As a child, I was filled with deep curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. I could be found playing with my brother on my family farm, spending time with my animals, particularly my dogs or cockatiels, and almost always with a book in my hand.

As a teenager, though I remained passionate about my animals, and could still be found with a book in hand, I began to slowly lose my spark.

I found my personality consumed by an eating disorder that began ruling my life. I battled daily with anxieties about lunch, mirrors, and exercising in increasingly greater quantities.

I was hungry and exhausted all the time, and my anxiety spiralled into a depression that robbed me of joy and left me feeling as though life wasn’t worth living. As I began VCE I placed increasing pressure on myself to perform academically and I began to self-harm. My self-harm quickly became the only way I could begin to make sense of my dysregulated and perfectionistic nervous system.

I wish I could say there was a moment I fully 'recovered'; a moment all the pain and hurt vanished, but that would be untrue. What I experienced was an incremental, undulating path, where I took each day one at a time.

A psychologist at Headspace, and my family, particularly my mother, were determined not to lose me, and they helped me fight, challenging everything the eating disorder had convinced me was true.

Patience and kindness for myself became the hardest and most rewarding lessons I could learn.

Perhaps the greatest salve for my mental health came in the form of an autism diagnosis at 22, affirming that my way of processing the world was not broken, it was just different. It helped me to find a language for my struggles; a framework though which I could categorise my pain.

Today, I am not that different from who I was as a child. I am still curious, quiet, and love reading. But my curiosity is tainted with a caution for the pain the world holds, and my quietness is edged with a steely determination to improve the world in my own small way.

I carry my scars and my story with more than a touch of sadness, but I take comfort in the sense of self and identity I have gained through my experiences. I have good days and bad days, and sometimes I just have days, and that’s okay.

– Teagan

Conversations about mental health and mental illness can sometimes be difficult, and reading about other people going through the same things as you might be confronting. If you need to talk, reach out to our counselling team.