From Suffering to Seeking: Origin Story of the Wounded Healer
How does a person become a therapist after they have experienced trauma? Mary is just such a person and this is her origin story.
It has been said that the most effective healers are those who have traveled their own healing path from one who suffers to one who seeks, and ultimately to one who heals. I believe this to be true. The journey of the Wounded Healer is a twisty-turny pathway from trauma and despair to psychotherapist and healer.
Let me tell you a story about Mary. Mary is not a superhero, but she has a powerful origin story.
Mary had always been sensitive, and she was deeply ashamed of that sensitivity. Her parents didn’t understand how to raise a sensitive child and though they did their best, they had their own unhealed demons that made it truly impossible to offer what a sensitive child needed.
The struggles of those early years eventually gave birth to new demons in Mary that she would ultimately have to examine and befriend.
Mary carried the shame of her sensitive for decades. It wasn’t until she became a therapist herself later in life that Mary learned that there was a name for sensitive people. Eureka! She realized that she was not broken, but actually a Highly Sensitive Person and were lots of other people like her!
It is estimated that approximately 20% of the population are highly sensitive.
Once she released the shame and accepted her sensitivity, Mary began to notice the gifts that it offered her. She felt things deeply and while it could be challenging, she had no wish to change or “fix” her sensitivity any longer. She felt music, art and poetry profoundly, and as a therapist her sensitivity would allow her to see things in her clients that other therapists would miss. She truly loved working with sensitive clients because she could relate and she understood them deeply.
Mary was raised as a Christian Scientist, the religion that is most well known for its aversion to medical care. Even though she went to church every Sunday like a good little girl, she was never comfortable with the idea of God. Quietly, internally she reframed God as Universal Energy. At a very young age she was intuitively aware of something deeply true, but which she would lose sight of as school and society stomped it out of her.
Mary’s journey to seeker and healer was more of a remembering than a discovering.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the college years...
Mary had always been a human with many diverse interests. In college, this manifested as contemplating multiple and wide ranging majors, from biology to biochemistry to music to Japanese studies to French. Back then you didn’t have to decide on a major before you enrolled and thank goodness for that!
She finally settled on a double major of biology and music. Over time her left brain and her interest in science won over the pull of her right brain and Soul toward creative and spiritual endeavors. This led to graduate school in genetics and molecular biology and her first career as a research scientist working in Big Pharma.
The research was mentally stimulating, but left her devoid of a sense of purpose or connection to Self. She grew unsatisfied and restless. She began to search for something that would fill the void. She did her due diligence, which included informational interviewing and considered many other careers, including acupuncture, landscape design, chiropractic, and her first love of music.
The theme within these options was that she was feeling the call to return to creativity and healing. Sadly that wasn’t to be realized for another decade.
When you hear the Soul’s Call, don’t ignore it or push it away. It will call again and the next time it will be louder.
Mary made the leap from scientific research into marketing. She had a notion that in marketing she would be working more with people less with test tubes. While technically correct, it still did not fulfill her and what she was looking for. She craved deep intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. She craved authenticity over productivity.
She craved Soul-Full work.
As Mary climbed the corporate ladder in marketing and was becoming successful financially, she was also engaged in her own therapy. She realized that she had complex PTSD and repressed memories that desperately needed to be seen, felt, experienced and healed. This time she listened to Soul’s call. It was difficult and painful work, and ultimately exactly what was needed.
“There comes a time in your life when the life you have been living is over, and you have no clue what you were becoming.” ~Marion Woodman
Mary still didn’t know what the next step was though and that worried her. Her moment of clarity came in a DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) class when they did an exercise on values. She had thought that her values were about achievement, which were the values held by her parents and society at large. By this time Mary was living in Silicon Valley, which is known for this.
She had been well and truly indoctrinated and conditioned by the all-consuming narrative of achievement as the ultimate goal.
But it left her cold.
When she looked deeper in her therapy sessions (much deeper, into the Shadow) she realized what she actually cared about was creativity, authenticity, and community. None of these aligned with how she was living.
So she did what any good little left-brain-dominant girl would do and she started a spreadsheet of possibilities. Then she went to a career counselor because she didn’t trust her own intuition which had been minimized and dismissed for decades. The results of all the career testing and counseling were clear. Her talents and interests were equally split between being a therapist and being a musician. Sadly, her musical skills had atrophied, but she never lost her passion for healing.
The secret to learning to trust your intuition again is through small steps and little wins. ~Linnea Butler
So she pulled up her big girl pants, strengthened her fortitude, quit her high-paying-high-achieving-soulless job and went back to graduate school. Back to Birkenstocks and student loans. Back to the unknown and uncertainty. Back to feeling curious and invigorated. Back to the beginning.
As a trauma survivor, she was passionate about understanding not only her experience, but also helping others travel their journey of healing from complex PTSD to post-traumatic growth.
More than a decade later, Mary is still learning and loving the work.
So how do I know so much about Mary? You may have guessed at this point that I was her therapist, however I knew her even more intimately than that.
You see, I am Mary and this is my origin story. This is how I became a trauma therapist.
My stepfather and I have never been especially close, but he said something to me once that filled my heart with warmth, love and appreciation. He said that he always wanted to be a forest ranger, but he didn’t have the courage to do it. Instead he followed the traditional corporate path - high pay, high stress, a pension, but no soul.
He told me that he admired my courage and wished that he had had the courage to do what he loved. That meant everything to me and gave me more fuel for the journey which would be long and wonderful, terrifying and rewarding.
So with that, I leave you with the invitation to consider your true values and how well they align (or don’t) with what you’re actually doing in your day-to-day life.
If you’re not living your values, I hope you can find a way to heed the call and tap in to that which gives your soul wings and makes your heart sing.
©2025 Linnea Butler
Thanks for this! I’m moved by your transparency and authenticity. ❤️