Meet Your Trainer
My name is Madison Lovin
I know what it’s like to feel stuck inside your own mind.
To want so badly to live fully… but feel like anxiety keeps pulling you under.
It started out small. My parents would wake to find me sleeping on the floor beside their bed. I slowly scaled it back and they’d wake to find me asleep on the floor in my doorway. I was scared to sleep by myself even though that’s how it’s always been. My sister and I have always had our own bedrooms so this sudden change in sleeping habits confused my family.
We didn’t realize at the time that this would lead to a decade long battle with a debilitating anxiety disorder. How I wish it had just stopped at sleeping on the floor.
My anxiety disorder started outwardly showing and disrupting my life when I was 10 years old. While other kids were focused on homework or sports, I was trying to calm my racing mind that never seemed to rest. I felt sick all the time, and for someone with emetophobia (the fear of vomit), this would spiral into crying and screaming for hours.
I started avoiding anything that could potentially upset my stomach, including sleepovers, new foods, medicine, road trips (which coming from a traveling, road-trip-family made things extremely difficult). I even had a hard time going to my uncle’s house for holidays, just a 20 minute drive down the road.
I spent my teenage years fighting to keep up, hiding the exhaustion that came from a constant spiral screaming in my mind. I quit my favorite sports, I stopped performing on stage and I stayed home while my friends went out. I wasn’t experiencing life like other kids my age.
I started seeing my first therapist during sixth grade. My second therapist in eighth grade. And I honestly lost count for the rest. I tried everything I could to quiet the noise. Nothing worked.
I left the church that I grew up in and when I would finally open up to friends, they used my words as reasons to no longer be my friend. I felt so lost and alone.
Mental Illness is an invisible beast that picks at you from the inside until you’re hollow. No one can see it so you have to use what strength you have left to defend yourself. I was so tired of convincing people around me so I built up my walls and perfected my facade.
To this day, people that I grew up with still come up to me and say, “I didn’t even know you were struggling.”
When NeurOptimal Brain Training came into my life, it changed the game. For the first time, I left an appointment with tears of joy rather than shame and anger. That’s the thing about therapy, you have to find what works for you and in the meantime, it breaks you down every single time something doesn’t work out. You go back to “ground 0” so many times you lose track.
I sat down with Allison, my original brain trainer, and we both exchanged part of our stories. I had never felt so seen. Ever. Up until now, therapists thought I was depressed, suicidal, disingaged, and stubborn. I’m not saying there isn’t some truth to it, but they didn’t understand where I was coming from.
What stood out to me, and I still think of often, is when Allison said, “I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to live anymore.”
Jaw. Drop.
That is what I had been saying for years yet every therapist red flagged that comment and watched me closely. They didn’t understand. How could you if you’ve never experienced it?
I instantly fell in love with NeurOptimal brain training and the foundational concept. I knew this is what I was supposed to do with my life.
I felt like my purpose in life had lit up like a neon street sign. In an instant, I knew why I had suffered for the past decade. It changes everything when you sit down with someone who has walked in the same shoes as you yet hasn’t lost themselves in a textbook along the way.
Within a month, I committed to ASU, initiating my relocation to Phoenix, AZ, 400+ miles away from my hometown. And I loved it! Of course I still had challenges, but nothing that was out of the norm for any other 20-year-old under the stress of a university.
One of my favorite parts about experiencing life and coming into my own was watching people’s reactions - some engrained in my brain as core memories. I describe my years at ASU as my toddler years. I was still learning how to do things on my own and experimenting. I took a roadtrip/overnight trip with friends for the first time and had a blast. I explored some day trips by myself and saw remote parts of Arizona. I embraced this new phase in life, making plenty of mistakes along the way.
As you learn to manage your mental health, you will change. Some people won’t like the new you. But most people will embrace the new you and celebrate your successes (these are the people to keep in your life).
Life is one big learning experience. We won’t always get things right. We won’t always make the right decisions. But being able to make that decision? Priceless. You mean I can choose to make that stupid decision? Let’s do it!
That’s what I want for you. To feel empowered to make any decision you want - barring legalities and mortality. Become well-acquainted with your mental health because that knowledge will be your biggest advantage in your fight to reclaim your health.
