Be Kind to Your Mind Fundraiser
Taylor Marae struggled with anxiety and panic disorder for years before she discovered a solution that worked for her. She’s now working to provide resources to others who struggle with similar issues and she’s using a t-shirt fundraiser to help raise money and awareness for her cause. “I have a passion for the connection between mental health, what you eat, lifestyle, and healing the body holistically. Why I have this passion is because of my past.”
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In 2014, Taylor began struggling with debilitating health anxiety, panic disorder, and general anxiety. She says that her condition wasn’t linked to one specific thing. She could find a trigger anywhere she went. She says, “One time I went to PetSmart and had a panic attack…like come on, it’s a dog shop how could you possibly have a panic attack? Yet, I did!”
She experienced so many symptoms like daily headaches, tingling, vertigo, heart palpitations, chest pain, dizziness, feeling out of control, and shortness of breath and spent so much of her time going to doctors and hospitals having tests run, but they never managed to find anything wrong with her. This led to agoraphobia that made it where she was afraid to leave the house. She never wanted to be too far from a hospital because it had become sort of a safety net to her. She says, “It wasn’t living, it was like I was already dead. I got to the point where I was so scared of dying that I was not living. Every single day was just another panic attack.”
Desperate for answers, Taylor began doing her own research and found information about a potential link between nutrition and mental health. She started making changes to her diet and saw results! This led her to become a registered dietician with a Masters in Science and Nutrition specifically focused on functional nutrition and mental health and to start sharing resources with others online.
“My last panic attack was almost 4 years ago, and I have never felt better emotionally or physically. Do I still have anxious thoughts or fears? Of course! It is normal to have a certain extent of worry! However, today I eat better than ever and workout harder than ever and live better than I ever have. I want you to feel the same way I do and find that light at the end of the very dark tunnel. So, I decided to dedicate my life and use my knowledge to help you find your way out of your dark tunnel as well.”
Through her t-shirt fundraiser, Taylor urges people to “Be Kind to Your Mind.” You can see her fundraiser on her Custom Ink Fundraiser page.
Miellyn is the Director of Marketing Content at Custom Ink. Her work has spanned marketing for television networks like TLC and Travel, educational content for Smithsonian and National Geographic, marketing and story for indie video games, essays for publishers including Random House, The Telegraph, and Smart Pop Books, and stories for press outlets like VICE and VH1.
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