Yoga • Nature • Growth

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Happy first Monday in May! It’s #mentalhealthawarenessmonth so please DM me any questions you have or topics you want me to discuss this month (from my personal experience); I’ll be posting about a lot of things mental health related in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I’m wishing you all a great week, great month, and beyond! ?✨

#headhighheartforward

Wearing @satvaliving, a sustainable, woman run, activewear company that makes some seriously comfortable yoga wear.

Happy first Monday in May! It’s #mentalhealthawarenessmonth so Read More

Continuing my story a bit—

I started getting better from my ED and substance use disorder when I started treating the root causes of my mental health issues. That meant diving even deeper into internalize stigmas than when I had my eating disorder and substance use disorders. But the first step was asking for help.

It’s still difficult for me sometimes to delve into my diagnoses bc of the stigmas I face. I have been diagnosed at various points in my life with major depressive disorder, OCD, generalized anxiety disorder, BPD and a touch of bi-polar disorder. It’s a mouthful and it’s a lot to manage. But it’s easier to manage with regular therapy and meds.

Regardless of what diagnoses you have, what meds you may or may not be taking, it can be hard to ask for help because of fear, embarrassment, feeling weak, or being stigmatized. But i can assure you, asking for help makes you so much stronger than you think and no matter what you’re facing, you aren’t alone.

In the last few days of #mentalhealthawarenessmonth, I’ll go more into my story with meds and therapy. If you have any questions about my diagnoses, about my journey with meds or therapy, or any of my story that I’ve shared so far, either drop them below or shoot me a dm.

Thanks for continuing to follow along! ???? #headhighheartforward

Photo by @ljbnyc1 in @onzie

Continuing my story a bit— I started getting better from my ED Read More

Her gaze was intense, purposeful
In the mirror she looked deeply
Penetrating the glass
She examined every inch
Each dimple
Every wrinkle
Every supposed flaw
Seeing herself as if for the first time
She wept
She burst open into cleansing tears
Thank you she said
I love you.

#headhighheartforward

Photo by @ljbnyc1

Her gaze was intense, purposeful In the mirror she looked deeply Read More

Happy #nationalpetday from me and mine to you and yours! ? ?

Here are some pics from when I got Cailey to climb up in a tree with me and shoot some beanies for a collab. My dog is the best.

Swipe for a sweet moment between us and peep my stories for more pics of both my pets. I love them both so much. ?

Happy #nationalpetday from me and mine to you and yours! ? ? He Read More

#mentalhealthawarenessmonth My recovery story part three. Getting sober.

Deciding to get off drugs was the first step. The real work came later. The real work came in therapy and group meetings and maintaining sobriety while learning to feel all over again. Because that’s what i was doing, learning to feel and self regulate without being numb or high. And that meant learning to manage my mental health, aka the root cause of my ED and addiction issues.

The decision to get sober was born from my nearing rock bottom. I was cut off by my parents, my relationship was more than rocky, i was holding onto my job by a very fine thread...my life was falling apart and I was miserable. And I knew I needed help. So I took all the strength I had and asked for it; something I never did with my eating disorder. To this day i think the moment i asked for help getting off drugs is one of the times I’ve been the strongest in my life-I had to face disappointment from my loved ones, all the lies I’d been telling, the stigmas around addiction, etc all at once; all while admitting I was struggling.

Getting sober is where the real work began. I started attending 12 step meetings and went to therapy and began working on myself. I’d been diagnosed with mental illnesses while in therapy for my ED but I’d been self medicating for so long I didn’t feel them. Getting off drugs forced me to face myself as myself and being in therapy helped me learn to cope in a healthy manner with what came up.

Getting clean was the first step in a long and bumpy road to find myself and heal myself. And it was the best first step I’ve ever taken, but it took being near rock bottom to be able to take that step. My hope for those of you reading this is that you can reach out before you hit bottom, and that at the very least, you know you’re not alone.

Photo @ljbnyc1
#headhighheartforward

#mentalhealthawarenessmonth My recovery story part three. Getting Read More

TW- discussion of drugs and eating disorders. #mentalhealthawarenessmonth

Part two of my recovery journey story:

In my last post I mentioned that the beginning of ED my recovery was weight gain, but that the real recovery came much later. That’s because weight gain does not equal real recovery from eating disorders. You have to treat the cause(s) of the disorder, not just the symptoms.

So I gained weight because that’s what I needed to do in order to go to college. Because I knew I needed a new environment and fresh start and because I had life goals I wanted to achieve (i.e. law school which I did end up doing). Not because I was better or wanted to be better. I didn’t want to be recovered. Not deep down. I wanted to be allowed my freedom from anorexia, but I still so desperately wanted to shrink myself.

That’s what made it so easy for me to develop a drug problem shortly after I started college. Drugs allowed me to continue to shrink myself and also provided me with a high to chase. I quickly became addicted much in the same way I was addicted to controlling calories and exercise.

