My Mental Illness Was The Best and Worst Thing That Ever Happened To Me — Here’s Why

It’s world mental health day.

Trigger warning: eating disorders, self-harm, sexual abuse, suicidal ideation

I don’t remember much from my childhood. In fact, almost nothing.

One thing I do remember is that I had a little camel-colored sherpa notebook I’d write poems in. They were not happy poems. I was 10, maybe 12 years old. Once I made a drawing with me at the center, eyes closed, surrounded by nothing but black strokes. No one ever saw any of it.

I grew up with deep sadness flowing through my veins, and for the longest time, I thought I was the only one who experienced the world in this way. I didn’t know where the darkness came from but accepted it as a part of life.

I cut myself but, luckily, didn’t feel enough relief to continue. I began drinking early and by the time I was 13, I was addicted to nicotine.

It was only in my senior year of college that I discovered that if I binged and purged, I would feel temporary relief from my misery. What started as a biological response to restriction quickly turned into my primary coping skill.

I became bulimic, a curse that would follow me for almost a decade.

I kept self-medicating, with food, drinks, designer items, and drugs. Sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on where I was at in life.

All this didn’t keep me from living an extraordinary life filled with achievement. Deep-rooted insecurities drove me into productive perfectionism. I was an A-student, got into elite schools, and landed a sought-after job in strategy consulting.

My life looked perfect on the outside, but on the inside, I was empty.

I was financially stable but spiritually starved and emotionally bankrupt.

Until my mid-20s, I never spoke to anyone about my inner life.

I was too ashamed and focused on making it all look perfect on the outside.

Now that I finally get to experience what it means to live, things are settling in. I’m making peace with the fact that this is my story. The grief surrounding my past is slowly morphing into gratitude. I’ve come to realize that it’s not all bad. In fact, my mental illness is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

The Worst: Wasting Years of My Life In Isolation and Disconnection, Hurting People, and Feeling Nothing

Growing up, I made beautiful friendships and had a loving family, but I never let anyone truly see me. I was an awful teenager and made my parents’ lives hell. I was closed off and emotionally illiterate.

My first intimate relationship with someone just as deeply troubled as me broke me into pieces (inconveniently, trauma always attracts more trauma). I loved with all my heart and got hurt, cheated on, and manipulated.

I closed off again, this time for good. I switched gears and pursued my bulimia with the same drive with which I’d pursued my recently ended relationship and my academic achievements.

Every day became a battle: me against myself.

I fell deeper and deeper into addiction. Deeper and deeper into isolation. And eventually, deeper and deeper into depression.

I missed countless meaningful memories I denied myself to participate in because I was pulled into the black hole and couldn’t get myself to crawl out.

Whenever my family would get a glimpse into how bad I was doing, they’d get terrified. They didn’t know what to do. Treatment wasn’t helping me.

So I began to hide it from them.

I never told them that more often than not, when I got on a plane to board my fancy business class flight for work, I didn’t mind if the plane crashed.

I didn’t tell them that I continued to binge and purge violently, at times multiple times a day, until I had no energy left to speak or move.

I didn’t tell them that sometimes I’d spent days in bed unable to move, staring into the abyss, feeling absolutely nothing.

And I didn’t tell them that I vowed to myself that if I still felt this way when I was 30, that I would call it quits. Pull the plug.

I didn’t understand what was wrong with me.

The only thing I knew was that this life was not a life worth living.

The Good: My Stubborn Addiction Forced Me To Turn Around Every Corner In My Psyche

Well, I’m still here and I cannot wait to turn 30 next year.

So I promise the story has a happy ending.

Over six years ago, I began my healing journey and got help for my out-of-control eating disorder. What followed were years of talk therapy, coaching, education, and introspection.

I tried a lot of different things, but nothing seemed to help

Over the years, I worked with four therapists, two psychiatrists, three different eating disorder coaches, and a nutritionist. I took time off work, hiked Patagonia, stopped dieting, meditated daily, went on silent retreats, became a yogi, talked openly about my illness to friends and family, and even got a certificate in holistic health & nutrition.

Things would get better, but it would never last. I continued relapsing in my eating disorder. Depression always came back. Year after year.

“How is it possible that I still have to deal with this, after all this work I’ve done”, I thought to myself.

“I don’t understand either why you’re still struggling so much”, therapists would say.

“I think you need more help”, I’d be told.

I didn’t know what “more help” meant.

I went to Overeaters Anonymous (OA) but didn’t resonate with the approach at all because I didn’t believe in the disease model of addiction.

The one thing I never did was take medication.

That’s because I had an intuition (which has since evolved into a conviction) that this wouldn’t be part of my journey.

What I needed wasn’t something to cover up or manage my symptoms, what I needed was root cause medicine.

