Hey there, nice to meet you. Let me introduce you to the real me. Unless you prefer light reading. Then don’t proceed.
After much consideration, I’ve decided I want to align Firelands Wax with my personal identity and therefore to be truthful about my past and how I came to be a full time candle maker. Our stories are what make us, but I don’t normally like to share mine, because it’s uncomfortable for most people to hear. If you’re one of those people, this is your second chance to stop. If not, thank you for your curiosity.
Trigger warnings: suicide, abortion, alcoholism, violence, addiction
I’m a 44 year old late-diagnosed ADHD’er living in a long term relationship with an alcoholic who recently admitted he never loved me. As a result of the ADHD, I’ve struggled with identity, addiction, regulation, anger, isolation and self esteem issues all of my life, though I was unaware that was what I was dealing with until a little over a year ago. The independent, creative, and risk-taking elements of my personality, coupled with an extreme sense of justice and morality, are ultimately what lead to my entrepreneurial path after never feeling like I could earn enough or express myself satisfactorily through my regular jobs. This is my story.
I was born in Hartford, CT in 1980, the eldest of four in six years. We had a pretty idyllic childhood in a big house on a wooded acre in the suburbs – my mom was super invested and engaged on all levels, while our dad worked long hours as a millwright for General Motors. I was a spunky, angsty, creative child and got in a lot of trouble for acting out in kindergarten and 1st grade. However in 2nd grade I transferred to a new school with much more enrichment and immediately became an A+ student for the rest of my education. In retrospect, this is the first clear indicator ADHD was already at work. I do recall at this time making a conscious effort to “play the game” so I could “survive” my education after realizing how many years I was going to be forced to be in that environment no matter what. Steeling my little brain against the injustice of sitting in class all day when there things to explore and make. But it was tolerable in CT, as we were lucky to be in one of the best school districts in the country, so my mind stayed engaged and I thrived.
Things changed my freshman year of high school when my dad announced we would have to move out of state for his job. The factory was closing and they had only given him so many choices. He chose Ohio and moved out to find a house, while the rest of us stayed so I could finish my first semester of high school. Later that winter we followed him, tissue papers tucked under sunglasses to absorb tears as the cats howled in their carriers on our drive. He had chosen to keep the house a secret until we arrived, and so we were devastated to pull into a tiny white postage stamp of a home on a corner with no yard. It was a complete 180 from what we were used to, smashed into a tiny home with no privacy like a tin of depressed sardines. The curriculum at the new school was so poor, I went straight into junior and senior level classes where I remained unchallenged through graduation. The social circles were tight and football culture was king, so I was quickly deemed a smarty pants outcast and began to struggle. The hyperfocused and curious aspects of ADHD that had served me well up until then, quickly shifted into frustration and depression with no outlet.
With the best of intentions, my parents sought medical help for my struggles, but at this time ADHD was still massively underdiagnosed in women and girls. So like most of my neurospicy female peers, from the age of 15 through my early 20’s, my ADHD was misdiagnosed and overmedicated as bipolar disorder, during which time I was hospitalized twice for trying to unalive myself from the stress and confusion of it all. As a minor, I was medicated under the authority of my parents, and then as an adult, in response to appeals by my parents and counselors, my college mandated the medication continue through graduation as part of my enrollment. Knowing deep down that I just needed stimulation and connection, I had kept up my grades in the hopes of going to college with my childhood friends from the East Coast and reuniting with my extended family, but by then I was already depressed and medicated and the adults in my life wanted to keep me in arms reach, not realizing the healing I needed was love, not pills. I felt betrayed and forced to give up the dreams that allowed me to survive high school. Of course none of the medications ever “worked” because I wasn’t bipolar and instead just wrecked havoc on my mind and body, making things worse and creating layered symptoms of depression and anxiety that were then also medicated. I ended up applying to Oberlin College with an essay about pickup up the pieces of my life at age 17.
Still, the ADHD shone through as bipolar disorder and so I was entered into an experimental drug trial for patients that were resistant to “normal” treatment, where the doses became truly extreme and intolerable. I felt my entire identity, of which I had been so proud to be different and creative, had been ripped apart and deleted by the adults around me just to tolerate an empty life in a sardine can. Told I still wasn’t “fixed” when I remained unhappy with the situation and then made to feel worse with powerful medications in the name of “health”. I felt isolated from my peers and could barely stay awake. I developed an eating disorder as a form of last resort to have some control over my life and went down to 85 pounds. Powerless, empty, deeply misunderstood and mistreated for no good reason, and feeling like I was made to suffer for the comfort of others. The anger at the injustice of it all finally led to my first overdose and cutting in my freshman year.
