Jillian | Anxiety, Depression, Bulimia, PPD

While Jillian has had anxiety and bouts of depression since childhood, she didn’t realize the impact it had made on her until her late teen years. Her depression started during puberty and coincided closely with her menstrual cycles. This regularly filled her with dread and hopelessness, and she often suffered in silence. Early in her teen years, she also began to struggle with bulimia. It became a habit for her, where any time she felt bad emotionally, she would force herself to throw up. It was as much for comfort as it was focused on a warped body image. She didn’t often binge, but instead would eat for comfort, or eat foods that she didn’t consider healthy, and would follow this behavior with turning on the shower or sink so she may purge privately. In her late teen years, she sought help acquiring birth control through planned parenthood which helped with endometriosis pain. One of the first birth control pills she was put on, however, only made her more depressed, paranoid and apt to self-harm.

At 18 years old, Jillian got married. After a horrible first pregnancy at 21, where she would faint and throw up constantly, she found herself suffering from Postpartum Depression (PPD). She describes feeling as though she was not a fit mother, “I thought everyone felt like a failure as a mother,” and again suffered in silence. When she had her second child, she once more fell into PPD and became suicidal for over a year, which pushed her into therapy despite some people’s dismissive nature about it. As it stands now, Jillian is still in recovery. She occasionally purges for comfort, but instead tries to ride her horse or play her ukelele as a way to cope.

She described the barn as a threshold, where all her worries slip away. She no longer feels shame and has a good relationship with her husband where they communicate about feelings. She has also chosen to move her life in a direction where she can help others deal with their feelings and is in school to get her Master of Social Work (MSW). Jillian’s resilience and advocacy for mental health awareness is truly inspirational and gives her the ability to understand others who may be struggling on a deeper level.