The past 3 days have felt like a blur to me. So much information, so many changes, and some big decisions to make in such a short period of time. I found myself constantly asking the question, “what does this all mean? what’s true and real? how serious is the impact? and for how long?” After we decided to close the doors at hustl last night I felt things finally land a bit.

My name is Kim Campbell, and I’m the one behind the knitting needles of Perfectly Imperfect Knitting. I wanted to introduce myself and share a bit of my story. At 7 years old my Mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, I was bullied in elementary school and at 17 years old I was diagnosed with an Eating Disorder. Among other mental health diagnoses, my Eating Disorder has threatened my life on numerous occasions. The moment I will never forget is when I was told by doctors in the ER in 2017, that I wouldn’t make it through the night. My organs shutting down from little to no nutrition and if I didn’t let the doctors push glucose (sugar)through my IV, I would slip into a coma and never wake up. But not even this news would sway me from my Eating Disorders chains...(an example of the strength of an Eating Disorder). My “ED” had me so fearful of the calories in the sugar, that I was scared of accepting the thing that would save my life.

I see you...hiding behind tired eyes. Burnt out from trying to live up to expectations. Exhausted from acting the part of the roles scripted for you. I hear you...calling out as loud as you can, only to be drowned out by all of the noise that rings inside my head. I know that you long to be heard. Your struggles, your triumphs, your feelings and opinions...all stifled by a firmly held tongue.

Is There an Instagram Filter for Depression? You'd never know it from this photo but this was a very dark time in my life. I was between apartments, barely making enough money for rent, grieving a relationship and living more than an hour away from my support network. There were two occasions in my life when I was suicidal and this was one of them. Never take social media at face value.

About one year ago I was sitting at a Starbucks at a meeting with another female entrepreneur. We were talking about the challenges we face about running our own businesses and about life! I opened up about the personal struggles I was having and feeling like I was not in charge of my own life. It was a great conversation and felt good to just open up about what I was experiencing. Then, this woman whom I admire for her success and authenticity asked if I’d ever thought about talking to a therapist. Now my initial reaction to this question in my mind was “What?! Me? Do you think I have that bad of issues?” Maybe I shouldn’t have told her so much about me, I felt a little embarrassed. But then she mentioned it had really helped her. I was suddenly curious. Maybe therapy was for “normal people,” successful people, confident people...people who just wanted to be genuinely happy.

At 25 years old, I checked myself into an inpatient unit after over 11 years of suffering with an eating disorder. What led to me having an eating disorder and the symptoms I was suffering with are unremarkable, sadly too similar to too many other people’s stories to be noteworthy. Far more interesting is what happened next.