Erin McKelle

That’s exactly the spirit that word should embody: someone who is loud, proud, and an advocate for themselves. Someone who stands out and is bold and beautiful for it. Someone who is unapologetically themselves.

One reality TV franchise people often point to when talking about misogyny in the media is The Real Housewives. However, I believe that many aspects of The Real Housewives make it a feminist franchise.

Just like you might find it difficult to fly while fat, going to the gym can also be a terrible experience to endure while fat. This is one of my favorite points to make when people justify their fatphobia with “I’m just concerned about their health.”

I began to see my mental health go completely downhill. This led me to seek out a psychiatrist, who raised an interesting concern: she thought my birth control was messing with my depression. It’s not like I hadn’t been aware of the link between hormonal contraception and depression before, but it never occurred to me that these two personal realities could be connected.

Here are a few ways you can do some inventory on your own behaviors and start dealing with addiction in a healing way.

Even though I've suffered from clinical depression ever since I was 15 years old, my depressive episodes have a lot more at stake as I’ve gotten older, especially since I’m dependent on my own productivity in order to survive.

I’ve said I was “good,” “fine,” or “doing well” after crying for hours, lying in bed all day with no motivation, and even experiencing suicidal ideation. My worst days are when the temptation to mask my pain with a smile is the strongest.

I’m adopted. It’s one of those things that has been a major force in shaping my identity, but that’s hard to talk about authentically almost anywhere.

You might not think of food as being a savior in eating disorder recovery, but I have actually found food to be one of my greatest sources of refuge — and not in a relapse sort of way.

I am a recovering serial dater who is now single and actually enjoying it.