Where the Story Lives: The Importance of Context

One of my core beliefs—personally, professionally, philosophically—is this: There is always more to the story.

It’s why I fell in love with narrative therapy. It’s why I ask so many questions in session. It’s why I will always, always choose to get curious instead of drawing a conclusion. Because life isn’t clean or simple. It’s layered and often contradictory.

That kind of understanding—that kind of depth—requires context.

And we live in a world that’s starving for it.

We want quick conclusions.

Quick diagnoses.

Quick labels.

Quick verdicts.

We scroll, skim, and stamp people as “this or that” without asking what happened before. What else is true. What might’ve come next if we had only paused.

Let me say this plainly: context matters. It tells the story behind how we show up—how we react, how we cope, how we protect ourselves, and how we ask for what we need (even when we don’t have the words).

Context is everywhere. Context is what gives shape to our mental health.

It explains our reactions, our emotional states, our patterns, our perspective on the world.

It’s in our bodies, our parenting, our classrooms, our politics.

It’s in our group chats, our dinner tables, our workplaces, our Facebook comments.

It’s in the way we overthink at night and dread the morning.

In how we handle traffic, how we talk to our kids, how we set boundaries, how we carry pain.

Without context, we miss the bigger picture. We miss the why.

Mental health doesn’t happen in a vacuum—it’s constantly being shaped by what we’ve been through, what we’re going through, and what we’ve learned to expect. And that’s why context matters.

Mental health is present in every interaction, every reaction, every decision.

It gives a mold for what we say, what we don’t say, how we connect, how we disconnect, and what we do next.

To make that case, I want to share three stories.

Story One: The Migraine

I met up with two of my friends recently. We sat there, sharing coffee and talking about pain. Not metaphorical pain. Actual pain. The kind that starts in your body but eventually spills into everything else—your plans, your energy, your patience, your ability to be present in your everyday life.

We were talking about migraines.

Both of my friends have lived with chronic migraines for longer than I’ve even known them. I’ve watched them push through the kind of pain that would bring most people to the emergency room. I’ve watched them show up to work, raise kids, and make dinner while their face was pulsing and their vision was blurred.

This isn’t just the occasional headache. This is searing, nerve-level agony. This is multiple specialists, trial after trial of medications, scans, surgeries, physical therapy, nerve blocks, and rounds of Botox to paralyze the pain. This is the kind of pain that rearranges your whole sense of normal.

One of my friends can identify exactly where her migraine pain starts. A pinpoint spot at the base of her skull. She’s had a surgery already to try to relieve it. She’s kept going. Kept hoping. Kept hurting.

She told us, kind of joking, that at a recent appointment she looked her doctor in the eye and begged him: “Can you just cut the whole nerve out?”

She didn’t say it flippantly. She said it with the exhaustion of someone who is beyond their threshold. Someone who has been carrying something so painful, for so long, that they’ve run out of realistic ways to ask for relief.

And her doctor responded like many do—rationally, scientifically, detached: “Don’t underestimate your need for that nerve.”

To which we joked back, “Yeah, but don’t underestimate your pain either.”

And while yes, medically, that might be a true statement, what my friend was saying wasn’t about the nerve.

It was about the need behind the need.

It was about the unrelenting urgency to get one goddamn piece of her life under control.

It was about grief—the kind that doesn’t sit in one neat corner of your life but floods every room.

Because my friend isn’t just fighting migraines. She’s fiercely fighting a relentless grief that has hollowed her out and rearranged who she is. A grief that is still active, still alive, still showing up in her body every day. She’s not trying to get rid of a nerve—she’s trying to survive a life that hasn’t given her a break in nearly a year.

And when she said “cut the nerve,” I don’t think she meant it literally.

What I heard was: “I don’t have time for this. I can’t take care of this pain right now. I already have a thousand invisible things I’m carrying. Please, give me one less thing to manage.”

I don’t know if her doctor knows about her grief. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. But I do know that if he had a mental health-informed lens—if he was trained to listen beyond symptoms and into stories—he might have responded differently.

Maybe he would have paused before delivering his rehearsed line about underestimating nerves.

Maybe he would’ve said, “This sounds unbearable—how long has it felt this bad?”

Maybe he would’ve asked her about her life. Her loss. Her capacity.

Maybe he would’ve recognized that this wasn’t simply a consultation about a nerve. This was a cry for relief from a body and soul stretched way too thin.

Because here’s the truth: she doesn’t need the nerve gone.

