If you’re struggling, this post is for you.
I know what it’s like to wake up and be disappointed to have survived the night. To want to crawl out of your skin just to escape the pain for a few seconds. To give up.
I also know what it’s like to rise up out of that darkness and experience joy and freedom in spite of mental illness. By sharing my story, I hope to help you realize that there’s another way to live. You just have to fight for it.
From the beginning, I felt like much of my life was not my own. For years, I gave up my power to my clinical depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder because I was never shown a way out. I had support from my family. I had access to therapy, medications and self-help books galore. But I didn’t take ownership of my life until it got so bad that I had no choice.I had always thought that asking for help was a sign of weakness, an admission that something was horribly and irreparably wrong. All the time I was struggling through middle school, high school, college and beyond, I held my pain inside. Of course, it came out in bursts when I got too full to contain it, which earned me the labels of “problem kid” and “crazy girl” in school. I self-medicated with drugs and alcohol, and I tried to fill my lack of self-confidence with love from others — usually the ones who didn’t love me back.
My mind was in a constant state of chaos. Finally, I reached a point where I just couldn’t see anything but a future full of the same … or worse.
So I decided to end it. At twenty-one years old, I decided to kill myself.
When I was hospitalized under suicide watch in 2005, all my choices were stripped from me. My schedule was rigid, with no exceptions. My activities were mandatory. My medications were required — and I didn’t even know what they were or why I was taking them. I couldn’t make any choices.
Once I was released from the hospital, I realized I had every choice available to me, even if I didn’t think there was a way to succeed. I could choose to seek help. I could choose to listen to my support system. I could choose to fight. I decided that I would at least try to change my life. And I did try. But I failed a lot.
For years I rode a roller coaster up and down: trying and failing, trying and failing. But the crucial difference was that every time I fell down, I got back up. I stayed determined. And finally I found something that worked: exercise.
When I started working out consistently — for reasons unrelated to my mental health — I realized how much stronger I was getting inside and outside the gym.The behavioral work I was doing with my therapist became more effective because I could focus for longer periods of time. My confidence and sense of self-efficacy strengthened as I accomplished more and more physical goals in the gym. After a good workout, I was more mindful throughout my day — which allowed me to become more aware of my defeatist thoughts, thereby giving me the power to change them.
My entire life changed when I finally realized how revolutionary fitness could be in my life. I knew that I had to share my story because if I spoke up, one person out there might discover movement as their lifesaver, too.
In 2011, I started Strong Inside Out — a site to help people become stronger than their struggle through fitness and positive action. Instead of using shame and guilt to inspire a healthy lifestyle, Strong Inside Out focuses on the mental benefits from movement: hope, confidence, mastery and courage.
Since then, I’ve taken Strong Inside Out on tour to fundraise for the suicide prevention charity To Write Love on Her Arms. I created a mindset-based workout program to help people suffering from depression and anxiety. And I experienced shifts in tons of people who felt just like I did before I chose to live this life.
Even with everything Strong Inside Out has accomplished so far, I still have so much more I want to give. I never would have known I had so much love inside if I hadn’t found my fight through fitness.
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