Depression & Addiction, My Overly Personal, Nitty-Gritty Experience with Mental Health

Trigger Warning: Depression, suicidal ideation, cutting, addiction/addictive behaviors, discussions regarding weight, eating disorder.

Bell Let's Talk day started in 2010 as a way to start the conversation surrounding mental health. Since 2010 we have seen great corporate and HR strides to breakdown the stigma associated around mental health. I hold the belief that while corporations can state their vested interested in supporting mental health, without the stories and if we don't continue these initiatives year-round, we can lose the human element of mental health awareness and simply make it a corporate "pat yourself on the back" day without results. We must remember that Bell Let's Talk day, while a great initiative, was and is run by a corporation, and mental health is an ongoing battle, not one CSR calendar day of the year. I am a firm believer that while we refer to "hats" that we wear in different setting, we are full people and cannot simply shut off a piece of our identity during the standard 9 to 5. I am a big supporter of bringing your authentic and true self to work every day.

For these reasons, now that Bell Let's Talk day is over, I am using day one post-Bell Let's Talk day to share my personal experience with mental health and how I found and continue to find happiness (see goat yoga picture for reference). It may not be "work appropriate," it may be very uncomfortable, it may be raw, and at times very embarrassing and very personal for me to share, but I believe that my story may help someone, and for that reason alone, I am going to share. Talking about mental health in the workplace needs to be more normalized and encouraged - it's not "unprofessional" and it's not weird. I think I have a reputation of getting stuff done and being good at my job in my professional network - I've heard people say "wow, how do you handle it all, you're so good at everything?" But I am not, and if I can still give off that vibe while going through a serious mental health crisis, who else in our networks are struggling but we don't know? I did a lot of work to like the person I am today, and I am not embarrassed by my journey or sharing more about who I am with my community if it can help just one person. So here is my personal and true, somewhat nitty-gritty experience with depression, addiction, and how I started addressing my mental health. In true "Laurie Blog" fashion, I'm also going to share what I learned and tips regarding how we can all work on being ambassadors of mental health support as well.

The Youth Adult & Teenage Years

From the time I was ten I have battled off and on depression, sometimes getting so bad that I have had suicidal thoughts as an adolescent. I struggled to make friends, and at times was the kid who ate alone. I was:

• Too loud and too weird. I was an extreme extrovert from an early age and didn't understand that everyone didn't want to be my friend.
• Listened to the weird music and liked weird things like sewing, writing poetry, making art, watching soaps with my grandma, etc. - the type of stuff that kids my age weren't doing.
• Wore the weird clothes (mom, can we talk about why I wore sweatpants every day until I was 10 AND WHY YOU NEVER STOPPED ME, DAMMIT!!!).
• Had a slight speech impediment - I had to get pulled out of class for to see a speech therapist once a week.
• Was teacher's pet.
• I was confused with my sexuality and couldn't understand why I didn't like the same people everyone else did. Now I know I am pansexual (sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people regardless of their sex or gender identity - In other words, hearts not parts - similar to bi-sexual but inclusive of trans* and non-binary people).
• I was also an extremely overweight kid (since I was 4).

With all these things combined, I surprisingly wasn't bullied too much, but instead had to learn to be alone a lot due to being the "odd duck" that no one understood. By the time I was ten and moved into a class with no one I knew, I formed depression and feelings of not being worthy. Over the years, this depression was combined with cutting as a teenager as well as the occasional bout of thinking about what would happen if I wasn't here any more. Would anyone care? These thoughts as a teenager were extremely overwhelming, especially when you don't have a lot of friends to talk to. Over my teenage years, I stopped cutting, got into art, and became happier, but reflecting now, I never addressed my issues and instead turned to extreme methods of coping and self comfort which I now realize were addictive behaviors. This is when I started to turn to food, and even stealing money from my family as a teen to pay for food then hiding it.

The University Years

I moved out right at 18, my first year of university. This freedom was liberating, and I could recreate myself at university. After nearly failing out my first semester, I started to understand how to be a good university student, and finally went from the weird art kid who didn't have a lot of friends, to finally becoming myself and finding that people actually do like me for me. The thing about moving out though was that I never learned how to deal with living alone or coping with my feelings. Unfortunately during my first semester at school, I lost both grandmothers within a day of each other (no, really), and had a bad car accident that caused permanent injury in my back. This led me back into the dark place yet again.

