I’m used to being scared—it’s always been my baseline.
I understood from the time I was a girl that I would never overpower someone physically and believed the safest way out of danger was to disappear or fawn myself into something so benign the big bad wanted to keep me like a pet. My intuitive gifts are strong because I spent a lifetime using intuition to sense what the scary-in-the-room needed. This let me people-please the shit out of danger. If the monster is happy, or thinks you are a sweet little pet, they will not hurl their wrath upon you. (This is not true; abuse does not follow logic. The monster will disembowel you for breakfast if it is their whim, but fawning and people-pleasing gives smols a way to mitigate psychological violence.)
It is hard to leave behind the tools that kept you safe in your youth, and I people-pleased and fawned myself into adulthood. Writing, coaching, intuitive work, and therapy eventually let me see it was time to set those survival tools aside. BUT I was so accustomed to showing people what they wanted to see in me I didn’t know how to show up as a whole person. I needed to practice, and I needed to practice in front of people who had no pre-conceived notion of who I was or what I was supposed to be.
The only way I have found out of fear is to go through it: cue the past 100 days of exposure therapy.
Every day since July 14, 2026, (I’m writing this the week of October 19, 2026) I logged onto @WriterWitchJess on TikTok and made a public video. The only rule: show up authentically.
(The third day of the experiment my intuition reminded me that authentically meant NO FILTERS, and as I’ve learned to listen to my intuition or face a very different type of lesson, I did so begrudgingly.)
I showed up sick. I showed up on full of energy. I showed up when I hated my synesthesia. I showed up when I loved my intuitive gifts. I showed up looking like a trash monster. I showed up looking like a super-model. I showed up and talked about any and everything: my intuitive gifts, money, clothes, my cats, reading books. I used my silly voice and my serious voice and was smart and dumb and all the ways I can be. I showed up in my entirety. And you know what happened?
325+ strangers accepted me. They did not leave hate comments or tell me I was stupid or broken or wrong, they left little hearts and kind words and applauded me. Their support said, “You can be a writer and an intuitive and a coach and a speaker.” Their support said, “You are fine, just the way you are, and furthermore what you have to say makes a difference. I’m going to stick around to see what you say next.”
Those strangers offered me community and kindness I had not been afforded by people who had known me my whole life when I chose to show up in my entirety. Those strangers offered me community and kindness I had not been afforded by my father.
(It took me three times through this paragraph before I remembered the lesson the last one-hundred days has been instilling in me and was brave enough to type who the biggest bad of loss was for me. The lesson: I no longer people please, revise, or mitigate my story to make others’ comfortable. I tell the story authentically and truthfully. Even when it hurts. And this one fucking hurt.)
Two years ago, I met my still-alive parent in a restaurant to tell them I was neuro-divergent. (My way of easing into the whole intuitive, psychic thing.) My father got up half-way through the conversation and physically walked out of the building. He canceled Christmas the same day I sent out an email talking about doing tarot card readings at my friend’s brewery. In the handful of times I talked to him since, he refuses to acknowledge that day happened. His actions made it abundantly clear that showing up in my entirety had repercussions, and that a father’s unconditional love (for me) is a myth.
It hurts when a parent dies, but to have a parent walk out on you when you reveal your true self is a whole different level of pain.
My mom didn’t choose to die.
My dad chose time-and-time again to tell me I was not worthy of a father if I showed up as I wholly am.
(Yes, it still hurts, but I have had two years to process. If you are someone going through something similar, I will tell you, there is a great sense of freedom in no longer trying to please the person who will never be happy. There is relief in not having to go to family affairs and smash yourself into the loneliest environment surrounded by people. And most importantly there are countless people who will see you for who you are and remind you that you are truly fucking spectacular and worthy of love just for existing as your innate self.
You also become immune to rejection and abandonment fears when a parent does this to you. You have already survived the hardest form of rejection and know your innate value, so a rejection from a publisher or social media or anything else is laughable.)
It took a few years of doing public intuitive readings before I began to understand (perhaps) why my father walked out on me. For every person that sat down at my table, three would not. One would be indifferent, one would be conditioned to think I was “evil” or “demonic,” but the third would take time to say, “You scare me.”
I can’t even tell you the number of grown men (& women) who have taken time to look me dead-in-the-eye and admit their abject horror of the skills I have.
Somehow in showing up authentically I had gone from helpless child to the beast that caused others to cower.
By facing my fear, and learning to show up authentically, I became the scariest thing in the room. Not through brute force or abuse, just by showing up and openly sharing my power. Power harnessed and represented in my intuitive gifts, but that is not what people fear. People are scared of seeing who they truly are. They are scared by excavating their dark places and exploring the things they have been told were wrong and shamed for their entire lives they will discover they are indeed a broken, useless, simpering thing.
What they don’t yet understand is wading into all that dark they find their power. That there is nothing wrong with them. All that time in the dark was a time of being planted, growing roots so deep they will never be shaken from showing who they are ever again.
In truth, it’s the fear of what they could become that scares them. And seeing someone else unabashedly sit in who they are terrifies them, because it makes them question why they have not been brave enough to do the same.
Smol me would have broken at the thought she would become the scariest thing under the Hunter’s moon but grown up me doesn’t mind being the villain in others’ stories, because it’s what finally let me become the hero of my own.
Thank you! I know your attention and energy are valuable and sincerely appreciate you directing some of it towards me.
Patreon is about more than financial support to me. The fact you’re willing to accept and support me as I am, lets me know I’m not inherently broken or wrong. It reinforces that I can, and will be, accepted by new people. And, if you too have experienced something similar, I’m sorry. I feel you and see you; know you can show up here exactly as you are and be accepted.
That’s enough serious-face, let’s get to a fun part.
The 100-day TikTok experiment gave me the courage to roll all of me into one Writer Witch brand here on Patreon. I made a fun new header (with a cat!) & revamped the tiers. *
Today’s writing is an example of what you will get in the Witch Tales tier, & this is the first of the Witch Tales collection. (On the Beaver moon you’ll meet the woman-who-wore-my-dead-grandmother’s-face in an excerpt from my current work-in-progress.)
I plan to release original writing to Patrons monthly. Those in the Witch Tales tier will get writing on the full moons. (Not blue moons! A girl’s got to have time to finish writing her manuscript.).
Free Patrons will receive writing on each solstice and equinox.
Can’t wait to see you under the full moon!
Jessica
*Existing paying Patron’s are grand-fathered into your original benefits. Thank you for your ongoing support. If you would like to upgrade to one of the new tiers:
Log in to Patreon
Click on My Creators/the picture of Jessica [left side bottom tool bar]
Click on Membership [Top tool bar]
Scroll down to the Tier level you want to upgrade to
Click Join & Follow the prompts to upgrade
WriterWitchJess on TikTok