In the hospital, I was met by college officials who informed me I was suspended and had 48 hours to leave campus upon my release for making other students uncomfortable with my suicide attempt. I think they said it wasn’t conducive to a healthy campus culture because my roommate had seen blood. Not knowing where to go and that I’d have to endure even more shame, meds and treatment if I went home, I made the acquaintance of a violent abuser before I was discharged whose mom had an attic room to rent. But it quickly turned out he had other ideas in mind and I sank into the depths of a dark and violent lifestyle upon moving in.
I smoked cigarette butts out of public ashtrays and worked third shift removing hot engine parts from a blast furnace, where we stood on kitty litter and were sprayed down all day by hoses just so we, too, wouldn’t catch fire. There was fear and violence, both sexually and physically. A lot of Colt 45s and Milwaukee’s Best Ice to escape the pain. I remember drinking up to a case a day, which meant I had to drink in the shower and at work to get it all down. I was maybe 100 pounds during this time. Ultimately, I gained protection through the legal system and was able to return to school almost two years later to finish my degree in psychology, but by this time I had become an eating disordered, heavily medicated, alcoholic shell of my former self, which had already been in rough shape to start. I thought finishing my degree would somehow equal a job, but I had no connections and no advisor and just wanted to run away from the environment that had tried to quiet and kill me just for existing.
So I moved to upstate New York, got a job as a dishwasher where I could drink on the job, and met a kind artist that I proposed to on a whim. We got married six months later and started an iconic life in a tiny town where his parents lived, where we all grew gardens and I started working in construction. I was finally able to quit the medications, but was now an alcoholic and still 20 years away from learning about my ADHD, so quickly my world started to feel too small and I felt the need to leave. Then I got pregnant and was scared the baby would turn out messed up like me, so we aborted and that was too sad to bear. In retrospect, I should have stayed and started a family, it would have been the peace and love I needed, but I was confused and desperate to be healthy, find myself, and have a decent career after how difficult college had been. I was still fresh out of being treated like damaged goods and detoxing from medications too and the thought of creating another person that could suffer the way I did without knowing how to help them, just wasn’t something I could do. I also regretted not pursuing art in school and wanted to be creative and work with my hands, so brokenhearted and confused, I decided to pursue a practical career in auto mechanics and moved back to Ohio.
I moved in with my Dad and while I decompressed from leaving my marriage, and got a job at a local farm where I began to heal my eating disorder and pursue hobbies like brewing kombucha. I reconnected with some friends from college, one of whom had a biodiesel mechanics shop, where I quickly made myself useful and got a job. I went back to school for mechanics at night and waited tables on the weekend while working at the garage. I met my current boyfriend as a co-worker at the restaurant during this time, where we spent hours after shift drinking and laughing whenever we could. The alcoholism and confusion raged on.
My interest in working on cars faded around the same time I finished mechanics school and ownership at the garage changed – I didn’t know at the time this was a normal ADHD symptom that I could have managed to stay on my career path, so in a state of confusion yet again, I changed gears and got a job at a high end local restaurant. It was around this time I started to get really concerned about my career path because I was 33 and my interests kept switching. I wasn’t well networked and my resume was all over so I kept having to start over at the bottom and was struggling financially. I had really thought the mechanics would work out and was disturbed and ashamed on a core level when my interest in it went from life altering to zero. Since childhood, I knew I would work for myself, but it was at this point that it really sunk in that the only person who was going to pay me for the life I wanted was me, especially since I couldn’t stay on track anywhere. Seed planted, fast forward a couple years and I’ve finally hatched a new business plan with a restaurant coworker – local gift crates for corporate occasions.
We launch, I overly invest, the partnership becomes unbalanced, and after a few years my business partner just ghosts. It’s during this time though that the first Firelands Wax candle is made, as I could not find a candle to include in our crates that fit the look and theme I wanted. As a chronic DIYer (undiagnosed ADHD), I decided to make them myself, until demand for the candles outpaced the crates, and I taught my sister Lauren how to make them so I could focus on the crates instead. She then went on to formally found Firelands Wax and establish a local presence before Covid came along and shut things down. Also during this time, our dad got cancer and died, which was the impetus for me to quit alcohol for good after I couldn’t remember the last conversation we had due to being too drunk. So thank you Papa for that final painful parting gift – I’ll be 7 years sober the day after this Christmas.
