For those of you who may not know me, I'm Remi Bader, a content creator who built her following based on being vulnerable and honest, whether it's through my realistic outfits, crying at Coachella, or sharing some of my most personal and difficult ones. moments Every day I wake up and realize that I'm lucky to do what I do and I wouldn't change it for the world. However, when you go online and choose not to set your own boundaries, whatever they may be, people get very used to feeling like they're obligated to know every detail about you. Giving my whole life became the expectation. The spectators felt entitled, and I felt indebted.
When I first started I shared a lot about health and body image topics. This became a “hot topic” and ultimately unavoidable. I was glad to have formed a community where we could openly help each other; but over time, I realized it was starting to affect my mental health. Today I am no longer in a place where I want my body and the state of my physical health to be the main issue. That's not to say I won't decide to share my body in the future, but right now I feel it's best to put myself and my mental health first.
In September of last year I reached a breaking point. People say that when you're in the public eye, negativity just “comes with the territory,” and to some extent they're right, but that doesn't mean we can't set boundaries. Seeing negative comments and messages every day about how much weight I was gaining (or losing) made me feel horrible about myself and was contributing to a disorder I was trying so hard to keep under control. That's when I realized I needed some separation between what gets put online and what doesn't.
“Delivering my whole life became the expectation. The viewers felt entitled, and I felt indebted.”
This was not an easy decision for me, nor one I took lightly; I think it's important to share the real things you're going through on social media. Blame quickly set in: Was I no longer fulfilling an unwritten duty by not posting on certain topics? Was he abandoning people? Did I not deserve all the blessings that came to me from having this job, if I abandoned these matters? Still, I shut myself off and avoided certain topics to protect myself. And then, without any warning, they left me.
There's no need to go into the details of the breakup, because let's be honest, there's enough of it online. But I do want to share what this event did for me and how it helped me relearn how I can continue each day to move in a healthier direction.
After the breakup, I poured myself back into my platform, especially Tiktok. I was more broken than ever, and by taking a step back, I let myself deal with it the same way I had dealt with all my other emotions for the past 3 1/2 years as a creator: by leaning on my online community . . Sharing every detail. Asking for help And in return, being extremely open and vulnerable, how I started… As someone who had never been through a breakup before, I didn't realize how much my followers would end up helping me. They taught me that it's okay to have feelings and emotions that come and go like waves. We can feel like our life is coming back together for a week, and then in a random day at the grocery store, we can start to feel like it's falling apart again. It's heartbreak, and there's nothing simple or logical about it.
In this difficult time, my relationship with the platform was somehow reborn. I received not hundreds, but thousands (and thousands) of direct messages thanking me for my transparency. “Remi, I'm going through a breakup too and just wanted to let you know that sharing how you feel can be extremely healing for us going through the same thing. It makes me feel less alone.” a read These messages hit me in an extremely powerful way. Sharing the good, the bad and the ugly, once again, had helped people and in turn helped me.
“It's heartbreak, and there's nothing simple or logical about it.”
With that, and the journey and lessons I learned this year, I'm still planning to be my most authentic self online, but I'm making more of an effort to put my mental health first. To be clear, regardless of what my body looks like, it will never change what I've set out to do from the beginning: advocate for body inclusion in the fashion and apparel industries. But for the sake of my own sanity, this is where I draw the line on this issue. Just because I was totally open when this online journey started, it's not my whole story anymore. The shape and size of my body does not determine who I am as a person. I will focus on being the best mental health advocate I can be for others, whether it's sharing little quotes that help me get in a better headspace, working to find ways to offer more safety and protection in line for anyone who decides to share their experience. with mental health publicly, or just sticking to what I said in September and not sharing what I don't want to share about my body and my health journey. By sticking with it, I hope to lead by example in respecting my own boundaries, and ultimately I hope for the same thing I have from the beginning: to make a change. Even if it's helping one person at a time.
This essay was written to coincide and raise awareness of the last day of Mental Health Awareness Month.
