One of my primary goals with this company is to create a platform where people, more specifically women, can have open, honest, and raw dialogue; I want to start a conversation and create community within shared experiences, hardships, and emotions that facilitates the pursuit of health and strength. On social media, we see so much of the good - the progress, the wins, the beauty; but, in the fabric of our lives there are two kinds of threads that are woven together to define the human experience. There are the threads woven from moments of joy, triumph, and love. These threads infuse color and vibrancy into our fabric as their intricacies intertwine and whisper stories and anecdotes of beauty, success, and growth. But, alongside the vibrant hues are darker threads, ones that speak of pain, suffering, and trauma. The experiences that weave these threads, whether large or small, shape who we are and leave lasting imprints on our minds. For some, this shapes who they are for the rest of their lives; for others, it shapes who they strive to become; for me, I’m choosing the latter. There is a transformative power that arises from making the choice to confront our trauma, to open up about experiences, to have a raw dialogue, and to let the light in as we breathe life back into the shadows. In this blog post, we embark on a journey of introspection as I explore and recognize the complexities of trauma, the courage it takes to share our stories, and how embracing the dark threads helped me redefine strength.

I have been very open about my struggles with an eating disorder, but I haven’t delved into the details of what precipitated the disorder and acted as a catalyst. I strayed away from talking about it for two reasons:

1. For a very long time, I didn’t know. I told myself that I was smarter than that and I knew better than to engage in the behaviors I was and do that to my body. Something else was taking over and I couldn’t figure it out. It took countless hours in therapy to truly find what the root of the disorder was, and even then I feel like it’s so multifaceted that the trigger we identified is only one piece of the puzzle.

2. I thought I dealt with it and moved on. I didn’t talk about it because in my head it was a non-issue. It wasn’t until this past year as I started to fall back into the same response patterns and cycles and reached a breaking point that I was able to look back at my behavior and see that there was still an open wound that I had yet to heal.

   
   

If you talk to any licensed professional in the ED field, they consistently say one thing: the disorder has absolutely nothing to do with food. It is a manifestation of some other underlying issue that varies from person to person and can’t be put into a box. For me, the disorder was a trauma response and desire to regain control. I’ll be brief with the details, but in college I was in an abusive relationship - both physically and emotionally. He would cheat and get physical with me whenever he would drink and proceed to gaslight me the next morning and say I was lying because I was also drinking so I wasn’t a reliable source. This was a huge reason why I stopped drinking. I want to always be aware of my surroundings and I never want anyone to be able to say that to me ever again. I dealt with his behavior for a long time, under the guise that this is just what love is and he does care about me; but, after a very bad night that left me battered, bruised, and with dents covering my apartment door I ended it and tried to separate myself. As much as I could separate myself from the man and the relationship, the impact it had was very deep and my behaviors started to get more and more extreme. I couldn’t control what he did to me, the way he made me feel unloved and unworthy, the way he continued to stalk me, my friends, and my family; but, I could control my food, I could try and control what I looked like, I could try and look more like those other girls, and I got addicted to that feeling of safety within the illusion of control as I tried to make myself as small as possible. The result? I passed out alone, in the middle of COVID stay-at-home protocols, and woke up on my bathroom floor. It was that moment, April 13th 2020, that I chose recovery.

From that day forward, my focus shifted to healing my body, putting on weight, and reestablishing relationships throughout my life. I did the work, I put on the weight, and my passion for training and building strength led me to a new career where I started working in a corporate gym. Overall, I felt like I was doing better as I was seeking to learn, grow, and develop as a coach and utilize the people around me as sources of knowledge and wisdom. At some point, culture shifted and I started feeling like I wasn’t growing, supported, or wanted. I started relapsing, I started acting out, and I started falling back into old patterns of behavior that I am not proud of. With therapy and new response strategies I was able to get the relapses under control, but I was still struggling. Old feelings of being unwanted, useless, and underappreciated started bubbling to the surface and there came a moment when a manager in the building began making inappropriate advances and propositions towards me. I was afraid to say no, fearing the loss of support from another person, and I was afraid to confide in anyone, doubting anyone would believe me over him.

It became a cycle of abuse. Some days he would come in and be incredibly nice, caring, and everything was fine, others he would come in and when I didn’t give him what he wanted I would end up being yelled at until I cried. I dealt with it because I thought he cared - at least that meant one person was on my side. That illusion was shattered when I started to notice patterns in his behavior when he was interacting with other women in the gym. He wasn’t only doing this to me, he was doing it to other women. When I came to this realization, I completely cut him off and this only made his behavior more erratic, unpredictable, and I was falling apart trying to handle it on my own. When I took the leap and reached out for help, I put my trust in the wrong people and ended up losing trust in everyone. I felt alone. I became numb. My day consisted of coming in early enough for my lift that he wouldn’t catch me before I started, pretending everything was normal, and putting on my best front to make sure that I didn’t say or do something that would upset him and make things worse for myself. Adapt or die - that was my response. I can’t count the number of times I left the building crying, I can’t count the number of excuses I made up to make sure I wasn’t alone with him, I can’t count the number of panic attacks I had where I called my mom from a bathroom, I can’t count the number of times I felt my stomach drop when he was in a bad mood and I was terrified I would be on the receiving end. I started searching for support from anywhere I could, no matter what that looked like. I just wanted to feel like someone cared enough about me to listen when I asked for help, which led to me tolerating more and more harassment from the people around me. Some of the comments that will forever echo inside my head:

