Here For You Today, There For You Tomorrow
Your mental health matters!!!!
It’s a little weird to say that last year, almost exactly to the day, was the first time I was fully transparent about my anxiety on the internet. Anyone who takes one look at me immediately knows I’m aggressively Online™…so how had I not overshared about my mental illness before???
Sarcastic self-digs aside, the thing that held me back from sharing so frankly before last year is the same reason why I really haven’t done so since:
I spent years convinced that no one else would ever understand what it felt like to be in my head so I would just look ridiculous if I ever shared anything (X).
My guest today knows this feeling all too well which is unfortunate in the sense that she ever had to feel this way and fortunate because that’s both what helped make this such a great discussion and what has made her brand all the more necessary.
Before we close out Mental Health Awareness Month 2023, I had the great joy of talking with Ellie Haney, a mental health advocate and the founder of Here For You, a clothing company centered around checking in on and uplifting one another. Ellie graciously shared the story of her own mental health journey, how launching her brand has continuously helped her to grow, and what she envisions for herself in the future.
Introducing Ellie Haney, a 24 year old mental health advocate who lives in Connecticut. She dreams about changing the world through her fashion pieces that are designed to remind us all that we are not alone. Her most iconic statement ‘Here For You’ is known for its rainbow lettering and way it makes you feel.
Ellie has also taken her personal mental health journey and turned into a story of hope. She has shared her story to various high schools, middle schools, universities, and other organizations. Her speech focuses on depression, anxiety, social media, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation—how she really struggled but more importantly how she got through it and where she is today.
While Ellie is not a medical professional, she hopes that when someone sees one of her hoodies or hears her message, they feel a part of something bigger than what they’re struggling with. Mental health affects us all, and the more we talk about it in our everyday lives, the less people will feel alone.
Change (Ellie’s Version)
Talking about mental health is not the easiest thing for anyone—my guest today and I included. But after building a brand around starting conversations with the intention of making positive change, Ellie has since become a pro at being there for herself and others.
I wanted to kick things off by asking, quite bluntly:
Emily: What was your relationship like with your mental health prior to 2020?
Ellie: I thought the only way to deal with my issues was to numb. So I would feel really bad but just numb it with boys or alcohol and then it “went away” for a little, though it would always come back stronger and scarier. I thought I was going to live with crippling anxiety and depression forever and never thought it would get better—I was afraid to heal.
Emily: When did you realize something needed to change?
Ellie: When I got home from a girl's trip last May. The whole time, I was in this beautiful location of Savannah, GA and I couldn’t enjoy one moment. I truly couldn’t be happy for ONE second because that’s how bad my anxiety was. I kept looking for that next drink to help numb myself a little bit and was just obsessed with alcohol. I got home and started sobbing to my parents about how the whole trip “looked” so beautiful on the outside but I was miserable the entire time.
My dad said, “You owe it to yourself” to change.
I started medication for anxiety and cut drinking on May 4, 2022, because I knew that I wasn’t happy and that if I didn’t change, I was going to die or live miserably forever. I chose life.
Ellie and I grew up in the same town where mental health was never really discussed. If it was—as was the case with the people I was close with—it was framed like most other things were to our peers and their parents: a competition. I remember confiding in a friend that, after learning about anxiety in my first-ever Psychology course, I may finally have a name for what was going on inside my head.
Instead of offering support, the response I was met with went something along the lines of: you don’t have anxiety, plus it’s weird timing to claim you do because one of our other friends was just diagnosed with anxiety so clearly, you’re just saying this to get sympathy and should get over it.
I share this anecdote not to elicit any sympathy (the irony) but to give a small look into the culture the two of us came of age in and how mental health fit into it. Though she was talking more widely about our entire generation, my sister Audrey also touched on this weird and often painful dynamic in our interview last year when I asked:
Emily: Why do you think so many people feel the need to participate in “trauma Olympics” in high school and college?
Audrey: I think it’s almost a cry for help. We’re using all the wrong outlets to express feelings of negative mental health. The constant “one-up” from someone isn’t that they’re not listening to your issues, I believe it’s more just that they’re trying to get their own voice to be heard.
Essentially, we’re just dumping our issues onto each other when we don’t have the capacity or abilities to help one another. These feelings end up circulating rather than actually making it anywhere. “Anywhere” means talking about it to a professional in a reasonable setting and finding other ways to effectively channel the emotions.
