This is life now.
Maybe you signed something. Maybe you're still deciding whether to. Maybe there's no document at all, but there is an understanding, unspoken, but absolute, that certain things don't get repeated outside a closed room. Whatever brought you here, the shape of it is the same: something happened, it changed everything, and you're required to carry it alone, in public, while performing like nothing did.
Therapy for what happened and the version of it you're not allowed to tell anyone.
A Silenced Exit
IFS Therapy For Forced Career Exits, Signed NDAs, and Whistleblowers In Maryland & Virginia
This isn't about whether you made the right call signing what you signed, or reporting what you reported, or leaving how you left. It's about what it costs to carry a true story that you're not allowed to tell, while everyone around you operates from a version that isn't.
For some of you, this is legal, where there is an actual document controlling what you're permitted to say, with real consequences if you don't.
For others, it's more informal but no less binding: an unspoken agreement, a reputation to protect, people who'd be hurt by the truth coming out.
Either way, a part of you has taken on the job of managing the story, constantly, and that job doesn't clock out.
None of this makes you dishonest. It makes you someone holding something too heavy to carry alone, in a situation that requires you to look like you're carrying nothing at all.
It Didn't End When You Signed It. It Just Went Quiet.
You signed something and the silence became permanent once you did.
You're required to perform at full capacity until a day that isn't yours to move.
The Load You're Carrying:
Your role has an expiration date.
And now you have to keep functioning inside, or near, the exact organization you turned on.
You're the one who reported it.
Some of them are wrong. You can't correct any of them.
People have started forming their own theories about what happened.
The person you're closest to still doesn't have the full picture.
You can't tell your spouse what your lawyers know.
This isn't over. You're managing it in real time, with no one to process it with as it happens.
You're bound to silence about something that's still actively unfolding.
You've rehearsed the vague version of this story so many times, it comes out smoother than the truth.
You've caught yourself almost saying the true thing out loud, in a room where you can't afford to.
You didn't. You've just never been able to say so.
Everyone thinks you quit.
Now people are asking questions you can't fully answer, and you're not sure what version is even safe to give.
A co-founder, partner, or colleague left & took the real story with them.
There's no version of this where you get to explain yourself later.
The Unexplained Exit
You reported something, or you're still deciding whether to, and now you have to keep functioning inside, or near, the exact organization or situation you turned on, often for months or years while it plays out.
The Whistleblower's Isolation.
A signed NDA, a severance agreement, a settlement; an actual document controlling what you're permitted to say, with a real, dated consequence if you don't.
The Legal Silence
3 Ways This Often Shows Up
No document silences you, but no honest explanation exists either; A forced resignation, a mutual departure that wasn't mutual, a story you've never been able to tell straight.
In What Comes Next
You move toward your next role, relationship, or chapter carrying this with you instead of carrying it as you — a part of your history, not the organizing fact of your identity.
You find at least one place, this room, where you don't have to perform the public version. Where the truth doesn't need translating or minimizing to be understood.
In Your Relationships
The bracing that comes before certain conversations, certain names, certain reminders of what happened, starts to soften.
In Your Body
You stop being defined, even privately to yourself, by the story you're not allowed to correct. You get to know who you are underneath what happened, not just the managed version of it.
In Your Identity
The story stops living in your body as a constant, low grade vigilance. You can go a full day without managing what you might accidentally reveal.
In How You Carry It
What Becomes Possible
We work with what's actually being protected, not just the silence itself. Often there's an exiled part underneath, carrying shame, fear, or grief about what actually happened, that the managing part has been working overtime to keep contained.
We don't need the full legal or factual detail for this work to matter. You don't have to tell me anything you're not permitted to share for us to work with what it's costing you to hold it. This is not legal consultation and I can't advise you on what you are or aren't allowed to disclose as that's a conversation for your attorney. What we work with is everything underneath the silence: the vigilance, the isolation, the identity questions, the grief.
You will not be asked to justify your decisions here, and you won't need to convince me any version of what happened was the right call. That's not the work.
How I Work
Why This Is So Important
& Taken Seriously
Most therapists treat this kind of forced silence as a workplace complaint to be validated and moved past. I don't. Carrying a true story you're legally or relationally bound to never fully tell isn't a temporary inconvenience, it's a sustained psychological load, and generalist therapy often doesn't know to look for what that specifically does to a nervous system over time: the vigilance, the isolation, the identity fracture between the public story and the real one. I take that seriously as its own area of work, not a footnote to "processing a hard job situation."
Why This Therapy Happens In An Intensive
Sometimes there's a real clock, like a signing date, a testimony, a filing deadline, and an Intensive lets us do concentrated work before that date arrives. Other times, especially once the legal process has settled, there's no clock left at all, just years of carrying this quietly. Either way, weekly sessions rarely match the pace this actually needs: the vigilance required to hold a secret doesn't turn off between Tuesday's session and next Tuesday's. An Intensive gives your system enough sustained, protected time to finally put some of it down.
$6,000
3 day • 18 hrs
$4,200
2 day • 12 hrs
Full day • 6 hrs
$1,500
$2,400
Half day • 3 hrs
RATE
INTENSIVE FORMAT
I work exclusively through IFS Intensives, virtual or in person in Baltimore, MD or Virginia Beach, VA. Ongoing individual sessions are available after your intensive.
How We Can Work Together
Your Next Step
You don't have to tell me the details you're not free to share. You just have to stop being the only one who knows what it's costing you to hold this
Frequently Asked Questions
Therapy confidentiality and legal non-disclosure are two different things, and I'm not able to advise you on what your specific agreement does or doesn't allow, that's a question for your attorney. What I can tell you is that you don't need to disclose specific facts, names, or details you're not free to share for this work to be effective. We can work directly with what it's costing you to carry this, without requiring the details themselves.
Sessions are confidential, but if you have active or pending legal proceedings, I'd recommend looping in your attorney about what's appropriate to discuss and where. I'm not a substitute for that guidance.
Yes. Whether you've already reported something or are still deciding whether to, this work addresses the isolation and pressure of holding that alone.
I wasn't legally silence; I just can't tell people the real reason I left. Does this still apply to me?
Yes. The mechanism, carrying a true story you're not permitted or able to tell, doesn't require a legal document to be real and exhausting.
Yes. Sessions are not shared with employers, former employers, attorneys, or any third party unless it falls within the limits of confidentiality.
IFS intensives are private pay and not billed through insurance. If ongoing therapy is helpful after your intensive, I'm an in network provider with BCBS for eligible ongoing services. However, using insurance has the potential to neglect your privacy.
I'm licensed in Maryland and Virginia with telehealth privileges in Florida. The pre and post-intensive sessions are virtual. The intensive itself is available virtually or in person in Baltimore, MD or Virginia Beach, VA, with the option to hold your Virginia Beach intensive on the beach, weather permitting.
