Maddy Blinderman ’22 is grateful for the support and encouragement she receives from her LEAD family. It has made her personal journey empowering and rewarding.
During her sophomore year of high school, she was diagnosed with social anxiety and panic disorders. Her therapist at the time was very helpful, but Maddy needed more intensive support, which she received over the next few years.
She planned to attend college and even went to orientation but left early. Before she began her education at the University of Hartford, she deferred her first semester to attend an intensive outpatient treatment program for her anxiety. One step in her “exposure” therapy meant experiencing, in small doses, the things that made her anxious. She spent one night on campus in a friend’s dorm, facing her fears and surviving. When she started her first semester in the spring of 2018, she suffered many panic attacks and went home to Westchester, New York, every weekend. But, with support from her parents and twin sister, and her desire for an education, she pushed through her fears and persevered.
Maddy attended the Summer Bridge program at the University’s Hillyer College. It was there that she learned she had been accepted into the Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) program. The program provides leadership development, resilience coaching, and career readiness training to undergraduate students. As someone who had overcome so much anxiety and fear to attend college and live on campus, she felt like she had something to offer the program participants.
Since being accepted into LEAD, she has gained a supportive network of women and learned to say “yes” to opportunities. Simultaneously, she’s discovered that it’s okay, when she’s having a rough day, to reschedule something. She has an internal need for perfection. The fear of falling short could sometimes paralyze her or cause a panic attack. Thanks to her peers, mentors, and the lessons learned through LEAD, she says, she’s learned that it’s okay to take breaks and “I don't have to get everything done in one day.”
Maddy has also found her strength is her passion for helping others, and that her sensitivity makes her empathetic. She initially planned to become a teacher, but discovered her calling to serve and support others as a therapist during her first psychology class.
When students were sent home in March 2020 because of the pandemic, Maddy and her LEAD peers connected via Zoom to discuss how they were handling the isolation. She saw that her friends were also struggling with distance learning and offered to meet one-on-one in a video chat any time. “I’m really passionate about helping people and being there for someone while they go through something difficult,” she comments.
Those biweekly Zoom LEAD meetings “really helped me through the quarantine,” Maddy explains. “I enjoyed listening to my cohort members’ thoughts. When I shared, everyone validated me. That made me feel so good.”
While she felt her high school peers didn't understand her anxiety or accept her, the women in LEAD are supportive of one another. “It was a relief to be able to open up and be accepted without judgment,” she says. “They're great women.”
Before she started college, she had been terrified of staying on campus overnight with a friend, and, later, felt it was “just an amazing accomplishment” when she completed her first semester, which she did as a part-time student. If someone had told her that eventually she would speak in front of an audience at a LEAD event that included the University president, she would not have thought it possible.
At the president’s reception before an audience of 40 people, she talked about how LEAD helped her through her first semester as a full-time student. “My cohort supported me,” she told the audience, and she hoped others could learn to push through their fears. “It was an experience I will never forget.”
During her first year in LEAD, her mentor, Ashley DeFreitas ’20, helped get her through multiple challenges. For someone with severe anxiety, sometimes even little things can become overwhelming. “Ashley was there for me and we would frequently have check-in dinners together,” Maddy recalls.
Maddy Blinderman, '22I’ve learned to be more resilient through LEAD.
When she became a sophomore, it was Maddy’s turn to mentor a younger student in the LEAD program and she discovered an inner strength and confidence. “Four years ago, I would not have been comfortable with mentoring a first-year student,” she says. “I feel like LEAD has helped me come a long way.”
Just because she has reached these milestones doesn’t mean she doesn’t still face debilitating anxiety in college, she shares. But she has learned that even in the face of a panic attack, she can power through and survive it.
For example, one day recently she was having a really bad panic attack. She called Amy Jaffe Barzach, executive director of The Women’s Advancement Initiative, and asked, “Can I come to the LEAD office?” It was 5 p.m. but Amy sat with her for two hours until she felt better. “Then she drove me home to my apartment. I felt guilty, but Amy said, ‘Maddy, you would do the same for someone else.’”
In the fall of 2020, when she returned to campus during the pandemic, Maddy was so anxious about the possibility of having to quarantine alone because of exposure to COVID-19 that she wasn’t eating and was losing weight. She texted a LEAD staff member, and they video-chatted together to help break down her feelings. When asked what she was feeling anxious about, Maddy explained that she lived alone in her apartment and feared that she’d have to isolate herself from others, and she needs to interact with people to be able to function. The questions she was asked without judgment helped her determine what she could control and helped her push through her anxiety.
With all this support, Maddy has enjoyed an active college experience. She’s involved with the campus’s Hillel community and enjoys indoor cycling. After she graduates, she plans to begin graduate school in the fall of 2022 to get a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling.
Before starting college, “I was broken. I did not start school on time and had to take a gap semester. I cried every morning before I went to work, had frequent panic attacks, and was depressed. I came home and went back to bed. My parents didn’t know what to do but tried to support me as best as they could,” she explains. Now, she has lived through a global pandemic while completing her undergraduate education.
If the pandemic had struck four years ago, she says, “I wouldn’t be handling it with the skills and capabilities that I have now. I think resilience doesn’t always mean pushing through the uncomfortable parts of life and succeeding. It means learning when to take a step back, give yourself some time, and then go back to the task. It’s not all about the success but about how you get back up after taking the time you need to rest.”
“My experiences have taught me that if I keep going on an ‘empty tank’ it will cause more burnout. I’ve learned to say to myself, ‘Okay. You’re not dying. It might feel like you are.’ I don’t like giving up on things,” she says. “I’ve learned to be more resilient through LEAD. I’m now comfortable with being uncomfortable.”