This all came to mind during my conversation with Ellie who, from an outside perspective, has always had an amazing and supportive group of friends. Of course, the timeless idiom, Assuming makes an ass out of u and me, also came to mind, so I wanted to ask Ellie about why and how she continued to endure her mental illness in silence:
Emily: What experiences or limiting beliefs held you back from sharing what you were going through with others for so long?
Ellie: Fear. Fear of losing friends or respect, or having people think I’m crazy. Fear that I was going to find out something was “really wrong with me.” Fear of never getting better so just sticking with numbing seemed to be the safe choice.
Emily: You've had what appears to be a great support system of friends who were either going through similar struggles or at least you know now would have been there for you. In your experience, why is it often so hard to open up to others—even those we love—about things we are struggling with even when we have safety nets, so to speak?
Ellie: I was afraid that they wouldn’t like me anymore, afraid they’ll look at me differently. Mental health was so not normalized when I was growing up. Therefore, I was so scared of what i was going through and I thought I was crazy. That’s why I’m so passionate about normalizing conversations around struggle so it becomes less scary.
The online mental health provider Charlie Health, which seeks to offer virtual intensive outpatient care to teens and young adults, found that as of 2022, “42% [of Gen Z] are diagnosed with a mental health condition.” And, as we discussed last May, a 2019 report “by the American Psychological Association found that Generation Z is 27% more likely than previous generations to report their mental health as fair or poor.”1
The effects of the pandemic on Gen Z’s mental health can’t be underemphasized enough, as Charlie Health notes: of the 42% of diagnosed young adults, “26% were diagnosed during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The need for young adults to go fully virtual for so long has left horrifying lasting impacts (as we discussed both last year and in 2021) but there was one aspect of that conversation that Ellie brought up that really made me stop and think.
I talked with Jane Parven two years ago about the effects of social media on mental wellness and referenced a “CNBC survey that found 80% of girls say they compare the way they look to others on social media, and 25% of girls say don’t look good enough without photo editing,” which has stayed front of mind for me since then. Additionally, Erin Raderstorf and Bianca told me about the latent competition in the That Girl and Romanticizing Your Life trends, both of which often resulted in young people online feeling like they’re not doing enough or living their lives correctly.
At a time when our generation is heavily online, constantly comparing themselves to one another with shocking ease, how is anyone grappling with their mental health supposed to feel any way other than very, very bad???? We are all looking at one another, incorrectly believing that someone else has got it all figured out—or, at least, has a better handle on life than we do—and we spend so much time fixated on others that we stop doing enough to help ourselves.
Knowing all too well that Ellie experienced all of these pressures both online and off, I wanted to know:
Emily: As someone who has built a gorgeous online community, what does the relationship between your mental health and social media look like?
Ellie: I have to take breaks. I turn my phone off for hours at a time because it’s so overwhelming and so easy to get sucked in.
Emily: How does our society's obsession with appearances directly impact mental health and wellness?
Ellie: It doesn’t help. Constantly comparing yourself to others online and in person makes you question a lot. Thinking things like, “Why don’t I look like that? Should I look like that?” makes you believe you aren’t worthy or aren’t pretty if you aren’t skinny.
There have been so many times that I’m like, “Oh, I better lose weight so more people will listen to my story,” because it’s ingrained in my brain that pretty skinny women have more respect and will be more successful. This is screwed up and has absolutely no correlation to value but everyone believes it does??
Emily: Do you still feel the pressure to present a certain image of yourself to others and, if so, what are some actions you take to push back against them?
Ellie: Yes, and I’m working on this currently. I love that I am authentically spoken, and I’m trying to accept myself the way I am authentically physically as well. I tell myself my natural beauty is unique and cannot be replaced or replicated.
The more I talk with my guests and peers about these terrible universal experiences (see also: all of the body conversations we’ve had), the more baffling it is that we all continue to feel these same things and so rarely fully unpack them. When we do, when we plainly see that we’re all struggling under the weight of the same societal pressures, we realize how inconsequential it all is—how all of these things that so often feel like they are your burden and yours alone to bear are actually the things holding each of us back, collectively.
But, before I get too high up preaching as if I have the answers to something I constantly struggle with myself, I have to remember the importance of timing. Everyone is in a different place in their journey—be that a mental health journey, a self-discovery journey, a self-love journey, a Journey journey if you’re like an “old soul” or something—and expecting one another to process all of this in the same way at the same time is only perpetuating the same problematic cycle.
We all have to be met where we are, which is to say with a lot more compassion than we typically extend to one another.
