About Me

Hi there,

My name is Brinn, and currently I started this blog as a 19 year-old community college student studying English. Now, I am attending UCLA at 20 years old.

Though I was born in Utah and moved to several different places throughout my life, I have spent the majority of my upbringing in California with my two sisters, baby half-brother, my two parents, and my best friend and dog, Gus. I grew up playing sports, which quickly became the main focus of my everyday life. A competitive tennis player planning to go professional, I eventually found myself faced with a myriad of life struggles. During my teenage years, I battled ongoing depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and body dysmorphia. Meanwhile, my parents decided to get a divorce, shortly after my family collectively left a religion which we had been dedicated to our whole lives. In all, life was chaotic. During this time period, I experienced some of the lowest points of my life I’ve ever been in.

After seeking therapy, I began healing myself and working through many of the challenges I faced. I eventually decided to quit competitive tennis and explore new interests such as writing, reading, running, yoga, meditation, music, travel, and more. Essentially, I started to discover the true me.

As the years progressed, I found myself faced with more hardship, especially regarding my relationship with food, eating, exercise, and my body. For many years, I battled what I refused to accept was an eating disorder. In the winter of 2022, after falling into perhaps the darkest period of my life, huddled in the abyss of my eating disorder, I finally realized that I needed help. It was then that I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and referred to a residential eating disorder facility—just in time to avoid immediate hospitalization.

My journey through residential was a long, enlightening, and tremendously difficult one. I consider it both the hardest experience of my life and also one of the greatest ones. I learned so much about myself in treatment: I gained insight and knowledge about myself, eating disorders, and mental, physical, and emotional health that I might never have discovered otherwise. The support and love I received from my parents and family, therapists, doctors, dietitians, psychiatrists, nurses, and other patients, was life-changing. When I left residential, I felt that I was a new person, but also somehow my old, true self. I continued treatment in PHP and I am now navigating recovery on my own.

Working through my eating disorder is an everyday struggle—one that I feel I might be on, on and off, up and down, for the rest of my life. But because of what recovery has taught me, I know that I can now handle whatever comes my way. As I continue to travel down my own path, I strive to help others who are struggling with disordered eating. I want to share my insights and provide support to anyone and everyone, regardless of where they are in their journey.

While at times I wish more than anything that I could wipe away my struggles with disordered eating, I am beyond grateful for what this hardship has taught me. As Rumi writes in their poem “The Guest House:”

“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival…
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”

That said, I am now prepared to face whatever challenge comes my way, and whatever emotions come with that. This next chapter in my life is full of possibility. The past summer of 2024, I had the opportunity to travel to Paris to study abroad for five weeks. I cannot put into words how life-changing, tremendously exciting and fun, and transformative this experience was for me. I met some incredible human beings, visited places I’ve dreamt of seeing since I was a young girl, tried amazing food, and really explored my love for travel on a whole new level. As with every trip, Paris had its beautiful moments and its difficult moments—but those moments were all part of the spectacular journey I embarked on. For that, I am incredibly grateful.

This fall, I moved to LA to start my undergraduate schooling at UCLA. Never did I think I would be accepted into such a phenomenal school, but I am so proud of myself, my accomplishments, and my hard work over the years—all of which got me to this point. I am likewise immensely thankful for my family, friends, and co-workers who supported me along the way as I navigated community college and eventually earned my Associate Degree in English. I cannot wait to see where this big transition takes me in this new chapter of my Life. I know that there will be hard aspects of this new lifestyle, but I am hopeful that I will thrive in LA, taking the good and the bad as necessary counterparts of my experience.

With Love,

Brinn W.