“If all you’ve ever seen is red, how would you recognize a red flag?”

That question has stayed with me. Because for much of my life, red wasn’t a warning; it was the atmosphere I breathed. My father died when I was six. My mother, being a survivor of underage sexual assault, carried wounds of her own. And from the tender age of five, I endured ongoing sexual, physical, and emotional abuse for years. Survival was my only language. I adapted. I masked. I people-pleased. What it left me with was C-PTSD, a body wired for vigilance, and a soul still searching for air. For years, I couldn’t tell where my wounds ended and the world began.

Running was my first escape. Track and field gave me identity, structure, discipline, and fleeting relief.

I poured myself into performance, winning races while burying my grief. But when graduation ended my career, the runner in me collapsed, and everything I had outrun came flooding back (trauma, exhaustion, and the weight of an unprocessed past).

That collapse became my turning point. Therapy, breathwork, spiritual study, and endless conversations with other survivors slowly cracked the silence I had carried for years. I began to see what I had missed: we are all carrying something. While our stories differ, pain is universal, and so is the possibility of transformation.

Healing taught me that identity isn’t fixed. Energy shifts. People evolve. If energy can transform, so can we.

I am not only a survivor, but a creative thinker who's reshaping wounds into words, shadows into art, and silence into connection.

Today, I write and create for those told to shrink, to always be agreeable, to smile while breaking inside. My Bachelor of Science is in psychology, with past work in research and sales, but my true work is reminding people of the power they already hold within. My creations weave psychology, anthropology, spiritual insights, and a touch of dark humor to reveal what’s been hidden in plain sight: that before we can bridge differences, we must first strengthen our inner selves (remembering our own power, taking responsibility for our choices, and refusing to let pain define us).