YouAreEnough

I’ve been watching someone unravel in real time all over their social media pages—and I don’t know what to do.

Post after post. Video after video. At all hours of the day and night. There’s no pause, no sense of rest. Just a constant stream that feels impossible to keep up with, even as a viewer.

At first glance for many, it looks like they’re just having fun. Expressing themself like they’ve done in the past. But the tone has  shifted this week. Things don’t add up. The lines between reality and something else entirely have blurred, and not just for those watching, but for them too.

And that’s the part that sits heavy with me, because to them, it’s all real.

And if I’m being honest, it’s hard not to recognize what this likely is. The intensity, the lack of sleep, the rapid posting, the grand and inconsistent stories—it all points to someone in the middle of a severe mental health crisis. Behaviour that feels manic. Delusional. Possibly even psychosis.

That realization doesn’t make it easier. It makes it heavier.

Several years ago, I got pulled into their world, into their drama and chaos, the confusion, the emotional weight of trying to make sense of things that didn’t make sense to me. It was too much. I had to step away to protect myself.

So now I watch from a distance, carrying both the awareness of what this might be, and the memory of what it cost my mental health last time.

I’ve always been someone who feels things deeply; an empath by nature, which makes it even harder to look away.

Every instinct in me says, help them, but my past experience tells me, I just can’t.

They don’t seem to have anyone close to them. No friends to step in. No family to  show up for them. Just an online presence, watching, scrolling, whispering their concerns privately, but not intervening.

And I get it. Because here I am, doing the same thing. Watching. Worrying. But not acting. And that’s where the guilt steps in. I’ve worked really hard over the last many years building my advocacy work and a whole platform around helping others. None of that has changed.

So then what does it say about us when we know someone is clearly struggling and feel paralyzed to get involved.

When you have compassion but your self-preservation is more important?

I don’t know where that line is drawn when you need to protect your own peace and mental health.

I do know that I can care about someone’s well-being from a distance. I recognize how unwell they are, but I’m also not the one who can fix it. Especially if they can’t see there is something wrong.

I feel heartbreak and boundaries all at once but maybe that’s the space I need to sit in for now. Holding the weight of it while watching from a distance, and hoping, somehow, that someone closer to them will be able to reach them in a way I just can’t.

#988 #mentalhealth #youmatter

Yesterday was “National Erase Self-Negativity Day”—but I was too busy talking down to myself to even notice ☺️.

This week has felt overwhelmingly heavy. My anxiety has been loud, and my thoughts even louder—negative, persistent, and hard to shake. No matter how much I tried to distract myself, the feelings stayed close.

So today, I leaned into something different.

With the sun shining, crisp spring air, and not a cloud in the sky, Rich, Rachel, and I drove out to Elmira, Ontario to the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival to celebrate two of my favourite things; spring and maple syrup. In its 62nd year, it’s a celebration full of history, community spirit, and (of course) maple syrup—holding a Guinness World Record as the largest festival of its kind in the world. 80,000 visitors in one day.

But more than anything, today was about getting out of my head.

It was about choosing joy—even if I had to go looking for it.

It was about honouring National Erase Self-Negativity Day: a reminder to practice self-love and challenge that inner voice that can be so quick to tear us down. Something I know I need to keep working on.

So today, I’m leaning into a technique I’ve learned called “Catch, Check, Erase”.

Three simple steps:
Catch the negative thought.
Check if it’s true, and
Erase it—then replace it with a kinder, more positive, empowering affirmation.

Today, I remind myself: I am enough.

#nationaleraseselfnegativityday #selflove #empowering #affirmations #iamenough #elmiramaplesyrupfestival #mentalhealth #anxiety #joy #spring #maplesyrup

I had a colonoscopy this morning. I had already rescheduled it three times before today.

It wasn’t my first—and it won’t be my last.

The first time was about seven or eight years ago, when my body started speaking in ways I didn’t yet understand. Ongoing stomach issues. Discomfort that wouldn’t settle. Questions with no clear answers. My doctor sent me for both a colonoscopy and an endoscopy, hoping to find something.

