The Ego, the Church, and the Jesus We Lost

I didn’t set out to become anti-religion. I tried to understand God through religion for a long time. I grew up in a Catholic household. We didn’t go to church often, but I was baptized in seventh grade. I’d go consistently for a while. Then I’d stop. Then I’d convince myself maybe I just hadn’t found the right church yet.

I did this over and over until my mid-20s.

Since I was never fully involved in the church, I can’t really say I was “hurt by the church” in the way some people describe. But I’ve lived through psychological abuse, so I’ve done years of research on the patterns we’ll be breaking down today.

When I was in my teens, I started noticing behaviors in the people around me who claimed Christian Conservative values: control, lack of accountability, and other traits associated with narcissism. This was during Trump’s first term. I’m intentional about that word, because narcissism gets watered down nowadays.

I’m talking about long-term patterns of harmful, manipulative behaviors.

Even though I had very few positive experiences with Christianity, I’m not going to generalize faith because these behaviors don’t reflect the teachings of Jesus. What the research does suggest is that religious environments can be appealing to people with narcissistic traits because they provide status, authority, and moral superiority.

It’s pretty clear to many of us by now that some of these self-proclaimed Christians have moved so far outside the teachings of Jesus that what remains is merely a performance. But my question is, do they realize we can see it?

Because it genuinely seems like they don’t.

I still see Christians reposting AI-generated videos of Trump with Jesus, God, angels, or whatever makes it seem like he has divine authority, completely unaware of how bizarre that looks. I still see a lot of Christians posting worship videos and Scripture while remaining completely silent about crimes against humanity.

That is not what Jesus taught, and for some reason, they hate being reminded of that.

“The kingdom of God is within you.”
— Luke 17:21

“You have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.”
— Matthew 23:23

“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed.”
— Isaiah 1:17

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
— Matthew 7:3

This is part of the reason church attendance has declined in the United States. People like to blame this on the “enemy,” but I encourage you to read ’s work if you want a more comprehensive understanding of why people are leaving.

Maybe we need to remember that strict, organized religion isn’t what Jesus actually taught in the first place.

The Aesthetic of Belonging

Through the rise of TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram, there’s now a social media aesthetic built around modern Christianity. The faith books, the church GRWMs, worship playlists, promoting Christian-only brands. In my 20s, when the church girls tried to pull me into that, it made me feel like had to do it to prove my love for God.

These things can become the very false idols the Bible warns about. The more I’ve watched White Evangelicalism unfold, the more obvious this has become to me

The ego wants to feel safe, perceived as right, and certain. Religion provides a lot of that. You have an explanation for why bad things happened to you. You have a structure. You have community support. And you have God at the center of all of it.

The other thing ego does is feed on fear and negativity. It can keep you focused on everything outside of yourself instead of asking what’s actually happening within you.

Ego contributes to so much of what we call “sin” today.

We all have an ego. It’s part of being human. But social media, wealth, and performative religion has given the ego a microphone.

Discernment becomes mixed with fear. From my perspective, that’s how the “enemy” actually takes over your mind, whether you see that spiritually or psychologically.

And lastly…

Jesus was Middle Eastern. He was a radical. He challenged religious authority, pissed people off, and had absolutely no interest in making everyone comfortable.

God Doesn’t Need a Middleman

The more I’ve deconstructed all of this, the more I’ve realized I don’t need religion to have spiritual growth. I don’t need to dress a certain way, buy certain things, go to a certain church, or surround myself with people who believe exactly what I believe.

I love not being tied to religion and being able to enjoy the company of my Christian friends, Muslim friends, atheist friends, spiritual friends, and just people in general. I don’t worry if they’re leading me down the “wrong path”. I don’t worry that they are bringing “demons” into my life. I find community through alignment, authenticity, and how people treat other people.

That’s a lot closer to what Jesus was actually talking about.

Love your neighbor. Take care of people. See people.

And maybe that’s the one good thing MAGA Christians did for Jesus.

They made people look past religion and back at his actual teachings.

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⋆⊱༻𖥸༺⊰⋆⋆⊱༻𖥸༺⊰⋆

i went no-contact with my family last year. one of the most unexpected things i’ve learned is that you don’t always realize just how unsafe an environment was until you’re finally out of it. sometimes, it takes distance to understand how much worse it was than you realized at the time.

people talk about having similar realizations after going through a breakup, but it feels so different when it’s your family. you start looking back at your childhood from the perspective of an adult who now understands what healthy relationships are supposed to feel like.

then, you start thinking about all of the other adults who were around you—who saw what was happening, and let it happen. sometimes, for years. it makes you wonder: is everyone really this bad?

you become used to yelling, walking on eggshells, and making excuses for things because you see the behavior daily. you can spend your whole childhood thinking you’re the problem because you’re the only person in the room who doesn’t have the authority. when in reality, you had a parent who couldn’t regulate themselves, so they used your reactions to their behavior to avoid accountability for their own.

because once again, you were quite literally a child, with an underdeveloped brain, who can’t self-regulate without being taught how.

then… you become an adult. you have new experiences to compare it to. that’s when you learn that many “behavior problems” in children are actually responses to their environment. or, in my case, a neurodivergent child with a strong sense of justice and a narcissistic parent who wouldn’t have been much different from the current US president if he’d had the same amount of power.

i thought going no-contact would be harder.

i thought i would grieve more.

do i lack empathy for saying that it was actually quite easy? am i a bad person for not grieving as much as i thought i would? i don’t know. maybe it’s a trauma response. maybe it will hit me in a few years. maybe i’m just trying to survive it right now. i’ve been in survival mode for a year anyway.

when i look back, i just can’t find much to grieve. my father was an alcoholic who yelled at us for simply breathing. i was constantly criticized and rarely encouraged. most of my cousins and aunts talked shit about me behind my back. my uncles were arrested left and right. i spent so much of my life feeling like a failure. there were things happening in my family that were so wrong that i still have a hard time processing them. i mean… i know this sounds direct, but it doesn’t make it less true.

that’s a really uncomfortable thing to feel and wake up to.

you aren’t always grieving the love you lost.

you’re just grieving the fact that you never actually had it to begin with.