And then, three years ago, I read a newly published book by Michael Pollan and discovered psychedelics. And my life hasn’t been the same since.

Psychedelics changed everything for me

I educated myself for a year before I touched anything, and then I dove in.

After all, I had little to lose. And my 30s were approaching.

Over two years and several Ayahuasca ceremonies, I healed the root causes of the misery that perpetuated every fiber of my being for the majority of my life: I processed childhood trauma and released the resulting belief that I wasn’t enough, reconnected with my inner child, retrieved and healed a completely repressed memory of adult sexual abuse, and experienced complete self-acceptance, free of any judgment, for the first time in my life.

I took myself apart, and when I began to reassemble the pieces I was left with, I no longer recognized who I’d become: I quit alcohol and cigarettes, forgave those who’d hurt me, forgave myself for all the abuse and torture I had put myself through, and found softness and compassion. My depression vanished and slowly but surely I crawled my way out of my eating disorder (the most stubborn vice of them all). I regained my ability to process emotions and discovered that I was not only highly sensitive but also an empath.

I released all shame.

I fell into deep, unconditional love for all parts of me.

Inner peace, deep confidence, and joy became my default.

The Better: I Will Never Take Inner Peace for Granted and Have an Unparalleled Appreciation for Life

As a result of all the work I’ve done, I’ve reached levels of inner freedom I didn’t think were possible.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing’s always perfect. I have shitty days, like everyone else. But it’s no longer my baseline. I no longer have the urge to escape my reality on a daily basis, I no longer rely on substances to numb me, I’m no longer emotionally bankrupt and constipated at the same time.

I’ve integrated (and continue to integrate) all parts within me and now understand that they’ve always had my best interest at heart. Even the most shameful ones. Perhaps, especially the most shameful ones. The parts that drove me into addiction in an effort to protect the little girl inside of me that was too scared to feel and convinced that something was fundamentally wrong with her.

The work of self-development never ends, and healing isn’t a linear journey. But you continue showing up, you make small strides, followed by slightly bigger hops, and one day you realize you’ve made leaps.

I now feel a deep sense of connection to everything within and around me.

The simplest things in nature bring me joy. I smile at every person I pass because I cannot get over how damn lucky I am to get to experience this miraculous life. I’m proud I didn’t give up. I’m ready to pour my heart into the world. And I know that one day, I will love the shit out of someone.

I no longer feel shame for my mental health journey, I feel pride.

The people prone to persistent mental illness are also the people who have the biggest, most sensitive hearts and the brightest, most creative minds.

I’m proud to be one of them.

And I won’t let a day go by without letting anyone who will listen think that what they experience is terminal or exclusive to them.

Mental illness is not a life sentence and addiction can be cured.

And you are not alone.

The Best: With All The Work I’ve Done, I’ve Now Set Myself Up For the Bigger Life

The best part about all of this is that navigating my mental illness has set me up for an extraordinary life.

When you spend most of your life in the mental space where nothing matters, you realize the only thing that does matter is your health. Once you lose it and regain it, you’re willing to do whatever it takes to maintain it. You take risks. You realize what’s important, and it’s not money, fame, or status.

All my life I’ve been desperate to be normal, and now I can’t wait to become the most me possible.

Even if she’s unbelievably shameless, not a size 0, overly sensitive, cries at every single butterfly, and is ruthlessly and, at times, inconveniently honest.

With deep sadness, I see so many people carrying themselves through life with functioning eating disorders. A life narrated by inner critics. Following strict diet plans and exercise regimens in the belief that that’s what they need to do in order to be loved. Being told so by the media and our culture.

Knowing I will never again be one of them makes me feel free, but with a heavy heart. Not everyone pushes themself so far over the edge that they have no choice but to abandon ship. I’m glad I did.

With deep compassion, I see many striving to find contentment in their “good enough” lives with “good enough” relationships and “good enough” jobs.

Knowing I will never again be one of them makes me feel free, but also filled with fear. I’ll follow my internal compass into my truest, biggest life — even if I’ll die trying.

Because now that I’ve survived this hell-hole, I need to make it worthwhile.

There’s a reason I’m still here, and it’s not to spend my life in some sleek, neon-lit office, making someone else rich by selling people things they don’t need. It’s not to conceal the lack of purpose in my life by drinking myself into oblivion every weekend. It’s not playing small so others don’t feel intimated.

The reason I’m still here is that I’m meant to live the bigger life.

What that life will look like, I have yet to find out. I know my pain will be key to my purpose, even if I can’t yet see how.

Some people think their lives end when they turn 30, and I know mine has only just begun. I don’t know where my journey will take me, so all I can do is enjoy the ride and trust the process.

And create love poems and self-portraits with flowers framing my face.

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