06/11/2026
I graduated college in May 2023 at the heaviest weight I had ever been and started teaching high school special education that fall. In January 2024, I made it a goal to lose 40 pounds by the end of the year. I exceeded that goal, losing 45 pounds. I maintained that weight loss and was happy with where I was. My clothes fit better, I was stronger, I was moving again, and I was controlling what I ate and drank.
Then, June 9, 2025, changed everything.
At the high school where I teach, we have metal detectors (thank God!!), and I found a loaded gun with 12 extra bullets hidden in a student's bookbag behind a binder. He fought me for the bag, even with other adults trying to get him off of me. I escaped him and held on as tightly as I could. I truly believe that if I had been 45 pounds heavier and not as strong as I was, he would have won. I can only imagine what could have happened if he had gotten that bag back.
After that day, I went into a depression, and my anxiety increased even more than what I had already been diagnosed with. I couldn't go to the gym, the grocery store, out shopping with friends and family, or even to church without fearing someone would walk in with a loaded gun. I went back to old habits of eating whatever I wanted, not caring what I put into my body, and I stopped going to the gym. I gained 25 pounds back in just three short months due to the stress I was under.
I started therapy a month after finding the loaded gun. When I told my therapist how much I missed the gym but was too scared to go alone because my anxiety had followed me there too, he recommended trying a group fitness setting.
I had heard about Burn before and decided to give it a try in September 2025 on the first day of the new school year—which just so happened to be Athletic Conditioning day.
At the end of that camp, I realized I belonged at Burn. With the traumatic experience I had gone through, I had been diagnosed with acute PTSD, and for 45 minutes that first day, I forgot about my trauma and everything that had happened. I felt free from the depression and anxiety I had been carrying and knew this was where I was meant to be to become myself again.
Today, I am supported by amazing trainers who believe in me and help me become my best self. I am lifting heavy and becoming strong again. I make healthy choices, I am at my lowest weight since high school, and I am confident in the person I have become.
I'm so incredibly thankful for my therapist who encouraged me to try a group setting again, and for all of the trainers who push me—especially Heather, Amanda, and Kayla—who challenge me because they know I can do it.
I'm grateful to be a part of the Burn community and can't imagine where I'd be without it. I look forward to walking through those doors, working out, and receiving high fives. My anxiety about walking into a gym is gone because I know I have people there who support and lift me up.
If you're in a difficult season of life and think you can't do it anymore, I encourage you to give Burn a try, just like I did.
