Mental Health, Sobriety, and Self-Worth with Instagram & TikTok Influencer, Bill Cornhoff
What does it take to rise when life has knocked you down in every possible way?
In this raw and deeply powerful episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, Becca Powers sits down with Bill Cornhoff for a vulnerable conversation about mental health, sobriety, workplace trauma, and finding the strength to begin again.
Bill opens up about his darkest moments: facing suicidal thoughts, battling bipolar disorder, the pain of loss, and the shame cycles that kept him stuck. He and Becca dismantle the stigma around medication, openly sharing how treatment gave them the energy to fight for healing instead of drowning in depression and anxiety.
Through heartbreak, workplace betrayal, and personal collapse, Bill reminds us of a vital truth: failure isn’t fatal unless you give up. His story is one of resilience, courage, and the unwavering belief that even in brokenness, we are still worthy of love.
Medication Without Shame
Why getting help is not weakness, but strength—and how treatment can give you the chance to heal.
Healing Through Honesty
Speaking your truth, even the messy and ugly parts, is your superpower and a path to connection.
From Rock Bottom to Renewal
How moving—physically, emotionally, spiritually—creates momentum to rebuild.
The Power of Vulnerability
Shame loses its hold when we share our stories; honesty helps others heal.
Redefining Strength
Asking for help and leaning into community is not weakness, but courage.
Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:
Bill’s candid story of hitting rock bottom and finally finding hope through medication.
Becca’s vulnerable share of her own emotional collapse at work, and the awakening it sparked.
A heartfelt discussion on workplace trauma, burnout, and the human cost of corporate disconnection.
Bill’s empowering reminder that “failure isn’t fatal unless you give up.”
The wisdom and encouragement for listeners who feel stuck in shame or struggling with mental health.
Empowering Thoughts to Take With You:
“Failure isn’t fatal unless you give up.” – Bill Cornhoff
“You’re lovable even if you’re healing.” – Bill Cornhoff
“Telling the truth, even the ugly kind, is powerful. Your story will save other people.” – Bill Cornhoff
“Don’t torture yourself—go get some help.” – Becca Powers
“We have to go through it so we can rise up and serve.” – Becca Powers
About Bill
William Cornhoff is a founding member of the Britney Army, a card-carrying member of the BeyHive, and—after a bar fight in Tijuana—an honorary member of the Southern California chapter of the Hells Angels. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he attended a private Catholic high school, an experience that came with its own challenges as a gay man. He went on to earn his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toledo and a master’s degree from the University of Miami. He spent 20 years in South Florida, where he built a successful career and shared his life with someone he deeply loved. In 2022, his world turned upside down when he relocated to Texas and faced unemployment, the loss of his partner, and struggles with addiction. Today, he is genuinely happy and embracing his comeback story.
Connect with Bill Cornhoff
Power Links
Join Becca in her Facebook Community - The Dragonfly Effect, Where High-Performing Professionals Chase Big Dreams: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1C4z83krsn/
Purchase Becca’s Book - A Return to Radiance, The POWER Method to Ignite Your Soul and Unleash Your Potential: https://www.beccapowers.com/a-return-to-radiance
Invite Becca to Speak: https://www.beccapowers.com/keynotes
Grab Becca’s Free EBook, The High Performer’s Path, The 8 Forces of Potential for Mindset Mastery: https://www.beccapowers.com/
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We Want to Hear From You!
Have you experienced a loss that transformed you? What helped you return to your own light? Let us know in the comments or tag us on social media with your reflections. We love hearing how these stories connect with yours.
Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of the Empowered Half Hour, and today I have one of my former colleagues and friends, Bill Cornhoff, with us. So Bill, say hi to everybody.
Bill Cornhoff: Hello everybody.
Becca Powers: Bill and I worked together probably like 10 years ago, so it was a while, and we both have had life unfold for us in ways probably very unexpectedly since we last got a chance to really catch up. But Bill is now an Instagram and TikTok influencer on the topics of depression, shame, and sobriety. In just a short few months, maybe up to a year, he's gained a following in the thousands. At the end of this, I'm gonna give you his handles, so you can follow him as well.
But Bill, I would love to hear more from you—why did you start building a platform? Why this passion around shame, depression, sobriety, mental health? I want to hear how you rose into wanting to share.