With the crate business over, still responsible for its debts, and new priorities and health goals on the horizon, my sister asked if I wanted to take over candle making at Firelands Wax while she went back to school for nursing. Still not knowing about the ADHD and confused about what to do next for work, I said yes, and got to it at the age of 41. There is such a soothing nature to candle making, followed by the experience of the candle itself – after such a tumultuous life I was relieved and grateful to have such an outlet. But I was still suffering from being undiagnosed, so the internal turmoil, shame, task paralysis, and anxiety I experienced on the daily was confusing and destabilizing, eating away at my self esteem and fueling a simmering anger, undermining my ability to connect with others and in my relationship.
Even so, I threw myself into candle making and really enjoyed seeing the business start to take off in spite of my anxieties – turns out perfectionism isn’t a great trait, except when you make products that need to stay consistent. As I grew and looked for ways to expand using social media, I was introduced to TikTok where I met ADHD content for the first time and it was here that my world completely changed.
For the very first time in my life I felt seen and understood. I cried a lot. I grieved my youth and young adulthood. I spent hours consuming content, listening to people’s stories, relating and empathizing. I had found not only myself but a whole community of people just like me after a lifetime of feeling alone. I grieved being so misunderstood, so deeply, for so long – being medicated and isolated during years when everyone else was discovering themselves, making friends, and going on spring break….made out to be too much and chemically quieted by a system that didn’t understand me. Being made to feel like having a home or going to school or being loved were contingent on taking drugs that made me feel sick and hollow. But finding this community also brought a sense of immense relief—finally, I understood that my mind had a unique rhythm, a method and potential that could be managed in a positive way. That it could be a gift and not a curse. Knowing how much this clarity had transformed me from confused and sad to purposeful and curious, I was eager to share my new understanding with my partner, hoping it would open his eyes and deepen our relationship.
But my history of being medicated and then confused by my own nature for over 20 years had a long-lasting effect on my sense of self-worth and trust in myself. I felt undeserving of affection and scared to seek it due to fear of rejection, but then when I didn’t receive it, anger and bitterness would set in. My partner and I, both shaped by our own unresolved traumas and battles with addiction, had formed more of a “friends-with-benefits” bond over the years rather than the close connection of a committed couple, and I had never understood why. It’s like I couldn’t let my guard down no matter what. Looking back, I can now see it’s because I didn’t understand myself well enough to trust that I could show up consistently and wouldn’t lose interest out of the blue like with other things. But his guard had also been up, to “protect” me from his feelings, and this dynamic we had unknowingly created was not going to allow for the closeness or understanding I hoped to achieve.
At the time, I wasn’t fully aware of this though, so after processing the grief, I was thrilled to share my ADHD diagnosis, finally seeing it as a way to address the struggles I’d faced throughout my life which had impacted us both. But the openness I hoped for backfired. Instead of engaging with my discovery, he retreated further, immersing himself in avoidance and the darkest pits of alcoholism. Suddenly, I became the target of wild accusations, blamed for everything wrong in his life, both real and imagined. From accusing me of stealing his car when he forgot where he parked it to thinking I’d purposely wrecked my own vehicle years ago to avoid supporting him at a funeral, the accusations were beyond what I could have imagined. I had to call the police during the theft accusation to stop an escalation because he refused to believe me and the aggression wouldn’t stop. I was broken hearted he would believe I could do something like that and to consider what else he must think. I couldn’t fathom what assumptions he was making except that they were awful and wrong, but knew I had contributed to them by keeping up walls and internalizing anger over my confusing life. I was sad my discovery had revealed deeper dysfunctions and misunderstandings in our relationship and I realized the depth of denial and resentment I was up against. It felt familiar.
He since went on to tell me he had never loved me, that I didn’t deserve respect, and that he had no interest in learning about ADHD because he already “understood” me, even though this “understanding” leads to false accusations. He dismissed my attempts at self-discovery, blaming his drinking on me, insisting his mind was clear, and mocking me for feeling empathy toward his addiction. Although it was evident he was struggling, experiencing symptoms like delirium tremens and collecting DUIs, and complaining about no purpose in life, he remained adamant that his mind was unaffected, that he had always seen me clearly and hadn’t loved me even before I revealed my ADHD diagnosis. It was painful, though understandable, to see how his interpretation of behaviors like hyperfocus and forgetfulness were seen as malicious and fed resentment, rather than as manageable symptoms. I had finally found a way to resolve our challenges from my end, and was excited for life to change in this new light, but he ultimately preferred his narrative, even if it holding onto it hurt and meant distancing himself from the truth.
