High school was kind of a hard time for me. It’s funny because I’ve done cheerleading since I was about 7 years old. I just fell in love with it and that’s what my passion was for years and years. But then before Grade 9, I stopped it because it was that age group where there was a lot of drama on the team, and I just felt like I needed a break. Those two years I took off from cheer, so Grades 9 and 10, that’s when I fell into some bad habits. My mental health definitely suffered. I had my eating disorder and depression and anxiety came along with it.
I’m very bubbly. And on the cheer team, I’m always laughing and making people laugh. You don’t typically look at me and think, ‘Oh, she’s gone through things.’ I think it’s important for people to talk. And I love talking about all that stuff because the more people know that somebody has gone through something and came out the other end okay, it’s like people know it can always get better. It just helps to know you’re not alone, you’re not crazy because of what you’ve gone through.
I think social media was the biggest thing. I remember watching this girl on YouTube and her channel was all about fitness and eating and how you should be eating. She was vegan and gluten free, so she was very strict in what she ate. I thought, ‘Oh, so how I’ve been eating isn’t normal’ kind of thing. I remember seeing her pictures on Instagram and what her body looks like and looking at mine and thinking, ‘Okay, well I don’t look like that, so there’s something wrong because she’s saying this is how you should look.’ At the same time, I didn’t know I had celiac. When I was eating, I was like ‘Why do I feel so sick after I eat?’ I remember going to my mom and being like, ‘Is this normal?’
I’ve always been used to being busy, from age 7 and up or so. My friends that weren’t as involved in sports were sort of like, ‘Can you hang out?’ and it was always like, ‘No, I’ve gotta go to cheer.’ I was always busy and loved being busy and having things to do. And that exercise, where it’s like you have to go and you have to get that exercise and you don’t realize you’re working so hard because it’s fun at the same time. Then adrenalin after and the endorphins, you feel so much better. You don’t even really realize how much you’re helping yourself.
Me and my sister were close, which was good. We were besties. We would fight a lot, but we always had each other’s backs. My sister has always been kind of like a role model for me. She was there for me during my high school years and then in university. Any issues I have she’s always been there for me. I had a lot of close friends that lived next door or across the street. That was nice to have as well. My parents were always very involved. They always wanted us to be in something. It didn’t matter what it was. We did taekwondo as a family and we actually went to the World Cup in England for it.
We did a lot of trips to Ontario almost every summer because my dad’s parents are from there. So we would go and see my cousins and we would always camp together. That was probably one of my best memories. There’s a story from the last time we were there. There was a microburst, which is a mixture of a hurricane and a tornado. I went into the trailer and my sister and mom were in the campground washrooms. The doors were swinging and the lights were flickering and stuff. My dad went in the bathroom and said stay there, don’t go outside kind of thing. He went to get something from the trunk of the car and I’m just sitting in the window watching this all happen. I’m like, 'Oh, what’s going on outside?' My dad’s at the trunk and then he shuts the trunk door and walks away. Seconds later a tree falls on the trunk of the car.
