Part of me feels like no time has passed at all, and another part feels like I’ve lived several lives since the last time I sat down to write an “about” page.

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The last time I did this was in my 3rd year. I was 20 years old, heartbroken, angry, deeply unwell, and trying to make sense of everything that had happened to me.

 

I laid every detail out publicly because at the time, pain was the only way I knew how to explain myself.

 

I had become very attached to the idea that everything happening around me was happening to me, and for a long time, that perspective felt safer than looking at the bigger picture.

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Now, years later, I can.

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Not in a way that blames myself for what happened to me, but in a way that allows me to hold the full truth with more honesty. I can see the grief, the trauma, the fear, the self-destruction, the survival instincts, and the versions of me that were desperately trying to cope with things they didn’t know how to carry. 

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So I guess this is my attempt at telling the story again… but more gently this time.

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If I’m being honest, things started shifting near the end of high school.

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I was deeply insecure. I wasn’t always a good friend. I was detached from myself and constantly numbing out, mostly with weed, avoidance, and whatever distraction I could find. Looking back now, I think I was already struggling long before I had the language for any of it.

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Then came July of 2016.

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I went on a trip and experienced sexual assault, and I came home feeling like a complete shell of myself. Everything after that felt blurry. I isolated myself almost immediately.

 

I didn’t want help.

I didn’t want to talk about it.

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I think a part of me believed that if I ignored it hard enough, maybe I could outrun it.

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Instead, I packed my things and moved to Toronto for school two months later.

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Right before moving, I went to a music festival with some friends from high school and met a boy. He became my first real relationship, and although I don’t place blame on him for what happened afterward, that relationship existed during one of the darkest and most unstable periods of my life.

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And honestly, I was not well.

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September 2016 felt like adrenaline mixed with escapism. I threw myself into Toronto nightlife, parties, festivals, relationships… honestly anything that kept me distracted from myself.

 

I neglected my body, my emotions, my intuition. As if I was surviving almost entirely outside of myself.

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Then October came.

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On October 5th, 2016, my childhood best friend died by suicide.

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There are certain moments in life that split everything into a before and after, and that was one of them for me.

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It felt like the last remaining piece of my childhood disappeared overnight. The part of me that still felt safe, innocent and hopeful... was shattered.

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And somehow, loss kept following me. 

 

Before my first relationship, I had started spending time with someone in residence.

 

He died too. At only 18 years old, death suddenly fell everywhere.

 

Constant.

Personal.

Heavy.

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By the end of 2016 and into 2017, my mental health had completely unraveled.

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During that period, I was navigating diagnoses like BPD, anxiety, and depression, though looking back now, I also see a young person carrying an overwhelming amount of unresolved trauma and grief.

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I remember feeling an intense hopelessness that followed me everywhere. I struggled heavily with suicidal thoughts while also trying to maintain relationships, school, and some version of normalcy.

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There were moments I genuinely didn’t think I would survive myself. The mania I experienced during that time is something I still struggle to explain properly. It felt intoxicating while it was happening.

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Confidence, impulsivity, adrenaline, invincibility all wrapped together. But underneath it was terror. A complete disconnect from reality and from myself.

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I ended up hospitalized multiple times in psychiatric units and later entered an intensive eating disorder program in Toronto, though I never fully completed it. At that point in my life, I was constantly running from myself.

 

I wanted healing, but I also wanted escape. And most of the time, escape won.

I remember leaving treatment to go to a music festival one weekend and never returning afterward.

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Looking back now, I can see how much of my life was driven by escape.

At the end of 2017, I became pregnant, and that loss affected me more deeply than I admitted at the time. But instead of slowing down, I continued spiraling.

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2018 and 2019 became a continuation of the same patterns. Self-destruction disguised as freedom. Putting myself in unsafe situations. Confusing attention for love. Searching for validation in places that only harmed me further.

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After a breakup, I redownloaded an app that (yes, I had this app during a relationship, that eventually led me into one of the darkest periods of my life.

At the time, I convinced myself it was empowering. That I was in control. But the reality was much more dangerous than I allowed myself to believe.

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Looking back now, I can see how unsafe it really was.

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I eventually found myself in circumstances that were far more exploitative and dangerous than I was willing to admit to myself at the time.

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The way it ended was traumatic, chaotic, and terrifying, and on November 5th, 2019, I was rescued by Toronto Police.