ME! (ft. Roy Cohn)2
Speaking of journeys, I’ve been thinking a lot about my own with my mental health recently, mainly because the brilliant and talented Rebecca Loftin interviewed me (ME!!!!) for her gorgeous newsletter Kid Girl earlier this month. We talked about the breakdown I had during my second year of college when I stopped taking care of my mental wellness and myself, opting instead to let my anxiety reign supreme—a super fun experience that I highly recommend.
Along the way, I lost sight of a lot of the things that have always made me me, namely my ability to care so deeply or feel excitement or express my love of anything. I was kind of floating for a year until I signed up for a random course on the last day of class registration. Everyone in our ten-person roundtable group had to research and present on a topic tangentially related to one we covered in the discussion material. After all but begging my professor to just pick a subject for me, she suggested I look into the Lavender Scare and "that guy who always sat next to Senator Joseph McCarthy."
As Rebecca wrote in her piece,
Roy [Cohn] was a fascinating anti-hero in fiction because of his outlandish, often perplexing contradictions. “He was just so fucking weird,” Emily marvels. “Everything that you could make a statement about was diametrically opposed with another thing that you could say about him.”
These contradictions brought Emily comfort. She describes herself as someone who needs to be passionate about something, and while researching Roy for her thesis, that passion began to resurface. “Studying him gave me back a part of myself that I really missed and had lost. And so I tied a lot of my recovery to Roy.” She says. “In my mind, he is the reason why I was like, ‘Okay, let’s get a little bit better. Let's not suffer any longer. This is fun. I've missed this. I can get back to who I was. Let's do that.’ And so it's weird. He sucks. He's one of the worst people that's ever existed in this world.” She pauses, thinking. “And I love him so sincerely. It's a very weird thing to try to explain to people without explaining my whole mental health journey. But it's true.”
Huh. The code has been cracked now, has it not?
When I talked with Ellie about the role Here For You has played in her journey, I instantly understood what it meant to have something you initially approached so casually come to take up so much good space in your life:
Emily: How has Here For You fit into your mental health journey?
Ellie: In March of 2020, I was finishing my senior year at the University of Delaware, experiencing a very sad breakup—and then Covid-19 happened. I had been dealing with mental health challenges since the beginning of college. The combination of all these stresses caused my mental health to spiral out of control. I had not felt like myself; it was the most lost, hopeless and isolated I had ever felt.
I did not know how I was ever going to feel better, constantly battling with my head. Natural light seemed to dull my anxiety a bit and make me feel a little less scared. Fashion and dressing up also gave me a bit of an escape and distracted me, and I realized that colors gave me these calmer feelings, too.
When Covid began, I started tie-dying clothes for a distraction, and the process gave me satisfaction and something to look forward to. I felt excited to wake up in the morning to see how my designs and different colors came out, and I had not felt that way in a long time. I followed this feeling and kept creating. I started selling some of my products on Instagram and, to my surprise, I sold out of everything really quickly, so I decided to make a website.
In May 2020, I had graduated college and accepted a corporate job with very long hours, leaving me with barely any time for creating clothes—and I was unhappy. I quit this job and accepted another one with shorter hours, less of a commute, and I was happier. However, the entire time I was there, I felt like I belonged somewhere else, that I was meant for something else.
I opened up to my new boss and told her how passionate I was about creating clothing and starting my own company. I apologized for telling her but she was inspired by my honesty and bravery and told me she believed in me. She suggested that I pursue Here For You full time and, a few weeks later, in mid-June 2021, I did just that.
Because of how significant mental health is in my life, I knew I had to build it into my brand. Over the years, I’ve learned tools and tactics to pull myself out of dark places; I know what it’s like to feel hopeless but I also know I can get myself out of that feeling, even when it’s not easy. And I know I can help other people; I’ve done it and I know it’s possible.
It takes a special kind of person to not only want to get better for themselves but so they can help others, too. The massive positive impact Ellie has already had in three short years is clear from a simple scroll through Here For You’s Instagram, which has thousands of interactive and supportive followers, including this stranger who appeared on my TikTok For You Page last week.
Saying you’re there for someone is one thing, but actually showing up is another. In showing up for herself, Ellie has attracted an ever-growing number of individuals willing to do the same for themselves and one another.
With that, I asked:
Emily: What does Here For You mean to you on a daily basis—both the company and the saying?
Ellie: It’s a safe place—it’s proof that you are never alone and that you are constantly surrounded by support even if it doesn’t feel like it. We all need each other because everyone struggles and it requires strength to take that next step.
