Hey, everyone! My name is Leona, my pronouns are ze/zir/zirs, and I create content on the topic of post-traumatic mental health with radical transparency. My mission is to show everyone they can be understood.

 

Let me tell you why.

 

As a child growing up in an abusive home, I didn't understand what was happening to me. All I knew was that something felt wrong. And I felt wrong. I remember sitting on the floor next to my dresser one night picturing a cloud over my head filled with the mess that was my feelings and issues. I couldn't name or describe to myself or anyone else a single one of them. I was distressed because I felt that whether I succeeded in life would depend on if I could turn that cloud into something tangible. I was determined to turn that cloud into words I could share.

 

Over a decade later, in June of 2019, I created an Instagram called "becomingleona". There, I began writing about mental health based on my thoughts, experiences, observations, and education. For years, I had kept quiet. For years, I had longed to share my story of mental illness and abuse in hopes of people finally hearing my voice, and showing others that they can be understood. And now I was finally doing it. I haven't looked back since.

 

After having spent a lifetime in mental health services, I noticed there was a lot of bullshit rampant in the mental health sphere—toxic positivity, hypocrisy, ignoring research in favor of pop psychology, and acting in the best interest of the legal system, institutions, or even therapists themselves rather than clients. Making post-traumatic mental health content actively opposing these phenomena and eventually providing treatment without them, is another one of the passions underlying my work.

 

I write and create on various platforms about mental health based on my thoughts, experiences, observations, and education. 

I have a no-b.s. style when talking about the issues and life itself because that's what I believe the mental health conversation has been missing.