I lived through what wasn't supposed to be lived through.
The rest was built from truth.
THE TRUTH
the thing that didn't kill me
I learned early what it feels like to disappear inside systems that were meant to protect. Not all at once — but gradually, through silence, misunderstanding, and being told that what I was experiencing was normal when it wasn’t.
Over time, survival became my full-time job. I learned how to function while breaking, how to endure without being seen, how to normalize pain because it was easier than admitting something was wrong. I adapted constantly — to people, expectations, environments — until adaptation itself became my identity.
What I know now is this: none of it was a failure of strength. It was prolonged exposure to harm — personal, institutional, and cultural — and the quiet way those forces teach you to doubt your own perception. The truth wasn’t that I was weak.
The truth was that I was still standing in conditions that asked me not to be.
THE BREAK
where the old world cracked
For years, I survived every emotion on the human spectrum — but rarely through my own lens. My sense of self was drowned out early, replaced by adaptation. Bullying, assault, being taken advantage of, being overlooked — all of it trained me to perform survival instead of inhabit identity. I woke up each day and did what was required of me, even when the shame stayed quiet and unnamed.
I learned to function inside distortion. Being a twin shaped my life in ways I didn’t understand at the time — existing in someone else’s shadow, being overlooked, feeling defective without knowing why. I carried the belief that I was always the last choice, the backup option, the one who almost fit. When abuse followed — emotional, sexual, psychological — it reinforced the same message: endure, don’t ask, don’t take up space.
I tried anyway. Every day, I worked toward dreams I was told were unrealistic, indulgent, secondary. Creativity came second. So I came second. Each attempt at building a life ended in quiet failure — not because I wasn’t trying, but because I was trying to survive inside systems that were never designed for me. By my mid-twenties, the erosion was undeniable. And then everything collapsed at once.
At twenty-nine, bedridden and dependent on medication that was killing me slowly, my body finally forced the truth into the open. I was frail, dizzy, hypervigilant — shrinking, disappearing, dissociating. I had been performing strength for so long that I didn’t recognize myself without it. Staring at a nearly empty bottle of pills, there was no metaphor left.
That was the break — not the emergence of pain, but the acceptance that survival was no longer the same as living.
BUILD / FIGHT
what was built from the refusal to die
When survival stopped working, I built inward first. I learned emotional architecture through language — writing lyrics and stories not only about my own experience, but through the perspectives of others. When I couldn’t establish boundaries or routines that held in unstable environments, creation became structure. I survived in thought, in imagination, in meaning-making. I didn’t deny reality — I processed it. Quietly. For years.
That interior world became a blueprint. What began as fantasy and observation hardened into intention. Over time, it shaped a voice. Then a presence. Then a system. WAAL emerged as a cathedral of truth — not built from pain alone, but from the discipline of seeing clearly and refusing to disappear.
The fight came next. I refused silence. I refused to watch people be erased, shamed, or dismissed for surviving differently. I refused to explain myself, to perform acceptability, to agree for the sake of ease. I refused popularity, trend, and permission. I refused to be cool.
What stayed was my core. Empathy didn’t harden into cruelty. Sensitivity sharpened instead of collapsing. I kept asking questions. I kept learning patterns. I kept showing up where I could — even when my body wasn’t fully mine. I never quit believing there was more ahead, even without evidence. That belief is what built this.
THE REASON
why this exists now
I knew my story wasn’t unique. The shame, the silence, the strategies people use to survive — none of it belonged to me alone. I had watched long enough to recognize the patterns: how pain hides behind performance, how cruelty often goes unchecked, how people convince themselves they’ve gotten away with things simply because no one names them.
Once the fog cleared, it became obvious that the problem wasn’t individual failure — it was collective denial. We are taught to hide what hurts, preserve appearances, protect ego. We learn to lie quietly to keep moving. We are all liars isn’t an accusation. It’s a recognition. And recognition is the beginning of change.
This exists for the unseen — the ones labeled weak, difficult, different, or disposable. For people in recovery. For those wearing poverty, politeness, or perfection as masks. And it exists for everyone else too. Because connection is always present. We just haven’t been taught how to look for it, or how to stay long enough to see it.