dKol on grief

It’s just shy of a year since my mom died. In January 2023 she went to the ER due to random bruising all over her body. She jokingly said she didn’t get into a fight to deserve the appearance of such. Two weeks after she was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Four months later she became too weak and we lost her.

I have found an array of support along my journey but I recognized today that I have another space to grieve. I suppose I always knew The dKol la femme Project could be an outlet but it wasn’t until today that it felt like the right time to actually lean into the community that was built to share these exact life experiences.

grief, storiesDanielle KolachikMarch 26, 2024The dKol la femme Projectgrief, cancer Comments

the dKol la femme project: I'm still here, can you hear me?

How do we define trauma? It’s a mutual understanding that trauma involves a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. But the embodiment of trauma and its specific impact can vary significantly from person to person. For Jenna, trauma comes in many forms.

abuse. alcoholic households. grief. substance addiction. loss. rape.

Reading all of those traumatic events outlaid in a sort of laundry list does not allow for the complexity of it all to sink in. Re-read this list and realize that all of this happened to one person.

The Morgan's Embryo Transfer To Be Aired On ABC Nightline

Back in 2017 Kerri & Chris Morgan came to la femme knowing that their journey to become parents was a topic that needed attention and support. I will let Kerri’s blog fill you in on all the details on infertility, IVF and ultimately their decision to adopt two embryos. Kerri and I had known each other for a few years and she knew that la femme was blossoming into a nonprofit. She has been a sounding board and an advocate all wrapped into one, she knows all the intimate details to our mission and our dream to make la femme a platform for tough topics that need to be heard.

the dKol la femme project: dKol's story

Here I go, unveiling my story, god this makes me feel extremely vulnerable and anxious.

How did I get here?

For as long as I can remember, I need to find a reason for everything. I’m seeking insight, accountability, I want growth.

Life changed drastically for me in 2013. What I now know as depression and anxiety, words that were not on my radar during that first deep dark bout with depression. I didn’t understand what anxiety meant. What felt like endless weeks that eventually turned into months of feeling depleted of any positivity or happiness…

the dKol la femme project: curves are beautiful. unless they’re my own.

Self-hate can come in many forms and in varying severities. For Melissa, this hate was severe enough to trigger harm at her own hands.

“I cut myself for the first time when I was 11,” Melissa shared. She struggled to see the beauty within herself and to find enough self-love to bury the pain – even if it was just a little bit. She always found curves on women to be beautiful, yet when she looked in the mirror and saw her beautiful curves, she felt disgust. Why, she wondered, were curves beautiful unless they were reflecting back at her?

the dKol la femme project: SHARE

Follow us on social media (links below). Share our posts, put them in your stories, tell others what we stand for and what la femme means to YOU. Why do you follow along, what stories have you connected with, etc. The more passionate we can be, the bigger the community we will grow, in turn the more funding we can raise, which will help us offer a larger platform for more stories to be told. Help us get the message out to the community that we are a brand new charity and we need our mission to be heard.

volunteer, stories, ambassadorDanielle KolachikDecember 27, 2018social media, share, instagram, facebook, newsletter, blogComment

The dKol la femme Project: JOIN OUR COMMUNITY

If you have been connecting with our stories and would like to become a part of our growing team of volunteers, we would very much like to hear from you. We are in the process of creating a list of interested people in our community that will play key roles in helping us officially launch The dKol la femme Project in 2019.

volunteer, storiesDanielle KolachikDecember 10, 2018The dKol la femme Projectjoin, volunteer, community

the dKol la femme project: anonymity

You are so used to being identified and known for what or who they think you “are”… are you your job, are you your disease, are you your abuse, are you your anxiety, your gender, your body, your looks? Your answer to this question doesn’t matter because really, you are what they choose to define you as today, likely to be different tomorrow. But, you know that you are not defined by what you do, or how you look, or any one single thing that builds the package that is you. The pressure of creating definitions, and attempting to fit pieces of you into varying small little boxes feels like too much to handle. You’re left standing there holding pieces of yourself that have no place wondering where these “you’s” belong.

the dKol la femme project: abuse + bulimia

From a young age, Ashley saw the challenges and darkness that life can bring. She saw instability, fighting, sickness, alcoholism, death, physical-mental-sexual abuse at the hands of someone she should have been able to trust, and discomfort in her own house; and soon her own skin. She felt like she had no control of her life, no opinion, and nothing was her own. So – she did something, something that could be her own, something that she could regulate, and something that she now wishes she could go back and reverse; knowing what she knows now.

the dKol la femme project: breast cancer

Their story is intense, it is emotional, it’s sad, and it is personal, but most of all it is celebratory and inspiring. This is the story of Loretta, Christine, and Jamie; a mother and her two daughters. A mother and her two daughters who have been through so much, have struggled, and have fought. A mother and her oldest daughter diagnosed with breast cancer; tragic and heartbreaking, yet this mother (Loretta) radiates with nothing but positivity. The love between these girls is so overwhelming you can actually feel it.

the dKol la femme project: this is my body

The mirror has always been my biggest enemy. I have always looked at it with disgust, picking every flaw apart, overanalyzing, and wishing to be something I wasn’t. Wishing I would see a different reflection, wishing my legs were smaller, or my stomach was flatter, that I was a little shorter and much skinner. Never did I look in the mirror and see the good. Everything that I ate that wasn’t within my normal healthy regimen made me feel fat and regretful, immediately. How exhausting and sad is that? I’ll tell you, the answer is very, it’s all consuming actually.

the dKol la femme project: embryo adoption

the dKol la femme project meets Kerri & Chris Morgan, a couple who undergoes failed IVF, and are lucky enough to be able adopt two embryos. The first embryo transfer was not a success. The second embryo is a healthy little boy who is well into his second trimester.