From Self-Harm to Healing: A Highly Sensitive Girl’s Path to Recovery, with Ciara Fanlo

[00:00:00]  The voice that you hear is the, “Leave me alone. I know what I’m doing. This is my life. I hate you. You don’t understand me.” And the voice that you’re not hearing is the one that’s saying, “I’m really struggling. I need help. Please don’t leave. Please see how much pain I’m in.” So I think it’s important to know that even if you’re not hearing that from your child, that is definitely still there
Welcome to Hope Stream, the podcast for parents of teens and young adults struggling with substance use and mental health. I’m Brenda Zane. I’ve walked this path with my own child’s addiction and high-risk lifestyle. Each week, we help you gain clarity, learn new skills, and most importantly, find real hope in what might feel helpless.
You are not helpless, and you’re not alone anymore. Find more resources at hopestreamcommunity.org.
[00:01:00]  Hi, friend. Thanks for joining me for another recovery story. If you’re listening in real time, it is September of 2026, which means it is National Recovery Month, and these are some of my favorite episodes to do because, holy cow, I don’t know, it’s just so mind-bending sometimes to hear what people do. It really shows you the incredible changes that humans are capable of making in their lives when they decide to.
While you are doing two or three deep breaths, ah, and regulating your nervous system, take a listen as I queue up my special guest for today’s story. Kira Fanlo was aware that she was uniquely sensitive to the world, even when she was very young, and that sensitivity made it hard for her to interact in the world without feeling bombarded by emotions and 
[00:02:00]  thoughts and big feelings that she did not know what to do with. That lack of knowing what to do with everything that was incoming at her, doubled with the experience of having her parents divorce, led her to some pretty maladaptive coping mechanisms. By the time she got to high school, she was already done with one treatment program and headed to wilderness therapy.
It was there that things finally started to click, and you’ll be really interested to hear how being in the wilderness helped Kira start to understand and love her highly sensitive self. I am so happy to bring you a recovery story of a young woman who has been through an extremely difficult period of life where substances and self-harm seemed to be the only way she could get the relief she needed.
You are going to love hearing how Kira explains what it was like for her to struggle inwardly, needing understanding and someone to connect with, someone to see how much pain 
[00:03:00]  she was in, and yet still projecting something entirely different to her mom. Today, Kira has turned her experience into compassionate and real help for young ladies who are sitting right where she was in her struggling years.
Be sure to check out the show notes to learn more about Kira and her organization called Homing Instinct. Okay, my friend, get your walking shoes on, hop in the car, or do whatever you do with me in your ears for what will be, I know, an incredibly inspiring and hugely insightful story for Recovery Month 2026 with Kira Fanlo. Enjoy.
Hey,  Ciara. Thank you so much for coming and hanging out with me today for a little bit during Recovery Month.  Yay. Thank you so much for having me, Brenda. I’m so glad to be here.  Yes. I love telling recovery stories, and I 
[00:04:00] especially love telling female recovery stories, because we have so many moms of boys in particular, young men I guess I should say, and not as many women.
And so I think it’s really important to tell your story and other women because it is different, and it’s just so important because the moms that we have of young ladies, they’re always like, “Where are all the girls? There’s so many boys.” 
Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s definitely true that there are differences I think between how we are socialized as especially, like, young women and young men, and then also how our hormones are playing out.
And so yeah- Yeah … I’m glad to be talking a little bit about what it’s like to be a girl in this process. Yeah.  Yes. Well, I appreciate it. And yeah, I think the hormone aspect of it is huge, and it’s an added 
[00:05:00] element that guys just don’t have, right? If you’re going through puberty as a guy, it’s one thing. Not that it’s easy by any stretch of the imagination, but-  Yeah …  to add in the hormonal elements that girls are going through is just, that’s a whole nother level. Mm-hmm. Want to just start out, if you were to hop in a time machine, rewind in your life, where would you start this story of how you ended up today to be a young woman in recovery? Like, where would that sort of originate for you?  Let me think about that for a second This is a great question because sometimes I wonder if I was telling this story, where would I start it? What would be the opening scene?  Yeah. 
And I think I had a very, very sensitive heart and system from a young age. So I think even 
[00:06:00] as a kid, before anything super challenging really happened in my life, I think I just tended to experience things very deeply, for better or for worse. Yeah. And I think having a more, like a higher sensitivity can make life more challenging, because when things affect you deeply, it just takes more time to recover from it.
And you can kind of get off track a bit because you’re using so much energy just trying to work your way through the emotions that you’re experiencing. But I think that when-Could  I just- Sorry.  Go ahead … ask a question? Yeah. What would be an example of something like that? ‘Cause I hear this all the time, that our kids who struggle tend to be the ones who are very sensitive.
But do you have a memory of when you were young of maybe an example of what did that sensitivity show up as like for you?  Two examples come to mind. One is I think social experiences were always 
[00:07:00] very serious for me. So if I was left out of something at school, every kid would be bothered by that, but I think I would really, really take it to heart and I would, even at a young age, ruminate about it in my mind and go home and think about it, and then carry that anxiety into the next day.