As my university years went on, I ballooned up in weight and blamed it on my car accident preventing me from being active. The stress led to bad eating habits, and eventually drinking. I got my first official "adult job" that summer in oil and gas, and suddenly I had significant pay checks coming in, and as a young adult was going out every weekend with friends. I remember one Calgary Stampede I literally went to every concert and show the night before, not getting home until 1 or 2 in the morning, even though I had work the next morning. I didn't want to ever be alone! Eventually I started gambling. I was good at it! I actually paid for a full year of school with gambling money. I'd walk into the casino with a few hundred dollars and leave with a couple grand. I was the "hot shot" and people liked me. Eventually I was buying designer clothes for my official "adult job" in IT (let's be real, it was to show off at the casino and look like I was rolling in the dough - I wasn't) and was ordering in and dining out nightly. I was spending well over a student budget, but as I had the money coming in, it wasn't an issue in my mind.

Eventually I lost my job and due to the economy wasn't able to find another one. I was able to reign in the spending, but was all of a sudden gambling with my student loan money. Eventually I would go to the casino, have a night of losing $600, then would go through the drive through and order $50 of food just to deal with the feeling of loss and knowing that I messed up. My luck had run out but I couldn't stop - I continued to seek the high. By my 2nd year of college I was over 300 lbs. It was time to reign it in. This is when things got from bad to worse. Food was my coping method. I got obsessed. I eventually formed an eating disorder - bulimia. Unfortunately when you're big and you start losing weight, everyone congratulates you and they don't realize that you may actually be very, very sick. I lost 100 lbs very fast. Eventually it got so bad where I would be eating lunch or dinner with friends and every few minutes I'd go to the washroom to vomit up my meal to ensure I was taking in as few calories as possible. It got so bad I stopped eating and switched to liquids because they came up easier. I was obsessed with tracking every calorie. Eventually my esophagus got so enflamed from the continuous purging that it sealed up and I couldn't eat or drink anything. I ended up in the hospital during one summer (in the middle of my internship, no less), because I almost had kidney failure from dehydration. I lied about the cause, but this was my sign to stop starving myself - a wake up call. I stopped the eating disorder behaviors partially (at least to a level my twisted mind thought was acceptable - once a day instead of every meal). Unfortunately, my coping went from obsession over tracking food and purging food, to instead eating food as a coping method again, as well as spending and risky behavior. I should add that throughout this entire time time, I was involved in 5 clubs, leading committees and teams, was winning awards, scholarships, making honor rolls, and overall a super involved person in everything I could. This whole time I was striving in my academics, I was actually in a really dark place. I want to highlight this because no one would have ever been able to tell I was struggling.

Post Grad & Career

At the time of graduation, I got most of my addictive behaviors in check for the most part. Unfortunately though, my depression kicked in yet again. Here I was, a new grad who used to be SUPER involved in extracurriculars and campus, all of a sudden losing my student identity. I was always working with school, but for the first time ever I only had my job and no link to my university. Half my friends were still in studies, and the other half were starting families or entrenched in their careers. I was alone and with depression, my addictive behaviors kicked in again, this time worse than ever. I was ordering $1000 a week in take-out and bingeing on it, then occasionally purging again. As a big person, no one would ever think I had bulimia. I was so unhappy with my life and felt no joy. I remember almost weekly in my 1:1s with my boss crying in her office. It wasn't her, or the team, or the work, it was me being depressed and thinking if I changed my job tasks, or took on more work, or worked late that I would feel fulfilled like I did as a student. This wasn't the case. Nothing could fill the void, no matter what I tried to fill it with. I was depressed and the things that brought me joy seemed exhausting. As an extreme extrovert, I turned into a recluse. Nothing felt right. I was gaining more and more weight, and couldn't control myself.

Suddenly the things I loved to do (like go to live local rock concerts) weren't possible because the weight of my body physically didn't allow it. I remember going to a 3-day music festival and having to stay home the last day because my body couldn't take it. I remember not being able to even walk a full block without feeling like my calves were going to explode from the pressure. I wanted to do things and "be better" but my body made it physically impossible. I ballooned up to 400 lbs. Instead of dealing with my feelings, I continued to turn to food, and shut out the world. I hated who I had become, I hated that I was addicted to food, but even more, I hated myself so much that I didn't want to change - I felt honestly hopeless and stuck in a continuous loop that I didn't know how to get out. I remember taking company headshots (below) and I was so embarrassed by who I had become.

