[ Donna Sheppard · Counselling & Therapy · Portstewart & Online ]
To: Whoever needs to read this.
Counselling and therapy for the moments that feel too heavy to hold. In person in Portstewart, or online from wherever you are. No pressure. No judgement. Just a space to be heard.
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Everyone has a letter they've never sent. Some are to other people; most are to ourselves. This is a place to finally write yours — slowly, and with someone beside you.
[ The unsent letters ]
I don't know how to say this…
I'm fine. Everyone thinks I'm fine. I go to work, I answer messages, I laugh in the right places. But I'm not fine, and I haven't been for a while, and I don't know who I'd even tell.
— Individual Counselling
It's 3am where I am…
I can't sleep. I found your website and I'm writing this before I talk myself out of it. I can't get to Portstewart — I'm not sure I could even get out of the house right now.
— Online Therapy
I can't sit in a room and talk.
Every time I imagine it, my chest goes tight. Facing someone across a box of tissues. I need to move. I think better when I'm moving. Can we walk?
— Walk & Talk Therapy
I've written this letter ten times…
And deleted it ten times. Words don't work for me. They come out wrong, or not at all. Is there another way to do this? Can we try something else?
— Creative Counselling
We're writing separate letters.
We're sitting in the same room, writing separate letters. We can't say it to each other any more. Every conversation turns into the same argument and then silence.
— Couples Counselling
What they wrote back
Letters from the other side · names changed with permission
I wrote you a letter six months ago. This is the one I can send now.
I arrived not knowing how to start a sentence. You never once hurried me. I still have hard days, but I recognise them now, and I know what to do with them. Thank you for sitting with me in the quiet bits.
Claire · [ 2024 ]
I remember sitting where you are.
Reading these, wondering if it's worth it, if I'm 'bad enough'. I wasn't sure either. The walks along the coast with Donna gave me room to breathe and say things I'd carried since I was a teenager.
Martin · [ 2024 ]
We came in writing separate letters.
We'd stopped talking about anything that mattered. Donna didn't take sides. She just helped us hear each other again. We're not perfect. We're kinder.
Aoife & Ciaran · [ 2023 ]
To whoever finds this at 3am —
Send the email. That's all I'd say. I did my sessions online from my bedroom and it was the first time I'd said any of it out loud. It counts. You count.
Jess · [ 2025 ]
The chair you'd sit in. Portstewart.
I read your letter. Here's mine.
Hello. I'm Donna. I've spent most of my working life sitting with people in the moments they didn't think they could say out loud — and I still feel honoured every time someone trusts me with one.
I didn't come to counselling in a straight line. Like a lot of people, I first walked into a therapist's room as a client, convinced I was wasting her time. I wasn't. That hour changed how I understood myself, and eventually it changed the work I wanted to do.
I work in a person-centred, integrative way. That means you lead, and I follow carefully — bringing in creative, body-based or practical approaches when they might help, and putting them down when they don't. You are the expert on your own life. My job is to make enough space for you to hear yourself.
If you're reading this and you're not sure — that's alright. You don't have to know what to say. You only have to send the first line.
Credentials
When I'm not working
You'll find me walking the Portstewart coast at first light, reading something old by the fire, or losing an afternoon in the garden with my hands in the soil.
[ How it works ]
i.
A message, a call, a half-finished email. However you start is the right way.
ii.
A free, unhurried fifteen-minute chat to see if we feel like a good fit.
iii.
In the room, online, or walking the coast — at a pace that feels like yours.
If you're reading this and something feels heavy, that's enough of a reason to reach out.