The following podcast is a deer media production.

Hey, this is Alexis Haines and welcome to Recovering from Reality,

where I illuminate the messy and magical path of coming home to yourself.

Whether you're on the road to recovery, seeking self-care techniques for surviving the

capitalist machine, or just need a moment to remember that you're not alone in your loneliness,

we're serving up the ultimate truth. Your challenges don't define you, how you deal with them does.

So are you ready to recover from reality?

Yeah, well I started struggling with depression when I was 15 and that was less to do with the

church or being queer and more to do with my parents getting divorced. Divorce is also like a big

no-no in the world, but it wasn't even just like the divorce itself is always going to be hard

for kids, but it's also the maybe ostracizing that could happen in the community or threat of

losing said community over getting a divorce. 100% and when your entire faith is built on

family and your family doesn't work, there's just this feeling of being an ultimate failure,

you know? And yeah, both my parents were working through a lot of relationship dynamics that were

very healthy, so I just had a lot of sadness around that. And that's when I first started

struggling with like really bad depression and some self-harm and eating disorder like basically the

whole list of things. That was a quick clip from this week's episode with Rachel Slawson.

You guys are going to have to bear with my voice for this week because I am sick and I am also

really frustrated. I don't know about you guys, but since the mask mandates have been left said,

I have gotten sick three times. And I know that it's like a double-edged sword, right? Like the masks

have kept us healthy. And also I haven't had a cold in so long, then now we've gone back to back

last weekend. My kids had stomach flu, it hit all of us, and then we immediately got this cold.

...