I have two degrees in art and animation — one from the University of Minnesota, one from The Art Institutes Twin Cities, an institution later found to be fraudulent. Many students had loans forgiven because of it. I learned early what it costs to trust the wrong institution. That lesson shapes everything I've built since.

I spent ten years after graduation working in animation and graphic design studios in the Twin Cities. I was good at the work and I loved creating things. But every environment I entered was built for someone whose brain worked differently than mine — open offices with uncovered fluorescent lights that felt like white knives straight to my brain through the eyes, social dynamics I could feel but not read, timelines with no room for how I actually function. I was hiding how hard everything was, and I didn't know why it was so hard.

At 35, I was diagnosed with Autism. My full picture includes ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia (major), chronic anxiety, chronic persistent depression, audio processing disorder, and BPD in recession. The diagnosis didn't need to fix me. It made clear my environment needed to change. About a year later, the burnout hit completely. I moved home — my parents and sister gave me somewhere safe to land. Without them I would not still be here. While recovering, I picked up freelance illustration work for Beadle and Grimm's, working from home on tabletop RPG books — something I loved as a hobby. For the first time, work didn't feel like survival. That's when the question became impossible to ignore: if I need an environment built around how my brain actually works, what happens when I need to hire someone?