Living with mental illness has been difficult and I could write at length about the journey. Even today, there are still challenges and flare-ups as with any illness. However, education, self-management, coping mechanisms, and the right professional support make this seemingly impossible journey become possible! Having experienced the lows, I can tell you that if you remain positive that you too will overcome all obstacles and achieve whatever goals you set for yourself. Learn to thrive despite the illness and achieve a positive work-life balance.

I remember the first time I received peer support. I was feeling alone, like nobody in the universe could ever understand how I was feeling because frankly, I didn’t understand it myself. Sitting with someone who truly understood what I was experiencing, who didn’t judge me for my irrational thinking. To learn that someone had experienced exactly what I was now experiencing, yet they had come through the other side – what a sense of relief. Years later, I am so extremely fortunate to be in a place in my own recovery to provide that same experience to others – to say that you are NOT alone and that you WILL get through this. If I could do it, you can do it too. Recovery IS possible.

I have suffered from an eating disorder for the past twenty years and have been in recovery for five. I am happily married with two wonderful little boys and I can’t imagine my life without them. To think that my life could have been so different if I had given into my eating disorder makes me appreciate what I have and how hard I have fought for this life so much more. Life is so much better now and I live every day to the fullest. It still takes a lot of hard work, determination, and strength but it is possible and it is so worth It!!

This too shall pass!

The journey is the reward ….

Remember you are worth it..every single person is special.

When “I” is replaced by “we”, even illness becomes wellness. ~ Unknown

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all. ~ Bill Clinton

We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us; ~Joseph Campbell

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but triumph over it. ~Nelson Mandela

If you change nothing, nothing will change. ~Unknown.