Chapter One
The Cost of Surviving
Some of us learned early that the world wasn't built for how our minds work. So we adapted. We built systems. We masked. We pushed through. We survived.
But survival has a cost. When you spend all your energy just getting through the day—the job, the expectations, the performance of normalcy—there's nothing left. The dishes pile up. The bills go unpaid. The creative projects stay locked in your head. Not because you're lazy. Because you're exhausted from surviving.