Whereas other kids might be upset, but they might be able to just bounce back more quickly and then carry on from their, carry on with their life and go hang out with a different friend at school. But I would be really tossing and turning about it. And I think a different example is I was one of those kids who would always get so sad if I ever saw a stray animal And I would, like, cry about it at night.
Okay. And so I think as well, people who are more sensitive are so attuned to the pain and the injustice of the world in a way that can also be very taxing, because you’re just thinking about things so 
[00:08:00] much, and everything in our mind is so connected that thinking about one thing leads to so many other thoughts. And you can imagine when you are constantly processing through things, both mentally and emotionally, that can just take over so much of your life.  Yeah. Well, especially when you’re young- So, yeah … and you don’t have any… Like, you haven’t had therapy. You haven’t had any adult experience to, to- Right … know where to place that in the context of life.
Like, is this the end of the world, or is this just Tuesday?  100%. Right, you don’t know how to filter through it. Right. You don’t have a way to let it affect you, and then either let it pass by, or know how to sort it, or how to, how to kind of, like, process it. But I think in terms of when things got really hard, my parents got divorced when I was nine, and that was really, really challenging for me. It completely changed 
[00:09:00] my family system, and it completely changed what daily life was like from that moment on. And I felt a tremendous amount of grief and sadness about it, and I felt so powerless to do anything, because what could I do? I was a kid, and these were adults who were making decisions. Mm-hmm.
And I think that was kind of when I sort of retreated inward because the world felt so unsafe. I think, again, as you said, I didn’t know how to talk about any emotions that I had. I didn’t even know what they were. I just knew that I felt, like, unbearably sad. And I was so young to not have anything to compare it to, to not know-  Yeah oh, what is this feeling? And so around that age, I started self-harming. And I remember I just felt like I wanted to put the pain somewhere 
[00:10:00] else. That was kind of like what it felt like to me at the time. I just did not know what to do with all of this feeling. I was like, “I have to move this in some way. I have to release this. I have to get this out of my body ’cause it’s gonna kill me.” And that was what made sense to me at that age. And then I think I was kind of able to figure out how to function with the sensitivity. Like, I was going to school, I had friends, but I wouldn’t say that I was actually emotionally healthy or well.
I just figured out how to keep getting through life. But then when I got to high school, that was just a perfect storm of events. And I mean, high school is- I don’t know why we tell anyone it’s the best years of your life. It’s the worst years of your  life. It’s  the worst. The absolute worst of- Oh, man.  And if you’re someone who’s going in to high school, which is just so brutal for so 
[00:11:00] many people, and you’re going in with, again, this very sensitive system, it’s just like, man, the amount of just, like, hits that you take in high school on your self-esteem-  Mm-hmm and your feelings of connection to people and your feelings of competence in the school system, like, it’s really rough. Yes. Um, so high school things started getting really bad. And I think that My baseline in high school, like just the way I felt the majority of the time, was living with some level of self-loathing and anxiety and sadness.
And when that’s your baseline, it puts you in kind of a survival mode where you’re just- Yeah … trying so hard to not feel bad. So yeah, around high school, that was when things started getting really chaotic, very risky, very impulsive. Again, just this drive of trying to feel okay. And just- And then my parents-  Just, just-  Yeah, yeah quick context. Were 
[00:12:00] you being influenced by social media at all? Or give us some idea of like, where does this land in- Yeah … the zeitgeist of the world.  Totally. So I just turned 30. Okay. And so my freshman year of high school was, I started high school in 2011. Okay. So this was like 20- uh, 2012 through 2014. So TikTok did not exist yet, but Tumblr existed. Right. And I think-  I remember  Tumblr. Yeah, Tumblr was huge. Yeah. And Tumblr, I think, really glamorized the high-risk lifestyle. There was kind of this romance to, like, Sylvia Plath quotes, and there were, like, Tumblrs that were centered around eating disorders.
Mm-hmm. And there were pictures of people partying with alcohol and cigarettes. So- Yeah … 
I think social media made it seem like this really, yeah, kind of like escapism. But I think that social media was definitely different for me than it is for 
[00:13:00] people today. It wasn’t quite… Like, I went on my computer. It wasn’t really on my phone yet as much. Right.  Right. Yeah. Which, good grief, I mean, today the things that the young people are coping with in their phones. And I’m also curious about the self-harm, ’cause I hear that a lot, that girls more so than boys tend to self-harm earlier. It’s a little more hidden. Maybe your parents can’t tell. How did you arrive at self-harm?
Was that something that you had seen, like on a Tumblr or somewhere? Or was it just a natural respon- like a physical response you had in your body? 
I definitely saw it on Tumblr later, because Tumblr really does… Th- there were a lot of Tumblrs that glamorized these behaviors- Mm-hmm … that were centered around self-harm.
There were, like, self-harm Tumblrs.  Yeah.  Where there would be photos and quotes, and I obviously felt very connected to it at the time-  Yeah …  because it helped me feel really seen. 
[00:14:00] But the first time I did it, I hadn’t actually seen anything on Tumblr yet. I had never been on Tumblr at that age. It really was just, like, a physical feeling.
Right. Like, I just had this urge. I’m so overwhelmed with emotion. I don’t know what else to do. I just, I wanna hurt myself. 