Bill Cornhoff: Well, I grew up in a loving family in SEO, in Ohio. I was a Catholic school kid. I had a twin brother. We had Sunday dinners at grandma’s. It was very normal growing up. But under that kind of normal and Rockwell painting, there was a different struggle going on. I was bullied—relentlessly bullied—teased for weight, which developed into bulimia. I never really unpacked that or dealt with it when I was younger.
As adulthood brought success, it also brought a lot of loss. I moved to Florida, I fell in love. I had a house, had a big career. But life had other plans for me, I guess. The career derailed, mental health issues crept in, my boyfriend died, addiction crept in. Everything just opened up with the grief—mentally, spiritually, physically. It broke me.
I found myself at one point suicidal. Relapse was also a part of my story within that. For me, it was clawing my way back out of that. It was not easy. It was very lonely. I really don’t want anyone else to ever feel like that. That’s my main driver for sharing. I like to do it with a little grit, a little humor, and a soft heart.
Becca Powers: That’s cool. Let’s go back to where you opened the conversation, because I didn’t know this about you. I think a lot of people can relate to how many of our deep-rooted issues really did start in childhood. We don’t have to unpack the entire childhood, but as it relates to mental health, the bullying led to bulimia, right?
I know that in my audience of listeners, I’ve had people struggle with eating disorders. Maybe just talk a little about that through line—how it continued into some of the deeper spins that happened for you?
Self-Worth, Loss, and Connection
Bill Cornhoff: I think what happened—the big driver from that—was that I had no self-worth. I had no self-worth to the point where I believed in God, but I just didn’t think God cared about me. Especially when I started to lose everything. When you have no self-worth, you let the wrong people in your life. You’re vulnerable to let the wrong people in. Somehow these people find you, and you start making bad decisions.
You don’t really learn how to take care of yourself or love yourself. That was a big driver of where my addiction really manifested from.
Becca Powers: Yeah, I get that. I have my own addictions. In my family, I have a lot of alcoholism. I’ve mentioned that to you, and the audience has heard me talk about my brother a lot, who unfortunately I lost to a drowning incident over a year ago. It’s really painful.
When you talk about losing your boyfriend, that level of grieving—when you’ve lost someone that feels like another part of you—it’s so heavy. Whether it’s a sibling or a lover, it’s a completely different loss profile, but when you’re close like that, it’s like another part of you.
Bill Cornhoff: It leaves a hole. I cannot prepare anyone for the pain of losing someone you’re in love with. It is totally different. I’m not saying it’s worse, it’s just different. It was like waking up with terminal cancer and being stabbed in the stomach every morning for a while.
Becca Powers: Sounds like what my sister-in-law would say about losing my brother.
Bill Cornhoff: Yeah, it was that. Grief, the grieving process, was hard. The only thing I can say about it is that there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. On the flip side, take as much time as you need. There’s also no right or wrong way to support somebody who’s grieving. If people aren’t showing up for you the way you expect them to, it doesn’t mean they don’t love you.
Becca Powers: Yeah.
Bill Cornhoff: The biggest thing I learned from that was: those who love us will miss us. So treasure the time you have with somebody, and be kind to each other.
Becca Powers: Yeah, I get that a lot. I look back at my time with my brother and I don’t regret anything. I just wish I had more. That’s how I look at it. Very grateful though—I’m sure you see signs from your lover, knowing that he’s around. I get signs from my brother all the time.
The dragonfly is a big one for me. As soon as he passed, dragonflies were everywhere—at my house, my sister-in-law’s house. They continue to be. It’s kind of cool when you run into something like that. Have you run into any specific signs?
Bill Cornhoff: I see him when the sun hits the clouds. That’s typically when I see him.
Becca Powers: That’s awesome.
Bill Cornhoff: Yeah, and I swear—he would call me a weird hippie for this—but the minute he passed away, I felt it. I literally called my mom five minutes after and said, “I think he died.” I was just a mess. So I do believe in spirits or some kind of higher connection.
Becca Powers: Yeah, there is. I like talking about that, and I didn’t mean to invoke the tears—I know they’re there. But I think it’s really important for people to have hope. That’s part of your message, right? To think there’s no connection on the other side is a very lonely place for those of us still here and mourning.
I look forward to seeing signs. I don’t care if people think I’m crazy—it makes me feel good.
