Over the past several years, I have had the incredible honor of sitting on a She Recovers conference stage and interviewing famous women who identify as being in recovery from something or other. Glennon Doyle.
Elizabeth Vargas. Janet Mock.
Ashley Judd. In each instance, I was petrified—petrified that I would freeze or say something dumb and alienate them, scared that they would see my insecurity and judge me to be a fraudulent specimen in recovery.
Neither of these things happened. Rather, these extraordinary women in recovery reminded me, once we got to talking, that we are all more alike than different.
They reminded me that our stories of healing from bulimia, addiction, anxiety, childhood neglect and abuse, mental health issues, or sexual assault are common threads of experience that stitch us together and place us all on a level living field. When women who are in the public eye tell their recovery stories, as these celebrities do, they help break down the stigma for all of us.