And did your parents know any of this was going on? Like, you said you started that around, like, 9 or 10. Did they have any inkling of what was kind of going on up here in your head?  I don’t think they knew that I was self-harming.
I definitely was going to a therapist. I think I was going to one because they knew that I ought to because they were getting a divorce- Right … so I think they planned on that anyway. And I was highly emotional. Like, I would definitely have crying episodes, and I was very angry. I was also, like, a very, very, like, willful kid. So I don’t think they were, like, doubtful that I 
[00:15:00] was going through something, but I don’t think that they really understood the extent of it. But I remember, like, a teacher at my school asked me about it, and I remember I- on one hand, I felt relieved that she kind of believed what I told her and didn’t press further because I was like, “Yeah, I don’t really wanna talk about this.”
I thought I was gonna get in trouble. But there was another part of me that was sad because I also kind of wanted someone to know-  Yeah … 
and kind of hoped that someone would notice enough. And I think that’s an important point to make because sometimes there’s an unspoken need that young people who are struggling with this stuff have, where the voice that you hear is the, “Leave me alone.
I know what I’m doing. This is my life. I hate you. You don’t understand me,” and the voice that you’re not hearing is the one that’s saying, “I’m really struggling. I need help. Please don’t leave.” Right. 
[00:16:00] “Please see how much pain I’m in.”  Right.  So I think it’s important to know that even if you’re not hearing that from your child, that is definitely still there.
That’s such a great and important insight because you’re right. We hear all the negative, and we get the hand, “No, thank you. I’m fine,” and many other expletives- Yeah … that I will not include here. Yeah. And- We’d  have to bleep those out.  Yes. Yeah. We’d have- it’d have to be an E-rated podcast. And it’s so painful because as the parent, you can see this human that you have either birthed or raised or whatever, and you’re like, “But this isn’t you. This isn’t-” Yeah. I know. It’s just so hard.  So hard. It’s really hard to help someone who claims that they don’t want help and who refuses it. And it’s 
[00:17:00] important to know that no one who is in these kinds of patterns would choose these. No one wants to be in them.  No. Yeah. Do you think there’s anything … I wanna get back to high school. Yeah.  But just as a quick interlude, do you think that a parent or teacher or therapist or coach or friend could have said to you in that moment where, where your inner voice was saying, “Please see how much pain I’m in,” is there anything that you think would have kind of broken through to you at that point that somebody could have said or done?
Like something that would have just made me open to even discussing with them? 
Either open to talking about it or just a little bit more like, “Okay, I feel kinda safe with this person. Maybe not right now I’m gonna open up to them, but maybe this is somebody that down the road I could see myself opening up to.” Yeah. I think a few things come to mind. I think if someone would have Reflected 
[00:18:00] that they knew that I wasn’t doing these things because I was a bad kid or because there was something wrong with me. But there was probably a really good reason why I was making the choices that I was, and they were curious to know how I got here.
They were like, “I just wanna hear, like, your story. How did we get here today?” ‘Cause I think a lot of times when I was talking with therapists before I went to treatment, there was really this feeling I had of them being very removed from me and kind of analyzing me. And I think I didn’t really feel in the room with them.
So maybe it’s more about a feeling than a statement- Right … but I think a feeling of camaraderie of, like, “I am actually assuming the best of you, and I’m on your 
[00:19:00] team.”  Mm. ” And I just wanna talk about how we got here.”  That’s beautiful. Yeah. You would hope that that would happen i- in every therapy session. Well, often. 
Right, I think. Right, right. It’s like I’m not really saying something that amazing. It’s like- Yeah … that should be the standard, but- Yeah … yeah. 
Okay, well, that’s super helpful ’cause we talk about that a lot with our parents, and the CRAFT approach that we teach is all about connection and trying to- Yeah
set aside your assumptions, set aside what you think you know about this person, and get really curious about, “Huh- Yeah … this is making sense to them somehow. Like, this is working.” Yes. Yes, yes. So, okay, well- 
I remember one, one guy that I had in wilderness, I think I was telling her about something, and I remember she responded with, “Whoa, that’s fascinating.” And I was just like, “Oh, I wanna tell you more-” Right … “because you’re just interested in understanding me.” I think a lot of the time I felt as if I was on the defense 
[00:20:00] automatically. Mm. I have to… “This person thinks that I’m crazy, so I have to justify myself.” Yeah.  And we’re coming from such a different level of honesty when we’re defending.
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Okay, let’s get back to the show Yes. Well, you can’t- Yeah … you can’t connect with somebody when you’re in defense mode. No.  It’s a lot to get to a place as a parent where you can drop that agenda and you can drop the judgment, because it’s your child. So that’s why, so we’re gonna get to, we’re gonna get to your 
[00:22:00] therapeutic journey, and I think that that is one reason why I believe a good therapist or somebody in a treatment program, even a staff member, can just be game-changing, because they aren’t the parent.
