Bare It All: Louisahhh speaks on depression, addiction and the beauty of life

She's candid and heart-wrenching with her words, charting the infinite fleet of life with one foot on Earth and the other tapping at the edges of Hell.

"Even when I'm not actively using, my addiction tells me that I'm less than, not enough, too much. It works in beautiful cooperation with my toxic ego, always putting me at the top of the pile or the bottom of the heap."

"If you stay clean and live based on a few simple terms, you can have a life beyond your wildest dreams. If you do drugs, you won’t be able to stop, you will hate yourself a lot and maybe die. The crazy part is that sometimes, if left to my own devices, I'll choose the second option. So I try to stay awake one day at a time."

Louisahhh calls her existence some type of absurd riddle, staying drug-free through a touring lifestyle that once propelled her disease, but would now never exist without her sobriety.

"This life is incredible, beautiful, exciting, fulfilling. But that doesn't mean it's not challenging. It helps to have people who can give you empathy in those tough moments. The only way to learn where my edges are is to push my own limits until I almost break, and then learn to listen to my brain and body and heart so I don't kill myself doing what I love."

She thinks over her closing words, a declaration, a promise and message of open arms to those trekking through their own lives: "Have a blast. Go too far. Learn how to take care of yourself and have fun simultaneously. Develop a shamelessness about the ridiculous shit that you do to try and maintain sanity in a totally insane life. And if you're having a hard time, slide into my DMs and I will tell you it's all going to be okay."

Sydney is Mixmag's US Digital Content Editor. Follow her on Twitter here

Published as part of Mixmag Health Season

[Photos: Marilyn Clark]