Ummm, idk how I’m going to shorten this because, phew, each section was like 5 paragraphs before this 🤣🙈 Before — The Sensitive Seer: I came into this world sensitive AF — to light, energy, emotions, everything. My mom said I’d just stop breathing out of nowhere, break out in seizures + my body would turn purple. Doctors called it Paroxysmal Torticollis of Infancy — I was experiencing migraines, and my tiny body didn’t know how to handle the pain. I call it surviving in a world that always felt too loud for me. I could read people before they spoke. Feel their emotions before they displayed them. But instead of being seen as intuitive, I was labeled with anger issues, dramatic, depressed, too emotional, too much. Even with all of that, I’ve always loved people. I’ve always had this huge heart that just wants to understand others — what shaped them, what they’ve been through, why they are the way they are. People have always fascinated me. I’ve always wanted to help, to heal, to be the one that could make others feel seen. When my parents divorced, it crushed me. My sense of safety disappeared overnight. I attended three different schools growing up — every time I started to get close to people, I had to leave. I never really felt rooted anywhere. I just wanted to belong, to be understood, to be loved for who I actually was. But I didn’t feel safe being me. So I learned how to perform — the cool girl, the funny one, the one who pretended she didn’t feel everything so damn deeply. By high school, I was searching for worth in all the wrong places — alcohol + drugs, boys, and chaos that made the emptiness a little quieter. Crisis — The Spiral: At first, I thought my partying was just a phase — something I’d grow out of once life “got serious.” But in the Midwest, drinking is the culture. It’s how people connect, how weekends start, how pain gets swallowed. I didn’t realize yet that what felt normal was actually my slow unraveling. When I got my DUI in 2014, I was 20 years old and numb. Part of my sentencing was to spend 27 hours in jail — cold floor, bright lights, no sense of time. I was so scared straight and numb that I didn’t cry for a solid 6 months after. I shut every feeling off inside of me. I told myself it wasn’t that deep, that everyone makes mistakes… but deep down I knew. Something inside me had gone silent. I eventually went back to drinking, pretending I had it handled. There were nights I’d lie awake wishing I just wouldn’t wake up. Not because I wanted to die, but because I didn’t know how to live inside the weight of my own mind. I was tired of fighting myself. Numbness felt safer than feeling everything.