It’s no secret that within the past year or so I have been brought face to face with some tremendous difficulties. I have been forced to finally fight my struggles with anorexia and depression instead of running from them like I had been doing for such a long time.

Before I go any deeper into a particular piece of my past I would just like to clarify that an eating disorder is not something that just “happens”. You don’t go to sleep completely okay and wake up with a desire to starve; and as much as people tend to believe that it is a conscious decision that the victim makes by themselves, that notion is just as false as the above.

Eating disorders often come up because of a desire that the victim has to feel some kind of control in his or her life. When things start to fall apart and we can't quite grasp onto the feeling of being in control of the particular situation, the one thing we can control is what we put into our bodies. This often happens following some kind of traumatic or life changing event.

At this point in my fight, I have been working hand in hand with the fantastic people at the Valparaiso University Counseling Center and have spent the past six months relentlessly trying to do two things: overcome the crippling fear surrounding food and weight gain, and figure out why this bullshit happened to me. The easier of the two has actually been the latter.

As I have been processing what has happened to me and what has led me to my struggle with anxiety, depression, and the eventual formation of an eating disorder, my struggle has not subsided in the slightest. I still have panic attacks, I still struggle with eating and weight loss, I still monitor my exercise and caloric intake obsessively, I still have nightmares, I am still living in literal hell, but the difference between who I am now and who I was in September when Leap of Faith was published is not only the fact that I have sought medical help, but also the fact that I have developed ways to cope with my struggle.

This leads me to the rest of this article.

Ballroom dancing saved my life.

For the first time ever, I’m going to open up about why it took me so long to get into the performing arts and what I would say to anyone else that’s in the same position I was.

My biological father left us when I was three. He’s never really been a contributing part of my life or who I am as a person today. I’m sure anyone who knows even a little bit about me already knows this so I won’t get into too much detail. I have written about him before on the Odyssey (Check outI Can’t Thank You Enough). Although he has a lot to do with some of my mental health issues he does not have very much to do with my journey to the performing arts.

My mom eventually remarried and that’s when my step father came into the picture. This is not the time for me to go into any kind of detail about what he did or some of the horrible things that my family and I had to endure. My stepdad struggled with mental health issues of his own and these issues were sparked by a struggle with a rampant opiate addiction and severe alcoholism. The addiction issue would eventually spiral out of control threatening the safety and sanity of my family so at that point we did what was best for us and parted ways.

Living within the grasp of a mentally unstable addict is like feeling numb all the time. You are constantly living in fear and anxiety, never knowing and never being able to predict when there would be some kind of an episode. There was no such thing as showing any kind of emotion. You had to be everything that he wanted you to be or you would have major problems. That’s the bottom line. You’re constantly forced to almost mirror his emotion. If he’s happy you better be happy and if he's pissed you better have nothing to be happy about.

There was an unspoken commonality between my sister, brother, mother and I throughout all of this. We all knew that whatever it took we were always expected to please him in whatever ways that we were able. We did our best to always put on the faces that he wanted to see so that we didn’t have to deal with a sudden abusive outburst. When he had an episode, we all paid for it.

My mom did her best to maintain the peace in our household and that eventually led to her own personal exhaustion.

When you’re living in it, it is extremely difficult to actually see what’s going on. You know things aren't normal, but you force yourself to believe that they are because you can’t actually pinpoint what or who the problem is.

My stepfather was more of an emotional abuser than a physical abuser. He would have spurts of physical that were almost always targeted toward our emotions and vulnerabilities. He could detect what we were most self conscious over and target that particular thing until we would hit our breaking point. When that point came and any of us lost our composure the true narcissist would come out and he would actually convince us that we were at fault, that we were the reason for the unrest.

Someone can only take so much of that before they actually believes that it’s true.

I never had a father figure growing up so when my stepfather was around I was always trying to please him. Looking back on it I can see that I never had a real reason to believe that my biological father never wanting to be around wasn’t indeed my fault. It’s easy for the adult me to know that he's just a deadbeat dad that only wanted kids so that he could say he was a father and show us off at Christmas time, but for little Tyler, that’s not as easy to understand. I was always doing my best to please my stepdad because in my head, if I didn’t, he would be gone just like the other one was.

I have always been incredibly close to my mother because of the fact that she has always been the one solidified person in my life. There was never any chance of her leaving and never coming back and because of the fact that I had never been hurt like that by her before I knew I could trust her.

I grew up almost one hundred percent under the influences of my mother because of the lack of a father figure. Because of that I began to like the things that she liked and the things that she did on a regular basis. I grew to love the theatre, the performing arts, music, shows like The Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars, and American Idol. They were things that I actually enjoyed as well but I was forced to pretend like I didn’t because of an abusive stepfather. I loved to write more than almost anything else.

