Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Reyes.
Alright, thank you for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I had long been hesitant to join Instagram. So many of my friends were on it but I never leaped until my divorce. I had left my newspaper writing career and became a stay-at-home mom with my first son in that time, newspapers were slowly dying and online content was booming.
With the guidance of a friend who made a whole career out of her social media, I decided to use this time in my life to start my website and Instagram in the hopes of helping others going through something similar and helping them not feel so alone.
When no one else around you is experiencing these same things, it can be a lonely road. Divorcing while parenting two little kids, starting over in the working world, and taking care of a mom who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, was so much to take all at once.
Writing about my experiences, became very therapeutic and along the way, I was able to connect with so many amazing people and create my little community. Although we don’t know each other in person, the connection created with some of these people is even stronger than some in real life.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Not at all, this road was born out of struggles. The website, the Instagram, and the writing all came out of a very painful place. The breakdown of a family in divorce is very much a death. What you once thought would or could be is gone and you wonder if yoú” re damaging your kids in the process, something no parent wants to do.
My mom‘s Alzheimer’s diagnosis was the beginning of the end because dementia creates this long grief where the person you knew and loved dies little by little.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I always knew I would become a writer, there was no second-guessing in college that’s what I wanted to do. While I expected to become a newspaper journalist, I never expected to write about my own life and my own experience with mental health during such a dark time in my life.
The most rewarding part about all this has been connecting with people going through similar struggles in their life and helping them not feel so alone. I still use my journalistic skills and work as a freelance reporter, but being raw and open about what is going on in my personal life and helping people in my little way is something I am very proud of.
Who else deserves credit for your story?
Through each journey, I have had different people show up like angels that helped me when I needed it. I haven’t been shy about thanking them and they each know who they are.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.singlemomstartingover.com
- Instagram: @singlemomstartingover
- Facebook: @Single mom starting over
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