Blair Westerlund (fiancée of Sam Cosmi)

Identifying the right coping skills and processing hard emotions is a passion rooted in a personal place for Westerlund. She dealt with anxiety growing up and didn’t have the best experience in therapy. She dipped into bouts of depression in college after injuries ended her volleyball career. Westerlund began blogging about her experiences while navigating her mental health journey.

That interest in helping others better understand their emotions, develop coping skills and feel empowered going out into the world has only continued to grow. At Texas, she majored in youth and community studies with a concentration in special populations, and she minored in psychology. She then went on to get her masters in applied behavior analysis.

Now, Westerlund works at Proud Moments ABA where she helps provide children with ASD with behavioral tools. In the future, she hopes to realize a dream of opening inclusive playgrounds for children with gross motor issues.

“They’re obviously a different scale of issues, but I think people can look at disabilities or mental health diagnoses as weaknesses,” she said. “But, the kids I work with have so many strengths, and there’s nothing wrong with doing things differently to face on the world. I hope I can just keep spreading awareness that no matter how you are able to get through the day, that that’s okay.