My Origin Story – Just the tip of the iceberg that is my life

If you had met me in my early twenties, you probably wouldn’t have guessed that one day I would end up working in the mental health field. I couldn’t even hold a job!

At that point in my life, I was mostly just trying to survive.

I had lived through trauma, bounced between unstable living situations, dropped out of school more than once, and spent years trying to figure out where I belonged in the world. On paper, my life looked chaotic. And for a long time, it felt that way too.

But when I look back now, I can see that every strange twist, painful moment, and unexpected opportunity was slowly shaping the person I would become and, eventually, the work I would dedicate my life to.

Growing Up Different

One thing you should know about me is that I didn’t grow up in a typical household.

Both of my parents were artists, although my dad also worked at the Ford Assembly Plant. Much of my childhood was spent travelling to art and craft shows where they sold their work. My sister and I were often pulled out of school so we could travel with them.

It was a fascinating way to grow up.

There were other families doing the same thing, so we would all camp together. Once the show was finished for the day, the evenings were filled with laughter, storytelling, and kids running around the campsites. Then on Sunday, we would pack everything up and return to our “normal” lives until the next show.

This happened many times a year until I was about 17.

Travelling, meeting eccentric artists, and living in such a creative environment was amazing, but being the youngest craft-show kid also came with challenges. At school, I often felt like I lived between two worlds.

I got along with most people, but I never fully felt like I fit anywhere.

I was also an extremely sensitive child. At the time, it just seemed like I was difficult, but I now recognize that I had sensory sensitivities. I was easily overwhelmed and deeply affected by the emotional energy around me.

Looking back, that sensitivity would eventually become one of my greatest strengths, but at the time, it mostly just made life confusing.

The First Major Trauma

When I was 14, something happened that would stay with me forever.

After an argument with my boyfriend, in which I told him I fucking hated him, he went swimming in Lake Huron and was pulled under by the undertow. His body wasn’t found for a week until a fisherman found him.

At that age, I didn’t have the emotional tools to process something like that.

Instead, I believed it was my fault.

I replayed that moment in my mind constantly, wondering if different words might have changed what happened. That kind of guilt is heavy for anyone, but especially for a teenager.

And like many young people dealing with trauma, I didn’t receive any mental health support afterward.

So I carried it alone.

I began self-harming and spiralled into a very dark place. I truly did not want to live.

Years of Survival

By the time I was 17, things at home had reached a breaking point, and I was kicked out.

From that point forward, life became a series of survival chapters.

I bounced between living with my boyfriend, having roommates, and having my own place. Sometimes things were stable. Other times, they were anything but. I could hardly even keep a job.

At one point, I was stranded outside in the middle of winter until five in the morning after getting kicked out of my shared apartment with my best friend after threatening to punch her horrible boyfriend.

Another time, I lived in the back of an auto body shop with no running water because I had nowhere else to go. And never once did my family offer to take me back in. I was not an addict or anything to that extreme. I was just a very traumatized kid.

Through it all, I kept moving forward.

Life also threw in a few surreal moments. One time I had the opportunity to shoot a basketball from half court for a million dollars at a Toronto Raptors game. I missed the shot, but still walked away with $11,000 and a brief moment of local fame.

For a short time, it felt like everyone knew who I was. I was all over the radio, in the newspaper, and on live TV!

Of course, I spent the money like most 21-year-olds would, and continued learning life lessons the messy way, through experience.

During those years, I worked as a cleaning lady and eventually built my own cleaning business. I was actually really good at it. But I also experienced a lot of relational trauma during that time, being taken advantage of, navigating unstable living situations, and learning the hard way about trust. I was stalked, harassed, stolen from, and betrayed, and for the third time, had the police called on me for another stupid reason!

Sadly, the second worst relational trauma was soon to come. I thought I had found the love of my life, Kyle. On the surface, he seemed to have it all: his own house, a life of privilege, and plans to take over his parents’ $20 million aviation management company. But behind the facade, he was struggling. He was an alcoholic and barely able to take care of himself, even though he was excellent at his job. He spent most of his time travelling to Australia, the Maldives, and beyond, leaving me to manage his house and turn it into a liveable space because he couldn’t.

At the time, I was still just a cleaning lady, and sadly, his mom didn’t think I was “good enough” for him. She told him to break up with me. Codependent much? I was devastated. Not because of the life I could have had, which, let’s be honest, would have been lavish but probably miserable, but because I genuinely loved him, flaws and all. Being told you aren’t good enough… well, that one stuck with me. It still affects me a bit today! (working on it!)

The Turning Point

Everything began to shift when I was 27.

That was the year I met the man who would become my husband.

For the first time in my life, I experienced what a safe and stable relationship actually felt like. There wasn’t chaos, manipulation, or constant uncertainty.

There was consistency.

There was kindness.

There was space for me to breathe.

And in that space, something inside me finally began to change.

When you’ve spent most of your life in survival mode, safety can feel unfamiliar at first. But over time, that stability allowed me to start doing something I had never truly been able to do before:

I began to heal.

A New Direction

I continued running my cleaning business for several years, but something inside me kept pulling me toward something bigger.

At 30 years old, although a high school dropout and a double college dropout, I decided to try school again.

That decision was terrifying and met with little support. My grandmother even said, “What’s the point, you will just drop out again”.

But it was also one of the most important decisions I’ve ever made.

Over the past nine years, I have immersed myself in education, training, and personal healing work. Through that process, I began to understand the deeper roots of my experiences: developmental trauma, shock trauma, relational trauma, nervous system responses, and the biological foundations of mental health.

For the first time, my life began to make sense.

The patterns.

The reactions.

The years of survival.

They weren’t random. They were responses to experiences my nervous system had never been taught how to process.

Understanding that changed everything.

My Mission

Today, the work I do is deeply personal.

I know what it feels like to struggle without support. I know what it’s like to search for answers and not understand why your mind and body react the way they do.

And I also know what it feels like when things finally start to make sense.

My goal is to help people understand themselves more deeply so they can move through life with more compassion, awareness, and resilience.

Because healing doesn’t begin with perfection.

It begins with understanding.

And sometimes the very experiences that once felt like they were breaking us apart become the foundation for the work we are meant to do in the world.

-Thanks for taking the time to read my story. I can now confidently say, I am happy.