In fact, the first time someone asked me if I had ADHD, I laughed and said, “No… I don’t think so?”

But once the question was out there, I couldn’t stop looking backward. Suddenly, all these little pieces of my life started connecting.
My childhood nickname was “Fidget.”
I was constantly moving, constantly thinking, constantly living inside three different worlds yet still inside my own brain.
But I was also a high achiever.

I was valedictorian of my high school. Intelligent. Creative. Artsy. Quirky in ways people found charming instead of concerning.

Sure, I had imaginary friends far longer than most kids probably should have (you da real MVP Alainia), but because I was successful academically, no one looked deeper.

Back then, girls like me often didn’t get diagnosed.
The hyperactive little boys disrupted classrooms.
The girls internalized everything.

Most of my chaos lived quietly inside my head. And when I look back now, I can see that my connection to environments and emotion was there all along. I just didn’t have language for it yet.

When I was around 12 years old, I became obsessed with finding the exact shade of blue for my bedroom walls.

Not just any blue.
I wanted the blue of snow at the top of a ski mountain after taking off amber-tinted goggles. That moment where you finally stop, catch your breath, and the snow suddenly looks impossibly blue and peaceful.

I wasn’t trying to recreate a color. I was trying to recreate a feeling. I wanted my room to feel like exhaling.

Like calm.
Like clarity.
Like the stillness at the top of the mountain after working hard to get there.

At 12 years old, I was already searching for emotional regulation through my environment without realizing that’s what I was doing. Looking back now, I realize it was always there. It was simply coming out sideways.

It took years, motherhood, burnout, hormonal shifts, and finally understanding my own neurodivergence for everything to fully click into place. And once it did, it completely changed the way I saw design.

I stopped believing homes were supposed to simply look beautiful. I started understanding that homes deeply affect how we function, regulate, rest, connect, and move through daily life.
That realization became the foundation of Sierra Bravo Studios.

Today, I design homes for beautifully complex brains, sensory-sensitive families, and people who are tired of feeling unsupported by their own spaces.

Not homes that are perfect.
Homes that feel calmer. Clearer. More functional.
More supportive of real life.

Because design is not just visual.
It’s emotional.
It’s sensory.
It’s deeply personal.

And sometimes the right room can feel a lot like finally taking off the amber goggles and breathing again.