Eventually I changed companies for career development. This was when I had a rock bottom moment. My aunt passed away. She was basically over 500 lbs herself and died in her 50s from weight related complications. The situations leading up to her death can be simply described as demoralizing and involved getting stuck in her own home in a vulnerable situation. Seeing her go through this made me realize that while I didn't have health issues yet in my 20s, I would if I didn't change my behavior now. I was killing myself with food because my depression was so crippling and I didn't know how else to cope. This was when I finally realized enough was enough. This was not sustainable. I was wearing a 4-5X and couldn't fit in my clothes (I always have taken very great pride in how I dress and look, and losing that ability was hard). I wasn't able to fit in my office chair. I was spending exuberant amounts of money fueling a food addiction, and I was no longer me. It was time to deal with my food addiction and change the things causing me pain. I want to take a moment here to address that these "ah-ha" moments don't always happen and it shouldn't be expected that someone with mental health issues can just turn this switch on. This is what happened to me, but this is not how it happens to everyone. It also took me weighing over 400 lbs for me to finally do something and finally ask for help - I had to hit my rock bottom.

Starting My Mental Health Switch

I compare my mental health state to putting a frog in water and bringing it to a boil. The frog doesn't realize how bad it is until it's too late. This is how I let my mental health get so bad. Rather than doing the uncomfortable and seeking help earlier on, I pretended the issue wasn't there until my body physically wasn't working anymore. It was emotionally raw to go to a therapist for the first time and finally have someone open the can of worms on my food relationship, but that's what needed to be done. Once I needed healthy coping methods, I got involved with more art and listening to music. I got involved in my community and company ERGs again - this loss of community post grad was such a big void in my life, but there were other ways for me to meet this need! I started reflecting on who I was and my amazing attributes that are uniquely mine. Most importantly though, I started regularly attending therapy. I finally started loving myself. Before I could lose weight, before I could put myself and my mental health first, I needed to love myself. Believe it or not, in my adult life, for once I was the happiest at my highest weight. I needed to like me, like the person I was becoming, and like myself in the skin I was in before I could make positive health changes. How can I put myself first if I don't love myself and my identity as is first? I hear this all the time when I post before and after weight loss photos. "Wow, you look SOOOOOO much happier now." Actually, I was happy then too. If I wasn't I wouldn't be able to lose 200 lbs.

Weight Loss and Transfer Addictions

After learning to love myself and chatting with my family doctor, I did choose to get weight loss surgery due to our extensive chat regarding my options. I had so much weight to lose and was never successful with continued weight loss before. I had literally done every program under the sun from the time I was twelve on. It wasn't "the easy way out." It was surgery after all! Weight loss surgery was a tool, not an instant fix. My doctor and surgeon said like with any tool, if you use it wrong you will fail - this is why so many weight loss surgery patients gain back their weight. I still had to put the work in, put the right food in my mouth, eat the right portions, measure and weigh my food, and hold myself accountable. I was doing it! I was losing weight. The first year was easy. Then eventually things got hard again and I started slowly regaining weight, just like my doctors said I would if I used my tools wrong. I found my food addiction, which I could no longer meet with enormous amounts of food, was moving to other negative behaviors. Another less commonly discussed eating disorder is chew and spit (yes, gross, I know!) or drinking my calories, but for me, this was a way for me to eat back foods without actually "eating them". This turned into a costly habit quickly, and eventually I started shopping and spending money I didn't have again. I started seeking the "high" of being the life of the party again and could see the toxic behaviors coming back. I was in therapy! Why wasn't it working?

Eventually I found out about transfer addiction. Basically moving one addiction around to others to fill the same void without addressing the root cause. Now, some of these transfer addictions are more positive than others - exercise, crafting, budgeting (ha, I wish). For me though, my transfer addictions always were going the self destruction route. This was when I realized I didn't just have an eating disorder or a weird relationship with food. I AM AN ADDICT. I am addicted to self destruction in any way possible through any negative behavior possible! The food, the eating disorder, the partying and never wanting to be alone, the gambling, the shopping and money spending, the risky behavior - these were all due to my addictive personality. I never thought they were linked until this moment. This is when I switched from eating disorder therapy to addiction therapy.

A More Positive Future Through Addiction Therapy

Since realizing that I am an addict, I have been regularly seeing an addiction psychologist for the last year and a half. I am so very fortunate to have benefits and access to resources to help me afford these treatments as so many don't. Seeing the right therapist was HUGE for me. The approach eating disorder treatment takes was different than addiction counselling. For me, finally addressing my needs to cope and understanding why I was turning to addictive behaviors to address these feelings in the pit of my stomach was the first step to overcoming addiction. The next step was learning to address these thoughts and feelings and sit with them without turning to a negative addictive behavior. The hardest thing is to keep sitting with these feelings time after time and continue to not turn to an addictive behavior. I still slip here and there, but putting in the hard work is paying off. And yes, it is hard work, especially with a global pandemic (oh yeah, remember that thing?) impacting my mental health even more than usual.