⋆⊱༻𖥸༺⊰⋆⋆⊱༻𖥸༺⊰⋆

a note from an american who doesn’t know what to do:

i’ve been seeing a lot of people outside of the US on instagram threads talking about how concerned they are by how silent and neutral so many americans seem right now.

i want to share a little bit about why i believe we haven’t been able to come together.

to give some context about the environment i grew up in: i was raised by people who supported the MAGA movement. i watched people i loved become completely disconnected from reality due to the propaganda.

my family structure ran on a lot of control, deception, and fear. a lot of that came from unhealed trauma. my parents grew up poor and learned to live in survival mode. even when their circumstances changed, they never really learned how to leave that mindset behind. they stayed emotionally 20 years old and worried that they had everything to lose. they also grew up in louisiana, where racism was common. they were vulnerable to trump’s fear-based politics. they had already been taught to see the world through scarcity and hierarchy.

i had to unlearn a lot. and in doing so, i learned a lot.

trump has been effective at using those same dynamics politically—constantly identifying enemies (usually women & minorities), portraying threats as existential, and making people feel like they have to be loyal because he’s “chosen by God”.

but here’s the real reason a lot of americans aren't doing what people in other countries might have already done: changing the system.

fear works.

americans have been conditioned for decades to believe that we are the best country in the world. that creates a sense of exceptionalism and entitlement. it makes it harder to accept that our own government can be intentionally driving us into the ground.

others that do see things clearly fear losing their jobs, their relationships, their reputations, their children, their safety, and their finances. a lot of us don’t have the stability to risk that in ways that celebrities/influencers do because we’re living through an economy where so many people are stretched thin.

then there are institutions people depend on for basic public health, education, and stability that are being dismantled by this administration. our population has an absurd amount of chronic illness, digestive issues, processed food, and trauma. all of that affects the brain, our ability to regulate, and our capacity to think critically.

we have surveillance cameras and ai integrated in everything now. we have flock cameras, license plate readers, and facial recognition. every day, there's another press release about a police officer misusing surveillance technology to stalk people in their personal lives, including ex-girlfriends, or accessing information they had no legitimate reason to access.

and finally, we lack genuine community.

this is such a divided country. we’ve been losing that sense of family and community for decades. we don’t know our neighbors. a lot of us no longer feel safe roaming freely. there are mass shootings constantly. we’ve become so isolated. we’re seeing the consequences in our mental health and our relationships.

i don’t think we deserve anyone’s sympathy. people voted for this. i just wanted you to know there are some of us who do see things clearly here and feel absolutely helpless.

we’re called hateful, disruptive, demonic, etc. simply for speaking up against this regime. even ms. rachel is being harassed, and she speaks much more kindly than i do.

donald trump was never chosen by God. he was sent as a mirror of our society.

with love from an american who is paying attention,
alana violet

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if i were the devil,
i’d create division between religions across the world
and convince people
they were enemies instead of neighbors.

i’d make them believe
that anyone who questions hypocrisy
must be the enemy.

i’d spend years training them,
starting in childhood.

i’d teach them what questions they shouldn’t ask,
and what truths they shouldn’t explore.

i’d make sure they stopped listening
before the conversation even started.

because if people spent their lives
fighting each other,
they would forget their soul purpose.

they would ignore the suffering
right in front of them.

i’d make them believe
that anyone who didn’t worship me,
follow my institution,
or prove their devotion publicly,
wouldn’t be blessed or saved.

because after all,
i’m a false god.

and because i’m a false god,
i’m the master of manipulation.

that’s why i’d create a patriarchy—

to convince people
that a woman’s intuition
was witchcraft.

i’d make them fear
the wisdom they carried,
so they would stop listening
to the Divine within themselves.

i would make them worry
that hell is somewhere we go after we die,
instead of something we create here on earth.

that way, they won’t question my work.

they won’t flip tables or challenge injustice.

they’ll wait for a better world someday,
instead of realizing they have the power to create one now.

that is how i’d create hell on earth.

but across lifetimes,
across cultures,
across sacred texts,
humanity keeps returning
to the same lessons.

whether it is called
god’s vengeance,
karma,
or the natural consequences of our actions—

the message remains:

no faith tradition should be above reflection.

no leader should be above accountability

we should be able to question hypocrisy
whether it comes from christianity
judaism,
islam,
or any other tradition.

because truth does not fear questions.

and love does not fear accountability.

we’re told that freedom is one of our defining values.

yet on the day you were born, you were assigned a number that would follow you through life. forms, databases, schools, employers, banks, governments.

every system would come to know you through a code.

you didn’t choose your name. it was given to you.

you didn’t choose your family.

you didn’t choose where you were born, what language you heard, what religion you were raised in, or what beliefs surrounded you during your most impressionable years.

you probably didn’t choose your last name either. sometimes it belongs to a man who was never there at all.

yet, we’re told by our family members,

“you should be grateful. at least you’re free.”

but what if the freedom you were promised was, at least in part, just a story?

if you grow up being told you live in the greatest country on earth, questioning that belief can feel almost forbidden.

a lot of people are offended that you would even ask, and that makes me wonder how deep generational conditioning goes.

well perhaps i’ve mistaken the definition of freedom, so i have a few questions…

is it freedom if people who commit crimes against children are protected by power?

is it freedom when we ask teenagers to risk their lives for this country, while telling them they’re not old enough to rent a car or make adult decisions because their brains are still developing?

is it freedom when people are encouraged by politicians to distrust their neighbors?

is it freedom if the interests of foreign nations carries more weight than the voices of citizens?

is it freedom when the epstein files remain heavily redacted?

is it freedom when ice is terrorizing and murdering innocent people?

is it freedom when we’re advised that a college degree is the only path to success, while people in their 50s are still paying off student loans?

is it freedom when massive data centers are built near neighborhoods and residents feel like they have no voice?

is it freedom when starting a family can jeopardize your job, your finances, and your access to healthcare?

is it freedom when we're lied to and told that our wars are about security, while they're really driven by power and access to resources?

is it freedom when women’s rights can be rolled back?

is it freedom when corporations profit from heavily processed foods and additives?

is it freedom when those same “cures” from the doctor don’t actually cure us?

also….why doesn’t health insurance typically cover holistic medicine??????

is it freedom when one bout of cancer can leave someone homeless because the cost of staying alive is too high?

is it freedom when mass shootings and school shootings continue to impact this nation, yet proactive investments in prevention remain so contested?