At the time, I was already deep in my mental health journey—cycling through antidepressants, one after another, sometimes three or four at once. Each one meant to help, but many of them left me feeling worse physically than they were helping mentally. My body was reacting, even if I couldn’t fully connect the dots yet.

More than 20 concoctions of medications and a hundred-pound weight gain later, I made the decision to stop them altogether.

It wasn’t easy—and it wasn’t a decision to take lightly. It was scary, if I’m being honest. My psychiatrist at the time was uneasy about my decision, but Rich supported me fully after watching me suffer through side effects that felt just as overwhelming as the mental health battle itself.

By that point, I had already been diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression and something in me knew I needed to listen to my body. Every time I had a severe physical reaction, I was sent from one specialist to another—cardiologists, gastroenterologists, rheumatologists just to name a few. And yet, each time I weaned off a medication, my symptoms would disappear.

My body exhaled.

But the story didn’t end there. Because colon cancer runs in my family, my gastroenterologist and GP both urged me to continue routine colonoscopies.

So I do.

Even though every part of me wants to avoid it—which is why I rescheduled this one three times.

Yes, the prep is awful. Yes, the anxiety builds. But what people don’t always see is how triggering this is for me. My history with inpatient care over the last dozen years and multiple rounds of ECT has left me with PTSD and medical trauma. Hospital smells, gowns, the loss of control—these things don’t feel routine to me. They bring me back.

My body holds my stories. My past. My healing. My truth.

When the procedure was over this morning, I could finally breathe—until the doctor told me she wants to repeat it again soon. I told her I couldn’t go through this again “soon.” She understood, and we agreed on a date in December.

Because the truth is, these procedures aren’t just routine.

They’re responsibility.
They’re prevention.
They’re choosing to show up for the uncomfortable things.
They’re an act of choosing myself, even when it’s hard.

I’ve learned the hard way that ignoring my body doesn’t serve me. Listening to it does.

So I’m trying.

And if there’s anything I’ve learned through all of this, it’s this:

Take care of your body. Go for the check-ups.
Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

#colonoscopy #anxiety #prep #treatmentresistantdepression #mentalhealth #physicalhealth #listentoyourbody #youareenough #triggers #trauma #ptsd

Today is one of those days that sits heavy on my heart.

It marks three months since my mom’s passing.
And it also marks twelve years since my mental health journey began.

Both truths living side by side.

This morning, I felt called to attend Shabbat services at the synagogue where I work—to mark both of these moments in a way that felt grounding and sacred. I surrounded myself with community, said a prayer for my mom, and was honoured with opening the Ark.

It felt meaningful.
It felt necessary.
It felt like showing up—for her, and for me.

Twelve years ago today—on April 4, 2014—my life changed forever.

It was a Friday afternoon.
5:00 p.m., to be exact.

A moment so clearly etched in my memory, it still replays as though it were yesterday.

For those who have never read about that day, I once shared the full story here:
https://youareenough712.wordpress.com/2019/04/04/april-4-2014-its-been-five-long-years/

Today, the echoes of that time feel especially loud. Old wounds. Childhood trauma. Triggers that don’t ask for permission before they arrive.

Twelve years.

A dozen years of battling depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.

That’s a long time.

Twelve years ago, I said the words “I want to die” for the very first time. Words that, over the years, I acted on more times than I can count.

Back then, it truly felt like the world would be better off without me in it.
And if I’m being honest, that feeling still lives somewhere deep in my wiring.

But there is something else that lives there now too.

Because somehow—through all of it—I am still here.

Still fighting.
Still choosing, again and again, to stay.

I couldn’t have imagined, twelve years ago, the version of me that exists today.

Not because the pain is gone—but because I’ve learned how to live alongside it.

I no longer fight to get my life back to what it once was. That version of me is gone. In her place, someone new emerged that day.

And while she still carries many of the same feelings, she has also grown in ways I never thought possible.

She has learned to ask for help.
To understand her trauma and recognize her triggers.
To set healthy boundaries.
To practice self-care—not as a luxury, but as a necessity.