I have now lost over 200 lbs and am keeping it off, started running this year (okay, let's call it what it is - a light jog), work out and see a trainer, have adopted healthy eating habits 90% of the time, started enjoying and being content with time alone and even seeking it out (solo day trips, solo music festivals, solo vacations, etc., just getting to spend time and learn to like myself alone more every day - pictures of some of my solo adventures below!), spending time with those I love and cherishing my friendships. I also craft, make art, love my job, and am able to enjoy life. My mental health journey is ongoing, but without the support of my friends and family, and without just making that first email to a psychologist, I don't know where my health - both physically and mentally - would be. I am still an addict and still have an addictive personality which I constantly need to monitor. I also still have depression occasionally (especially in darker months - thanks seasonal affective disorder!), but with help and support, and through self reflection, therapy, and self love and development, each day I feel more confident I have to tools in my arsenal to help when I feel a relapse coming on. I can truly say I am happy in this life and in this moment.

So, What Can I Do?

Awesome, you made it through my story with mental health! You may be asking yourself, now what? These are some things I learned along with way.

1. Kindness goes a long way - After losing 200+ lbs, I can tell you that the way people treated me before versus now is night and day. I didn't realize how badly people treated me before I lost weight. I thought how I was treated before was normal, but being able to compare the microaggressions I received when I was bigger versus how people treat me now that I am more socially acceptable in size actually hurts my heart a lot. Some compassion and kindness when I was big really would have gone a long way, and may have made me feel less alone in my mental health journey. You never know what someone is going through or where someone is in their journey.
2. Every day is a battle, treatment can be ongoing - It's not like you make the call or reach out for help and then it's fixed. I have to work on my mental health every day, even in small ways. I wish people who never experienced a mental health struggle knew this. Some days I am doing really awesome, other days I struggle. Sometimes I can go months without needing to talk to someone, other times I may need to see someone a few times a week. Ongoing support and empathy is all I am asking for, which leads us to three...
3. There is no one size fits all way to support someone through a mental health crisis - Some people are looking for suggestions or advice, others are looking for someone to just listen, others are looking for you to make the call to the help line with them, some people need space, others need you to check in, others just need to know that when they are ready you are there. Understand that if someone reaches out to you, there isn't just one way to help and the best starting point is to listen and show compassion.
4. Treatment isn't a one size fits all - I had to meet and "test drive" a few psychologists to find one that fit my needs. I also had to seek out different types of psychologists as well, as I needed more support in line with addictions than eating disorder. Same with mental health drugs people take. It's a trial to find the right mix, and even once you find a right balance, things can change. Patience can be hard when you're in the middle of a mental health crisis and sometimes it feels dark and heavy when you are trying to find a treatment that works for you. If you're in the depths of a crisis, balance can seem so far off and it can seem impossible to work through, but I am a testimate that it can work and it will get better.
5. Personal care is so important - I think most of us have heard the spoons analogy. Make sure you have enough spoons for what you need before offering them out. Self care may include going for a walk, or a bath, or reading. It may also just be doing legitimately nothing. Taking time for you can make the difference and can sometimes stop me from being pushed into episodes of depression. Something I'm still working on is saying no so that I can prioritize my personal care, but I am getting better at this!
6. It's also okay to celebrate the small wins - When I have been in my darkest of days, sometimes even getting out of bed is hard. Showering, combing your hair, brushing your teeth, remembering to eat and drink water - these may seem like basic tasks, but for some people it takes every ounce of effort they have to do complete basic tasks in a mental health episode. Celebrate your wins and even the events that seem small! They add up.
7. Know your resources - I am so very privileged to have access to benefits that include mental health support and counselling support options. Not everyone is. I'd also look into if you have access to an EFAP (Emergency or Employee Family Assistance Plan) through work for you and/or your family members to access. See what support you can receive or seek from community or local resources, maybe they have group supports. Know what your local crisis or distress line options are. Understand if there is sliding scale mental health services for you to access in your region should you not have the funds to pay for mental health support. There are many ways to seek help that can fit your needs and your budget.
8. I had to learn I was not alone - I am someone who doesn't like to ask for help or show weakness. When I started opening up about mental health to friends I was surprised how many in my circle were also struggling, or also had their own stories of people they knew who had gone through it to. You're not alone, and even though it seems like it sometimes, people want you to do well and they want to let you know you're supported. In my case, I am so very thankful to my friends and family for sticking by me during health crises. I was shutting people out, when all it took was one person calling me in to see how I was doing for me to realize that it was time to seek help (thank you to my friends, family, and support networks - you're the best!).

Thanks for listening and continuing to help break down the mental health stigma so many people around the world face. I am not embarrassed by who I am or where I came from, nor am I embarrassed to share personal things about myself with people - it took a lot of work for me to get here. Wherever you are in your journey, know you are not alone, know that you are loved, and you are heard.