They don’t have the emotional tether to that kiddo, and they can just be like, “Dang, that’s-” Wow. Like, that’s a feat. Yeah. Right? And that- Totally … can really- Totally … connect you to somebody. Okay, so you’re in high school. Mm-hmm. It’s not going great. Yeah, I’m in  high school and, to say the least, yeah. To  say the least, it’s not going great. No.  Yeah. And then what happens from there? Um, 
yeah. And so I tried many things at home first. I went to several different therapists. I did outpatient, you know, tried lots of different medications, and it just became clear that rock bottom was getting lower 
[00:23:00] and lower. And every time I would think there’s just no way things can get worse than this- I can go, I can go lower they somehow would. Yeah, you’re like, “Hang on. Let’s go a little bit deeper.” And things really came to a head after I came home from a residential program that I had been at for about two months, and I came home on a home contract. And I was home for maybe a few weeks, and then I broke every rule on the home contract at the same time in one afternoon. Of course you did.  Of course you did. Of course. Of course, ’cause go big or go home. So I cut my last class. I took my mom’s new car and I drove it. I didn’t have a license, and I drove it into downtown San Francisco, which is where I grew up, to meet this older person that I was dating, who I was gonna see and also buy drugs from. And when I was trying to 
[00:24:00] parallel park the car, which I didn’t have a license, so of course I didn’t know how to parallel park, I hit another car and the police came, and they called my mom, and my mom came, and she was so mad. Never seen her so mad, obviously. And we get in the car and we’re driving home, and we drive past a church, and the energy in the car before we drove past the church had been very activated, very angry.
I mean, my mom was really, she was really upset with me, understandably, ’cause I had broken her trust and done something illegal. And so we were yelling at each other and crying, and she pulled into the church parking lot and she said, “I used to come here every day and pray for you when you were in this program.” And so something settled a little bit in our energy, and we went inside, and I sat 
[00:25:00] kind of off from her, and I think she went to her own corner. And I hadn’t prayed in years, but I started praying. And I was honestly asking God just to, like, take me away, because I was like, “All I do is hurt my family. All I do is hurt the people I love.
I don’t know why I’m like this. I don’t wanna be this way, but this is never gonna change. This is just a hopeless situation. Like, please just take me away from everyone so everyone can be okay, and I can finally be at peace from all of this.” And then my mom came over and sat with me, and I just broke down to her, and I was like, “I seriously, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
I don’t know how to stop being this way. Like, what else can we do?” And she was just like, “We’re gonna figure this out. Like, we’re gonna figure this out.” And so then after that, I went to a wilderness therapy program, which really is 
[00:26:00] what saved my life, I think. And I could talk more about that-  Yeah, I would love- If that’s where you wanna go next.
Yeah I would love for you to, because I think it’s a mysterious treatment modality for a lot of families, right? Because it’s just not that well-known. And I would love to hear what your thoughts were. Did you– So you knew going in that you were gonna be going, I assume 
I didn’t know what it was. I was told that I was going to like a summer camp. Okay. Which is not, it’s not quite a summer camp. No.  So I didn’t really, and I don’t think that I could have known, because I don’t think you can really understand it until you get there.  No. So I didn’t really know going in, but- But you knew you were going I knew I was going somewhere. Yeah. I knew I was going somewhere though, yes. Yeah. So you- Yeah … arrived to, where did you go to wilderness therapy? What state were you in? I was in Colorado. Okay. I was in southern Colorado, yeah.  So you go from California- Um … to 
[00:27:00] Colorado.  California to Colorado. And I absolutely hated it at first, just because it was so physically challenging and so uncomfortable, and I was not used to that at all. I tried to fake appendicitis so that I could get sent home, because before that I had always been able to work my way out of things.  Right. 
I was really, really good at knowing what to say- Oh, yeah … and kind of how to like slither my way around. Well, I don’t like that word. That makes me sound like a snake.
I was really good at knowing what to say and how to get out of situations when it just, it got too hot in the kitchen. But this was the first thing I really could not get out of, and that was very challenging at the time. So I really, really had a hard time at first, but I think what was so healing over time is a few things. One, 
[00:28:00] wilderness helped me actually feel a sense of co- competence and confidence in myself- Mm-hmm … because of how challenging it was.  Right. 
Like before I went there, I had very low self-esteem. I had basically dropped out of school. I was not going to school at all. I was struggling so much that I couldn’t really participate in activities ongoing.
So I really didn’t feel very good about myself, and I didn’t feel that I had much reason to. I really needed to actually have a body of counter-evidence to these feelings of worthlessness and incompetence and- hiking miles with my own pack and making fire, I
felt like a badass. Like, I actually felt like, “Wow, I can actually do hard things.” And that’s not something I could just say to myself. I had to actually do 
[00:29:00] it for it to feel real. I also think that it helped me feel things that I had never felt before. I remember there was one night a few weeks in where I was going to sleep, and I looked up at the moon, and I think it was a full moon.
It was just this beautiful, glowing ornament in the sky. And I felt this sense of peace that I had literally never felt in my life. A restless, a very restless, overactive mind like mine, I had not really known a moment where I was just okay. Things felt okay. And the challenging thing about being young and having these kind of struggles is you really don’t have reference points yet of what it feels like to have peace, to have contentment, to have hope for yourself. They’re totally imaginary, and it’s really difficult for your 
[00:30:00] mind to imagine something that your body hasn’t felt yet. And so having new experiences that were not just hypothetical or conceptual, but actually physical and real for me, A, it helped me think, “Wow, just because I haven’t felt something before doesn’t mean that it’s not possible for me to feel in the future.”
