Ch. 2- Existential Depression Comes to Destroy Who I’m Not

We are starting where it all began—this is what the universe is capable of when it completely destroys your life, just to make you grow.

My life barely began before 24 years old. It feels as though everything from birth to 24 was one chapter—because I was numb, deeply unconscious to what lived inside me: a literal grenade of feelings.

I was a model, spending most of my 20s participating in bikini pageants, flying to vegas, and getting involved in photo shoots that the industry was pushing me to be closer and closer to nudity against my will. I had taken on a superficial mask, one that wouldn’t last long by the grace of divine nature.

My first “awakening” came through my first real romantic heartbreak. That probably surprises no one now—but at the time, it shattered me. The first significant character in my process of coming home to myself—I’ll call him Frank.

Frank and I fell in love at the exact same moment. Fast. I entered a two-year relationship with him and quietly placed my own dreams—on a shelf.

Love is a funny thing. It rarely makes sense. We imagine it arriving dressed in white, on a perfect horse, flawless from beginning to end. Frank was a 27-year-old single father of two. I was 24. We kissed on festival drugs, and that’s where the cascade of darkness begins—not exactly a fairy tale. But we were in love. It really started in childhood with trauma, childhood abuse, and violence, but that is in this blog here -for context to see how the crack in consciousness began.

That relationship marked the first major shift of my life. It was the doorway that led me toward spirituality—forcefully.

We spent two intense years together. It was my first move out of my chaotic childhood home. I lived in a two-story loft that used to be an old bottle factory—rustic windows, historic charm, right on the river. I paid $575 for the master bedroom. I had everything a 24-year-old could want.

I worked at a local brewery and made friends I still cherish. We laughed constantly. We drank, hosted dinner and wine nights, lived wildly and freely. We were young. This is the chapter where I met Elisha (she will later become important in my journey—see her blog here).

The love I felt with Frank is frustrating to write about, because no words will ever fully translate what we shared—but I’ll try.

It was deep, erratic, sensual. The chemistry was sexual, romantic, spiritual—everything. My mother didn’t care much for him. Friends later said it didn’t make sense. He wasn’t “toxic.” He treated me well. But he was lost—financially, emotionally, mentally. He had just left a long relationship with the mother of his children. He was broke, sad, partying often.

He also wrote beautiful fucking music and played guitar—just like my dad.

So I was all in.

We were inseparable. Maybe part of me latched onto the wound of wanting a good father—the way he tucked his daughter into bed could bring me to tears. I loved him deeply. And he loved me, too.

We lived in our own world. In crowded rooms our eyes always found each other. Minutes later we’d be kissing, ready to go home and dissolve into the ecstasy we swam in together. It felt holy. Nose to nose, rocking back and forth, intoxicated by love.

We bathed together. Sang together. It was a world no one else had coordinates for. Once he told me, “I love walking into a room when you don’t know I’m there, just to watch your smile. It lights my soul.”

We were magnetic—everyone could feel it. Slow dancing in kitchens, cooking together, sometimes needing to lie down just to absorb the intensity of what we felt.

Looking back, after many partners since Frank, I realize something important: he was the only person I never questioned whether love existed between us. I never doubted that he loved me.

And yet—I could not say forever.

That contradiction later, destroyed me and became the catylst to deep questioning of what intuition actually meant (theres a blog later on this too).

I thought the person you love is supposed to be your forever person. But life had other plans. I had big dreams—and I often wished I didn’t, because having them meant leaving. Frank had kids. He wasn’t going anywhere. So there I was with a “model” of how life should be and life, was just….lifing. This is what they mean by “going with the flow”. The ancient spiritual texts did not mean never say no, or follow everything without having an opinion. It meant- get in tune with what is true and do your best to follow “the way”. In this case, Frank was not my path. Looking back now, I can see why. I was meant to travel, move, learn more lessons with other people, and go through a whole thing. If I stayed with him, my life would have been utterly painful—not because of him but because I wouldnt be listening to my heart.

That discrepancy cracked me open. It led to my first depression—30 pounds lost in two months, and my first panic attack.

This is why relationship advice is so hard. When people say, “When you know, you know,” I hated that. I knew I loved him. But love did not equal a life together.

I was wildly attracted to a messy man with two kids at 24—and it confused the hell out of me. He didn’t fit the model of who I thought I should be with. I think life was showing me the truth, I loved him because a piece of me that was broken….loved him and I needed him to complete my father wound - which he could not do. When I realized this, the relationship started to crumble for me behind my eyes, like a light cracking through a hardened shell…a part of me began to die as I was forced to listen to my heart.

A series of events led to the breakdown.

The relationship ending.

The realization that no “true love’s kiss” would heal the emptiness left by my father.

The love never disappeared—but I had to leave. I broke my own heart and his. It devastated us. My heart loved him, but a deeper wisdom whispered that it wasn’t right.

That whisper changed everything.

I begged God to make it make sense. I didn’t understand until later—after travel, after leaving, after years of movement—that this pain forced me into spirituality. I was driven to my knees.

I dreamt of California. I searched schools in secret. I felt like I was lying—to him and to myself.

A calling began to growl inside my chest. I knew I had to leave Connecticut. I couldn’t explain it. I just knew.

I lived in guilt for over a year—laughing with him, planning futures, while quietly doubting everything. I knew happiness was internal—but I also knew I had to go on a journey alone, whatever that meant.

Here was the soup that led to the first dark spiral of my life…..

EMDR Therapy

One night we drank like usual. I blacked out. We argued—and suddenly I saw Frank as my father. Our drunk fights intensified. I knew something was deeply wrong. I needed therapy.

My therapist began EMDR. With vibrating tappers in my hands and eyes closed, I descended into my subconscious.

We uncovered memories of violent abuse from my father—being locked in my room without food. I recovered full memories of ongoing sexual abuse by a family member—events I had convinced myself were dreams.

They weren’t.

My therapist was new to EMDR. She often failed to debrief me. Sessions ended abruptly—time to go home—after unlocking trauma buried for over 20 years.

Moving Out On My Own-Depression: The First Dark Night

My soul cracked.

I was changing beneath the surface like molten lava. My outer life no longer matched my inner truth.

On a trip to Block Island, something in me snapped. Standing on a boat beside Frank, I knew—with no rational explanation—that I had to leave him.

The thought sent me into my first panic attack.

Electricity shot through my body. My vision narrowed. I was trapped inside terror.

Frank brought me to the ocean and placed my feet in the water. I paced, shaking. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

I couldn’t answer.

From that day on, I entered my first full-blown depression—a year-long descent. I lost my appetite, my joy, my connection to reality. I was dying inside while the world praised my weight loss.

Therapy failed me. I asked existential questions—Who am I? What is all of this?—and no one would go there. I was told to medicate the questions away.

I became afraid of my own thoughts.

The therapist suggested I go on anti-depressants and call it “my life” basically. I went on them for 6 months and felt completely and utterly numb. I attempted to go back for my pre-requisites in case I did want to go back to school.

Then, by accident, I found an old bookstore in Massachusetts filled with Zen Buddhism, Tibetan meditation, and Advaita non-duality.

For the first time, my questions were welcomed.

That is where my real search began….