My therapist banned me from talking about my trauma and told me to do this instead—it changed my life

"Next week, we're making lasagna."

I stared at my therapist of three years, the woman who'd guided me through two breakups, a career crisis, and my mother's entire personality, and wondered if she'd finally lost it. I was paying $200 an hour to discuss my crippling perfectionism and anxiety, not audition for the Food Network.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Lasagna. Bring a knife, cutting board, and whatever emotional baggage you haven't unpacked yet." Dr. Martinez didn't even look up from her notes. "We'll be using my office kitchen."

"You know I'm vegan, right?" I said, already exhausted by the thought of soaking cashews and doing whatever witchcraft people do with nutritional yeast.

"I'm aware," she said. "That's why we're making vegan lasagna."

I actually laughed. "So not only do you want me to cook, you want me to do the hardest possible version? I live on Sweetgreen and overpriced plant-based nuggets. I don't even own nutritional yeast."

"You will by next week," she said, sliding me a grocery list that looked like it was written by someone who shops at Whole Foods for fun.

I'd been through EMDR, CBT, DBT, and enough acronyms to fill a government form. But making cashew cheese from scratch? This felt like therapy had finally jumped the shark. (Spoiler: I was wrong. And yes, I'm sharing the recipe that changed my mind.)

"Is this legal?" I asked. "Are you even insured for kitchen accidents?"

She smiled that therapist smile that means you've revealed something deeply psychological when you thought you were just being sarcastic.

When she said "lasagna" I almost walked out

I spent the next week crafting arguments against cooking therapy. I had a presentation that included peer-reviewed studies about traditional therapeutic methods and a PowerPoint titled "Why This Is Ridiculous."

"I'm vegan, not a chef," I practiced saying in the mirror. "I went vegan for the animals, not to become some wellness influencer who makes their own oat milk."

My veganism consisted of eating the same three meals from the same three restaurants and occasionally microwaving Amy's burritos. The most cooking I did was adding hot water to instant ramen. Now this woman wanted me to make cheese from nuts?

But I showed up with my knife and cutting board anyway, because I'm nothing if not committed to proving people wrong. Also, the Whole Foods cashier had been suspiciously excited when she saw my cart full of cashews and nutritional yeast. "Making something special?" she'd asked. "Therapy," I'd replied, which shut down that conversation fast.

Dr. Martinez's office kitchen looked like it had been designed by someone who understood both therapy and food: sharp knives, good ventilation, and surfaces that could presumably be bleached if someone had a breakdown while holding a paring knife.

"We'll start with onions," she said, pushing three yellow spheres toward me.

"How very literal," I muttered. "Layers of onions, layers of trauma. Did you get your degree from a metaphor factory?"

"Just cut," she said. "And breathe while you do it."

That's when I realized I'd been holding my breath since I'd walked in. Actually, I'd been holding my breath for approximately thirty-seven years.

Turns out rage-chopping vegetables is therapeutic

Twenty minutes into dicing, I understood why people murder vegetables on cooking shows. There's something primitively satisfying about taking a knife to innocent produce while discussing your mother.

"She called my anxiety 'performative,'" I said, decimating a carrot. "Said I was 'choosing to be stressed' about my job."

CHOP.

"Like I wake up and think, 'You know what sounds fun? Chest pain!'"

CHOP CHOP.

"Maybe if she'd shown any emotional awareness before age sixty-five—"

CHOP CHOP CHOP.

I looked down. I'd created enough minced vegetables to feed a small army. My breathing was normal. The familiar knot in my chest had loosened.

"Huh," I said.

"Indeed," Dr. Martinez replied, looking suspiciously pleased.

The thing about cooking therapy, I discovered, is that your hands stay busy while your mind unpacks. It's harder to spiral into abstract anxiety when you're focused on not losing a finger. The repetitive motion of chopping created a rhythm that my nervous system apparently found soothing, despite my brain's insistence that this was "woo-woo bullshit."

Three hours of sauce and forced enlightenment

"Good sauce takes three hours," Dr. Martinez announced after I'd browned the meat with perhaps excessive violence.

"Three hours? I have a Zoom call at four. Can't we just—"

"No."

"Also, what meat?" I asked, looking at the pan. "This is lentils and diced sweet potato."

"Exactly."

And that's how I found myself trapped in a kitchen, watching vegetables masquerade as bolognese while being forced to confront my relationship with time.

"Tell me about waiting," she said, like we were in a normal session and not standing over a pot of bubbling carbs.

"I hate it. It's inefficient. If something takes too long, I assume I'm doing it wrong." I stirred aggressively. "Why are we talking about this while making sauce?"

"Are you ruining the sauce by stirring it?"

"No?"

"Is it getting worse while we wait?"

"It smells better, actually."

"Hmm."

I hate when therapists "hmm." It means you've accidentally had a breakthrough.

For three hours, I watched sauce simmer. We talked about my need for immediate results, my equation of speed with success, my fear that patience meant stagnation. Every twenty minutes, I'd taste the sauce. Every time, it had developed more depth.