And I was just like, “Whoa, this is what people were talking about when they were like, ‘It’s gonna get better.'” ‘Cause before I was like, “What?” Like, “What do you mean someday, like, it will get better? Like, this is all I’ve known every day of my life.” 
Wow.  Like, it, I just couldn’t connect with that at all.  And were they- Yeah
though that’s something that I do hear a lot about wilderness, and my son Enzo went to wilderness as well, and he said the same thing, that he felt things that he hadn’t felt before. And also because he was also very sly, and he could wiggle his way out of any situation, and that you cannot do that in wilderness therapy. Oh, there’s 
[00:31:00] nowhere to go. If you’re gonna cry, you’re gonna do it in front of everyone.  Yes. Like, there’s nowhere to go. Yeah. Y- yeah. And so you end up learning to solve problems that you- Yeah … otherwise wouldn’t learn to solve because you can always wiggle your way out.  Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. How long were you in wilderness? Three months. Yeah.  And when did things start to shift when you were out there, like to the point, like- Probably,  yeah …  when, between when you started and when you left, sort of what was the shift for you emotionally and mentally?  I think it took a couple weeks, because I had to get through all of my schemes. All of my schemes had to fail. Did you try to run? I had to get through all my… Yeah. Yeah. Like all my schemes had to fail.  Of course. 
I had to get through my resistance to it. And I also had to be met 
[00:32:00] consistently, I think a few times, by the guides and my therapist there with unwavering stability for… ‘Cause I went in on this mode that I had been in for so long, and I was also, I was so dissociated. Like, when I think back to how I was at that time, I don’t even know where I was. I was not here in myself. So it took a while for me to land- Yeah … and for me to have enough moments of interaction with the people there to feel like, “Wait, this is something different.
Wait, I actually feel safe here. Wait, I actually feel like it’s okay for me to talk about that.” So it did take, I think, a few weeks of kind of pushing up against the experience before I finally was able to open up. 
And then toward the end of that, what was going on, like, with your treatment team and your parents? Were you thinking, “I’m gonna go home now,” or, “I’m moving 
[00:33:00] on to another program”? Talk about that a little bit.  I really wanted to go home, of course.  Obviously, yes. And obviously- It’s pillow,  bed, mom. 
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was really upset that I was not going to go home, because I do think, like, a challenging element of Being a struggling teenager is our primary motivation is freedom and autonomy, and the challenge was that I was not using my autonomy towards actually building my life.
I was using it to destroy my life. And for the longest time, I think before I went to Wilderness, it was actually my parents’ efforts to control me sometimes that drove me even deeper into my sly ways, because I so much just wanted to be my own person, and so I started to 
[00:34:00] associate self-control, like being self-possessed, with self-destruction. “You want me to do that? I’m gonna do the opposite, just so that I get to feel like I’m my own person.” Right. And Wilderness was the first time I realized I’m actually not helping myself. I’m not acting from a place of wisdom or intelligence for my life. And I was starting to get a little bit more on the same page with my parents and not having such a allergic reaction to their wishes for me.
But that was really hard, because I also felt like I didn’t decide to come here, and just because I’m young doesn’t mean that I don’t have rights. Like, what do you mean- Right … you’re gonna, like, tell me where to go? Like, I was very, I don’t know if- I had a lot of, like, righteousness about that, because I also felt at many points frustrated.
I really did not like being told what to do at any point when I was in wilderness. And so the idea of going somewhere else after I had 
[00:35:00] worked so hard-  Yes … was very disappointing for me, and frustrating- Uh-huh … for me. So, but I also could appreciate that this was the first time there had been any real movement in my progress, and I knew something, something felt different.
Something had changed in me. And my mom shared this metaphor of… There were two meta- My mom shared this one of cathedral building, of how long it takes to build a cathedral, and she was like, “You’re trying to do something that takes time. Don’t step out on it just because it’s gonna take time and it’s gonna be uncomfortable.
If you’re building something durable and beautiful, it’s going to take time.” And so I was willing to go to the next place, and I ended up going to a therapeutic boarding school, which ultimately was not a positive experience for me, but I also do think if I had gone home, I just think it would… I know it would’ve been challenging, 
[00:36:00] because it’s hard to go from an environment like that where everyone… There’s such cohesion-  Yeah …  with the culture and the language, and the emotional safety is so high. And then to go back to the world that we live in, where it’s so different. Crazy. Crazy. It’s really  hard. So how long were you- Yeah … at the therapeutic boarding school?  I was there nine months.  Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.  And from there… So how old were you by the time you were done with the boarding school?  I was 18 by that point. 
Okay. Yeah. So now you’re independent. You can make your own choices. And how’d that go?  It went okay. It went okay. I think I was able to be functional because I had put in so many reps being in wilderness- Right and being at that boarding school 
[00:37:00] of feeling really awful- Mm … and having no choice but to get up and do it anyway, which was actually something I had to kind of unlearn in my adult life. But I do think it carried me through a lot of challenging times. Like, there was a part of me that could keep going with what had to be done, even if I was falling apart internally.
Right. But I came home. I still had some credits I had to finish up for my high school diploma, so I had a part-time job, and I was going to this alternative school. And then I went to community college, and then I went to a four-year, and then I went… You know, like, I definitely had kind of, like, some jumpings around. Yeah. 
