Elizabeth and her dog, Millie, exploring the Puget Sound.

I was born and raised in East Tennessee, straight from the mountains of Appalachia.

When I was 13, I was offered a monetary gift to attend an elite all-girls’ high school. I accepted the gift, which created some weird family drama, but that’s a different story.

Without truly knowing why, I often felt different in comparison to my friends and classmates, and that basically followed me around forever. My family life was complicated, and I felt ashamed of that. I left home as soon as I could, and attended the University of Tennessee, where I started carving out my own path.

After college I got married then went back to school, where I got a master’s degree in the Science of Education with an emphasis in Clinical Mental Health. Shortly before graduation, I was longing to become a mother, so lo and behold, I shifted my tunnel vision, and we got pregnant on the second try.

When I was twelve weeks pregnant, my mother found out she had cancer. She died before my baby turned one. We got pregnant again almost three years later, and in my last trimester, my brother died of alcohol-induced liver failure. He was 36. After our second baby was born, my husband accepted a new job in Seattle, WA. In the spring of 2017, we moved across the country with a toddler and a newborn, and a whole new set of circumstances.

It didn’t take long to fall in love with the Pacific Northwest, maybe because we were open to a fresh start. Four years into our new life, I got the call that my father had died. In a matter of seven swift years, I had created my own family unit, while my entire family of origin had vanished. Life became very, very dark.

I felt the urge to write more regularly when my mind wouldn’t stop racing, and I had to get it out of my body. Stacks and stacks of journals became filled with chicken scratches of my desperate mania. Overtime, I found a way to reconnect with nature and its natural laws, and step by step, I pulled myself out of hell.

I think I’m finally ready to share what I learned on my journey to hell and back, and my hope is, it might make a difference.