Lacie Weatherholt

Peer Mentor (She/Her/Hers)

Special Interests: disordered eating | body dysmorphia | childhood trauma | generational trauma | Mental Health | religious trauma | anxiety | poverty | housing insecurity

Lacie was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, and moved throughout her childhood to Minnesota, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Mississippi before settling in Eau Claire in 1999.

As a child, Lacie struggled with the instability and felt powerless. At the same time, she was also struggling with bullying at school, usually because of the evidence of poverty, but also involving frequent body shaming and misogyny.

Lacie found ways to cope through drugs, smoking, toxic relationships, and disordered eating. These behaviors helped her to feel more loved and accepted by everyone but she couldn’t accept herself. As the years went by, she started to want more out of life and more for herself and finally admitted she was struggling.

In her recovery journey, she realized that the problem wasn’t really about food or her body but unaddressed trauma and what she perceived as a sense of control over her own life. Because of this, her interest grew in better understanding disordered eating, trauma, poverty, mental and emotional health, and how and why all of these can connect and overlap.

She credits curiosity, resilience, radical self-love and most importantly a community of support and connection for her successes in recovery. It still takes effort every day to reframe her beliefs, but she knows it’s worth it. Her recovery toolkit includes meditation, affirmations, and joyful movement.

Lacie’s favorite affirmation? “Today I reject the patriarchy’s bad ideas.”

The past few years Lacie has been working on mental health advocacy with JONAH (Joining Our Neighbors Advancing Hope), breaking generational cycles with her husband and two kids, and rediscovering her passion for reading and writing. Her downtime looks like a good book or tossing a football or creating art with her kids. She loves discovering and sharing new music with my husband and they love going to shows together whenever possible. Lacie also tries to travel somewhere new once a year with her two best friends. She can have an entire conversation in obscure 90s movie quotes or fill you in on all the details about that song in your head from 20 years ago you can’t quite name.