When My Beauty Routine Couldn’t Save Me, I Decided To Go To Rehab

30 days later, I’m finally learning to love the parts of me I used to hide.

If you had asked me a month ago to describe my life, I would have told you it was perfect.

I had the big-time magazine editor job I’d been fantasizing about since I was old enough to read, and had just gotten married to a man I really love at my dream beach wedding in Mexico. I lived in a gorgeous apartment in the heart of Greenwich village, had incredible friends and a supportive family (including my in-laws, who I absolutely adore), and was still pretty hot as I approached my mid-30s—in large part because of my unlimited supply of free Botox, workouts, and beauty products.

I had everything I ever wanted and more, but I was still deeply unhappy.

For as long as I can remember, I sprinted toward the life I’d always dreamed of. I worked my ass off to get the grades that would land me the internships that would kickstart my career, and when I finally got there, I realized I’d have to work even harder to stay. I said yes to everything—breakfasts and dinners I didn’t really have time for, assignments that kept me up late into the night, social events I had no interest in going to—because I was terrified that saying no would make it all fall apart. That people would see through the flawless façade I’d constructed and know the truth: that I wasn’t good enough to handle it all.

So I kept going. Even when I was too anxious and exhausted to function, I told myself that if I just pushed harder—if I pretended I was fine, smiled through the panic, and stayed busy enough to outrun it all (… at one point, I literally ran the NYC marathon)—eventually I’d feel okay. But no matter how much “perfection” I achieved, the goalposts just kept moving.

By the time March of this year rolled around, I was deep into an eating disorder, and my nervous system was so out of whack that I woke up every morning shaking with anxiety. The smallest inconvenience could send me into a full blown panic attack, which often devolved into hours of crying and hyperventilating that only ended when I could fully numb myself with a cocktail, a joint, or another

There was so much I loved about my life, but I couldn’t live like this anymore. The pain felt so unbearable that I started having thoughts about not wanting to be here at all, because I couldn’t imagine surviving another day feeling like this.

No matter how much terrible I felt, though (and most days, that was pretty damn terrible), I’d do my hair and makeup, put on a cute outfit, and head out into the world as if nothing was wrong. There were so many mornings where I had to force myself to stop crying through my mascara because I was late for a breakfast or a Zoom meeting and didn’t want to show up with raccoon eyes. My beauty routine became my armor: As long as I looked put together, I could pretend I was put together.

And for a while, it worked…until it didn’t.

After a particularly gnarly panic attack that terrified me, my husband, my business partner, and our intern, I made the decision to check myself into a 30-day mental health treatment program in the Berkshires.