And I think a theme of that throughout those, like, early years of young adulthood was that because I wasn’t coming out on the same trajectory as everyone else, I was kind of having to do it my own way, and I often felt a little bit like an outsider-  Yeah …  among my peer group.  Yeah. But I was 
[00:38:00] able to get through it. Yeah.  What was going on with your relationship with your parents? Like, while you were in wilderness and the therapeutic boarding school, were you in regular communication with them? Were you healing some stuff between all of you? Or tell me a little bit about how that relationship looked. 
So I had very different relationships with my mom and with my dad.
I lived mostly with my mom and I don’t have, I really don’t have any regrets from this time of my life because I… Maybe I say this ’cause I have to believe it, but I’m like, “Everything went the way that it was meant to.”  Right.  But the only regret I have is how I treated my mom, because she really got, like, the worst of me, and it was because I was like, “She’s never gonna leave me.”
Like, I didn’t necessarily have that feeling with my dad, so I definitely put a lot on my mom. I would constantly bring her my sadness and my frustration, and she would 
[00:39:00] often go, she’s my mom, into helping mode and rescue mode.  Yeah.  So I think our relationship definitely had to kind of reorganize a bit around her giving me more responsibility and kind of handing it back to me.
And also, I think, like, letting me have my struggles and my ups and downs. I remember when I came home and I was complaining about having to go to this alternative school, and I was ranting about everything, and she was like, “You can’t be upset. You have to get this done. You have to get your diploma.” And I was like, “Mom, I just wanna be upset.
Like, please, I’ve lost so much. Just let me have a negative emotion.” So I think that w- that was, like, a part, too, where I think she would, because, again, like I understand, because things had gotten so bad, it was like any time I seemed to be sad or struggling, she would get really, really panicked.  Right.  And I 
[00:40:00] would sometimes feel frustrated because I wanted to just be allowed to feel how I felt, to make mistakes- Yeah to make choices, and to feel like my own person. There was definitely some enmeshment that we had before going on.  Yeah. Well, that’s pretty common- Yeah … right, for-  Yeah …  for parents and- Of  course …  and I’m sure she was terrified ’cause you see your beautiful daughter i- in, in these crazy- Yeah … situations, and it’s so hard not to rescue.
It’s so hard not to try and step in and provide logic and reason and explain how dangerous this is. Of course. Yeah.  I mean, come on. Of  course. Yeah. Ugh.  No, it’s the most sensible thing in the world. Like, I think sometimes, I mean, so many things in therapy, like, they sound so great as concepts, but it’s like, how do you actually do that? Right. Like, if someone’s like, “You have to love yourself,” you’re like, “I know, but how?” Or, 
[00:41:00] or for that, like, when I talk to parents, I’m like, “I know what I’m telling you to do is, like, Jedi level mastery.” Like, how do you step back and just practice acceptance and faith when there is nothing that’s happening that would suggest that you should?Right.  I don’t know. It’s really hard. 
Yeah. Right. And one thing that you said that I think is really important to highlight is that your mom took a lot of the brunt of this, and that was not because you were doing it to her. Like, you were not intentionally inflicting this behavior on her. It sounds more like, “I was doing what I was gonna be doing, and I knew my mom wasn’t going to bail on me on this.” That you were not saying, “I’m gonna do this to my mom,” right? That- No … because a lot of times we feel that way, right? And what you 
[00:42:00] said was, “I knew that she wasn’t gonna bail on me,” that she was the strongest person. And so I just wanted to highlight that because a lot of times as the parent, it does feel like this is being inflicted on you by your child.
Like, “Oh, if I had been better at this,” or, “If I hadn’t done this,” or, “If I had done this,” or… We just tie ourselves up in knots trying to figure out what did we do to cause this. And so I thought that was just really helpful to hear that that wasn’t how it went. 
Not at all. And there were so many other things in my life that were upsetting me besides just what was happening or had happened at home.
You were talking about how hard high school is. There’s so much that’s happening- Oh … with school and with friends and with the world around you that really also are playing a part. And 100%, I mean, honestly, I was not thinking about my mom in that way at all. I was just having my own internal 
[00:43:00] meltdown constantly. And she was there to see it, and I was asking her to hold a lot of it, but I was… Yeah, I was never trying to do anything to her.  Yeah. Yeah. I’m just curious about the sensitivity part of this because it’s so common. How did you start to work through, “Oh, I’m a really sensitive person. Not everybody is like me”?
‘Cause I also am a highly sensitive person, and I just assumed everybody felt-  Same. Yeah. I mean- Yeah … don’t you cry when you see a homeless person? Like- Right … and then you realize, oh, actually- Mm-hmm … not everybody is. So I’m curious how you started to learn to navigate that sensitivity and not let it sort of overtake you emotionally all the time.
And did, like, wilderness help with that at all? I’m super curious about that. I think wilderness helped 
[00:44:00] because I got to see and meet very different types of people than I had before. I really didn’t know many adults like the ones that I met in wilderness, nor did I have many peers like the ones that I had in wilderness.
And so I think it goes back to that idea of having reference points and being able to have different experiences, because that’s really how we learn something and how we integrate something, is through experience with it. Yeah. 