She needs the weight she’s carrying to be seen.

She needs her life back.

Story Two: More Than a File

Many readers know that I got my start in the mental health field working with kids—specifically, kids who displayed disruptive or challenging behaviors. I spent several summers working at a behavior-focused summer camp, supporting children in modifying these behaviors through structure, consistency, and compassion.

That camp shaped the way I think about people forever. Because that was one of the first places I learned, without a doubt, that there is always more to the story.

Before each child arrived at camp, the staff reviewed their file. The file always started the same way—with a behavioral report outlining the disruptive behaviors, a summary of what the child struggles with, and a list of two behavioral goals for their time at camp.

Part One of the file was "the problem".

But Part Two…that’s where the story lived.

The next section was the parent application. It asked deeper questions—about when the behaviors started, how they’ve impacted daily life, whether the child had experienced any trauma, stress, or loss at home. The kind of questions that didn’t just describe the behavior—but explained it.

The file may have started with: “Hits peers when upset.”

But a few pages later, you might read: “Child was placed in foster care at age 4 after witnessing domestic violence. Struggles to trust adults.”

And suddenly, everything made more sense.

This is why I say all behavior is a message. It’s not random. It’s not meaningless. It’s not just “bad.”

It’s communication. And it’s our job to listen.

But too often—in mental health, in schools, in everyday life—we stop at Part One.

We read the behavior. We read the problem. And we stamp a label on it.

We call a child “angry,” “oppositional,” “manipulative,”...“a lost cause.”

And then we stop reading.

I cringe when I hear clinicians say things like, “I have a Borderline client,” or “my OCD client.” The diagnosis becomes the identity. The label replaces the person.

At camp, it would’ve been so easy to read just the first page of a child’s file and label them the aggressive one, the explosive one, the one who’s never going to change.

But when you read the whole file, you’d see something different.

You’d see a child whose parent has been in and out of jail since they were three. A child who’s been bounced between caregivers and doesn’t want to get attached anymore—because losing people hurts too much. So they push people away. Because that feels safer than being hurt again.

And honestly? Most people don’t want to go that deep. It’s uncomfortable. It’s too complicated.

It asks something of us—empathy, patience, curiosity—that we aren’t always ready to give.

So instead, we reduce people to their behavior. We call it a problem. We give it a name. We move on.

That's not fair.

No one deserves to be reduced to a label, a diagnosis or a behavior or a single page in a file.

We all deserve more than that. We all deserve the full story.

Story Three: Lawyers and Therapists Don't Mix

I never went into the mental health field thinking I’d be spending time with lawyers. If anything, they were the last people I thought I’d cross paths with—unless they were the client. And yet…since entering this field in 2017, I’ve interacted with quite a few lawyers.

I started in this field as a case manager for a community mental health program—not working in jail diversion, not attached to the court system, not involved in forensic psych. And today, I’m a private practice therapist. Interacting with lawyers for me is…unusual.

And to be honest, each interaction has left me more jaded than the last.

There was one lawyer I met with—not exactly by choice, but how often is it really by choice? I was nervous. On edge. Anxious about how I’d come across, how much this stranger would understand, what parts of me I should show them. I spent literal days thinking about what I was going to say and how I was going to say it.

Eventually, I decided that maybe if they could see who I am, what I value, where I come from, they would understand why I was sitting across from them. I thought context might matter.

So, being me, I wrote it all out.

Five pages.

Five pages of backstory, explanation, reflection. Five pages of me. Vulnerable. Honest. Exposed.

I read it to them out loud. And when I finished, they stared at me for a second and said, “Can I keep a copy of this?”, tapping my five pages with their pen.

For a moment, I felt hope.

Maybe they wanted to take it in more deeply. Maybe they were going to revisit it, try to understand me in context.

Maybe this would help.

I don’t know what they did with those pages.

Maybe they went in a file.

Maybe in the trash.

Maybe in a pile on their desk they never looked at again.

But I do know this: I gave them something sacred. I gave them a piece of my story. And they treated it like paperwork.

What makes me most jaded about lawyers is how often the conversations feel narrow. Binary. Crafted to pull out a specific kind of answer.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Right.”

“Wrong.”

And that’s simply not me.

I don’t live in yes/no. I live in why.

In context. In what happened before that and what was that trying to protect.

I said directly to this lawyer, “Look, I think therapists and lawyers just don’t mix. There’s a reason I sit in my chair and you sit in yours.” And I meant it. Because too often, those interactions leave no room for context. No room for complexity. No room for the person.