12 mass shootings this past weekend, by the way.

is it freedom when expecting basic accessibility is treated as “unprofessional,” when accessibility is not about politics—it’s about humans?

is it freedom that we can’t seem to find the money to solve these issues, but we have plenty for endless wars, violence, and the loss of innocent lives?

have we confused being controlled with freedom?

i think it’s time to collectively accept the fact that the united states of america, at some point, was taken over by evil billionaires who care more about power and profit than people. and that, for quite some time, the freedom we were taught has not been the reality for many.

for the record, i speak from a moral stance—not a political one.

i follow the teachings of Jesus—not religion.

even though i know i’m not alone, sometimes i feel so alone and helpless. my entire family is maga. i had cousins at the jan 6 capitol attack. i’m from a red state. my former classmates call me a woke libt*rd. i don’t talk to any of them anymore.

some days i don’t know how much longer i can keep carrying the weight of it all while working, running my podcast, and pretending everything is business as usual

so if anyone can provide me a realistic, reasonable answer as to why there is a 34-count felon who was bestie buds with someone who trafficked children as the president of the united states, while our boomer family members are calling us “demonic” for acknowledging that fact...

while he’s creating AI videos of himself releasing poop on american citizens...

while families are watching their rights, healthcare, safety, and livelihoods become political bargaining chips...

while corruption and a complete lack of accountability are treated as acceptable…

please help me to understand. im dying to know.

no like literally, i’m dying to know. i can barely afford rent. thanks!

thanks for reading. 💛

i know my notes have been heavier lately. i promise i’m not going to only write about the bad things. but with everything happening in the world, and with independence day and the world cup this month, it’s been hard not to feel the disconnect and keep these thoughts inside.

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i think the world could use more unconventional forms of joy.

that’s probably the simplest explanation for why i’ve become a fairy on substack, but the real story goes a little deeper. i’ve always loved fairies (don’t we all?) but learning to embody that magic became a reminder for me that we don’t have to abandon the imaginative parts of ourselves just because we grow up.

today, i wanted to share why i started to embrace the fairy life, what it has come to represent and some inspo if you’ve ever wanted to create your own fairy look. ✨

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yes…i am a real fairy,

and i have proof. 🤭 i was born prematurely, and because of that, i was the “runt” of my class. throughout my life, i was bullied for being underweight and fragile-looking. my ears have always been a little pointed because they weren’t able to fully form before i was born. like a lot of people, i had things about myself that i wished i could change. but instead of trying to change them, i changed my perspective.

maybe i was just a fairy. 🧚‍♀️

maybe you’re a fairy, too.

creating a fairy garden here has become a form of escapism for me. the makeup i do and the crafts i create empower me. they help me reconnect with my childlike nature, which i don’t believe any of us should lose—but the system has conditioned us to.

i want the garden to be a place where people of all backgrounds, cultures, identities, and ages feel safe to be themselves. and yes, men are fairies too (cue A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare). i hope we can empower one another, encourage each other, and remember that there’s nothing wrong with being different.

that said… fairies also aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. they can be mischievous, protective, and emotional. even tinkerbell raged.

still, people often mistake kindness for weakness.

i may look naïve on the outside, but i’m very much a honey badger on the inside. i wish i could say i was born that way, but i wasn’t. life has a heartbreaking way of teaching you to protect yourself. that’s why the most important rule for the fairies in this garden is having the courage to hold others accountable for their actions, because compassion without boundaries allows unhealthy patterns to continue.

being a fairy is about protecting what is good, standing up for what is right, and knowing when something cannot be allowed to continue.

now for the fun part...the makeup.

fairy makeup has given me a new way to express myself. i’ve always loved makeup, but truthfully, it hasn’t felt the same for me since the 2016 era. getting back into vibrant colors has brought back a sense of nostalgia and reminded me why i loved makeup in the first place. you don’t need to have the most expensive products to create a good look. almost all of my products are by e.l.f.

here are two of the fairy looks i’ve created 🌸 🌸 🌸

everyday fairy makeup

for the natural look, you’ll want to focus on softer colors and lots of shimmer.

• i usually reach for pastels, muted pinks, or light purple shades.

• i add highlighter under my eyebrow, cheekbones, nose, and anywhere the light naturally hits.

• sometimes i do light faux freckles across my nose or a bit of blush.

• no lipstick or lip liner. just lipgloss.

with natural fairy makeup, less can become more. this look is typically work and school-safe. :)

full fairy makeup

for the full look, you’ll want to be bolder with color and eyeliner. i usually choose a lipstick shade that doesn’t compete with the eyeshadow. a good rule of thumb is to pick either going vibrant on the eyes or the lips.

• use way more color than you think you need. greens, reds, blues...layer them.

• i love using colored mascara that matches the eyeshadow. i used dark red in this.

• blush is essential, don’t be afraid to try out different colors! sometimes i even use purple or orange eyeshadow as blush. i bring it high onto my cheeks and sweep it across my nose.

• add little details. dots, flowers, freckles, jewels.

fairy makeup is supposed to be fun, so experiment. that’s how you find your own style. i didn’t use copy a look for mine. i just started trying different things and seeing what worked. sometimes it looked terrible, and that’s okay. i’d just make a mental note of what colors didn’t mesh well and try something different next time.

at the end of the day, the fairy garden isn’t about makeup or acting like a fairy 24/7.

it’s about giving ourselves permission to create, play, and reconnect with the parts of ourselves we were told to outgrow.

thank you so much for reading. i hope you enjoyed this piece and continue to embrace your inner whimsy. <3

if you are new here, i would love for you to stick around and subscribe to the garden!!

🧚‍♀️🌸🍃🌱🌷🍄🦋🌿🪻🌙🌼🐝🌻✨🌺🍀

obviously, the flood of ai-generated, repetitive content is part of it. but even if you stripped all of that away, it reminds me of that one jimmy neutron movie where the parents are under mind control by aliens. :’)

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most people on linkedin show up as heavily filtered versions of themselves. that’s the expectation, after all. the advice from growth strategists is to optimize your content and increase your reach. maybe that gets you seen, but when i scroll through my feed, i can sense the weight of those invisible rules—a ball and chain deciding what people are and aren’t allowed to say.

what are we actually optimizing for if people leave with an impression, but never a sense of who someone really is?

most of what gets rewarded isn’t honesty. it’s legibility. anything too messy or too human in its contradiction will get you strange looks in the office the next day. don’t talk about toxic workplace dynamics, because it can cost you opportunities. don’t be too transparent about what you know or don’t know, because uncertainty makes you seem, well…uncertain.

definitely don’t acknowledge what’s happening in the US, because you'll be seen as divisive and unprofessional.

since ai, we’ve begun to sound less like ourselves and more like our job titles. someone can post every single day on linkedin. i might remember their name, their face, maybe even their company. i probably couldn’t tell you what it’s like to be around them when they’re not performing.

that gap comes from constantly translating experience into something “professional.”

being vulnerable on linkedin feels like this:

everything is readable, nothing is felt.

you can spend years building a personal brand while remaining unknown.

i’m not sure that counts as being seen.

anyway, i think i’m going to delete the app soon.