And so having role models, like, I think I was really impacted by the guides that we were living with there- Yeah
and seeing, oh, wow, these are people who are like me, and look at how they live their life. Like, they’ve chosen to do it with a different rhythm than what the world gives us. So I think a big part of me learning to navigate it is knowing what works for me and what 
[00:45:00] doesn’t, and you have to be so honest with yourself about how things affect you, and knowing, like, something as simple, if I stay up late, as fun as that is, this is how it’s actually gonna affect me.
I’m gonna feel really disregulated the next day. For someone… I think a lot of the young girls I work with, I think relationships are a big thing for them. So knowing, like, if I hang out with a certain person or if I have a casual hookup, like, I have to be really honest with myself about how that’s actually gonna feel for me.
Yeah. So I think knowing that I had other options besides just what I had been doing- Yeah … or what maybe I saw in the world around me.  Right.  Yeah.  That’s helpful to hear, ’cause it… I would say 98% of the parents in our community describe their kids as highly sensitive, both emotionally, but also even just 
[00:46:00] tactically sensitive, right, to sounds, to tastes, to light.I mean, it really is a thing, and I think that’s- It’s a thing, yeah. Yeah … and if you don’t know that, and especially if you have multiple kids and one is this way, and the others are not, you’re just like, “What is going on- Right … with this kid?” And it can- Right … I think, manifest in, like, oh, they want a lot of attention, or they just have this low distress tolerance.
And now being an adult, I’m sure you’re probably looking back on your little self going, “Oh- That was a lot.  Yeah. I’m just like, you just had very different needs that your environment was just not a match for at that time.  Yes. You  probably would’ve fared a lot better living in the forest. Like, okay, that’s, yeah. Yeah. I can do that for you now. Yeah.  Do you think 
[00:47:00] being out in nature in the wilderness experience was kind of like a balm for you? Was that kind of like a medication? Oh. Did you recognize that? 
Yes. That is such a beautiful word, Brenda, a balm. I would totally say that. So I think when we have a very sensitive system and a very active mind, we have to create simplicity and stability in our life to be able to calm that- Yeah
or just give that regulation. I actually think, I think for me, a lot of my addictions had to do with wanting simplicity, because I had so many thoughts in my mind all the time, and so many of them were, like, existential or thoughts and feelings that seemed that they had no resolution or no way for me to solve.
And so it was relieving to think, “If I just do this one thing, this is gonna give me calm. If I just do this one thing, I’m gonna be okay.”  Right.  So 
[00:48:00] I think we have to create that for ourselves in different ways, and I think nature helped. I mean, it was almost like nature was a healthy attachment figure in a way that I could kind of entrain with- Mm-hmm
and find my own, yeah, my own calm in it. Yeah. And I definitely felt that at the time, for sure. I was just in such a different environment. I was not on phones. There was no artificial light. I was- Right … walking on the earth every day. I was waking and rising with the sun. So absolutely, it really helped me reset.
And do you still use some of those things in your day-to-day life now? What does that look like for you? 
Yeah. So again, I think learning how to navigate sensitivity is just getting more data and information about what I need. So I don’t look at screens for the first hour that I wake up. I get up and I go out and I get sunlight and fresh air. I just walk around every day.  Mm-hmm. 
[00:49:00]  And I do that at the end of the day, too. I go on hikes all the time, but that’s my kind of little mini experience. I just know if I look at my phone first thing, I’m just gonna be flooded with thoughts.  Right, right. And yeah, I wanna go into the day from, like, my own energy and center.
Yeah. So w- how did the transition happen? I want you to talk about what you do today. When did you start thinking, “Hmm, I wonder if I could maybe help some other people who’ve been in my shoes?” 
So in the years after I left treatment, I would often get connected with families. Just, like, our neighbors had a daughter who went to treatment, and I spoke to them, of course.
But then later on, the mom had a friend who had a son who went- Of course. … to the same women’s program. Yeah.  Of course, and, like, my college roommate, her high school best friend had a cousin who was going to 
[00:50:00] treatment. So I would just talk to families often, and the young people as well, to just connect with them and- Yeahtry and, I think, maybe give them some context when they came home and just relate with them. So I was doing that for years, just, like, in the background, not in a very serious way. And then how I actually started doing this was because I had always wanted to have a wilderness program that was local for teenagers to have throughout their whole high school experience.
And so I wanted to understand the parents’ point of view more, because obviously I know it from my side. Yeah. And so I joined parent support groups on Facebook. Okay.  And just to try and read and understand. But then if there was a post that I felt I could contribute something, I would comment. Yeah. And then basically people would message me and ask to chat, or sometimes they’d say, “Can you talk to my kid?” And so it 
[00:51:00] was, like, a similar thing to before where I was just connecting with people, and then one day a woman was like, “What do you charge?” And I was like, “Nothing.” And she was like, “You should think about it.” And I was like, “Really?” And I was like, “Okay.” So then I kind of started doing more thinking and reflecting about, “Okay, well, what would I do, and why do I think this would be valuable? And how would I do this in a thoughtful and safe and ethical way?” And so I’ve been doing this now for four and a half years, and I work with teen girls and young women. And a lot of them have been in treatment, but also a lot of them haven’t.  my role is almost more of like, I use the word mentor, but people 
[00:52:00] sometimes say coach, but I feel more like a, like an aunt or like an older sister figure, like someone who’s in their ecosystem-  Yeah who can probably help them really go within some of these corners and these depths, because I think when we don’t feel like we’re, the spotlight is on us, and not that I’m there, like pouring out about myself all the time. 
