*Trigger warning: eating disorders. I recently watched the Netflix movie “To the Bone”. So many people had told me how great it was. They were people who don’t know that I am recovering from an Eating Disorder. I tried to approach the movie with an open mind. It turned out to be yet another narrative [...]
There was an attic in the house that I grew up in. I first noticed it the day my dad lowered the staircase and ascended into a new part of the house. As I grew below, I imagined what must lay beyond that upside down door. As soon as I was tall enough, I’d jump [...]
Have you ever asked yourself what your inner child wants you to do? Do you ever have moments where you really want to do something and know you shouldn't and you do it anyway? Or moments when you do NOT want to do something and do it anyway? Or you just can't decide which to [...]
To those I love, It’s back. The enemy I’ve tried so hard to defeat. The battle I’ve been fighting since I was thirteen. Depression. You know, it’s not always an uphill battle. Sometimes I’m in a valley. The land is flat and easy to navigate, the grass is soft beneath my feet. And sometimes I’m [...]
Emptiness, it fills me the way emptiness can; with vacancy and abandonment— alone and in the dark. The heaviness is back. Weight presses on my chest and I gasp for air, But there’s no oxygen left for me. I’m sinking in this mind of mine. Blurred thoughts leave me sinking, pulling me down, down like [...]
Having been seduced and subsequently beaten into a pulp by this variety of mental illnesses, I have been placed in this burning seat again. Poked and prodded, like a newly discovered extraterrestrial, this process is beginning to bore me to a slow death. God, just make this repetitive bullshit stop. A constant droning inside my [...]
Today I am asking you to admit a mistake. My students know that the 2 most important things to me are kindness and mistakes. I create art that challenges traditional ideas of beauty and acceptable body types. My art explores bodies that are not commonly pictured dancing, doing yoga, and loving themselves. My message is [...]
I got my first babysitting job when I was 9 years old. I was paid with a chocolate bar. I got my first real job at 14 working in a small playdough factory. I was paid $7/hr and felt incredibly rich. Since then, I have never not had a job. In university, I had 3 [...]
Paralyzed. Frozen. Numb. Paralyzed. When the depression hits sohard I can't move. Literally. A fire could break out, and I'm not sure it would matter. My eyes are either stuck wide open or impossible to open. Every limb on my body is heavy and feels like sandbags. To move them it would take someone physically [...]
When you think of PTSD, you may imagine gunshots. You may imagine a young silhouette in an ACU on the frontlines of war. You may imagine an old man in a rocking chair on the front porch with pursed lips and a rifle a la Grand Torino. You may imagine someone who hides under the [...]
