No but respectfully, if you knew me before January 1st 2023, you didn’t know me at all. 

Casey until 20 was cold. Self serving. Operating blindly in this need to be loved. Just reacting to life with no awareness of the ripples in the pond. Or any awareness of how I had even gotten there. 

Casey until 29 was being abused, manipulated, shoving herself in a hole and smiling because that’s all she knew how to do. 

Then I escaped. January 1st, 2023 at midnight.

Casey in 2023 was shell shocked. Trying to figure out who she even was anymore. Trying to figure how to exist in a world that told me to be silent about what happened to me when I still barely understood it.

Casey in 2024 was just learning how to stand up again after her entire world exploded. Her life, her identity, and her confidence.

Casey in 2025 is still figuring her shit out. Yeah, I’m 31. And I’m a little late to the party. But I’m here. I’m facing my flaws. Facing my pain. Facing the truth. Facing life. And for the first time in my life, I actually trust this bitch to do what’s best for her. 

So let’s dive into this. It’s been 6 months since I blogged.

I’ve started a new thing. I am studying to become a certified holistic wellness coach. I am obsessed with being healthy. Like as a whole. Eating healthy, expressing my feelings, being in a healthy relationship, having healthy boundaries – just being a healthy human period. 

If I look back on my life, I quit self harming through running, breathing, counting my steps, and visualizing the toxicity leaving my body as I exhaled. Right out of high school I was working to get my massage therapy license – which I quit to fall into the pattern of running when life got hard. During my abuse, training for half marathons and triathlons helped me survive, and I was also certified as a hypnotist for a time – I was being abused and my abuser couldn’t allow me to have anything that he didn’t control so obviously that went no where. Once I escaped, strength training helped me build my confidence back. Through every stage of my life, I have relied on one form or another of physical training and holistic wellness to get me through a tough time. So choosing the health and wellness realm feels right. 

I’ve also been on a personal journey for almost the last year to holistically cure my symptoms of CPTSD, ADHD, anxiety and depression. – I am also aware that this new change into the fitness/wellness realm might be a hyper fixation – thank you ADHD. 

The latest change in my total wellness journey has been the realization and self education of the gut-brain connection. How what we eat has a direct effect on our mood, mental clarity, and decision making. For instance, did you know that there are studies that show that people who eat high protein (particularly protein from cows) tend to be more aggressive (link to article)? Or that diets high in processed foods have been linked to depression and anxiety (link to article)? For most of my life I ate a LOT of fast food and highly processed foods. Sure, I have a great metabolism and always been into fitness so I didn’t gain weight from it, but I have suffered from anxiety and depression my whole life. 

So, I’m eating clean, I’m meditating and doing breath work. Im taking my supplements, I’m hitting the gym – bruh, I’m doing all the things. And I’ve been able to be consistent with them, I have the mental energy to keep up my good habits and that is huge for me.

My therapist told me that I wasn’t going to find a program, diet, supplement, etc that was going to fix me… Because I’m “not broken, there’s nothing to fix.” Ouch. Yeah, I’ve also felt broken my whole life. Like if I could just be fill in the blank here, I would be loved. Maybe I’m still trying to prove to myself that I’m lovable. Maybe I’m still trying to fix something that’s not broken. But it’s hard to not see myself as broken when if there was truly nothing wrong with me, how did I not see what was happening to me for so long? If nothing was wrong with me, how did I say to myself for yearssssss, “I deserve this pain”? 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, “you were manipulated, groomed, you didn’t grow up seeing a healthy relationship so how could you know” Blah, blah, blah. I know all the things to say to myself when I get in my head about it. But it doesn’t take away the fact that I lived it. I put up with it. I hid it. I lied about it. In a lot of ways, it feels like I protected it. 

It’s hard. To leave such intense abuse and walk around and not have your entire world tainted by that experience. EVERYTHING is filtered through the lens of abuse. Even 2.5 years after escaping. 

Today I can look at myself and see strength, kindness, compassion, and a vibrancy of life. Things I didn’t see in myself before. That is a beautiful thing. 