Bill Cornhoff: You know, connection is so important while we’re here. I believe it’s strong enough to exist when we’re gone too. Connection is really the opposite of sobriety. Being connected to people is what keeps you sober. I believe there’s a bigger power to it than we realize.
Becca Powers: I agree. I want to talk a little about self-worth, because when I was at my lowest point, I would say self-worth was the root of my problem too. My addiction was work. I worked, worked, worked to the point that I made it my first priority.
I had four kids, a husband, myself—yet I was at the bottom of the priority list. I was so busy making sure that the low self-worth I had was filled by validation, approval, and accolades. It was a tough road to shift that perspective—to start loving myself, to start giving myself permission to slow down.
In a lot of the pre-talk and even in your introduction, we touched on shame. I was shameful at the core of who I was. What an awful thing to think about yourself, because we’re all beautiful souls. I know you’re passionate about shame. I’d love for you to share—what are some lessons you’ve learned about shame? What would you wish listeners knew about you?
Bill Cornhoff: The most recent would be getting help for your mental health because I had—
Hitting Rock Bottom and Seeking Help
Bill Cornhoff: When I was suicidal, which I hate to admit, I knew something was off. I hit a low that I had never seen before, and I didn't know how to get out of it. It was very dark. To me, that's what hell is. I really feel like I went there and back.
I didn't want one more thing wrong with me. I was associating—I didn't want one more fucking Sergeant Parker.
Becca Powers: No, you curse on here, so it's fine. One more fucking thing?
Bill Cornhoff: Wrong with me.
Becca Powers: Yeah. Say it like that.
Bill Cornhoff: I just did it. I was like, how much do I have to—grieving, fucking grieving my boyfriend. I was like, I don't want any more problems. I already had depression, anxiety. Well, I had bipolar disorder and a lot of shame. I knew the diagnosis was coming; I knew it for like a year, but I didn't want to deal with it. I don't know if anyone's ever tried to get sober, unmedicated, while diagnosed bipolar, but it's not that easy.
Especially because you're dealing with things like character defects that you have to acknowledge and overcome, so that feedback loop's difficult. But once I started getting my medication, I was not drowning in depression anymore. I had my arm floating—you could take me anywhere. I was good to go.
So if you feel like something's off, just go get it checked out like a cold. Getting your mental health taken care of should be no bigger deal than going to the doctor for a cold. It should honestly be the same, and we need to stop shaming people and talk more about it.
Becca Powers: I agree. For me, probably not surprising to anybody who knows me, I have ADHD and went unmedicated for years. When you have ADHD, you have a lot of highs and lows—not necessarily bipolar mania, but high and low moments. There is manic behavior, a lot of anxiety, because anxiety and ADHD are sisters. If I'm having a big ADHD moment, my anxiety can be crippling.
On my extreme sides, I have crippling anxiety. What I like about what you're saying is that even for someone like me—a hippie, a naturalist, I don't like putting medicine in my body—but guess what? I needed it.
And when I finally got off that narrative in my head—that there’s shame in taking medicine, that I should be able to control myself with supplements—when that doesn't work, what do you do? You're not supposed to torture yourself.
Bill Cornhoff: Yeah.
Becca Powers: Go get some help. I remember the first time I booked an appointment with the psychiatrist, I had cried because I was thinking, "I'm not crazy, or maybe I am crazy," like that whole narrative going on in my head. But once I got my medication, I was like, oh dear God, thank you.
Bill Cornhoff: I always felt like it was honestly getting my arm floaties because I was drowning. I remember thinking, "Oh, I'm good to go now."
Becca Powers: It gives you the energy to tackle things. Bipolar is often an indication of severe trauma. ADHD crippling anxiety is a byproduct of trauma. When you're in an episode, you can't regulate yourself; you're out in crazy town. So if you're ready to tackle your healing, get on your meds and give yourself a fighting chance to do the work.
Bill Cornhoff: I think—
Becca Powers: That's my opinion.
Bill Cornhoff: Oh, no, I agree. One of my biggest drivers for not getting medication for bipolar disorder was that I didn't want to gain weight, and that goes back to the whole bulimia thing.
Becca Powers: And see how that cycle works—that’s what I was like, let's unpack all of this.
Bill Cornhoff: It's sad. I couldn't get help because I was afraid I'd get fat. That was stupid on my part. Ignoring it was one of the big drivers.
Becca Powers: So what words of encouragement would you have for a listener struggling with mental health, sobriety, or even stuck in shame cycles?
