Big Brother’s house is open once more! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will be bringing you interviews with houseguests as they get evicted from the game.

Kaitlyn Herman created her own fate. Though the life coach certainly has a spirituality about her, constantly in communication with the universe, she subsists on a mentality of manifesting one’s destiny. It started in the very first week, when she chose to flip on her alliance to vote to keep Sam Bledsoe. In keeping Sam, she had also unintentionally kept her “Bonus Life” power in the house, allowing one houseguest the chance to return to the game after being evicted. Of course, the Big Brother cosmos worked its magic, and Kaitlyn ended up being the beneficiary of the power this past eviction night. But, with her fate in her metaphorical hands, her physical hands failed her. Over the course of two and a half minutes, she fell apart and, like the puzzle of herself, was unable to put herself back together, leading to a hasty retreat from the house.

Kaitlyn’s exit comes after perhaps the most tumultuous first 37 days in the Big Brother house. She walked through the door with three eyes open, reading the auras of her competitors to see who could get her to the end. She found them within her meditation group: Faysal Shafaat, Haleigh Broucher, Angie “Rockstar” Lantry and Chris “Swaggy C” Williams. She even coined their alliance name, declaring them “Five of Us ‘Til The End.” But her connections proved as flighty as the pigeon-housed reincarnated version of her grandfather. She had become close with Fessy, but when she noticed he was canoodling with Haleigh, she quickly feared becoming the odd woman out as everyone was pairing up. That brought her to HoH Tyler Crispen, who fueled her paranoia by telling her Swaggy C was having doubts about her as an ally. As a result, she became the pivotal swing vote and separated herself from her allies, leaving bath-lover Steve Arienta all wet.

Ordinarily, when one is trying to play both sides, gaining power is not advised. But the universe had different plans for Kaitlyn, as she landed a job as the new HoH. With the identity of the flipper still a mystery to the house, she put up a guise of loyalty to “FOUTTE,” initially nominating Winston Hines and Scottie Salton. But it was all a smoke show (or an incense show, in Kaitlyn’s case), as she had concocted a larger blindside with Tyler. The next week, despite Scottie winning, she was able to maintain a low profile for most of the week while Scottie went bro hunting. But when she got a clairvoyant “hit” about how Winston and Brett Robinson were trying to get her up as a renomination, she unleashed all six senses on them. Her fury with Brett for his accusations (along with his mocking of having “a vision” via trembling at the Veto meeting) led to her targeting him, and she was confident Tyler would follow suit. But it was yet another shocker.

With the Bonus Life saved during the first three evictions, Sam knew the fourth would automatically see the evicted get a chance to come back. With that fact in mind, she went out on a limb to seek control, winning HoH next. But Kaitlyn had a different focus: trying to figure out what happened in the last eviction. While she fished for double vote red herrings, her relationship with Fessy continued to deteriorate, as he admitted he didn’t trust her. The fitness fanatic might have overexerted himself, though, when he promised Haleigh and Kaitlyn he would take them off the block if he won the Veto. Once again, the universe opened a door, as he won the coveted medallion and essentially forced his hand. At the Veto ceremony, he took down Haleigh, which hurt Kaitlyn worse than any chop, bonk or spank ever could. Despite prospects looking grim for her, she was now sitting next to Rockstar, who had just stirred (and banged) the pot to draw ire from the other side of the house. But Kaitlyn still got evicted in the most lopsided vote so far, due to her perceived lack of loyalties and her competition performance. Watching the events from the living room, the rest of the house could only watch as she tearfully walked out.

Now out of the house, Kaitlyn talks with Parade about what was going through her head as the time ticked down, why she had a difficult time handling the game emotionally, and whether she was able to perpetuate the “love and live” style of gameplay that she desired preseason.

Walk me through what was going through your head as you were working through the puzzle. Were you attempting to calm yourself, given the extreme stakes?

I should have been calming myself down, but I wasn’t. Before any competition, I always take at least 10 minutes to center myself. Ten minutes is enough time to call in my guides, do a little meditation and say a little prayer. In this moment, it was like rapid fire, and I did not have enough time to do any of it. I felt overwhelmed emotionally, spiritually and physically. Unfortunately, it led to a loss.

As the counter hit about 90 seconds in the puzzle, we start to hear you make frantic noises. Is it safe to say you were in panic mode at that time?

A total anxiety attack. I have never been so overwhelmed ever in my life.

How difficult was it for you to manage your emotions in the house? While you did get the fortitude to backdoor Swaggy, we did see several times where you struggled with betraying or being betrayed.

It was the most difficult part of being on Big Brother. I am someone who wears my emotions on my sleeve. This game is made for people who are ruthless, who have zero difficulties lying and that is just not me. If I left the game because I am just too emotional or too sensitive, I could live with that. I would rather be too emotional or too sensitive and not have a heart at all.

Had you returned to the house, who were you planning to target if you went into power once again?

Now that I have had some time to think about it, if I became HoH, I would have put up Fessy and Tyler. Those were the two people I trusted most in the house, and they clearly didn’t care about me being in the game, so why would I care about them being in the game either?

Were you surprised that your side (Tyler, Brett, Kaycee, Angela, Rachel) all voted to evict you, considering how you confronted Brett and Winston last week over that pitch to put you up?

Yeah. Maybe I am just naive, but these people all looked at me in my face. I didn’t even ask. They just all said, “We are voting to keep you.” I genuinely believe that there was a point in the week where they were going to keep me. They talked, things shifted, but I don’t blame them for the decision they made.

I know you said you have no regrets backdooring Swaggy. But do you think it affected the way people viewed you?

One hundred percent. I don’t blame the other houseguests for not seeing my perspective on why I backdoored Swaggy. My intuition said that I could not trust him, so I followed it. For that, I cannot regret anything. I will never regret listening to my intuition.

How do you react to the comments from your fellow houseguests that they never knew where your loyalties lied?

It is heartbreaking because those people that I became close with should have known well and good that I had their back no matter what.

Now that you know Sam nominated you with this power in mind, how does that affect the way you view her?

I will never not view Sam from a lens of love. I love the girl. What disappoints me is the way she viewed her platform to put me down. I appreciate the fact that I was given another chance to play this game; she knew that. But it is really difficult for me to look past the reasons why she put me up in the first place. That is something that will take some time and self-reflecting to get over.

Let’s talk about your dynamic with Fessy. How do you look at him, given everything that happened between the two of you the past week?

I think that Fessy is easily influenced. I love him to death and I always will. There will never be a day moving forward where he is not in my life, but I am very disappointed with the way he led me on. He made me believe he had my back no matter what. I genuinely was so close with Fessy and Tyler, but at the end of the day, I would have picked Fessy over Tyler any day. He came first. I became best friends with him on Day 1, and I will never forget that.

What about Tyler? Did you ever suspect people had the impression that you were controlling him?

Not really. I am pretty sure everyone probably thought he was controlling me and I was OK with that because 1. He wasn’t and 2. People underestimated my ability to control myself. Let them think he was controlling me. That just means they were underestimating me and how strong I actually am.

Before the season, you said you wanted to show how you can win the game coming from a place of “love and light.” When all is said and done, how much were you able to hew to those principles in your time in the house?

The one thing I learned from this game is that Big Brother is an ego-based game. I don’t live my life in a state of ego. I live my life in a state of love. This is not the type of game for a spiritual person. I did my best. I made big moves by sticking to my main core values, but at the end of the day, this game is for someone that doesn’t mind being ruthless, manipulative and cutthroat.