I used drugs for a couple of years before deciding to get sober; but this time it was a conscious decision. This time I wanted it. I wanted to be better. I wanted a future and drugs were stripping those chances away from me quite rapidly. This is when my recovery really started. Recovery is something that has to come from deep within; you have to want it with all of your might because it’s one of the most difficult journeys you’ll go on. Deciding to get sober from drugs is when my real recovery began. All the running from my ED became impossible when I started to actually get treatment for my substance use issues.

I believe you have to want recovery for it to work. That’s the first and hardest step, because it comes with acknowledging a hard truth to yourself and others as well as all the stigmas that come along with having an eating disorder or substance use disorder.

More on how I got clean in my next post. This is becoming like a series of my backstory. I hope y’all are into it. #headhighheartforward

Wearing @ellieactivewear

TW- discussion of drugs and eating disorders. #mentalhealthawaren Read More

#mentalhealthawarenessmonth TW-discussion of eating disorders.

When I was in high school I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was barely eating, I was exercising dbl for every calorie I consumed, I was wasting away and I was miserable.

Doctors declared me recovered just before I went away to college after I put on some weight while at a summer program. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: gaining weight does not equal recovery. Gaining weight again was actually the easier part for me. The real work started later, but the weight gain had to happen and I had to let it. I say gaining weight was the easy part, but only because delving into the root causes of my anorexia meant dealing with a whole lot of mental stuff and that’s (for me) way more difficult.

But let’s talk about how I accepted weight gain, because that comes up quite often as a question. The answer is I did and I didn’t accept it. I knew rationally that it had to happen in order for me to go to college. That was the deal my parents had made with me and my doctors. I had to reach a certain weight or I wouldn’t be allowed to go. On recommendation from a specialist, As a test, my parents let me go to a pre-college program in New England. It was there when I was removed from the environment where my disease thrived that I was able to find some parts of myself again and with that came eating more and exercising less. Distance from my life back home was what I needed and it helped.

Gaining weight wasn’t actually easy. No one prepared me for what it would do to me mentally and it was hard to accept. I gained weight because I needed to, but even as my body healed, my mind was still afflicted. College was a priority for me so I gained weight to go, but b/c i wasn’t mentally recovered I started doing other things, like drugs to stay thin. Gaining weight isn’t actually recovering; it’s only part of the picture. For me, I always had underlying motivation to succeed in school and my career, even from a young age and that helped drive me to gain weight so my parents would let me go, but it didn’t drive me to focus on my mental well-being. More on that later. #headhighheartforward

? @ljbnyc1

#mentalhealthawarenessmonth TW-discussion of eating disorders. Read More

My body has changed a lot over the last year and a half and that has taken time to adjust to mentally. For me, my journey has been a bit up and down lately and that’s been largely tied to one thing-scales and numbers. I backslide on my no scales policy and it did more harm than good.

I lost a decent amount of weight really rapidly due to anxiety when I first moved to NJ. As I lamented the loss of the curves that I’d worked so hard to love, the eating disordered part of my brain that is always in the background started to emerge more from the shadows as I saw the number on the scale decrease. My body was getting tinier and that was good it told me. But truth be told, I missed my ?. Then covid hit.

I, like many others, gained weight during quarantine. My curves came back, but so did some of those little voices that take hold deep down in the back of my mind. The little voices that controlled my mind during my eating disorder. So I threw out my scale because I was becoming fixated. Practicing self love and body acceptance doesn’t come with a numerical value (read that again).

Then I started lifting. I gained more weight; this time muscle. I know bc I’ve gotten thicker. I feel strong but i know I’ve tacked on mass and that takes time to adjust to. Unfortunately, I recently let those little voices take control for a brief period and I weighed myself at the gym. I had a melt down seeing that with all the exercise (lifting) I’d been doing I gained more weight.

It took some talking to myself (and a good friend) to remember, our bodies change. I also remembered can be the heaviest I’ve ever been and still love myself—I did before I weighed myself. I shouldn’t let the scale change that.

Self love and body acceptance isn’t determined by the number on the scale. The scale is unhealthy for me so I threw mine out and try to stay off them. I’d rather practice loving myself than weigh myself any day. It’s about loving myself, as myself, not according to numbers. #headhighheartforward

Photo by @ljbnyc1

My body has changed a lot over the last year and a half and that Read More

In my last post I mentioned how I spent years hiding my pain because of fear. In this one I want to acknowledge all of you who have made this a safe space for myself and others to come forward and share our experiences. I want to thank you all for making this community a supportive one. The internet can be a dark and scary place, but it can also be a wonderful and supportive one. I’m glad my feed has largely become the latter. Thank you all so much.
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I haven’t visited this pose in a while. I call it visiting poses because they often come and go from our practice. Visit reminds me that nothing is permanent; my practice is always changing. I was inspired by @meliniseri to revisit this one on my recent shoot with @ljbnyc1.

Head to toe in my new fav from @werkshop. Yay for tie dye!

What’s a pose you haven’t visited in a while?

In my last post I mentioned how I spent years hiding my pain beca Read More