My name is Cerelia Mallory Hepburn. I go by Mallory in my daily life and Cerelia for school and professional life. I identify as queer, demisexual, witch. My pronouns are she/her. My ancestry is Northwestern European. My lineage is Irish (paternal) and French (maternal). My maternal language is French and English is my second language but most dominant. I am 43 years old and I live with chronic illness. I have Fibromyalgia and mental health illness; I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in 2015. After a suicide attempt in April 2022, I was diagnosed with chronic depression, c-PTSD, and BPD. I'm a student at Western and I am a blogger. My blog's focus was originally about living with Fibromyalgia, since 2021 there's been a bigger focus on my mental health and advocacy of chronic illness.

​I am in a domestic partnership with my lifelong partner, Kirk. We dated in autumn 1998 and officially became a family in 1999. We have three children; a daughter and two sons. Kirk's lineage is Algonquin of Timiskaming First Nation and Northwestern European. 

am writing about our experience together, the good times and the difficult times. Since the winter before my Fibromyalgia diagnosis, Kirk has been evolving as my partner, my support person, my safe person; I call him the witness to my life. He saw the struggles and tried to support me in the ways we used to understand and think about our roles in my dysfunctional families structure but realizing now that what I had experienced in my childhood, most of my adult life as well, was abuse. We are learning how to cope with chronic illness and mental illness(es) with more kindness, more openness, and more understanding. We spoke to each other before, he heard I was sad, but we didn't understand c-PTSD. He has always wanted me to be successful.... he always steps up when I need him the most. In June 2022, he knew and understood that I could not heal in our home. It was time for my journey to find myself and become the person I have always dreamed of.