Why Mental Health Awareness Month Matters So Deeply to Me

Mental Health Awareness Month is one I hold very close to my heart… because I have been to the depths of despair.

In 2015, I couldn’t understand what was happening to me.
I had two beautiful children whom I loved deeply, and I was living on a sunny island in the Atlantic… but every month, I felt like my life was a bit pointless.

I was overweight, foggy, anxious, and in pain most of the time.
And then, once a month, I would feel an even deeper sense of despair layered on top of everything else.

I started to notice a pattern—it always seemed to happen around my cycle.

So I went to see my gynecologist, who immediately removed the Mirena coil I’d had for two years to manage difficult symptoms. For me, it wasn’t helping. It was affecting my hormones in a way that didn’t feel right in my body.

But even after that, I was still battling constant anxiety and brain fog while trying to care for two children.

It wasn’t until 2018—after two years of working with a nutritionist, seeing a functional medicine doctor, and discovering I had another autoimmune condition—that things truly began to change.

At the time, I was also completing my degree.
I came across an elimination diet designed to support autoimmune conditions and decided to try it.

Within four days, my anxiety started to lift.
Within two weeks, my brain fog had cleared.
I had more energy.
And most importantly, I felt happier.

That experience changed everything for me.

Because it made me realize something I had never been told before:

If I hadn’t removed the foods that were driving inflammation in my body, no amount of therapy alone would have made me feel better.

Not because therapy doesn’t work—it absolutely does.
But because my body was under constant internal stress.

Inflammation was driving my immune system to attack my thyroid.
That disruption meant I wasn’t properly metabolizing or using nutrients.
And that left me depleted in the very nutrients my brain needed to function well.

My mental health wasn’t “just mental.”
It was deeply physical.

And that’s why I do the work I do today.

Because sometimes, what we label as anxiety, low mood, or brain fog…is the body asking for support.

Not instead of therapy.
But alongside it.

If something doesn’t feel right, it’s worth looking a little deeper.