Meet our dear friend Jessica @jseid sharing her #yogasavedmylife story with us. These are her words 💚
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"I found yoga as a way to heal. Initially finding the time on my mat as a physical workout, it morphed into a practice that helped me to restore mentally and emotionally
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I wanted to die. More than once, I didn't want to be alive
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Not fitting in, not knowing where I belonged with a breakup as a catalyst in high school made me concoct a mixture of bleach and juice. Glass after glass, I swallowed it and waited. Waited until the ride to the hospital. Waited three days to be released into a life I didn't want to return to. Slept all day, didn't bathe, didn't eat, and became a shell of myself. I tried playing all the roles that everyone wanted me to play, danced the dances, and coasted by with minimal therapy and refused medication. This was a temporary solution like a weak tourniquet poorly tied, making way for a deeper depression forming stronger undercurrents
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College: still floating by, showing up to therapy when I didn't want to, and taking the pills prescribed. One day, too many pills swallowed, and another trip to the hospital. After being released this time, I wanted change. I was tired of putting on a mask everyday and still resisted medication. I met a psychiatrist who helped me realize the steps to change and that included doing something active. Going to the gym was out of the question, so yoga it was. I had to get rid of my own internal stigma of how taking antidepressants was weak--it wasn't
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Breath by breath, asana after asana, I re-discovered the mind-body connection that had gone missing. Yoga held me when I needed it the most, and it returned me to myself. This practice saved my life, and I don't regret any of it 🙏
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Jessica "
