"The pressure I placed on myself only compounded my emotions. I was afraid to tell other people outwardly. I dropped hints to people in hopes someone would just ask because the humiliation of opening up felt too heavy a burden."
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Depression
Helped by:
Reinventing yourself
"We were going to “take it easy” and eat around 800 to 1200 calories a day to get started. That did not work for me. I wanted to be “the best” at this diet. I would start at 800 calories a day, then think “well, why not 500? Why not 400? Why not 300?” until I was eating nothing every day."
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Eating disorder
Helped by:
Therapy
"Because I wasn’t using solid evidence to understand my situation; I was just using my own thoughts and feelings, which were terribly limited. I mean, one person cannot possibly know all there is to know in order to make sense of themselves or the world. Life is simply too complex for that."
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Depression
Suicidal
Helped by:
Reinventing yourself
Self-care
"I started to experience an anxiety disorder, an eating disorder (I lost around 10 kg), depression, trust issues, and other mental problems as well. I was becoming this person that I didn’t recognize anymore, all while drifting away from being the person I wanted to be."
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Breakup
Eating disorder
"I remember collapsing in the stairwell and I thought I was having a heart attack. The staff that was in the building at the time recognized this as a panic attack and thankfully did not make the situation worse. Nobody there referred me to a counselor or therapist though."
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Panic attacks
Helped by:
Exercise
Meditation
"I was embarrassed by my feelings and didn't want anyone to know how much pain I was in, so I often put on a brave face. Even on my worst days, I tried to make it look like everything was okay when I felt anything but deep down."
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Depression
"I felt broken. I had suicidal ideation because I sometimes could not see a way out of it. A wise person told me my children would be much worse off if their mother killed herself. That stopped me in my tracks."
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Depression
Divorce
Miscarriage
Suicidal
Helped by:
Medication
Self-care
Therapy
"The worst symptom was the sharp chest pain and my pounding heart. Fear took over, which only exacerbated the horrible sensations I felt. I never understood why my body thought the best way to react to a perceived danger was to cause sudden chest pain and simulate a heart attack."
"At 16, I found my drug of choice, methamphetamine, which I began shooting up at 17. I had a few years of somewhat reduced drug use for the first years of college, then slid back due to a multi-assailant rape and abusive boyfriend. I lived in increasing misery until I was 32."
"After a lengthy battle with cancer, my journey was made even more difficult by the added stress of acid reflux and esophageal achalasia. Three months went by in which I had to struggle through each day just to keep down any food that entered my system at all."
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Cancer
Depression