She has found her voice.

Through writing.
Through sharing.
Through telling her story—in a blog, and in a published children’s book.

She has found purpose in places that once only held pain.
And she continues to advocate—not just for herself, but for others who aren’t yet able to.

She is stronger than she gives herself credit for.
More resilient than she ever imagined.

And so today, I hold both grief and growth.

I miss my mom in ways that words will never fully capture.
And I honour the version of me who, twelve years ago, didn’t think she would survive—but somehow did.

I am not grateful for the pain.
But I am deeply grateful for what I’ve learned, for who I’ve become, and for the people who have carried me when I couldn’t carry myself.

To those who have walked beside me—whether from the very beginning or somewhere along the way—thank you.

For your kindness.
For your compassion.
For not letting go of me.

Twelve years later… I’m still here.

And that matters.

#youareenough #twelveyearslater #grief #mentalhealth #depression #anxiety #suicidalideations #purpose #resilience #advocacy #writer #author #blogger

There are dates that live quietly in the background.

Dates that arrive each year carrying more than memory. Carrying weight. Questions. Trauma. A kind of knowing you can feel in your body.

April 2, 2022 is one of those dates for me.

I remember that morning so clearly.

I woke up after a restless night’s sleep, filled with a kind of cautious hope I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was finally on my way to begin a psilocybin clinical trial. I was beyond grateful for the opportunity to be part of this important research—the first of its kind in Canada. It felt like a doorway. Like maybe, finally, I would find relief from the weight of treatment-resistant depression and the darkness I had been carrying for so long.

But there was one thing still standing in my way.

When I arrived at the clinic, I knew there would be a mandatory rapid COVID test before treatment could begin. It was standard at the time.

Earlier that week, though, I had been exposed to COVID—twice. Jacob being one, and a psychiatrist I had spent hours with in close quarters just days before being the other. I had managed to avoid COVID until then, but that morning, everything felt uncertain.

It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. Everything depended on it. If the test came back positive, I would be sent home. I might have to wait months for another chance.

When the nurse finally returned and gave me the green light to proceed—and told Rich he could go home and they’d call him when I was done—I felt overwhelming relief.

I didn’t know then what that “yes” would come to mean.

Because here is the truth I live with now:

I have spent every day since wishing that test had been positive.

Wishing I had been turned away.
Wishing I had been told, “Not today.”
Wishing, somehow, that things might have unfolded differently.

Wishing I hadn’t spent the next six hours lying on an uncomfortable couch, eye mask on, headphones blaring a dark and disturbing playlist created for the trial—my body convulsing and spasming, while two doctors sat nearby, observing, pen and paper in hand, without once stepping in to ground or calm me.

For four years now, since that day, my body has been in constant turmoil.

What was meant to be hope—a clinical trial, a chance at relief—became something else entirely. A rare, unrelenting neurological disorder that has reshaped every part of my daily life.

The constant tics.
The constant spasms and PGAD.
The numbness and tingling in my hands and feet day and night.
The sensitivity to touch and sound.

A body that no longer feels like a safe place to exist.

Four years. Countless specialists. No answers. No resolution.

Just learning, day by day, how to live inside something that doesn’t let up.

And last night, as we gathered around the Seder table with family and loved ones, I felt the weight of it all pressing in at once.

Passover—the holiday of memory, of telling, of carrying the past into the present.

And there I was, carrying more than I could hold.

The absence of my mom was there, too.

Even though she had stepped away from holidays for many years, something about this one felt different. More final. More real. She isn’t just somewhere else, choosing not to come because she wasn’t feeling well.

She is not here.
Not present.
Not alive.

And my body felt it.

What began as discomfort quickly escalated into one of the worst neurological flare-ups I have experienced in these four years. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t hide it. My body moved in ways I couldn’t control—tics, spasms, waves of sensation overtaking me completely.

I felt exposed. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Vulnerable. Uncomfortable.

While everyone else sat around the table retelling the story of Passover, I was fighting my own body, trying to will it into stillness.