thank you for reading 🤍

if this resonated, you can support my work here. it helps me keep writing and podcasting: https://buymeacoffee.com/alanam

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hi, i’m alana.

i’ve rewritten this introduction at least ten times.

that’s probably because…surprise!

i’m not actually a writer. at least, i don’t consider myself to be one. it takes me forever sometimes because my ideas come in bursts. in fact, i’m writing this at 3:23 a.m. because during the day i have too many distractions.

so why did i start this publication?

like many of you, i’m not very pleased with where humanity seems to be headed right now, and i figured i’d better start sharing my creations while i still have the chance.

i’ve noticed that i’m a polarizing person on social media. i either bring out something good in people, or something else. #whistleblowervibes

growing up, i used to blame myself for the way people reacted to me. if someone didn’t like me, i assumed i did something wrong to deserve it. i worked constantly to become the “good, nice girl”—someone with no boundaries, who accepted things she shouldn’t have had to, so she would be impossible to dislike.

it didn’t really work, but i tried. boy, did i try.

no matter how much i masked myself, the struggles stayed the same. it wasn’t until my 20s that i found out i was neurodivergent, and that’s when things started to make sense.

that’s where inconvenient awareness came from.

my work touches a lot of things because awareness isn’t limited to one area. it shows up in education, neurodivergence, leadership, psychology, social dynamics, fairies, spiders, trauma, and whatever else helps me understand people better.

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why i work in education.

education matters to me because school is where kids first learn whether they are accepted for who they are. it’s where we learn social rules, expectations, and the unspoken hierarchies that shape belonging

i grew up in a small midwestern town with very little diversity. you can probably imagine what that looked like without me having to explain the details.

children who grow up in large, diverse cities face different challenges. they may have more freedom to blend in and find their people, but it's also easier to slip through the cracks in a system that can't always see every child

neither is better or worse. just different ways of being too seen, or not seen enough.

i started a small k-12 podcast because school leaders have a perspective that tends to go unheard. they work closely with students and families, witnessing both the challenges they face and the growing responsibilities educators are expected to carry.

right now, the show has one season and i’m on a break before season two. in the fall, i’ll be traveling again—having conversations at different events and continuing to grow it from there.

i started it with no prior knowledge of hosting or podcasting because i wanted to document the growth process.

so, i’m normalizing learning in public.

on neurodivergence.

i write about neurodivergence here to bring awareness to the fact that ADHD and autism don’t always look overt. i know people say that a lot now, but it’s true.

for most of my life, i was labeled as almost everything except what i actually am.

anxious, depressed, bipolar, dramatic, weird, too sensitive, too impulsive. those were the labels i heard, and eventually the ones i used to make sense of myself.

"it's probably just really bad anxiety."
at least, that’s what the school counselor told my parents in the fourth grade.

as i got older, i got better at hiding my sensitivities. i got better at forcing eye contact. i got better at acting normal, but my inner world never changed.

that’s what masking is.

then, in 2023, i had a bad car accident. driving became terrifying. the flashbacks were so bad that i couldn’t sleep. i started taking anxiety medication, even though i had once been against it. i was afraid it would make me numb or change who i was—because again, that’s what i had been told.

instead, for what felt like the first time in my life, i wasn’t spending all of my emotional energy just trying to survive. the medication quieted the anxious loops, giving my nervous system the space to begin healing. once i learned i was AuDHD and living with CPTSD, so many pieces of my life finally made sense.

for years, i learned to socially mask well enough for most people to know i was “different,” but not enough for them to know why. i made good grades, earned my bachelor’s degree, and performed well in the workplace. i held back my special interests and hyperfixations because early on, i noticed they weren’t widely accepted.

i appeared like i was functioning well. until eventually, i couldn’t anymore.

not everyone’s experience of neurodivergence looks the same, and support needs vary widely, but that doesn’t mean our systems make space for those differences well.

i started unmasking publicly because i know what seeing other people unmask did for me. it helped me look back at my life with more compassion and understanding. i want to do that for others, because if your story can spare someone self-abandonment or shame, you should share it.

i was raised in environments that didn’t have the understanding or patience to recognize neurodivergence in children. i’m not saying that to villainize anyone—it’s just what happens when differences are treated as problems instead of needs.

when i struggled with executive function, it was labeled laziness. i was shamed for my choices in friends and relationships because i didn’t choose people based on social hierarchy. my sensory sensitivities were misread. i heard things like, “the reason you’re depressed is because you isolate yourself.”

why are some people expected to shrink?

why are some reactions called “dramatic” before anyone asks who/what caused them?

i don’t have all the answers, but i have a lot of questions.

that’s what i’m documenting here.

why psychology?

i’ve always noticed patterns, partly because of the hypervigilance i developed in childhood. i grew up around addiction and different forms of abuse, which kept my nervous system on constant alert. i began to pick up on small changes in people’s voices, expressions, and behavior.

it can be exhausting to constantly question the intentions of others, especially when social hierarchy and neurotypical behaviors don’t come naturally. that’s what led me to studying psychology.

i’m interested in the patterns that influence how we live: the ones we inherit from our families, the ones we learn in school, the ones we repeat in relationships, and the ones we carry into adulthood.

i don’t write about psychology to diagnose strangers or put people into categories. i prefer nuance. i write about it because understanding ourselves creates more compassion for ourselves and for each other.

once you start recognizing patterns, you see reality differently.
that’s both the gift and the burden of awareness.

what to expect

most of my writing will remain free. i will use the paywall to create more privacy for myself when writing about challenging topics, personal experiences, and ongoing situations. it gives me space to be open while protecting parts of my life that don't belong everywhere on the internet.

my goal isn't to tell you what to believe. it's to encourage you to ask better questions, approach difficult topics with nuance, and recognize the patterns that help you build a life that feels more authentic to you.

so if you’re a subscriber or recently joined, i hope this gives you a better sense of what this publication is about. i know i’m a bit all over the place sometimes, but it all connects back to three themes: humanity, empathy, and education.

welcome to the fairy garden. 🧚✨

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“there’s nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend.”
— bob ross

i used to think bugs were just pests because that’s what most of us are taught. you don’t have to be sat down and told to be grossed out by them. you just watch how everyone else reacts. if there was a spider in the house, you handled it before it had the chance to disappear under the bed or behind the fridge.

i have this specific memory from when i was in middle school. it was summer break, and i saw a tiny black spider crawling across the kitchen counter. so, naturally, i grabbed a paper towel, reached for the cleaning spray, slipped off my flip-flop, and prepared for battle.

because that’s kind of the default, isn’t it?

