By: Ruth Daryne Clores & Hannah Althea Leonardo
Cultivating self-love is not something that happens overnight.
Love for oneself takes time; it takes courage; there are no flaws and imperfections— just unique features.
As a mental health advocate and a survivor of mental illness, the 21-year-old Michelle Delos Reyes is a representation of beauty and bravery.
“Big girls like me, plus size women like me, have little to no representation in the modeling, fashion industry, or society as a whole. The true meaning of diversity. It is needed; in fact, it is vital. I wanted to encourage those of my body type that they can rise and shine,” she shared.
Ever since her love and passion for empowering and spreading body neutrality, her intention to encourage and uplift others through social media has been one of her greatest advocacies.
Despite being a mental health advocate, dealing with her own mental issues is undoubtedly the hardest.
Last 2014, upon possessing unstable and turbulent emotional patterns, Elle was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder.
Moreover, she was also clinically diagnosed with an unspecified feeding or eating disorder in 2016.
To rise upon uncertain times, meditation and journaling become her sole key to strive for self-growth.
Additionally, Elle seeks professional support, obstructing social stigma and discrimination amongst people who suffer from mental distress.
To further educate herself and fight change in the country’s behavioral health treatment system, she joined various coalitions such as the Philippine Mental Health Association, Empath PH, One Kind PH, and Lingap PH.
She struggled for a long time, and honestly, there are days that she still does.
Nevertheless, her fight against mental health issues and her experiences in life have never silenced her, but rather, she uses it as her source of intention to raise awareness.
Elle is known to write lengthy captions in her Instagram posts, and she said that intention plays a vital role as it seeps in her when she starts typing and lets her thoughts flow truthfully.
“Even if not, many read the entire caption, which does not matter to me. If I am speaking my truth with the intention of encouraging others to do the same, then nothing else fazes me,” she said.
In December 2021, Elle achieved yet another success as she reached 10,000 followers on Instagram and widened her online reach even more.
She mentioned that her journey of gaining thousands of followers wasn’t a piece of cake as it took her two years of effort with her creative methods.
During the pandemic, she released the first episode of her podcast that tackles various controversial societal topics entitled “Elle’s Voice”, and then, later on, decided to change it to “Inside an Anxious Mind”.
Starting a podcast comes with pressure, but Elle got through it, and now she can’t help but be proud of herself.
“From recording in closets to getting my own set-up and letting go of the pressure that came with it when it started. Now I just record whenever I feel like it. It feels much more personal and intimate now,” she shared.
Aside from podcast-making, she also has a love for beauty, which leads her to multiple beauty brand partnerships that eventually let her monetize her content.
“I choose carefully what brands I work with; I am careful with which brands resonate my advocacy and are genuine about creating change and not just for marketing stunts,” she stated.
No matter how seriously Elle takes her online presence, it does not affect the dedication she also pours into her studies as she is a fourth-year academic achiever who is taking up a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Major in Human Resource Management from Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP).
Being a content creator and a student simultaneously requires good management skills, but she does things as simple as listing and weighing the importance of a task; she makes sure that practicality is on top of her convenience.
Even with everything she has fulfilled so far, Elle doesn’t take all the credit for herself.
She humbly asserted that PUP has helped her become the person she is today: someone who voices strong opinions, especially in the prevalence of unjustness.
It is one of her objectives to create meaningful content without losing sight of herself in the process, so she acknowledges her relapses and takes them as part of the journey.
In line with her self-love, Elle has been on hiatus in creating content, striving to be better and come back bolder.
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