I’ve never been very kind to myself. Every time something good happened to me, I told myself I didn’t deserve it or I wasn’t worthy. Who was I? A poor girl from a broken home, with a father addicted to a slew of drugs who suffered from alcoholism long before his 18th birthday. A former child of welfare with only one family member who had finished high school and gone on to college. The daughter of a beautiful woman, who everyone sought after, who was always told how much she looked like that father, the father she was ashamed of. 

The thing is, despite the horrible things I’ve lived through, despite knowing and loving people in levels of poverty some people could never imagine, despite having a father who didn’t finish middle school, I was amazing. But I never saw it. 

Knowing what I know now, I think I first started struggling with mental health when I was in 6th grade. Not only was I timid and insecure, my parents had just broken up for what I knew would be the last time. I was starting to see the world for what it really was and no longer was able to romanticize the things going on around me. I became wildly aware of the world around me and how I lived differently than many of my friends. 

As I grew older, I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect: the perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect person. And I never felt like enough. Even as I stood on stage at my high school graduation as one of five valedictorians, I diminished my accomplishment by saying if I were really good enough, I would have been the only one. 

It only got worse in college as I put more and more pressure on myself. I had to get it all right. At one point, I was working 20 hours a week as a full-time undergraduate student, but I still felt like a failure. I’d always been a little overweight, but I started gaining a lot around this time and I really began to feel unimportant and like I wasn’t worthy of love or the people around me. 

In 2015, I began taking antidepressants. That’s when I really started to put on weight. I gained so much that I was so embarrassed to buy clothing and felt ugly and stupid for letting myself reach such a low point. Over the next five years, I lived largely in a state of depression with some happy moments sprinkled in here and there. 

In the spring of 2021, I decided to take medical leave from my job as a teacher because of my mental health. I knew that was going to be the end of my career as a teacher and I had no idea what was next for me. For 6 years I had been the main earner in my household and I was about to quit my job with no plan and two little kids at home to depend on me. 

I spent the next two years really working on my mental health and getting myself to a place where I could feel as close to who I remembered myself to be. Of course, I wasn’t naive and I knew I was forever changed by the events of my life: losing my father in a tragic car accident, becoming a mother, losing my grandmother with whom I was very close, and giving up on what I thought was going to be my life-long career. 

As my business grew, I started to feel a confidence I had never really felt in my life. I felt validated in my work and I felt like I really could overcome anything that was thrown my way. 

The pictures I share with you today were taken in 2023 as part of a professional brand photo shoot for my business. I 100% expected to hate these pictures. I have gained a ridiculous amount of weight since high school and I didn’t even recognize myself in the mirror 99% of the time. But when I got these pictures back, I looked at them and I felt something I had never felt about myself. I felt proud. I felt beautiful. I felt worthy. 

My life and my mental health is nowhere near perfect. I still have a lot of work to do mentally and physically, but I have learned to love myself for who I am and to acknowledge my accomplishments in this life. I no longer feel hopeless and without direction. I have big dreams and I’m going to get there one way or another. The woman in this picture is not only who I want to be, it’s who I really am. I finally see me.