but right as i went to finish the job, i noticed it had these tiny green fangs. i had never seen a spider like that before. if i had, i had never paid enough attention.

then he did the one thing that ultimately saved him.

he looked back at me.

and he tilted his head like a puppy.

i was intrigued. is this a conscious spider? does he know i’m holding a flip-flop like a weapon? why is he looking at me like that?

i wondered if he was poisonous, because his fangs were such a bright green that they didn’t look real. so i pulled out my ~beloved~ ipod touch and googled it.

and this is where the whole thing started to unravel, because i was mostly googling him because i felt like i needed permission to kill him.

but the more i read, the harder that became.

because during my five-minute research spiral, i learned that he was a bold jumping spider. i learned that he was a he. that they tilt their heads out of curiosity and to fine-tune their vision. they’re observant, they experience REM-like sleep, and they can recognize and differentiate humans.

i learned that they live on every continent except antarctica.

i learned there’s a species called a peacock spider because the males have these colorful abdomens they lift up during courtship.

it’s literally insane — see below.

and despite how much people fear them, they’re not really a threat to humans at all.

as i kept reading, it started to hit me that some animals are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. after all, it usually takes less than 30 seconds to grab a cup and take it outside, which is about the same amount of time it takes to kill it and clean it up.

that’s what happens when curiosity interrupts fear.

i think some of us are aware of life in places other people find inconvenient.

i spent most of my adult life downplaying how much i loved animals because people made it seem weird. but i did love them. often more than people, if i’m being honest.

they just understood me in a way that didn’t require words.

and i think that’s part of what we’ve lost.

the ability to understand and respect other living beings without needing them to communicate exactly like us.

at some point in childhood, you start to learn that softness is embarrassing. you stop getting the sweet little “oohs” and “ahhs” from adults when you care too much about small things. kids start looking at you funny if you talk to butterflies on the playground. what was once seen as precious becomes strange.

we are taught to be practical.

it’s not that deep.

it’s just your imagination.

we detach to survive because it is easier than acknowledging that the world we were raised in was more cruel than we were allowed to notice.

i don’t think it necessarily comes from a lack of empathy. i think sometimes awareness just never extended that far.

maybe if people had the ability to stay curious without fear, they would naturally learn how to empathize with difference. but our system today makes that hard.

curiosity takes time, and fear is much easier to sell. we are rewarded for being practical, detached, and controlled. we are taught to get rid of what makes us uncomfortable. most of us are so removed from nature now that we forget small things are still alive.

because if we collectively learn, and i mean truly learn, we might become angry that so much of what we were taught was never okay. it was conditioning.

i was ready to “handle” that spider, but then he looked back at me.

since then, i’ve become a little obsessed with them. i’ve seen a handful over the years, and every time i do, i get way too excited to infodump on whoever is nearby because i think they’re one of the coolest things ever.

they’ve lived in my windowsills, on my porch, behind the staircase.

and every time, i feel lucky to notice them.

which is why today, i’m particularly excited to announce that we have a new class pet arriving in a couple of days.

she is a tiny, fluffy, baby regal jumping spider, and she will be supervising the fairy garden from this point forward.

i’ve wanted to raise a jumper for years, and now felt like the right time because i finally have a place to share what i learn.

my goal isn’t to convince everyone to love spiders overnight, but to show that misunderstood things usually become less scary once we try to understand them.

so please welcome Apple to the fairy garden. 🍎🧚‍♀️🌿✨

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digital citizenship > shame.

this is one of my messier entries…but someone had to say it.

i’ve only been on substack for a couple of weeks, and in that time, i’ve seen a handful of adults talking about teenagers here like their presence is a problem.

and maybe this is where i lose some people,

because IM SOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED FOR THEM!!!!!!!!
AND US!!!!!!!!!!
AHHHHHSKSKJSJSJ!!!!!!!!

i’m not even being dramatic when i say i’ve been desperately nostalgic for an app like this since 2014. we used to have myspace, tumblr, wattpad. we overshared, embarrassed ourselves, made friends, and felt less alone.

so when i see teenagers on substack, i think, FINALLY. let them write!! in fact, let’s provide feedback on their writing. let’s empower them.

do you not remember being a teenager? do you not remember that if we wanted access to information, we usually found a way? we didn’t need to be online to make poor decisions or put ourselves in unsafe situations. a lot of us were on kik and omegle before we had nearly as much internet safety education as we have now.

teens don’t need to be rejected from a creative, educational app like substack.

what they need is digital citizenship.

because at the end of the day, adults fall for online scams too. adults get catfished, manipulated, and sometimes lose everything to a romance that was never real. that doesn’t make any of us stupid. most of the time, it means we assumed other people had the same intentions and morals we did.

that’s why education around these dynamics matters so much to me. i’ve studied the patterns, and while that doesn’t make me untouchable, it does help me recognize the signs sooner, which makes the likelihood a lot smaller.

protect young writers.

for context, i’m in my mid 20s. i work in education partnerships and school safety advocacy, and i’m also a survivor of psychological abuse. so when i talk about child abuse, manipulation, and power dynamics, i’m not saying it lightly. i’ve spent the last several years studying this stuff because i had to.

you don’t have to hide yourself from the world, but it’s important to know what kinds of public information could put you at risk.

i take a risk when i share parts of my life here, but i’m an adult, and i work with people who understand security. i have safe spaces to go to if i need help, but i didn’t have that as a teenager. a lot of you probably don’t either, and i know it can be hard to go to your parents if you’re in a situation where you might be shamed.

unfortunately, there are people, even on substack, who look for loneliness, grief, and unstable family environments. people with predatory intentions can use those vulnerabilities to target others, especially if you come across as empathetic and open.

• if someone is trying to move the conversation into DMs, you are allowed to say you aren’t comfortable, even if they’ve been seemingly kind to you.

• you don’t owe anyone access just because they read your work.

• you don’t owe anyone a reply because they were kind in your comments.

