Hello

Anna was the seventh of eight children, and her parents separated when she was young. She kept active after school to avoid the problems at home — mental illness, secrets, shame, and her mother’s struggle with alcohol. After her dad died, “I didn’t know how to deal with grief and not wanting to feel.”

“That’s where my disease took off.” She went from being in beauty pageants and the marching band to walking the streets of DC, people hurling degrading names at her such as “loser” and “whore.” 

“My addiction took me to so many places,” Anna recalls, “and I did so many things I never ever thought I would do.” Her family’s history of mental illness compounded the stigma she felt. “You live those labels,” she remembers. “You feel that you’re never going to change.”