At a glance, one may get a\u00a0misguided perception\u00a0of Christa Steiner.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s a musician and candidate for Miss Connecticut. While the sash and crown are beautiful parts of Steiner, it’s her struggle that illustrates her story. She recognized the ugly pieces of addiction while living with an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. <\/p>\n
“When you have an untreated mental illness, self-medication is a big part of that process, and so, I really turned to alcohol and substances to try to correct what was going on internally for me,” Steiner said.<\/p>\n
Steiner is working on a dual-recovery program and finds true beauty in life by being honest.<\/p>\n
“There are so many folks who have preconceived notions that pageant queens, or anybody in these public-facing spaces, are perfect and have everything figured out,” Steiner said. “I really wanted to flip that narrative on its head and say, ‘Listen, I’m somebody’s daughter, I’m somebody’s cousin, I’m your friend, and I’m in recovery.'”<\/p>\n
Her road to recovery began several years ago, after she graduated from the Manhattan School of Music.<\/p>\n
“I graduated during COVID, and it was probably the most depressing graduation,” Steiner said.\u00a0 “It was like,\u00a0‘Congrats\u00a0graduates,’ and I closed my laptop.”<\/p>\n
She closed one chapter and started a new one that would try, at all costs, to consume her.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t want to feel as lonely and as isolated, so entering into bar club spaces initially to seek out community was my ultimate goal,” Steiner said.<\/p>\n
Steiner says that having\u00a0undiagnosed bipolar disorder, when she would have substances taken away from her, she would get less lucid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I would have these, frankly, psychotic symptoms that would just permeate within me all of the time, and so it was either I’m tortured by my own mind, or I’m tortured by partaking in substances,” Steiner said.<\/p>\n
Even without using substances, she still felt in the dark, and it was a meeting\u00a0with a psychiatrist that delivered a light-bulb moment.<\/p>\n
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a plan, there’s a treatment plan, I can do something, and I can feel better,'” Steiner said.<\/p>\n
Today, she is open about her recovery, dual diagnosis, and her sexuality.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So, when I competed in pageants back when I was 19 and 20 years old, I was really closed off about these personal things,” Steiner said. “I was advised not to talk about it and told that I wouldn’t get crowned because of who I was.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0Steiner says being radically honest is at the core of what she does.<\/p>\n
“When I came back into this space, I said, ‘No, I really have to be so honest, because that’s what sobriety is to me, is being honest,'” Steiner said.<\/p>\n
She is heavily supported in all areas of her life.<\/p>\n
“My partner is my number one support,” Steiner said. “She comes with me to every event, so that is definitely my number one person. Outside of that, I have to say that the recovery communities and the queer community show up for me every single day.”<\/p>\n
Recovery has helped Steiner regain control of her life and realize that greatness can emerge from something beautifully broken.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully, as the next Miss Connecticut and as the first openly queer Miss Connecticut, I can make space for other people to come after me,” Steiner said.<\/p>\n
The Miss Connecticut Pageant is this summer, and Steiner’s initiative\u00a0is titled “Out of the\u00a0Dark Mental Health Recovery for Youth.”<\/p>\n
According to the American Addiction Center, 30-50% of people with bipolar disorder experience a substance use disorder in their lifetime, with some estimates suggesting 60-70%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a glance, one may get a\u00a0misguided perception\u00a0of Christa Steiner. She\u2019s a musician and candidate for Miss Connecticut.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,2276,137,514,515],"class_list":{"0":"post-490223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-connecticut","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}