Yeah. But I think there’s just like a level of trust in knowing, okay, you’ve literally been there too. Like, you know- Right … what this is like. Right. And I think sometimes being able to, like I know the questions to ask, or I usually will have kind of like a sense of like what’s really going on Right …  because I’ve been that kid. You  can read between the lines- And I- … that other people can’t. Yeah. Like I know what’s going on Yes. 
And I think like my aim for them is, or my hope for them is that they would know how to really 
[00:53:00] get to know, like have a level of like kind of the self-awareness that we’re talking about, to have peace with themselves and acceptance with themselves, and know what do I need to feel balanced and regulated.
Yeah. How do I need to take care of myself? And also, every young person is amazing in their own way, and I’m obviously biased ’cause I know them so well, but so many of the young people I work with, I’m like, “You are so gifted, and funny, and smart, and caring.” And I think it’s really… It can feel like a tragedy when someone who’s so gifted and has so much potential is losing so much of their energy to just recovering from life all the time.
Right. And so my hope for them is to connect them to what they care about, because I also think a big part of healing is having somewhere for our love to go, to feel that our love and our gifts matter in the world. Yeah. And to get them in a place where they can really create a 
[00:54:00] life that is authentic for them, and that they feel proud of, and that they wanna be a part of. Beautiful. Well, they are lucky to get to work with you. There’s such huge value in being able to sit across from or look across a screen at somebody and know that they have been there. It’s why our moms connect with each other, ’cause it’s like we don’t have to explain anything. Yes. We know . And so-  We just get it
get it, and that’s such a gift for these young ladies to have. And do you work with parents as well? Are you sort of helping the parents get some insight, or how does that work? 
It’s not my primary focus. Yeah. I think at points throughout my work with their children, there are moments where we connect- Yeah
and sometimes to give context, to help offer education or just framing for everything. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, but it’s not my primary focus.  Yeah.  But I think, like, where I can be useful is just helping 
[00:55:00] articulate some of what their child is probably feeling but doesn’t know how to say.  Yeah. You’re the translator. Yeah. Like- Yeah, yeah … she’s saying this, but what she actually means Yeah, yeah,  she wants, yeah. Yeah, exactly. 
Oh, that’s amazing. Exactly. Well, we’ll, we have links in the show notes so you can find Kira, and if you have a young lady who is struggling, could use a mentor, could use somebody just to say, like, “I got you.
I get it,” that’s, it’s just so priceless. So glad that you made it to where you are, and- Thanks. Thank you … I’m sure your parents are also just equally as proud and happy for you, and so glad to have you here sharing with our parents, in recovery month, this is what it can look like. And I’m sure there were days when your parents were like, “Oh, no, this is never gonna get better.”
Yeah. Yeah. And it can. It really can, and it does so often. Yeah. I think the last thing I wanna say, because we were talking about this a 
[00:56:00] little bit before we started recording, is just how it can feel so hopeless when you have so… you’ve had so many heartbreaks and so many disappointments. And something that I say to the young people is just because you haven’t felt something yet or experienced something yet doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
And as we were saying that, I was thinking the same is so true for parents. I sometimes say to the young people, it’s almost like trying to, trying to imagine feeling differently is almost like trying to imagine outer space in your mind. You literally can’t imagine. Right. 
It’s too vast and unfamiliar. But to not lose faith just because it hasn’t happened yet, that that’s not a reason that it isn’t. And so I would wanna say the same to parents. I know that it can feel so beyond hopeless, but that there absolutely is something else that’s possible, and just because it isn’t here yet doesn’t mean it’s not coming.  Well, that’s a beautiful place to 
[00:57:00] wrap it up. Thank you so much. Mm-hmm. And have a- Thank you so much too
have a great rest of your weekend. Thank you for joining me on a holiday weekend. Of course.  And we will talk with you soon.  Okay. Thank you, Brenda. 
Thanks.
Okay, my friend, I am so glad that you are here with me today. Do you want the resources from this episode? If you do, head to hopestreamcommunity.org, click Podcast, and you will find this episode, along with 300 or so others, and every link that we mention. And if you haven’t tried it yet, we offer a free two-week trial of our online community for moms, The Stream. No credit card needed, no commitment. Just go to hopestreamcommunity.org/try and we can get you set up with a free two-week membership. And if this is your first time 
[00:58:00] here or if this whole approach feels new and uncomfortable, that is normal. You can grab a free e-book I wrote called Worried Sick. It will help you start seeing new ways to respond to your child and find new ways to approach this whole situation that feels very confusing.
You can find that at hopestreamcommunity.org/worried. You, my friend, are an elite-level parent. You are doing an incredible job. You do things most parents never have to do, and I am so honored to be walking this path with you. Take ridiculously good care of yourself, and I will meet you right back here next 
[00:59:00] week.