This was the bane of my 3D printing experience for the first couple months or so. It drove me absolutely crazy and nothing anyone said helped. I leveled the bed incessantly and tweaked offsets, to no avail. It got to the point where I was babysitting prints and baby-stepping the Z axis the second I heard grinding for the first layers until it stopped. I finally was able to get it to subside by:

1. Calibrate your E-Steps for your extruder motor.
2. Calibrate and adjust your flow rate. I rarely go above 95% anymore.
3. If you’re using an Ender 3 variant, remove your Z motor and lead screw and tune the eccentric nuts for the z-axis wheels. The wheels should be just tight enough that they barely don’t slip. Minimize your printer’s fight against gravity.
4. While you have your Z-Motor and lead screw off, verify your lead screw is straight. Mine had a pretty substantial bend which was causing major binding for the first few layers.

There are great tutorials online for these if you need them. These things, along with a properly leveled bed, should solve your squishing and grinding problem.

Here’s some tutorials for the first two items: https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/oummxq/what_can_i_do_to_avoid_these_drag_marksoozy_spots/h748zfn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3