Rich gently encouraged me to get up, to walk, to try and shake it off.

But nothing helped.

Last night felt like everything colliding at once.

Grief.
Memory.
Regret.
The endless “what ifs.”

What if that test had been positive?
What if I had come back another day?
What if…?

But Passover reminds us of something deeper, too.

Maybe freedom, for me right now, isn’t about being released from this.

Maybe it’s about loosening the hold of the “what ifs.”
Making space, however small, between me and the pain.
To keep showing up inside a body that feels unbearable.
To sit at the table anyway.
To tell my story, even when it trembles on the way out.
And remembering that even here, even in this, I am still more than what has happened to me.

Maybe being imperfectly perfect is its own kind of exodus.

#psilocybin #clinicaltrial #fouryearslater #mentalhealth #treatmentresistantdepression #grief #memory #neurological #imperfectlyperfect

As Passover begins this evening, I can feel my grief and mental health sitting close beside me.

Several friends have reached out this week, asking if this first holiday without my mom feels especially hard. And they’re right—“firsts” after loss carry a particular weight. But the truth is more complicated. For many years now, my mom wasn’t at our holiday table. She would often decline at the last minute, usually saying she wasn’t feeling well.

At her funeral, I spoke about how much I loved Passover and Rosh Hashanah as a child—because of her. She created something beautiful in those early years, something warm and full of meaning. And so, as I enter this holiday now, I find myself holding two truths at once: sadness for all that she missed, and deep gratitude for the memories she gave us.

In the days ahead, as we gather around the Seder table with family and friends by my side, I know there will be moments that feel heavy. This time of year already comes with its own set of emotional triggers, and this weekend carries additional layers—marking three months since my mom’s passing, four years since a clinical research trial destroyed my neurological health, and twelve years since the beginning of my mental health journey.

It’s a lot to hold.

But Passover is, at its heart, a story of moving through pain toward something new. It reminds us that even in our most constricted moments, there is the possibility of release, of breath, of small steps forward.

So this year, I am choosing to show up as I am—carrying grief, honoring memory, and making space for joy where it finds me. I am choosing to continue to create the kind of holiday for my children that I once experienced, hoping they will carry those same warm memories with them forever.

Maybe that’s what this season asks of us—not to leave our pain behind, but to bring it with us to the table, alongside love, resilience, and hope.

Because even in the presence of grief, we are still allowed to gather, to remember, and to create meaning. And sometimes, simply showing up—with an open heart—is its own quiet kind of freedom.

#chagpesachsameach #happypassover #grief #mentalhealth #triggers #together #friendsandfamily

Today Rich and I took Maggie for a walk.

A brisk end-of-March kind of day—the kind where winter still lingers in the air, but spring quietly promises it’s on its way. The kind of slow, quiet Sunday afternoon that invites you to take your time.

This winter took a toll on all of us. Maggie included. She’s never been a fan of the cold (just like her mommy)—the snow, the wind, the endless chill. But this winter felt different. Harder.

Maggie will be 15 years young in a couple of weeks, and until now, she’s never really shown her age. But after this brutal winter, it’s been hard to ignore that it’s catching up with her. Some medical issues have surfaced, including significant weight loss—and when you’re only 7 pounds to begin with, that’s scary. The endless snowstorms and mounds of snow were simply too deep for her little legs. We pivoted—clearing a small pathway in the backyard so she could quickly run out and do her business. Walks became a thing of the past.

But today… we tried again.

No expectations. Just fresh air and a gentle nudge out the door.

We took her through the park—open air, lots of room to roam.

And then something shifted.

Maggie wanted to walk.

She took her time, sniffing every tree, frolicking through the dry leaves, letting them crunch beneath her paws. She paused often—not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She lifted her nose to the breeze, taking it all in. There was no rush. No pulling to go home.

Just being.

It might seem like a small thing. But for us, it meant everything.

And somewhere in all of it, my heart tries to convince me she’s going to live forever… right?

