Finding Light After Chaos: My Journey for Mental Health Awareness Month

I’ve been riding the struggle bus with my mental health for as long as I can remember.And honestly? It's been one hell of a ride.

Like most humans, I’ve been through a lot. But for many, many years, I let those "little t" traumas — the small but painful moments — take over my life in ways I didn’t even fully understand at the time.

Through deep conversations with family and friends, I’ve come to learn that my story didn't start with me. Even before I was born, while I was just a ball of cells, I was exposed to stress and trauma. My environment — before I even entered the world — shaped a nervous system that lived in overdrive.When constant stress is all you’ve ever known, it becomes your comfort zone.I found comfort in chaos because it was familiar.

For years, that chaos seeped into every part of my life. I stayed in relationships that weren’t healthy, including a few that were downright abusive. I lacked the confidence to leave because deep down, some part of me believed that chaos was normal. I also experienced multiple miscarriages that shattered me to my core — grief that, if I'm honest, I know I'll carry for the rest of my life.

It wasn’t until I met someone healthy, mature, and emotionally available that my healing truly began. I was giving the safety and space to heal. It wasn’t magic or instant. It was learning — slowly, painfully sometimes — how to grieve in a way that honored my losses instead of burying them. It was learning how to have mature conversations, even when it was hard. It was learning that love doesn't have to hurt to be real.

Over the last few years, I made some really hard choices. I started cutting out anything — and anyone — who drained my energy. I closed my salon that I worked for many years to open. If I'm being honest, my salon saved my life from an abusive relationship and I believe to this day that because I no longer needed it to keep me busy and safe, it was an easy choice to close it. I made the terrifying decision to move 600 miles away from the life I had known for the last 17 years. Making the choice to move somewhere new gave me a kind of confidence I had never felt before — proof that I could do hard, scary things and survive them. At the same time, it reopened wounds I didn’t even realize were still lingering from when I was 14 years old and was forced to move across the country, ripped away from everything I knew and loved. Grief has a funny way of resurfacing when you least expect it, asking to be acknowledged instead of ignored. Moving forced me to confront parts of my story that I thought I had already healed — and parts I didn’t even realize were still broken.

Somewhere along this journey, I picked up a book called “How to Meet Yourself.” Reading it cracked something open inside me. One day, it hit me like a lightning bolt: I had been living in a dissociative state for basically my entire life. It was as if the clouds finally parted and I woke up from a 32-year-long dream.That realization was both devastating and freeing — because for the first time, I wasn’t just surviving. I was awake.And this is when the deep, soul-level healing truly began.It felt like the start of my real life.

I’ve sat through dozens (probably hundreds) of therapy sessions.

I’ve sat in doctor’s offices more times than I can count.

I’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease — something I truly believe was born out of the years my body spent stuck in fight-or-flight, compounded by the chemical exposures of my career.

I’ve read the books .I’ve listened to the podcasts. I’ve done the soul work. I’ve become a little obsessed with healing, with understanding, with always trying to be better — not because I hate who I was, but because I finally started to love myself enough to put myself first.

And if you're reading this — maybe feeling stuck, or lost, or tired — I want you to know, there is a better life on the other side.

Healing isn’t linear. Some days still hurt. Grief still shows up uninvited. But there is light, too. There is peace. There is calm that doesn't feel boring — it feels safe.

You deserve that kind of life. You deserve to feel safe, loved, and whole — just as you are, no matter where you are on your journey.

If sharing my story helps even one person feel a little less alone, then it's worth it. I'm rooting for you — always.