Introduction

Hi there! My name is Débora and I'm a 22-year-old girl from a sleepy town in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Despite this, I want to write here in English because I feel it's easier to communicate this way. I'm a former student of Literature in Portuguese Language, and my dream was to become a teacher. I had difficulties at school because of my personality and creativity, and I thought, "I want to help people like me!" But recently I have changed my mind.

Well, I still want to help people like me. I still want to be the change that I want to see in the world. I still want to help, teach, show different ways of expanding boundaries and accepting oneself. However, when I was diagnosed bipolar earlier this year, I discovered a new passion: neuroscience. I have been reading material on bipolar disorders and I've taken a free online Neuroscience course from Harvard University out of curiosity. And I loved it!

In addition to that, I also suffer from anorexia nervosa and am currently recovering. It was getting increasingly difficult to focus on my university studies while I continued to recover, so I dropped out of university. I had time to think and decide what I want to do with my future. Therefore, I am planning to take the college entrance exam one more time in 2017, aiming for Psychology! The exam will be in October and I have until then to prepare.

I suffer from a number of other mental health problems, like recently diagnosed kleptomania and excoriation disorder, self-harm and panic disorder. I'm not good at social interactions and most of my communication takes place via writing. By the way, I write a whole lot. My biggest dream in childhood was to publish a book, and I hope to achieve it as soon as I finish writing one of the two novels I'm working on! I'm not sure which one I'll finish first...

What else can I say? I live with my mom, my dad, my older sister and younger brother. I also have an older brother who lives in another state, so we are a big family! I have an one-eyed cat that was rescued by my family after being attacked by dogs on the street, and I have once considered studying Veterinary Medicine, because I grew up in a nearby rural town and cared for many animals. Sometimes I dress in a strange way, in a style called lolita fashion. I love clothes inspired by Rococo period and Victorian era. My hobbies include embroidering, sewing, reading, and learning languages. I can speak Spanish and Japanese and am learning French!

On this blog, I want to share my recovery from my mental disorders, as well as some of my hobbies and studies. Maybe I'll also share excerpts that I cut from my novels as I continue to write and revise. I have a blog in Portuguese, especifically about my eating disorder recovery as well, which you can check out by clicking here. But I will write about anorexia nervosa here in English soon. And that's it! I hope it was not a boring blog post. :)