"Some things actually get better when you stop forcing them," Dr. Martinez said.

"Did you get that from a fortune cookie?" I asked, but I was already thinking about my job, my relationships, my constant pushing.

The sauce, annoyingly, was perfect.

The assembly meltdown (a breakthrough disguised as pasta)

Week five was assembly day. I'd made each component separately: the cashew cream that I'd reluctantly admitted was kind of brilliant, the tofu ricotta that didn't taste like sadness, and the lentil sauce that had somehow become my new favorite thing.

Now it was time to build. That's when I lost it.

"The noodles are torn. Look—this one's basically pasta confetti. And I put too much sauce in that corner. The cheese distribution is uneven. This is a disaster. I'm starting over."

"No," Dr. Martinez said firmly. "We're using what we have."

"But it's wrong—"

"According to whom? The vegan lasagna police?"

I opened my mouth to list the ways it was objectively, measurably wrong, and nothing came out. Because she was right. The lasagna police weren't going to burst through the door. Gordon Ramsay wasn't hiding in the pantry. It was just me, my perfectionism, and a slightly lopsided pasta situation.

"What if," she suggested, "we made it wrong on purpose?"

"That's insane."

"Is it? Or have you been trying to make everything perfect your whole life and how's that working out?"

I stared at my massacre of noodles and cheese. Then, with the energy of someone committing a crime, I assembled the world's most imperfect lasagna. Torn noodles and all. Extra sauce in one corner. Cheese wherever it landed.

It felt like rebellion. It felt like freedom. It felt like I might be having a breakdown, but at least there would be food after.

The dinner that shut me up

The final session, we ate the lasagna. It came out of the oven bubbling, golden, and distinctly lopsided. One edge was darker than the others. The layers had clearly shifted during baking.

It was the best thing I'd ever made.

"How does it taste?" Dr. Martinez asked.

I wanted to make a joke, to deflect with sarcasm about how we'd spent six sessions making hippie pasta. Instead, I took another bite and actually tasted it. The cashew cream had browned and bubbled exactly like real cheese. The tofu ricotta with spinach and basil was creamy and perfect. The sauce with its hidden vegetables and three-hour depth was better than any meat sauce I'd ever had.

"Like I made it," I said finally. "Like I actually made something instead of ordering it or buying it or delegating it or avoiding it."

"And?"

"And it doesn't taste like compromise. It tastes like... discovering something better than what you were looking for."

What nobody tells you about healing

Six months later, I cook almost every day. Not elaborate meals—I'm not trying to be the person who makes their own pasta (that person is insufferable). But I make real food. With ingredients. That require chopping and time and presence.

My kitchen has become my regulation space. Anxious about a deadline? I make soup. Spiraling about a conversation? Bread dough takes a beating. Can't sleep? Overnight oats require just enough focus to quiet the noise.

The thing about cooking therapy—and I can't believe I'm saying this without irony—is that it bypasses all your intellectual defenses. You can't think your way out of anxiety while holding a chef's knife. You have to be present. You have to breathe. You have to accept that sometimes noodles tear and edges burn and that's still dinner.

I've spent roughly $40,000 on therapy over the years. The breakthrough that actually stuck came from $15 worth of pasta ingredients and the revolutionary idea that maybe I could trust myself with sharp objects and basic nourishment.

The part where I become annoying

Last month, I made lasagna for a dinner party. Vegan lasagna. From scratch. Including the cashew cream that I now defend with religious fervor and the sauce that takes three goddamn hours.

"This is incredible," my friend said, already on her second piece. "Wait, this is VEGAN?"

"Anyone can make it," I said, serving a piece with a slightly burnt edge.

"Send me the recipe immediately," three people said simultaneously.

I was lying about it being easy—not because vegan lasagna is particularly hard, but because that lasagna represented something I'd spent years talking about but never doing: taking care of myself without apology, producing something imperfect but nourishing, trusting the process even when it seemed too slow or too weird or too... cashew-based.

"What's your secret?" another friend asked.

"Therapy," I said. "And nutritional yeast."

They laughed, thinking I was joking about my neuroses. I let them. It was easier than explaining that sometimes the best therapy happens when you stop talking and start chopping. That healing might look like ugly tears over onions (only some of which are from the onions). That breakthrough can smell like garlic and sound like bubbling cashew cream.

Dr. Martinez was right. I'd been trying to think my way to wellness for years. Turns out I just needed to feed myself, one imperfect, plant-based layer at a time.

Still skeptical? Try this: Make something that takes longer than an hour. Notice what your brain does while your hands work. Notice what emerges when you can't check your phone or multitask or optimize. You might be surprised what simmers to the surface. Or you might just get dinner. Either way, you win.

And if you want to try the exact vegan lasagna that changed my life (and made my omnivore husband have a "religious experience"), here's the recipe. Fair warning: you might end up defending cashew cream to strangers.