• more importantly, you don’t owe anyone continued access just because they supported you at some point.

unsafe people will often use things like favors, support, and compliments to make you feel like you “owe” them your time, attention, or silence.

good people don’t keep a receipt of their kindness.

this is why i’ve blocked people before, and i will enthusiastically block people again!! if someone makes me feel uneasy, i don’t need a full courtroom of evidence before i remove myself from the situation. you are allowed to do the same.

you are not rude for having boundaries. safe people will always respect your time, boundaries, and comfort level.

kindness shouldn’t make you a target, & i’m tired.

i want teenagers to feel welcome in creative spaces, and i don’t want adults bullying them off an app that could actually help them write and build connections. i don’t want them to feel like their maturity level is shameful, or like their age makes their experience less valuable. we have to remember that these are literally kids. older kids, yes, but still kids with big emotions, less life experience, and a lot happening at home.

teenagers deserve to write, and they deserve to be protected while they do.

there are much bigger problems in the world than teens writing, reading, and learning.

so no, i don’t think they’re “ruining” substack.

i think adults forgot how much we needed spaces like this too.

thank you for reading 🤍

If my writing or podcast has resonated with you, you can support my independent creative work here:

https://buymeacoffee.com/alanam
K-12 Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@EmpoweredK12

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it’s embarrassing.

because unmasking makes it obvious
that a lot of people only knew
who i became to survive.

it feels dishonest to show up now
and expect people to believe
this has been me the whole time.

they only knew the version of me
who learned how to become less noticeable.

the one who chased love
by becoming easier to tolerate.

and i can’t even blame her for it.

i want to tell her i’m sorry too.

i’m sorry i made you quiet when you were born singing.

i’m sorry i taught you that being seen was the same thing as being unsafe.

especially when there were gifts in you the whole time.

there was love.
there was magic.
there was art.
there was intuition trying to claw its way out of survival mode.

you kept shrinking so other people wouldn’t have to look at themselves.

but maybe God made you a mirror on purpose.

maybe people should have been uncomfortable.

because you were never too intense.

you were just surrounded by people who benefited from you being small.

it’s hard to romanticize authenticity
when your soul remembers being punished for it.

are we sure we’re allowed to be seen?

are we sure the light won’t make us a target?

and some days, i don’t know.

but i keep showing up because i’m tired of letting fear
be the most believable thing about me.

i keep thinking about the little girl who didn’t know she was “too much” yet.

i wish i could find her and say,

look.

we made it out.

not without grief.

not without forgetting ourselves for a while.

but we made it.

and you were right to want more.

you were right about what you came here to do.

there was always something inside of us worth sharing.

i think i’m becoming a different person now.

or maybe i’m becoming the person i was before the world tried to cage me.

either way, change is possible.

i know because i’m the evidence.

i‘ve watched myself survive things i thought would end me.

so yes,

i’m very sorry for lying to all of you.

but more than that,

i’m sorry for lying to myself.

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Ajmal begins with the bigger philosophical question behind this piece: if knowledge is easier to reach than ever, why does wonder feel harder to keep?

When Knowledge Has to be Chased

There was a time when knowledge had to be chased, because if you wanted to learn something, you had to find the book, find the teacher, find the library, find the person in the room who knew something you did not, and then hope they were willing to open the door long enough for you to stand inside it.

For a long time, education was not only about intelligence, but about access, because some people were not less curious, less gifted, or less capable; they were simply born too far from the door, born into poverty, or born in bodies the door had already been taught not to open for. Women, people of colour, and anyone pushed to the margins of access were not missing wonder; they were denied the rooms where wonder was allowed to become education.

Then the door opened, not perfectly, not equally, and not everywhere, but enough to feel it, and enough to change the entire focus of what it meant to learn or be educated. Information started flooding the room, and suddenly the issue was no longer only finding something to know, but figuring out what was true before the flood carried your mind somewhere dramatic, half-informed, and pleased with itself.

We stopped starving at the locked door and started drowning at the open one, which is why I think the problem has become almost absurd now, because when answers become easy to reach, the rarest thing left is not information, and it is not even truth.

The Appetite to Know

It is appetite: not the gluttony of wanting to consume everything, but the intentional desire to seek, the hunger to understand, and the strange little ache inside a person that looks at the world and refuses to be done with it. This can be tiring, even gruesome at times, because knowing more does not always make life lighter. Sometimes it gives you more to grieve, more to question, and more to carry.

But being educated was never supposed to mean being free from the burden of knowing; it was supposed to mean becoming strong enough to hold it, honest enough to shape it, and generous enough to share it.

Access can give you the library, but it cannot make you care, and truth can correct your mind, but it cannot always wake up your spirit, because you can place someone beside an ocean and still watch them forget how to thirst. Some of us are most burdened here, because we know enough to survive, but not always enough to desire the future we deserve.

We did not outgrow wonder. We just got very good at killing it quietly.

We became so caught up in “understanding the world” that we forgot to keep inventing the mind that was trying to understand it, which may be the perfect example of becoming spiritually lazy.

Alana brings this down from the idea and into the body, where wonder is not some pretty educational word, but something life can beat out of you before you even realize it had a name.

Before Judgement Got Involved

When I was little, creativity felt like something I embodied naturally. It didn’t feel like something I had to prove. I sang, performed, and made art simply because I loved it.

My little sister and I used to make music videos all the time. Somewhere, there are years of reenactments and embarrassing videos buried, probably waiting for the worst possible moment to resurface. I wasn’t asking if it was “cringe,” because childhood gave us permission to create before judgment got involved.

I think a lot of us lose that version of ourselves over time, because survival teaches us to reach for safety before curiosity.

A few years ago, I experienced what I would call a quarter-life crisis. Very little was going my way, and I had issues in almost every area of my life. It felt like the universe had singled me out, like I was being punished by one of those chain emails I forgot to forward in 2011.

I lost touch with my spiritual side, which was something that came naturally to me when I was a kid. Without a clear sense of purpose in my life, it didn’t only feel impossible to be creative; it felt impossible to wonder.

Every day already felt hard enough, so what was the point of wondering?

When Answers Became a Way Back

Eventually, I started studying psychology in my 20s because I needed answers. I wanted to understand people, myself, and the social rules I didn’t always pick up on. I thought answers would bring clarity, but they mostly made me curious about what else I had mistaken for normal.

That was the beginning of learning how to wonder again. The more I learned, the more I realized answers don’t always end wonder. Sometimes, they are the first door it opens.

Writing became the home for my hypervigilance. I once noticed everything in order to survive, but now I notice things to help others feel less alone. I took the fear of being seen and turned it into a podcast, and the thing I had spent years avoiding became the same thing that helped me reach people.

What I used to fear in myself became part of how I connect with others.

Thank you to for inviting me into this collaboration and creating space for this conversation. I’m grateful I got to add my reflection to a piece about wonder, curiosity, and what it means to keep reaching for more.

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small towns love a good story.

especially the kind they can repeat for years without ever asking if it was true.

they decide who you are young,
and keep you there long after you’ve grown.

some people leave and become proof the story was fiction.

but even then, the town keeps its own copy.

one that never included the new chapters.

frozen in time, like they’re still seventeen.

exhibit a: the girl who got too drunk after prom.
exhibit b: the boy who punched a hole through the locker room wall.
exhibit c: the family everyone whispered about at football games.

years later, you hear fragmented fairytales from the people who never left.

yes, i know these stories well.

they’re passed around like folklore in grocery stores, hair salons, bars, and bonfires.

extra, extra. read all about it.

