For me, the solution actually ended up being that I had not deleted the symbolic link yet that still existed for my Electronic Arts folder to my external hard drive. I thought that because I disconnected my external hard drive that I was good to go, but I needed to delete the entire folder from my computer as well!
just in case anyone else happens to have the same issue after downloading the game back onto your computer hard drive after using an external hard drive on Mac!
thanks for all your help @Bluebellflora …. I’m finally able to play my game for the first time in months!!!
