In early 2020, I was working as a web developer for a travel company.

By that point, I had gained about three years of professional experience as a developer, after having taken a “non-traditional” path into tech.

As an English major who had formerly worked in underpaid, people-facing roles—first as a teaching assistant and then as a customer support representative—I had finally found a career that provided financial security. The kind of security that allowed me to pay for much-needed healing resources such as consistent therapy and creative outlets.

Unfortunately, the pandemic hit in March 2020 and the travel industry ground to a halt. The company that I was working for laid off dozens of its workers—including me.

A handful of months later, as I was struggling to find another job, my mom suddenly passed away.

In the midst of my grief, I knew I couldn’t force myself to return to a 9-5.

What’s more, I was resistant to reentering tech. While not every work environment that I had experienced was toxic, I had encountered enough instances of sexism, sexual harassment, and verbal abuse to hesitate at the thought of returning.

Plus, on some level, I knew that my brain was not built for a “traditional” job.

I couldn’t understand why I had seemed so competent and motivated when I was first learning to code—or when I worked in high-stakes situations like hackathons (I’ve won both that I’ve entered)—but why I couldn’t seem to sit still at a desk for 8 hours with fluorescent lights and frigid AC blasting my workstation as I fiddled with (and procrastinated on) an easy but uninteresting task.

(I didn’t yet have the language for neurodivergence—that was something that I would come to discover later.)

I decided that I would attempt to make a living doing things I was truly passionate about. For the next three years I worked as a spiritual practitioner, helping clients one-on-one through a combination of shadow work, astrology, tarot, human design, and mediumship.

I learned a lot during this time—about myself, about working with people, and about running a business.

Eventually, though, the pressure to financially sustain myself through spiritual work began to eat away at my love for what I was doing. The fact that I had launched my business with no day job to fall back on had added a ton of stress and urgency to make my practice a “success.” While I got great feedback from the clients I worked with—many of whom found our work together to be enlightening, enjoyable, and even life-altering—I was not making nearly enough money to sustain myself.

In 2022, I began supplementing my spiritual practice with income from part-time retail jobs. As an autistic ADHDer, I found this type of work to be sensorially and socially overwhelming. What’s more, my supervisors were demanding and often emotionally volatile, leaving me in a constant state of hypervigilance and stress.

By early 2023, my income was unfortunately not enough to afford our rent here in Los Angeles, and so my girlfriend and I moved in with her mom and sister, splitting the rent on a small apartment, with us living in the living room. While I am grateful that this was an option for us (I am estranged from my own family and therefore have no other support to fall back on), it has not been an easy situation to exist in. We sleep on a pull-out couch, have no door and no privacy, and live on a loud street with very little control over the light/temperature/noise of our surroundings, which I find incredibly difficult to handle sensorially as an autistic person.

Moving in to this apartment was the last straw for my public-facing spiritual practice—since I had no access to private space for appointments, and since I did not feel it was right for me to do client work while energetically “pouring from an empty cup,” I paused all offerings and turned my focus to finding work that would sustain me financially and not burn me out emotionally.

I quit my last retail job, and have now started working as a freelance writer for a study guide company. I am grateful that this work is remote and flexible, although it is unfortunately not financially sustainable for the long term. I am paid on a per-assignment basis, and the compensation breaks down to less than minimum wage when calculated hourly.

So, why do I want to become a designer?

I view this path as one that naturally coalesces when you zoom out to view the wide range of my interests and experiences.

I am both technical and artistic—I’m a former programmer who is also creative and intuitive.

I enjoy drawing and I like viewing the world through an aesthetic eye.

I love archetypes, and I love the process of building a brand identity.

I like figuring out how things work, both technically and creatively.

I enjoy interfacing with clients, and I also enjoy spending long stretches of time working on my own.

I like creating unique digital worlds.

Moreover, I know that design is something I truly enjoy and am good at (hopefully the website you're reading this on is evidence of that), and at the same time, it is not something that feels so vulnerable, personal, and precious—like my spiritual practice—that it would be crushed under the weight of a public-facing practice. Making design my day job would allow me to spend my days doing something I love, using skills I feel comfortable monetizing. This would liberate me financially, emotionally, and spiritually, giving me the freedom to engage in healing practices again and to enjoy my hobbies and passions without feeling forced to commodify them.

Most of all, it would allow me to exit the cycle of low-wage gig work with dignity. Too many people are trapped in this same cycle, and it can be hard to find a way out.

By sponsoring my design education, you would help lift me out and onto a better path.