Approximately 1 in 5 adults battle mental illness every year. That means, if you and four other friends are in one room, at least one of you is dealing with a mental illness. Think about that. Mental illness is closer to you than you think and yet, no one talks about it. Silence leads to stigma.
Through starting conversations and giving back to mental health initiates, Canadian clothing brand Wear Your Label is breaking the silence to ultimately end the stigma (in style). Co-founder Kayley Reed has opened up to us – sharing her personal story and how she now wears her label with pride.
My name is Kayley Reed, and I’m recovering from Anorexia Nervosa. But that’s just a label.
It was about a year ago that I shared my label for the first time with some of the closest people in my life. But for months before, I had hidden my struggles. Like many others, I felt completely isolated in what I was fighting. I was my own worst enemy.
The best way I can describe my experiences, is with a quote that has always resonated with me:
“Battling an eating disorder is like fighting a war, in which the opponent’s strategy is to convince you that the war isn’t happening.”
For so long, I was in denial of my illness. Despite what doctors, nutritionists, counsellors and psychologists told me, I thought “I can’t have that. I am NOT that.”
Let’s be real: stigma is scary. What’s scarier though, is when that stigma is engrained in yourself. As someone who had grown up in a middle-class home, did well in school, and had a loving family, I didn’t think I fit the bill for mental illness. How could I have an eating disorder?
But that’s the nature of stigma. We perceive things that we don’t understand, in an uneducated and insensitive way. And that’s exactly what I had done. I had been given this label that I didn’t associate with, and began to judge myself based on the stereotypes that I’d been fed by the media, and others in society.
The truth is, mental illness doesn’t discriminate.
I’ve always been thin. My friends in high school would tell me how “lucky” I was to be skinny; boys in university would compliment my body as we flirted. I was used to being the skinny girl, but what’s worse: I was made to feel privileged because I was thin.
So when professionals told me I had to gain weight to become healthy again, I was terrified. Being thin had been a part of my identity for so long, and I know it sounds twisted, but I was scared at the thought of losing a part of who I was – and perhaps, losing that privilege. My eating disorder had become a comfortable crutch; a label I didn’t want to own up to, but also didn’t want to let go of.
I was letting my label take ownership over me.
But somewhere along the line, between support groups, recovery and relapse, new friends, and starting a social enterprise… I began to take ownership over my label.
Society tells us that we should fear diagnosis; that being “labelled” is a negative thing. Hell, we even hear things like: “Labels are for soup cans, not people.” And while the intentions are there, and it’s nice in theory, it’s something I’ve taken issue with. Why? Because by giving mental health labels a negative connotation, we are dismissing opportunities to create conversations, and this just perpetuates stigma further.
Today, I no longer fear my label. Rather, I see it for what it is: a descriptor to what I have experienced, but not something that defines me.
It was a long process.
It wasn’t easy.
It still isn’t.
But I can finally wear my label with pride, knowing that I’m not alone.