So I’m working to not take the character assassination personally, but it’s hard knowing there are more misunderstandings about me out there now, fueled by someone who seemed to resist his own self-reflection and vulnerability. I had hoped for a more compassionate response, but felt like I hadn’t earned it, once again.
And here we are today, over a year into navigating my ADHD journey, thinking it would finally allow me to find peace and understanding, only to feel like I’m entering a final showdown. And while it’s obviously painful, I would be remiss to not acknowledge the bittersweet irony that the epic breakdown with my partner feels like the final summit of a mountain I’ve been climbing my whole life, an achievement, not a failure. That being forced and able to advocate for my character from a place of knowing instead of confusion for the first time in my life, is the healing I needed to resolve the past 40 years. It’s also like the perfect cherry on top of a crappy life sundae – to find out I’ve been the most mischaracterized by the person I spent the most time with in my life. It fits with the failure theme and confirms how toxic masking is, so there is relief in knowing it won’t happen again.
Because of my past, right up to the present, I’ve often thought about rebranding the business as a play on words regarding the “firelands” of the mind – if there is one thing that defines me, it’s that my mind IS often on fire. Whether it’s dreaming up the next collection or trying to figure out how to show up better each day in spite of my circumstances, my mind rarely slows down (that is until it freezes – if you’re a fellow ADHD’er you know what I mean.) So as I work through the next season of life and step into finally knowing myself, my goal with Firelands Wax is to use it as an outlet of radical self-care and growth. I have to. It is all I have left and the business IS me.
At the ripe age of 44, I’ve finally decoded why life was so hard for so long and why feeling misunderstood and mischaracterized triggers such deep wounds for me personally. I’m learning that I deserve respect and love just like anyone else, and that I’m not the reason my partner weaponized those feelings instead. That getting my emotional needs met is normal, not needy or or something to be earned. I’ve spent my entire life having to be tough and resilient while confused about my own nature, having to wear a mask just to fit in only to still be excluded, picking myself up over and over again, only to arrive here, ready to finally accept and relax into understanding, just to be met with what feels like my final battle for identity. It’s taken a lot of self reflection to get here and it literally almost killed me, but it’s that same energy of resiliency I’ve been bringing through into my candles since day one. Each pour of the wax brings me one step closer to the fulfilled and peaceful future that I dream of. I don’t know when it will get here, but I’m trying. I’m pouring. And I’m not going to stop.
In summary, Firelands Wax is not just another cute little candle company, existing to earn cash to get my nails done or to go on a little vacay. Some middle class commercial dream fueled by bright horizons and easy opportunity. No. Firelands Wax is the result of walking through the literal fire of my life and mind and almost being killed by it – of seeking my identity for over 40 years before finding the key to understanding. It’s my dream of independence, creativity, stability, and self expression all merged into one, serving up environments meant to calm you by way of candlelight and aromatherapy one flame at a time….because that’s what I need too. Moments of quiet and peace in an otherwise tumultuous life. A spot I can turn and look to which is soft and beautiful in my home when everything else feels gross and sad. A steady flame through the winds of change that seemingly never stop. When you buy from me, you support the idea of freedom, rebirth, and self care – a cleansing of old energies to bring in the new. You support hope and growth and the healing of a real life, a real person, with real struggles and dreams that can be achieved through the purchase of simple candles. Firelands Wax is the foundation of a life forged through fire and is meant to fuel the freedom and honest self expression I personally need to have a meaningful life. When you buy from me, you say you believe in me. And that’s all I’ve ever really wanted. To be believed. To be accepted. I welcome you as part of my journey.
I hope that through sharing some of my personal story, your appreciation for the candles I create deepens and you too can find them as a meaningful point of calm and quiet in your life. This is also to say that my heart belongs with all my ADHD and autistic peers that have experienced similar traumas at the hands of small minded people. I see you, I love you, and I think your brain is more beautiful than theirs. They can only dream of being as creative, empathetic, and resilient as we are. Meanwhile, I wrote this in a single 14 hour hyper focus session during which I forgot to eat or drink, so I’ll be getting up now to water and feed myself, caring for my needs as best as possible during this next phase while I pour my heart out into the holiday collection. In the meantime, may the light of my candles brighten your heart when you need it and please stay tuned to write this next chapter with me.
Here’s to not just making fire, but walking through it.
Love,
Danielle