A reminder, on a slow Sunday afternoon, to notice. To feel the breeze, soak in the quiet, and take the walk when you can. 💛

#sundays #quiet #walk #maggie #gentlebreeze #mentalhealth #being #wellness

It’s been a long week.

The kind that lingers in your body and mind. I’m mentally drained, physically run down, overwhelmed, anxious as f@ck, and not sleeping. A neurological flare-up has stretched on for days, leaving me feeling nauseous and unable to focus. And underneath it all, grief is still there—something I’m carrying as I try to move forward.

I’ve been incredibly hard on myself this week.

Really hard.

I’ve expected more than I could give. I’ve pushed when I should have paused. Somewhere along the way, I forgot what self-compassion actually means.

Today, I tried to find my way back.

After work, I got my haircut. Nothing big or dramatic, but it felt like a reset—a quiet reminder that I deserve care too.

Sometimes self-care isn’t big or dramatic. It lives in the quiet choices, the small moments where we choose ourselves.

Tonight, I’m leaning into another kind of reset—welcoming Shabbat, taking a breath, and letting its rhythm slow me down. And maybe, just maybe, finding a bit of joy watching the boys of summer back in action for their home opener.

A pause. A reset. A softening.

Heading into the weekend, I’m trying to be a little gentler with myself.

Because maybe self-compassion isn’t something we master—maybe it’s something we return to, again and again, in small, meaningful ways.

Tonight, that feels like enough.

Shabbat Shalom

#selfcare #selfcompassion #mentalhealth #depression #anxiety #shabbatshalom #gojaysgo #haircut #homeopener #boysofsummer #grief #youareenough

Every Sunday afternoon, Jacob walks through the door with groceries in one hand—ready to prep meals for his busy week ahead—and a hamper full of dirty laundry in the other… which his dad happily accepts.

In no time at all, the kitchen turns into a full-blown whirlwind—counters covered, dishes everywhere, people bumping into each other, Maggie underfoot hoping something (anything) drops to the floor, and at least three conversations happening at once.

It’s messy. It’s loud. It’s chaotic.

But in the middle of it all, I see something pretty incredible. I see all three of my kids showing up for one another—working together, chopping veggies, laughing (and yes, sometimes arguing too), sharing stories, and building a bond that will outlast these moments.

And by the end of it all, we sit down together for a family dinner—slowing things down, sharing a meal, and soaking in that after-dinner quality time that somehow balances out the chaos of the day.

It’s these moments—the loud, messy, beautiful ones—that fill me up in a way nothing else can. 💛

#mythreereasonswhy #chaos #family #siblingbonds #qualitytime #moments #mentalhealth

This afternoon we walked along the water at Queen’s Quay, quietly longing for summer. We wandered into a few of the free exhibits and museums nearby, paused to watch a glassblowing class, and took the long way home—reminiscing at every corner of Yonge Street. I especially loved our walk down memory lane at the Harbourfront Centre’s “Mr. DressUp to Degrassi: 42 Years of Legendary Toronto Kids TV” reimagined, hands-on exhibit.

Oh, the memories it stirred. The nostalgia.

Nostalgia feels like a powerful companion in grief.

When you’re grieving someone who was deeply woven into your life, nostalgia gently fills parts of the space they’ve left behind. It reconnects you to what was—to moments when love was still active and alive. It lets you feel, even briefly, the warmth of having had.

It deepens your sense of connection, reminding you that your past is not gone—it still lives within you. And today, it brought me a quiet kind of comfort through familiarity.

So many of my childhood memories feel bittersweet—some even painful. But today didn’t feel triggering. Just soft, steady reminders of love.

Some people say nostalgia keeps us stuck. But in grief, I’m beginning to understand it differently. It’s in the little things—the ordinary moments that once felt insignificant but now feel like everything.

Sometimes a memory hits and it breaks me. Other times, it softens something in me.

Maybe that’s what nostalgia is in grief.
Not looking backward…
but reaching for something that still belongs to you.

#mrdressup #caseyandfinnegan #nostalgia #memories #grief #harbourfront #queensquay #mentalhealth