Heidy Milena Davila, M.A, AMFT

You were raised to be strong. To not complain. To be grateful for everything your family sacrificed to give you a better life.

And you are grateful. But you’re also exhausted carrying guilt you can’t explain, anxiety you can’t turn off, and a quiet feeling that you’ve spent so long taking care of everyone else that you’ve lost track of who you actually are.

That’s not ingratitude. That’s what happens when you grow up learning that your needs come last.

Growing up in a Latinx immigrant household often means learning early to be the responsible one. Maybe you were the translator. The first to go to college. The one who was supposed to make the sacrifices worth it. You learned to carry stress without showing it, to put the family first, and to never add to anyone’s burden.

Those lessons got you here. But now they’re showing up as chronic anxiety, people-pleasing, burnout, difficulty saying no, resentment you feel guilty for having, and a disconnection from yourself that’s hard to name.

I work with first-generation Latinx adults and teens, children of immigrants, and bilingual English/Spanish speakers navigating exactly this. Many of my clients aren’t in crisis. They’re just tired of living for everyone else and ready to figure out what they actually want.

I’m a bilingual (English/Spanish) First-Generation Latina therapist and Associate MFT raised in a Guatemalan immigrant household in Los Angeles.

I know what it’s like to love your family deeply and still feel suffocated by their expectations. To feel guilty for wanting something different. To code-switch through your entire life and quietly wonder which version of you is the real one. To feel like you belong fully in neither world.

I didn’t learn these dynamics from a textbook. That lived experience is central to how I work, and it’s why my clients often say they finally feel understood without having to over-explain themselves.

I’m warm, direct, and I don’t do surface-level. No toxic positivity. No “just set limits and you’ll be fine.” My approach draws from psychodynamic therapy, attachment theory, somatic awareness, and IFS-informed methods.

We look at where your patterns came from, how they once helped you survive, and how to build a different relationship with yourself. One where your choices come from what you actually want, not from guilt, fear, or the weight of everyone else’s expectations.