Andrew Tobert (E1 - Shoreditch)

You learned to hide. Even from yourself.

Growing up, you might have thought something was wrong. You might have been told that explicitly, and certainly it was implied. The films and the books and the adverts never used to show people like you. You may have spent years living in the shadows. It is safer there, no doubt. But there is no light, and you need light to grow.

I'm a queer psychotherapist working in Shoreditch and online. Before I trained, I was an activist. Leaflets, protests, chaining myself to stuff. Activism taught me, in my body, what it was to take up space and be in touch with my own power. My clients don't always share that experience, or even that politics. But many of them know its opposite: feeling invisible, needing to make themselves smaller, performing something they are not. They can do what's expected of them by partners, friends or employers. They are the only person they cannot say yes to.

I cannot undo the world we live in, or the world in which you lived. But I can make space for you. You can show up here. All of you. No explanations required.