So when I needed to consult with a lawyer for my business recently, I dreaded it. I procrastinated. Googled obsessively. Searched things like “female-friendly lawyer” and “mental health-informed law firm.” Scrolled through reviews like I was scanning for emotional landmines.

Because this time, I wasn’t just looking for legal expertise. I was looking for someone who could handle me with care. Someone who would see the person behind the problem.

And I found her. At a woman-owned law firm in my own neighborhood. Their website said they believe in empowering women to pursue their goals and build businesses that reflect who they are. And something in me went, Maybe. Just maybe.

So I reached out. And when I got on the phone with the lawyer—Kathy—one of the very first things she said was: “Wow. You’ve really been going through a lot.”

I exhaled. Maybe she sees me.

She didn’t question the validity of my experience.

She didn’t jump in with legal jargon.

She didn’t start dissecting what I did “wrong.”

She just heard that I was struggling, stressed, at capacity—and she got to work.

She explained things clearly. Respectfully. She never made me feel like I was stupid or naive. She made me feel smart, capable, and heard.

She advocated for me in a way that felt aligned with how I would advocate for myself if I had the language and tools. I remember reading one of her emails and sitting at my desk thinking, “YES, KATHY.”

Because she got me. She has never even seen my face. We’ve talked on the phone for maybe 20 minutes total. It didn’t take hours. It just took empathy. It just took context.

The Judge

I wonder if any of you have seen the videos of Judge Frank Caprio—the judge from Rhode Island who often appears in clips handling minor offenses like parking tickets and traffic violations. In most of these videos, he listens kindly, asks thoughtful questions, and always seems to go one layer deeper.

Recently, I heard him on the Mel Robbins podcast. She asked him, “Is there a case that still sticks with you to this day?”

He got emotional. He said yes.

It was his first day on the bench. His father was in the courtroom to see his son at work. A woman came in with her four kids, a boot on her car, and $300 in parking tickets. She told Judge Caprio flatly, “I can’t pay.”

He offered options. Payment plans. Alternatives.

But she kept saying: “I don’t care what you do. I just can’t pay.”

He said he didn’t want to be challenged on his first day, so he issued the full fine and moved on.

After the courtroom cleared, he asked his dad how he did. His dad said: “That woman with the kids…how could you do that?”

And Judge Caprio replied: “What do you mean? She was rude.”

His dad paused and said: “No. She was scared.”

Scared.

Not rude.

Not defiant.

Not disrespectful. Scared.

That distinction still haunts him. There is always more beneath the surface.

You might think you’re dealing with resistance, or rudeness, or defiance, or coldness—but more often than not, what you’re really looking at is fear.

Pain.

Confusion.

Desperation.

Overwhelm.

And that’s why this matters. Because Judge Caprio's father recognized that if he would have paused, if he would have looked closer, he might have heard what she wasn’t saying.

Just like that one lawyer might have known what to do with five full pages of someone’s humanity.

And just like Kathy knew how to hold my story with care, without ever needing to see my face.

Final Thoughts: The Lens We Choose Matters

What all three of these stories have in common is this: You could’ve stopped at the surface.

You could’ve labeled the pain, the behavior, the person—and moved on.

But if you had gone just one layer deeper, everything would have looked different.

People are carrying things you can’t see. They’re defending themselves in ways you don’t understand. They’re reacting to a lifetime of being shut down, misunderstood, or dismissed. And if we don’t take the time to ask why, or to wonder what came before, we risk missing the whole story.

This is why I do the work I do. This is why I believe mental health isn’t just a specialty, it’s a lens.

Because when we lead with curiosity, when we listen with empathy, when we pause before we judge—we begin to see people.

I'll leave you with some final words from Judge Caprio:

“The lesson (from the woman with four kids) was that being a judge is much more about the person in front of you than it is about the law. Since then, I’ve always tried to find out what was really going on with the person, and I always considered how my ruling would impact not only them, but their whole family.”

That’s it. That’s the lesson.

That’s the kind of mindset I wish we’d all carry—not just in courtrooms or therapy offices, but everywhere. In parenting. In friendships. In conflict. In leadership. In medicine. In policy. In the line at the grocery store.

Context is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.

And people deserve to be more than the worst thing they’ve done, more than the pain they’re in, more than what fits in a checkbox or a diagnosis.

There is always more to the story.