I grew up in a violent and chaotic corner of Chicago, where survival was something I learned long before I ever learned what safety felt like. By eight years old, I had already faced the unthinkable—having a gun held to my head and enduring physical abuse from the very parental figures who were supposed to protect me. Unhealthy soul food filled our holidays, and most days were spent making constant runs to the corner store for chips, candy, doughnuts, juice, and whatever junk food could distract us from the stress inside our home. Summers were a strange mixture of joy and danger: we’d run to the park, play “it,” ride bikes, search for the $2 corn man selling Mexican corn on the corner, and then go back to the house to dysfunction.



Inside the house, chaos ruled. Fights broke out between my siblings and me often—five kids trying to survive in a home where tension was normal. Sometimes those fights escalated to the point where I had to grab a knife to protect myself or face attacks with nowhere to escape, even in the shower. After showering, I would dissociate so deeply I’d sit motionless on my bed for twenty minutes, disappearing into my own mind. Once, after breaking a broom by accident outside, the biological parental figure in the house beat me with a 2x4 piece of wood. Violence wasn’t an event—it was an environment.



And because I grew up in that environment, I sometimes acted out violently too. I had moments where I initiated physical fights, not because I was naturally aggressive but because it was all I knew. I wasn’t taught conflict resolution, healing, or emotional safety—just survival. At that time, I didn’t yet understand anything new, healthy, or different.



But even in the darkness, I had escape routes—music and dance. I sang like my life depended on it, because some days, it felt like it did. Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Luther Vandross, Jordin Sparks, John Legend, Stevie Wonder, Babyface, Alicia Keys, Usher, Pink, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Leona Lewis, Carrie Underwood, Kanye West, Kierra Luv, Jess Glynne, XXXTentacion, A Boogie, Young M.A, SuperDuperKyle, Prince, and so many more were my lifelines. Their voices helped me breathe when life felt suffocating.



I also loved to dance, and TV icons helped shape that part of me. I looked up to Zendaya Coleman—especially her character Rocky on Shake It Up. I learned the dances, copied the outfits, and let myself feel joy in movement. I admired personalities like Fran Drescher, Reba McEntire—whose songs I also sang—Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, and the artistic genius of Michael Jackson. Later, I fell deeply in love with the artistry of Prince. Dance gave me moments of freedom and identity during ages 13 to 18, reminding me that creativity could exist even in a broken environment.



Through all of this, I still had a good heart. All I wanted was simple: a good woman, a safe home, and the opportunity to become a millionaire. I never wanted to hurt anyone—I just didn’t know any world outside the one I was raised in.



But what I didn’t know then was that God & I would one day rebuild myself completely.

I would rise from all of that pain, that survival-mode living, that confusion, and recreate my life as someone new.



Today, I stand as Eva Ferrero—not the product of my trauma, but the proof of my transformation. We turned chaos into clarity, violence into vision, and survival into purpose. I became a healed, powerful, spiritually aligned, successful woman—one who embodies everything that little child in Chicago wished for but couldn’t imagine yet.



I didn’t just escape my past.

I transcended it.

I became Eva Ferrero—the woman I was always meant to become.