“she moved to the west coast and became unrecognizable.”
”apparently he cut ties with everyone and never looked back.”
”can you believe they have four kids now?”

how many people leave the town but never escape the headline?

maybe that’s what leaving never fully solves.

still seventeen.

flattened into a rumor.

a character in a story
told by people who liked the old ending better.

oh, but they’ll talk.

they always do.

in checkout lines and half-empty dive bars.

over drinks with people who heard it from someone else.

between mothers who swear they’re “just worried.”

bless their heart.

about the ones who “think they’re better than everyone now.”

and the ones who “forgot where they came from.”

because how dare you outgrow the version of yourself
that made their story easier to tell?

i’ve left.

and you’ve changed.

but some version of us is still seventeen there.

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i grew up knowing myself through other people’s projections.

i think it happened because i was hard to categorize.

none of my hobbies made sense together. my aesthetics changed like seasons. my interests were everywhere. i was constantly becoming a different version of myself before i even understood who the last version was.

so naturally, people filled in the blanks.

everyone had a theory.

none of them were right.

in college, my friend swore i was bipolar because she was. and i understand why people reached for the only labels they knew.

i was impulsive. i dyed my hair different colors. i had tomboy interests. and girly interests. i looked girly. and sometimes i didn’t. when i was 16, i went in for a trim and cut off all my hair. as for my tattoos, i got them the day i wanted them. i was intelligent, but aloof. soft, but protective. i dated people who didn’t really seem to like me, let alone know me. i became avoidant. i romanticized people who weren’t safe. i left before i could be left. some days, survival looked like self-destruction.

oh - trust, my family had a theory too.

my parents called me “manic depressive” as early as seven years old, but no one seemed to treat that as something i needed support for.

as you’re probably aware by now, people tend to be very confident when they’re wrong.

because i wasn’t bipolar.

i was AuDHD.

i was masking. i was surviving. and even then, i knew better than to keep excusing my dad’s behavior.

but the cherry on top? my inner world didn’t match my soul suit.

because i also played video games. i have a degree in information technology. i loved anything digital, but i was just as obsessed with nature. i could disappear for days into intense philosophical topics. i hated reality tv, but i couldn’t really say that out loud without sounding more judgmental than i meant to. and still, i loved fashion, modeling, and makeup.

….don’t get me started on my taste in music.

i did it all. i was everything. or at least, i tried to be.

i became a multidimensional collection of everyone i had ever needed to understand.

it made me easy to get along with. i could be friends with almost anyone, but not really known by anyone. i belonged everywhere just enough to never belong anywhere.

that’s what masking became for me.

people liked the version of me that made the most sense.

i just wasn’t sure where the rest of me was supposed to go.

but maybe my energy confused people on purpose.

maybe it was protection.

because if no one could fully understand me, maybe no one could control me either.

maybe the most healing thing i can do now is stop trying to make myself legible to people who were never interested in truly knowing me.

maybe i can just be.

contradictory.

soft.

intense.

creative.

aloof.

protective.

brilliant.

messy.

mad.

human.

maybe i can finally belong to myself without needing to be understood first.

“the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
- carl jung

if your interests have never made sense either, i’d love to know what your unexpected combination is. leave a comment below🧚🏼‍♀️✨

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not physically.

but there are some losses that happen while people are still alive.

sometimes people ask about her, not knowing the answer is complicated.

i never know what to say.

“we’re just not very close” feels somewhat performative.

i learned pretty early on that love in our household was conditional.

because of that, i spent years trying to reach her. being the eldest daughter, i thought maybe i could save her from the tragedy i knew would eventually unfold.

maybe if i could just explain things and love her enough, she wouldn’t internalize the same dynamics i did.

that never ended up happening.

instead, with every passing year, she seemed further and further out of reach.

my feelings about it were complicated.

sometimes i envied her ability to belong.

sometimes i pitied her for how much of her self-worth seemed tied to validation.

sometimes it made me angry because i felt like i was losing my best friend to a version of herself built around survival.

she had endless friends and social fluency.

but i could never truly find her underneath all of it.

i would try to connect with her, but she’d just disappear into her phone.

i told myself that maybe she was just addicted to it like everyone else.

but eventually i had to face the fact that i don’t think she actually liked me.

or maybe more accurately, she had become so emotionally disconnected from herself that connecting with me felt uncomfortable.

the older we got, the more it felt like we were speaking completely different languages despite growing up in the same house.

that’s the death people don’t usually speak about.

it’s the grief of losing someone who is still alive.

they slowly disappear over time until all you’re left with are faded memories of who they used to be before survival made them someone unrecognizable.

for most of my life, i blamed myself for the distance between us.

but as time passed, i started realizing our relationship existed inside a highly controlled family dynamic long before it ever existed independently from it.

and it ran very well.

of course, as long as nobody questioned it.

sometimes i miss the closeness we never really got the chance to keep.

i miss the possibility of what our relationship could have been if we had been raised in an environment that taught us how to love instead of survive each other.

maybe in another life, we would have just been sisters.

maybe one day, things will be different.

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i hated afternoons like this. the light hurt my eyes. it felt like looking at everything through layers of washed-out silver.

maybe that’s why i remember the feeling so clearly.

something already felt off before anything happened.

i’m sitting in my car for a second before leaving, keys still in my hand.

for some reason, i feel the need to text my mom before heading home:
“i’m on my way but leave your phone unsilenced in case anything happens!”

i had never texted her that before.

even now, i still don’t fully understand why i did.

i settle into the numb rhythm of the drive.

exit signs blur past me.
cornfields.
gas stations.
faded billboards.
more beige.

i remember thinking about absolutely nothing when it happened.

i didn’t get that cinematic slow motion moment. there wasn’t enough time for that.

one second i’m driving.
the next—

boom.

first impact.

the force jerks my body forward and instinct takes over before thought does. my hands are still clamped around the steering wheel, still trying to regain control.

but regain control of what?

the front half of my car is gone.

wait.

what just happened?

the median disappears beneath me as i slide into oncoming traffic.

i catch a glimpse of something large and white in my peripheral vision.

i can’t tell how far away it is.
i can’t exactly tell how big it is.

but in my head, it’s a semi.

two seconds.

that’s all i have left.