1. With an ass like that you better be careful you don’t cause this entire building to shake and fall down.

2. Maybe if you were less abrasive people would actually like you for more than just your body.

3. You’re a manipulative and horrible person and you just want everyone in the building to want to fuck you.

4. An ass that nice is going to milk the cum right out of you.

   
   

I’m not listing those things to make myself seem like a victim - I am not responsible for what was said to me, but I am responsible for how I responded. I was desperate to feel supported and protected in a space so I just didn’t say anything, I let the comments happen, and would just laugh or play along - adapt or die. I was adapting in the wrong way and starting to see myself the way those comments painted me and putting more and more of my worth into my physical appearance. I turned into a version of myself I didn’t like, one that didn’t stand up for herself, and was physically and emotionally breaking down. I had no trust in the system around me, so I chose to remove myself from the system entirely.

Quitting was the best decision I ever made. I got space from the situation and started to reflect on who I am, who I want to be, and the steps I need to take to bridge the gap between the two. I started building a company with a mission that resonates with my experiences and empowers women to take control of and optimize their health. After a year of feeling stagnant, I was growing again. However, I still wasn’t sleeping, didn’t want to eat, getting regular panic attacks, and found myself still acting out and trying to find ways to get someone to listen to me. I knew of at least three other women who the manager had done the same thing to and had my suspicions about five or six more. Every time I would try and relax all I could think about was him doing it to someone else. I’m not a religious person, but I had what I refer to as my “come-to-Jesus” moment when I was building out the pillars for R7 Strength and the overarching principle that your body is the only thing with you in all seven pillars and solidifies health throughout all aspects of life. People come and go in your life, the only person with you from start to finish is you. I was scared to report him because I knew rumors would fly, my name would probably get drug through the mud, and coworkers I spent years with would stop talking to me. I could live with no one from that gym ever talking to me again, I would fit whatever narrative they built and need and that’s okay, it would hurt but the pain would pass and I’d move forward. I could not live with myself knowing that I didn’t try like hell to make sure that no one else was subjected to the same harassment and abuse I was. I could deal with whatever repercussions came from me speaking up, whatever they may be, because I came to the realization that no matter what happened if I didn’t say something I would always feel complicit in it happening to someone else. Regardless of if corporate listened and believed me, I wanted it documented so if any other woman chose to speak up there would at least be corroboration and they would listen to her and make her feel heard.

So, I put my trust in the system one last time, a hail mary. I sent in my exit interview and told them everything, provided as much evidence as I could, and braced myself for the fallout. They opened an investigation and set up a follow-up call with HR. I don’t know if you’ve ever cried for two hours on a video call with someone you just met that day, but 10/10 would not recommend. I told her everything I could, I relived every memory I was trying so hard to forget, and interjected apologies in between sobs as I kept saying how sorry I was for how I acted and being that naive to what was actually happening. It was in the middle of one of those apologies that the HR woman stopped me, mid-sentence, and told me to stop apologizing. I was reiterating how I know I could have done better, that it’s my fault, I’m responsible for my actions and not saying something sooner, but I just couldn’t bare the thought of him doing it to someone else and she said, “stop apologizing for how someone else treated you and your response to abuse - you’re blaming yourself for his behavior but drawing a line when it comes to another woman in the same situation. It’s amazing what we tolerate for ourselves but won’t tolerate for other people.” That has stuck with me ever since. The words of a stranger, someone I just met, have been in my head as they exemplify the stark contrast between the grace we give others but not to ourselves. After the call, I felt a weight lift off my chest. I said something, I took control, and I didn’t rely on someone else “caring about me” to validate my experience. He was held accountable for his actions, and since then I have had multiple other women from the gym reach out to me and talk about the things he said and did to them. My experience didn’t exist in a vacuum; unfortunately, it was shared. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling angry and hurt, letting my emotions dictate how I feel about the entire situation, but I came to the realization that the past year pushed me towards the future I want for myself and showed me how using your voice can have an impact. It hurt, but it revealed the trauma I still need to heal, the responses that still need to be rewired, and helped me redefine what strength means to me.

How do I define strength?

Strength is finding my voice - one that recognizes the dark threads. The dark threads of my tapestry weave together a narrative of a girl who felt unwanted, unloved, and unappreciated. She sought control as a way of keeping herself from falling apart. She rebuilt her body after pushing it to its limit but neglected to address the wounds that precipitated the disorder. She relied on the dark threads to keep herself suspended as the band aids started to fall away in the past year, but when that last thread lost its structural integrity and everything came careening down around her it brought light back to the dark. Just as chiaroscuro creates beauty and depth in art by showcasing the interplay between light and shadow, my voice creates beauty and depth in my story as the light and dark threads weave together to create a rich tapestry of growth, pain, resilience, and potential. It echoes the trauma and hardships of my past, embraces who I am in the present, and enables me to share my journey. Sometimes all it takes is the words of a stranger to put everything in perspective. Sometimes all it takes is a moment of introspection to push you to redefine strength.