Everyone thought I had the coolest life growing up. Working music festivals, creative parents, experiences most kids never got. From the outside, everything looked unconventional in an enviable way. But that gap between perception and reality was suffocating. When your life looks perfect to everyone else, setting boundaries feels impossible. People don't understand why you'd need distance from parents who seem so "cool." They minimize what you're experiencing because it doesn't match what they see. I spent years exhausted, trying to make the outside match the inside or vice versa. Learning to set boundaries meant accepting that other people's perception of my family had nothing to do with my actual experience. It meant letting go of managing how things looked and finally honoring how things felt. The more perfect something appears, the harder it is to admit it's not working. I can help you start telling the truth, even when no one else sees what you see.