Finding Solace Through HHC's Mental Health Services

HHC Clinic patient Chelsea credits Clinic Nurse Practitioner Andrea Brubaker and the HHC staff therapist as saving her life. 

To go from not wanting to wake up each morning to a thriving business owner in Boone, Chelsea said she just needed clinicians who would listen to and work with her to find a solution best for her to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“To be seen and to be heard, it feels so good. I think everybody should experience that, just being in your whole truth; you can be the best version of yourself when you're believed,” Chelsea said. “You can also get the tools you need when people believe you and can listen to you.”

Growing up in Cherryville, Chelsea started spending time in Boone in 2011 as she started her career as a body piercer. She said Boone immediately felt like home, and she made the move to live here in 2020 after having worked as a body piercer in Charlotte.

Chelsea was working in body piercing alongside her ex-husband when she learned of his death in 2023. While they weren’t together at the time, it still was painful to experience. The following month, her father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and needed help with care.

Prior to this, Chelsea had been trying to find other places of work, as she was experiencing anxiety going into her workplace. She recalled crying for multiple hours before going into work, so she made the decision to leave to help her father who had multiple doctors appointments and needed assistance as he navigated the diagnosis. However, leaving a career field she loved proved to be difficult for Chelsea’s mental health. She said she loves making others feel good about themselves as a body piercer, and she directly tied her self worth to perfectionism and performing for others.

“My whole life, my worth has been put on my productivity. That was devastating to me because I was like, ‘I'm not producing. I'm not worth anything,’” Chelsea said. “So, I was having trouble with my mental health. It was so bad, it was physically making me sick.”

Miraculously, her father later recovered after having been told had only had months to live. Chelsea was struggling to find work in her field and it was taking a toll on her mentally and physically. She decided to seek help at a health department outside of the High Country and had an upsetting experience. She said that instead of listening to her about what could be wrong, the staff there had accused her of being on drugs. She vehemently explained that she was not on drugs, but simply just needed help. Unable to find the help she needed at that facility, Chelsea set out to find medical staff she could turn to. 

“The whole thing in general led me to (the HHC Free Clinic),” Chelsea said. “I just said, ‘I’m going to try again because if I don't, I think I might die.’ I was just to a point where I was so dangerously depressed and physically sick from it.”

She found her way to — what was then called the Community Care Clinic; now the HHC Free Clinic — in November 2023. It was Andrea who started seeing Chelsea and addressing her physical symptoms. Chelsea said Andrea took the time to research everything she was experiencing physically, and she even recommended that Chelsea start meeting with the HHC staff therapist for therapy sessions.

With HHC’s therapist, Chelsea worked through previous trauma with workplace sexual harassment, issues with her ex-husband, and overall learn coping skills to function easier in life. She also received an ADHD diagnosis with the help of the care team at HHC and the treatment that helped transform her daily life. She said she was hesitant about taking medication, but had seen how much it had helped a friend of hers and decided to take the step for herself. 

“I was sobbing the second week I was on my medicine because I was like, it never had to be this hard. My brain has always been like a dumpster fire, just trying to get stuff out of it. As soon as I got on the right medication, it was all like very clean file cabinets that are alphabetically ordered. I can function and I can look at big tasks and I'm not overwhelmed.”

Chelsea opened her own piercing business in August 2024 — Peak Piercing — saying it wouldn’t have been possible without working on her mental health beforehand. She was grateful to have access to HHC’s therapist when, a month after opening, Hurricane Helene had hit the community. While her shop equipment was untouched by flood waters despite the space she was in being flooded, slow business was financially devastating due to the hurricane and she relied on Appalachian State University for meals while the community cobbled itself back together.

Having been downtown in High Country Emporium before, Chelsea has now opened Peak Piercing in her own location at 1600 N.C. 105. Having access to primary care, mental health services, and medications has been pivotal, Chelsea said. In order to be willing to receive those services, Chelsea said she had to get to the place mentally where she felt she was worthy of receiving help and being treated well. She encourages other folks who have been thinking about receiving help, to definitely do so.

“It's okay to be scared. But you can be scared and still seek help, still do it one step at a time, and just take baby steps to get to where you want to be. When you have somebody helping you hold the lantern in the night, it's not so scary. When you have the right tools, for you to not be scared of the dark, it helps so much.”

She also encouraged those who may have had a bad experience in the past with a clinician to keep trying to find the right match, much like she did.

“The help is out there, you just got to find it,” Chelsea said. “You don't have to feel like that. You don't have to feel alone, and there's people that genuinely want to help you, and they're not going to take advantage of you.”

If you or someone you know is in need of help and looking for a place where a care team will work to find what’s right for them, reach out to HHC at 828-262-1628.