Growing up I always wanted to be on stage. My uncle Mike is a professional actor and my mother grew up doing theatre so I always wanted to follow in those footsteps and be on stage myself.

Going back to my step dad’s incredible ability to target vulnerabilities and my effort to please him in fear that he would leave just like my biological father did, I would never admit to liking the arts. I wanted nothing more than to be able to sit there and watch my man Derek Hough kill it on DWTS with my mom, or to audition for community theatre, or to continue to play the piano but my step dad was relentless in making me feel ashamed of things that he didn’t think I should have been doing. There would be endless remarks from him questioning my sexuality, he would call me things that I probably can’t write, to the point where it was just easier for me to never admit to loving the theatre, to never admit to wanting to act or to dance. That would eventually turn into convincing myself that I had no place in those kinds of activities just because if all of the shit that I had to take from the man that was supposed to be filling in for my already absent father.

I gave up on my love of the theatre, gave up on my love of the arts, I gave up on wanting to watch those shows with my mom, I gave up on my dreams of acting, I gave up on damn near everything that ever made me really happy and convinced myself that in order to be manly enough to please my narcissistic step father. I had to sit through what he wanted me to sit through and enjoy the things that he wanted me to enjoy.

All through high school while he was still around I was completely brainwashed into thinking that I still had no right to enjoy the arts and I sure as shit had no right to be involved in any of those activities. Otherwise I would come home and my sexuality would be questioned, I would be called a pussy, and I would be shamed by my own step father. I put on the front for him for my entire life.

Putting on the front partially led me to my depression, my anxiety, and an eating disorder.

When I graduated high school I knew that I had to make some kind of a change.

He left my junior year of high school but for me there was something in that house that led me to believe that all of his shaming and putting us down and negative energy was still very much present so I was still convinced that I had no place in the arts.

It wasn't until two weeks before I moved out of my house and into a tiny dorm room at Valparaiso University that I realized I had a place on the stage and in the arts. I took my mom to see Newsies when it came to Chicago and when I came home there was no alpha male standing at the door ready to ridicule me and criticize my every move. I knew then that I was free and that any kind of emotional abuse that he could hit me with was gone just like he was.

My depression however worsened as did the eating disorder when I got to Valpo.

A few weeks into my time here I found VU’s competitive ballroom team. I had never danced, and never had the thought of dancing because of the fear of being targeted by my step father.

In my absolute shittiest and toughest few months filled with doctors, counselors, extreme weight loss, physical pain, thoughts of suicide, thoughts of leaving college, etc I found a release from everything. I found something that I loved to do. It gave me something to look forward to, something to distract me from all of the pain I was in, and it was something that I never thought that I could do because of that shaming.

A lot of where I am now has to do with the wonderful people that came with the VU ballroom team. They unknowingly gave me a reason to be here and a reason to keep on moving forward and pushing myself toward getting healthy again.

Now, I use that negativity that I had to deal with for so long to drive me. Every time I lace up my shoes, step out onto the floor with my partner, and hear that music start to play I can hear my stepdad once again ridiculing everything that I do. I use that now as a reason to be the best that I can be.

That shame is the reason I bust my ass every single day at the gym and then again at every practice. That’s the reason that I’ll go out of my way to practice extra. That’s the reason that I pay with money that I barely have for extra lessons. That shame is the reason that I won’t stop doing all of those things until I’m the best damn ballroom dancer I can be.

I am absolutely relentless when it comes to practice and learning everything that I possibly can because when I step out there and I’m the best that I can possibly be I know that I won the battle with my step father. He wanted to drag me down with him and instead of allowing that to happen I floor crafted. Instead of staying down and succumbing to that level of hate and shame and fear I kept moving forward.

That shame is what drives me every single day.

He took everything from me and my family and left me with depression and an easting disorder. I don’t know how long I will have o struggle with this things and it may very well be forever, But I do know that he will never again gain the satisfaction of keeping me from doing what I love to do.

For those that are being shamed by their parents, or their friends, or whoever else for doing what you love to do, turn that negative energy into positivity.

Use it as your motivation when you don't feel like waking up at 6 AM to get a work out in before class, or when you don't feel like working to put yourself through school, or when you don’t feel like practicing your craft on that particular day.

Use it as your motivation to do what makes you happy and to be the best that you could ever be at it. Use that turnaround of energy as your way of winning the battle over those that seek to drag you down.

If you want to dance, just dance.