by: our client, Steph Hellmer
Member of Lashify Life since May 2020
Top 3 Favorite products: Extreme Ice Gossamer® Lashes, Fuse Control® Wands, Bondage
Favorite Bonding Technique: Lockdown with Bondage (Black WL on natural lashes, Bondage at the base, third layer of white WL dots)
Typically wears lashes for: 3-4 days. I could wear longer, but I love to change them out!
**TRIGGER WARNING: MENTAL/PHYSICAL/EMOTIONAL ABUSE, DRUG ADDICTION, SUICIDE ATTEMPT**
To fully understand what Lashify means to me and exactly how it makes me feel, I have to take you back to the absolute lowest point of my life. This time period drastically changed me to my core. My self-confidence was absolutely zero. My self-worth was non-existent, as a woman, a human being. I was destroyed during this time. I wasn’t me anymore. I let someone change me into something that wasn’t me anymore. The REAL me was gone. I was void.
Back in 2010, I met this guy that was 12 years older than me. I was only 18, he was 30. Before I had met him, I was a fun, carefree, confident person that loved herself. That all changed when I met my ex.
At first, I was so happy and having fun during that “honeymoon” phase of relationships, but after only a couple of months, he showed his true colors with his physical, mental and emotional abuse. But I was already so “in love” that I made excuses in my head, that it was my fault and I deserved this, so I stayed. It was one of those relationships where he could do whatever he wanted; he had a wife, an ex-wife, a girlfriend (me), and 5 kids. I was already dealing with a 2-year long opiate addiction battle, as was he. The entire relationship was just drug-fueled. He cut me off from my family and friends - absolutely everyone that I had ever cared about. At first, I wasn’t allowed to have male friends. Eventually, this changed to not being able to have any friends at all and it led to him demanding that I delete my Facebook entirely. I wasn’t allowed to watch certain things on TV, and he influenced me to do things I NEVER thought I would ever do.
During Father’s Day weekend of 2011, we had gone to a cabin about an hour away from “our” house. He wanted us to get sober. A few days later, I thought I wouldn’t survive. After everything happened and I realized I was okay, I got up and ran after him because I didn’t want him to leave me in the middle of nowhere. Once home, sadly I started taking Ibuprofen and Tylenol like candy, and I overdosed because I couldn’t take it anymore. I ended up in the ER, and had to stay in the ICU for 3 days.
After all of this, I STILL WENT BACK TO HIM. This is something I cannot explain. I don’t know why I went back. I still don’t understand it to this day, 11 years later. After so much abuse, I finally decided I wanted out. I wanted MY life back. I wanted to be free from him. February 15th, 2013 was the day I ran away from him and moved to New York. I was finally free of my ex, but not my addiction. After about 3 years of living in NYC, I moved to Texas and then moved back home to Arkansas. 2018 was when I was done with chasing the high. I’m proud to say that as of right now, I am almost 7 years sober.
Now that you have an idea at how awful I felt about myself, enter Lashify in May of 2020. I found a video from the YouTuber, Milabu. She had done a review on Lashify that was posted to Facebook. I was transfixed and obsessed from the very beginning. I started doing TONS of research. I joined the Lashify Life Facebook group on May 4th and watched every single live tutorial. Lashify is literally ALL I would talk about to my roommate, to the point where I probably annoyed her – but I couldn’t help it! I was obsessed and hadn’t even tried it yet.
So after about 2 weeks of watching every single live available for rewatch, I finally bought a Control Kit. My roommate offered to pay for half of the Control Kit as a birthday gift. I received my first Lashify package on my birthday, May 21st! So I’ll always get to celebrate my Lashiversary and birthday together! At first I was SUPER, SUPER intimidated even though I had been watching all of the lives. At the time, I hadn’t seen or tried anything like this. I wasn’t a makeup person at all when I started using Lashify, and I couldn’t apply strip lashes to save my life, so I was nervous going in.
But after playing with the wand a bit and pretending to apply, I got it! It’s like it just clicked and made sense. To describe how the lashes made me feel the first time I applied them is hard. I had still been dealing with life and the feeling of not being good enough or pretty enough after 3 years of physical/mental/ emotional abuse and 12+ years of drug abuse. It’s still something that I deal with, to this day. But Lashify has helped me SO MUCH. When I put them on for the first time, I could NOT stop looking at them in the mirror. They made me feel beautiful. They made me feel confident. They made me feel things I hadn’t felt in YEARS. Drug addiction and just being broken for so long, took a toll on my appearance. I could put on pounds of makeup and still feel gross, especially with the clumpy, spider-like mascara. I think the reason I obsessed about Lashify so much was because of HOW it made me feel. I HADN’T felt pretty or had any self-confidence in 12 years.
It has now been two years and seven months since I started my Lashify journey. I’ve made actual friends, and I’ve gained my confidence and self-worth back. I feel accepted and part of the group in Lashify Life. I’ve shared my personal addiction story in that group and now here, just because I want people to know that it IS possible for life to get better after addiction. I was in a deep, dark place for so long that I never thought I would escape and see the positive again. But when Lashify and the Lashify Life Facebook group came into my life, I saw myself becoming who I used to be.
It hasn’t been an easy road and I don’t think it will ever be easy, but now that I am sober I am finally trying to release all of the negative feelings I’ve held on to over the years, and I can feel hope and happiness coming back to me. It’s crazy to think that something like lashes can have this big of an impact on your life, but it really and truly has. I found them when I was struggling. The lashes made me feel beautiful and the people in Lashify Life made me feel cared about and that I was actually worth something again. When I lost my job in the middle of 2022, I once again went to a dark headspace, but I just focused on the happiness I get from the Lashify Life Facebook group, the brand as a whole, and the happy feelings I get from actually doing my lashes. Once again, it helped me through a rough time.
Never forget that if you’re in a dark time, it is possible to get out of it, no matter what the situation is. I have a great support system from my family, the close friendships I’ve made from the Lashify Life group, and the Lashify community as a whole. This is something I will be eternally grateful for.
