Blog

As a luxury authenticator, I see the aftermath of expensive decisions daily. The messages, the tears, the disbelief when someone discovers their "investment piece" is worth less than the shipping box it came in. But after years in this business, I've learned something crucial: we're not buying bags. We're buying therapy sessions that come with really expensive price tags.

What We're Really Purchasing

The Status Billboard

That Chanel flap isn't just leather and metal—it's a walking announcement...

There’s a special kind of pain that comes from living with both PTSD and ADHD, a pain that’s invisible to most but all-consuming for those who carry it. For years, I did what I thought I was supposed to do: I masked my struggles, tried to blend in, worked all week, and forced myself into nights out on weekends just to appear “normal.” On the outside, I looked like everyone else. On the inside, I was falling apart.

The Cost of Masking
Masking is the daily, relentless act of hiding your true self...

You don't know me.

You see a face, a name, a story filtered through rumor and shadow. But you don't know the weight I carry, the scars I hide beneath practiced smiles and careful words. You don't know the battles I've fought just to stand here—whole, if not unbroken.

People are quick to judge. They see the choices I make, the masks I wear, and they think they have me figured out. Cruel names, whispered betrayals, sideways glances—I've collected them all, like stones in my pockets, reminders of...

I was still living with my parents in my early thirties—the same time I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. It was a season marked by confusion and exhaustion, when my entire sense of self felt like it was unraveling. One afternoon, my father looked at me with that familiar mix of frustration and bewilderment and asked, “Why do you keep asking me for money?”

I looked at him, the answer raw and unvarnished:

“Because that’s the only thing you can give me.”

Why would I keep asking...

In the darkness, as I lay on the bed, tears streaming down my face, the weight of my story pressed against me like a suffocating fog. Writing it all down had been like tearing open wounds I didn't even realize were still festering. Each word was a scalpel, slicing through layers of denial and numbness, exposing truths I had buried so deeply that they felt foreign when laid bare. The patterns—the pain—were all there, staring back at me like grotesque shadows I could no longer ignore. I had...