So, how did I go from not being able to get off the couch to a 4 pack, a salary job with health benefits, and an intense joy for life? I started crawling. Every day I did a what I could. 

I started crawling. And one day I’ll be sprinting. 

I started with the gym and therapy. Found a workout program that told me what to do in the gym – app: Ladder & trainer: Kelly Matthews, and I bit the bullet and paid full price for therapy.

Next I got a job. I knew that I needed something – anything – that held me accountable to other people. I wasn’t the kind of person who could do my own business at the time, I could barely get off the couch. 

After about a year, I started low dose ketamine treatments paired with meditation and breathwork – company: Joyous & app: Othership. 

** Side note: I don’t make money off any of these plugs nor am I saying these are the only route to feeling better. Everyone’s journey is different, but the fundamentals of being physically active and talking to someone who can help you work through your thoughts and understand your patterns are imperative. 

Another year and I made manager at my job, this meant health benefits and a stable income, as well as a stable work schedule. I started meal prepping and eating clean. And here we are. 2.5 years out, I feel better than I ever have and I owe it to hard work and food. 

I hate when you see all these ads how 1 supplement will change your life – it’s a lie. I’ve tried so many of them lmfao

It’s a lifestyle change that changes your life. It’s implementing healthy habits, staying consistent when you can, and having compassion for yourself when you can’t. It’s the little changes that change the trajectory of your life. 

I’ve cut out processed foods, dairy, and gluten. Why? Well – processed foods (cereals, protein bars, fast food) ruins your gut, I eat as organic as I can. Our bodies were not made to process them so they wreck our whole system – diabetes, weight gain, and mental health issues to name just a few of the problems they cause. Dairy – I might be lactose intolerant, I also have ADHD and studies have shown that dairy products worsen the symptoms of ADHD. Gluten – Gluten intolerance is hereditary, my mom has Celiac and it’s horrible on her system, also – studies show that gluten also worsens ADHD symptoms. So yeah, I’m on an oddly strict diet but it’s helping. I have less brain fog, less stomach issues, I feel more energized, and I feel more whole. 

My diet right now: eat as clean, organic, and non processed as I can. No gluten, no dairy.

On this path I’ve decided to take, I have noticed how hard it is to find recipes that focus on the mental effects of food. So I’m going to start sharing my recipes with facts I’m learning about the foods. 

I’ll make a special tab on my blog so you can start eating in a way that not only helps your gut – which helps your brain – but also foods that are focused on helping with anxiety, stress, and depression. 

Also, I do realize there has been a lot that has changed since I last blogged. Last time I posted I was swearing off relationships and like 2 weeks later I had a boyfriend who I moved in with lmfao. Tbh, he is great. I love him, he makes me very happy, and soon I’ll make a post talking more about him – but this post isn’t about him.

I have also quit smoking weed. I used to get stoned daily, it was how I coped and numbed out. It got to the point where if I smoked I would spiral and get overwhelming anxiety – I talked to my therapist about this and we think it’s that my brain associates being high with being abused – because I was pretty much always stoned the last few years of my abuse – so I quit. Sometimes I still crave the release I got from it, but I know that it just makes things worse for me now. 

I also quit vaping. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 14, at 25 I switched to vaping bc I hated smelling like cigarettes. I was so addicted to vaping I would wake up in the middle of night to hit my vape & wake up holding it in my hand like a stuffed animal I needed to cuddle. With me shifting into making healthier choices in life, I decided it was just time. I gave myself 24 hours, ordered a couple things to help curb the cravings (flavored tooth picks, nicotine gum, calming mints) and I quit cold turkey. The date I am writing this makes 20 days. Like weed, I find myself still craving it, but I know it’s just not who I want to be anymore.

Anyway, I guess that’s it for me for today. I’ll be posting on here recipes and food facts and my journey out of the dark pit that was my mind and my life. 

I hope someone reading this starts crawling. Do what you can today for yourself to feel better. It’s the little steps. And it takes time. So be patient. Be compassionate to yourself. One day, you’ll look back at today and be proud of the you who started the journey towards a better YOU. Much love to whomever reads this ❤ ❤ ❤ Go make yourself proud baby.