No matter what you are feeling, knowing someone is here for you with no judgement can be everything. Even in my darkest times when I didn’t want to have to explain anything to anybody, I always wanted the feeling of people supporting me, surrounding me, without judgement. Knowing that people are here for you can change everything—we all go through things and we all need each other because we are not meant to do this alone.
I am so incredibly thankful to everyone who is here with me along this journey.
Emily: In your experience, what is the best way to show up for others and be there for them?
Ellie: Saying that you are out loud, and then listening. Put your phone down and give them your full attention.
Here For You
Talking with Ellie scratched an itch in my brain I didn’t know was there before. Yes, it is inspiring to see the company and supportive community she has built for herself, but it also sparks hope to see good things happen to good people.
None of this was without incredible resilience and strength, though, which is simultaneously heartbreaking and proof of how powerful it is that Ellie has come through on the other side. So instead of dwelling too much on the darker parts of her story, I wanted to focus more on the version of herself Ellie has grown into.
She and I haven’t talked in the years since high school, but she responded with such excitement and warmth to my initial pitch to be a part of E4P which I assumed would quickly fade with my incessant planning and clarifying texts.
Nope.
While working with Ellie on this piece, I have received some of the kindest and most supportive messages from anyone ever and have been absolutely floored by her honesty and compassion. It is hard to imagine someone with as much light and love to give as Ellie going through some of the experiences she described to me but then again, it’s always hard to imagine anyone suffering through a mental illness unless you live with them inside their head.
Perhaps the thing I admire the most about Ellie (and it’s hard to pick just one thing so I’m couching this in a little bit of uncertainty) is the emphasis she places on her commitment to her growth. It’s very easy to be in the choppiest waters of your brain and convince yourself things will never get better—anyone with a mental illness has likely been there before.
And yet, Ellie has still managed to turn that darkest experience into a point for connection and change: a percentage of Here For You’s monthly sales are donated to Hope For The Day, a non-profit movement empowering the conversation on proactive suicide prevention and mental health education.
That’s why, to close out today’s piece and this year’s Mental Health Awareness Month, I too wanted to focus on how far Ellie has come. I asked:
Emily: What parts of yourself did you discover as a result of your mental health journey?
Ellie: I found myself. I’m proud of the person I’m becoming, and getting sober has shown me how strong I am, that I am whole and worthy, and that all I need is myself.
Emily: How do you work through your bad mental health days now? What tools do you have now that you didn't growing up?
Ellie: Meditation, resilience, and having proof that I can make it through anything. Journaling, walking, talking, crying.
Emily: What are the greatest lessons you've learned over the past three years?
Ellie: Healing is not linear. You are all that you need. You will never find true happiness externally. You are the only person you can control. The world is yours. Disappoint everyone else but never disappoint yourself. You are stronger than you can ever imagine.
Emily: What achievement of yours are you the most proud of, and why?
Ellie: Never giving up on life even when it seemed easier to just give up.
And finally, I asked:
Emily: Your life looks entirely different now than it did five years ago. What do you hope it will look like in the next five, and where do you want to take Here For You next?
Ellie: To continue to love myself and live a life that is true to me. I want to find more of myself and what lights my soul on fire. I want to see Here For You everywhere, in every state nationwide. I want to see people wearing our products, whether it’s as simple as a sticker on the back of your phone or a full comfortable set. I want to give back to organizations that change the world, and maybe open a non-profit.
I never want to stop showing up authentically, making a difference, talking, and not being afraid.
Thank you so much to Ellie for her kindness, transparency, hopefulness, and willingness to respond to all of these on vacation the day after running a major race!!!! I’m over the moon with gratitude and cannot sing her praises from enough rooftops.
Also??? I am truly in my influencer era: check out Here For You’s Spring 2023 styles and use code EMFORPRES at checkout for 15% off your order!!!!
Plus, follow @HereForYouClothing on Instagram to discover an incredible and supportive digital community. To read more about Ellie and Here For You, check out her feature in City Lifestyle.
Should you or anyone you know ever need it, there is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders that can be reached at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or by texting your zip code to 435748 (HELP4U).
Since healthcare for teens and young adults has become a major point of contention across the country, I tried to verify as best as possible that Charlie Health was reputable and not a platform concealing harmful behavior or messaging. To my knowledge, it appears to be the step between in-patient mental health care and weekly talk therapy sessions for young adults who need a higher level of support and does not seem to do more harm than good.
I know that's the second Taylor Swift-inspired header in a row—bite me!!!!