“oh. this is how i die.”

and underneath all of it, there’s this horrifying peace.

i had already accepted the possibility that this was the end. i felt like i was in a liminal space between life and death, almost like the collision had split reality open for an instant and i was somehow caught in between it.

boom.

second impact.

everything goes blurry.

part of me genuinely believed i died.

or almost died.

or crossed into some alternate timeline where i survived when i wasn’t supposed to.

and then my hearing tunnels back in, like a jarring rush of reality flooding back into place. the smell of burnt asphalt hits me as a woman yanks open my driver’s side door.

“oh my God. oh my God. don’t move.”

but i’m already scrambling to find my phone.

“please don’t move. you have blood on your face.”

”what?”

i pull down what’s left of the mirror.

it’s shattered.

i looked less like a person and more like someone who had just been violently pulled out of another dimension.

but i’m not worried about internal bleeding.
i’m not worried about the gash on my face.

because i need to call my mom.

and the reason i need to call my mom is because my dad is going to lose his mind.

just seconds later, my car is surrounded by people.

someone is trying to stop my head from bleeding.
another person keeps telling me not to move.

“stay still.”
“don’t move.”
“the ambulance is right down the road.”

none of it was registering. my only concern is damage control.

eventually, EMS gets me out of the car. and that’s when i realize it wasn’t a semi.

someone had pulled out in front of me on the highway.

three vehicle collision.

the “semi” was actually a utility truck.

i look over at my car.

the entire front end is destroyed so badly it barely looks recognizable.

that should have killed me.

i spot my phone covered in the shattered glass sparkling across the top of the dashboard.

“mom,” i’m shaking so hard i can barely hold it. “i just got in a really bad accident. i’m okay but i’m in the ambulance.”

then immediately:

“please tell dad it wasn’t my fault.
it wasn’t my fault. i didn’t even have time to stop.”

i needed my mother to manage my father’s reaction before he even had one.

and it was always like that.

there was an excuse for everything.

if my father was screaming and yelling, we were supposed to feel bad because he had a difficult upbringing too. if he drank so much he blacked out, that was supposed to feel normal because “at least he came home.” and because he paid the bills, he believed connection with his children was optional.

the bar wasn’t low.

the bar was in hell.

so there i am. surrounded by twisted metal and shattered glass while EMS whispers the same sentence over and over:

“i don’t understand how she survived that.”

but i didn’t feel divinely protected.

because for a few brief seconds suspended between life and death, my nervous system experienced something unfamiliar:

peace.

i wanted that calmness back.

i wanted the silence back.

i wanted to disappear into whatever that space was where fear, survival, hypervigilance, and emotional exhaustion finally stopped existing.

because even after a traumatic event, my nervous system was still preparing for someone else’s reaction.

this was one of the few times i wasn’t treated like someone to blame.

in fact, everyone treated me like i was fine.

lucky even.

unbelievably lucky.

the memories hit me days later. it’s exactly how they describe it in movies.

it comes back in flashes.

you replay the accident over and over in your head, trying to piece together the parts your brain blurred out to protect you from the weight of the trauma.

i barely slept. every time i closed my eyes, i thought about how much of my life i still hadn’t experienced yet. how much potential i kept burying because i was afraid of being judged.

i wasn’t afraid of death.

i was afraid of dying before i had fully lived.

i cried in front of my father.

he looked uncomfortable.

he hovered awkwardly in the doorway like he wanted to help but didn’t know how.

he didn’t know how to hold me.

instead, he brought me soup and crackers because practical acts of service were the only language he knew how to speak.

children don’t need perfect parents to become attached to them.

they just need occasional relief.

a bowl of soup. a quiet car ride.
a rare evening without yelling.

see?
he cares.
he’s trying.
maybe it wasn’t that bad.
maybe this is just what fathers are like.

maybe he’s just broken in the same way i am.

rare kindness becomes emotionally addictive when fear is the baseline.

you become grateful for crumbs because crumbs are the only evidence you have that love exists at all.

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and i understand why a lot of successful people detach from it.

why should you hold anyone accountable?
they never believed in you anyway.
they don’t deserve access to you now.
culturally, we’ve been conditioned to believe that caring about how people treated us means we care too much about other people’s opinions.

i don’t really care what other people think about me. i do care, however, about how people treat others when there is nothing obvious to gain from supporting them.

here’s the thing: success isn’t always material. it doesn’t have to involve wealth, fame, status, or stardom. sometimes success is as simple as finding yourself and using your creative gifts after being told they were unrealistic, weird, impractical, or insignificant.

authenticity has a way of reorganizing your life. operating at that frequency means certain relationships fall away. in many cases, it’s because they were only connected to the version of you that betrayed yourself to maintain the relationship.

eventually, new people enter your life because they are finally meeting the real you. and for the first time, you get to experience how peaceful life can be when you are genuinely supported.

but what is the function of a friend, parent, or sibling who can’t merely support you?

because the pain of being around people who were supposed to love you, encourage you, and believe in you, yet instead chose to devalue you, is unlike anything else.

imagine if the people closest to you never seem capable of giving you a word of encouragement when you need it most. imagine constantly pouring into others, giving advice, believing in people, helping them reach their goals and dreams, only to realize when it’s finally your turn to receive that same support, it’s absent.

…and what happens when everyone who underestimated you ends up being wrong?

and suddenly.

suddenly, everyone got quiet.

where did all of the “underestimators” go?

they had so much to say about you in the beginning.

i thought you said i could never do it alone.

i thought you said i was unstable.

i thought you said my business idea was a joke.

i thought you said i’d never make it without you.

i thought you said i was “too much.”

why’d you go quiet?

is it because i started writing while you were whispering?

is it because i met the love of my life in the process?

is it because i was able to come out of the flames without you?

is it because you eventually realized that i had been playing along with your perception of me?

does that make me the villain?

if so, i think we are living in two different realities.

the one you chose seemed more interested in protecting your ego.

the one i was living in was more concerned with protecting your insecurities.

now that i’ve finished my slam poetry commentary, something unexpected happens while the gossip is still active.

that something is called marketing.

while everyone is mocking you, obsessing over your every move, or waiting for you to fail…

you are turning all of it into language.

into art.

into something that can outlive the narrative.

and one day, you pick your head back up and realize the same people who doubted you helped make you visible.

they wanted to know if you were really crazy.

too ambitious.

too much.

selfish.

the problem with authenticity? it can’t be curated, controlled, or managed.

life keeps moving. you grow. you succeed. you build a beautiful life. and eventually you stop caring about how many people tried to place obstacles in your way.

the thing is… people don’t really change unless they are forced to face themselves.

they’ll start supporting you when everyone else does.

it’s not because they always did.

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