a counsellor together and it helped enormously. He helped us understand the kind of manosphere content our son was being pulled into, stop turning on each other, and plan how to speak to him firmly without making the whole conversation one long lecture about what a terrible person he was. We are still dealing with it, but at least we are dealing with it together now.

Being able to log in from bed on a bad fatigue day is the reason I have actually been able to stay consistent with support.

My mother lives with me and needs more help every year. Somewhere along the way I stopped being her daughter and became the person who organises absolutely everything. I love her. I was also becoming resentful and then feeling guilty for being resentful. Having my own counsellor probably kept me kinder to both of us.

When my doctor suggested an occupational therapist after burnout I thought he meant something physical. I had no idea OTs could look at how I was actually functioning at work. She went through my day, energy, task-switching, meetings, what wiped me out and what I could realistically manage on returning. It was probably the most practical support I had in the whole process.

Losing my job was humiliating in a way I was not prepared for. The money mattered, obviously, but the bigger shock was how quickly I stopped knowing what to say when people asked what I do.

My manager and I were stuck in a terrible dynamic and I was reacting to every email like it was a threat. Counselling helped me get calm enough to work out which bits were mine to change and which needed to go through HR.

I had the promotion and absolutely none of the confidence. The sessions were practical — prepare, do the thing, debrief, adjust. Exactly what I needed.

The most useful question was whether I wanted less work or different work. Those are not the same problem.

I built this business over 18 years and AI now seems capable of doing half of what we sell. Every new article made me feel physically sick. I was frozen between pretending it was not happening and wanting to change everything overnight, while staff kept asking me what it meant for them. Counselling did not give me an AI strategy. It got me out of panic enough to start making one.

Cash flow anxiety is not irrational when the cash flow is genuinely tight. The sessions helped me stop treating every possible problem like it was already happening today. Then I could actually deal with the numbers.

I do not need my counsellor to tell me how to run my company. I need one person who can hear the messy version of my thinking before I take it to the team.

My company survived a very bad year. My marriage nearly did not. That was the point where ‘the business needs me’ stopped being a good enough answer for everything.

I was worried I would have to sit there and tell the whole story from beginning to end. I did not. We started with why I still jump at certain sounds and why sleep had become such a mission. That made it manageable for me.

My family would say things about my skin, weight or clothes and call it concern. I laughed along for years. Learning that I could love my family and still decide what commentary I was not willing to absorb anymore was huge.

My wife was dying and people kept asking how she was. My counsellor was one of the few people who asked how I was managing knowing I was going to lose her.

I use Headroom completely ad hoc. Funding pitch, CCMA issue, business-partner disagreement — I book. Sometimes I do not need a session for six weeks. It works because my counsellor already knows the business history and I do not have to start from zero every time.

The hardest part of my business is not the actual business. It is people. One person is burnt out, another thinks the younger staff have no resilience, the younger staff think the older managers do not listen, somebody's marriage is falling apart and suddenly I am the emotional first responder as well as the CEO. It all stops with me. There have been days I have genuinely wanted to sell the company just so I never have to deal with another people issue. My counsellor has helped me work out how to be empathetic without becoming everyone's therapist, and how to lead rationally without switching off the human part. I still find it exhausting. I just do not feel as swallowed by it.