What past life experiences, physical traumas or genetics do you believe have had an effect on your mental health?
My poor physical health (I didn’t know what it was being caused by), was the biggest experience that impacted my mental health.  Feeling exhausted and sick all the time made me not want to get out bed.

How did the effects on your mental health appear in terms of symptoms?
I felt depressed and alone in my situation, as if there wasn’t anyone else who could relate. And because I was so young, I couldn’t understand why no one else was experiencing what I was.

When and why did you decide to ask for help to get relief?
I was always reaching out to doctors/specialists for help. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the avenue that actually got me the help I needed. Dietary shift and other modalities I was unaware of at first, were what worked best for me.

What methods helped you individually get/feel better?
A complete overhaul of my diet made the biggest impact on my physical health which transformed my mental health. Along with the food transformation, I practiced, yoga, meditation, and I learned to deal with old emotional baggage. That combination is was what helped me the most.

Why did you decide to go public with your story? Who were/are you hoping to help and how?
The group I most gravitate towards helping are high performers who are experiencing similar health issues I had. Typically, their blood work looks great and the doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong even though they know they don’t feel well. Telling people my story is part of my healing and it’s helped me be an expert in what I do. When people feel hopeless about their health, I can point them in a direction that creates movement and gives them some new possible directions to look for in finding answers.

How did people react when you went public with your story?

My health situation was very public whether I wanted it to be or not, b/c I went through puberty in front of the world in my sport (in the Olympics at 16!). When my health issues impacted my elite performance capacity, I had to explain what was my #SameHere story publicly, very early on. The fact that I felt so lonely and hopeless about it is only something I’ve connected the dots on within the last 5 years of my life – probably b/c it was too painful to confront earlier, and I just wasn’t ready for that.