Bill Cornhoff: I would say, you need to move. Physically move. If you're stuck in bed, get out. Go for a walk. Get to a meeting. Get to therapy. For me, it was a two-pronged approach—I couldn't do recovery without therapy and therapy without recovery. It doesn’t work for me, one without the other.
If I could do it, you could do it. I lost everything in a short time. Within six months, my life went from being in love, living in a beautiful house I remodeled over six years, having a big career, and two dogs—to suddenly, the dogs were dead, my boyfriend was dead, the house was gone. I was alone in an apartment in Texas, unemployed. I had to go to rehab and therapy, and my friends were thousands of miles away. If I could survive that, you can too.
Becca Powers: I get goosebumps as you say that. I remember trying so hard to hold it all together, when really what I needed was to let it fall apart. Then I could rebuild myself the right way—in a healthy, self-honoring, self-valuing way. I look back at our former employer. It was a narcissistic environment. I fell for it, and it shrunk me. My dad also passed away while I was there. I was trying so hard to prove my value and deal with loss, I lost myself.
Shortly before my resignation, I had an emotional collapse in the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman, the leader, the mom, the wife. I thought, who the fuck have I become? The gravity of that thought made my knees buckle, and I ended up on the floor.
Bill Cornhoff: When I was there, I went through something traumatic around COVID and developed PTSD. Leadership knew, but I was written off. I was bullied relentlessly by the president and vice president. Overnight, one minute they asked me to work escalations, the next day I was out, with no explanation. They knew I had PTSD and used it against me. They decided not to help me, and it made things worse.
Becca Powers: Yeah.
Bill Cornhoff: They didn’t have to do that. There were other ways—they didn’t have to keep me employed. They could have given me a severance on my way.
Becca Powers: Yeah. And do it with care. Treat people like human beings.
Legacy, Resilience, and Empowerment
Bill Cornhoff: Yeah. They used it against me and broke me even more. Watching it happen, I just could not believe it.
Becca Powers: I'm so sorry that happened to you, but I think it's an important conversation for us to share. When you take pride in your career—and we were both seasoned—going through workplace trauma is devastating.
Bill Cornhoff: Yes. Both of us were golden children at one point, the ones to watch.
Becca Powers: Yeah.
Bill Cornhoff: I have a hard time when corporations put videos saying, "We're like a family here," because during orientation, that’s what they said. My real family would have risen up for me, even though the company didn’t.
It was difficult. Especially during COVID, there was nurse burnout, and we were doing a lot about mental health support. I was literally writing messaging for the organization on protecting nurses’ mental health, while struggling myself. It didn’t make sense.
Becca Powers: I get that. But whether you call it God or the universe, it has a way of illuminating what we’re meant to work on. You were meant to help people with mental health, because even through your storm, that narrative clicked for you.
Bill Cornhoff: Especially back then. I was working 60-70 hours a week. I loved our nurses and understood their mental distress. I had so much honor for what they were doing. Something clicked.
Becca Powers: For me, I’ve gone through so many versions of what I call myself and what I love to do. I’ve landed on trauma-informed leadership. I certify leaders to be coaches, giving employees more self-agency and confidence. I’m passionate about this because of what I’ve been through. Sometimes we go through things so we can rise up and serve.
I’m the lone survivor of my family—my mom, dad, and brother have passed. I look at life differently. I see my parents’ legacy living through me. If I stop sharing, stop helping the world the way I can, it’s all for naught.
Bill Cornhoff: I feel the same. Something good has to come out of all this—not just good, but on a larger scale. I get goosebumps thinking about that. Especially with him.
Becca Powers: Their legacy lives through us, so our work becomes more important. I’m tearing up saying this, but I’m proud of you. I love seeing your rise—you’ve been through so much.
Bill Cornhoff: I got hit in every aspect of life that could fall apart. It fell apart. I remember thinking God hated me. I felt like I was on a TV show in heaven called Punked, and they were just bored pranking me. I couldn’t figure out why this was happening.
What I learned was that God was trying to wake me up, and it took a lot of consequences. I had to stop blaming God and start listening—not just in the good, but in the bad.
Becca Powers: I relate to that. I probably ignored quite a few signs—red flag, red flag, and I told myself it was fine.
We’re winding down, so let’s give the audience an empowering message. If their life has fallen apart or they’re in a bad situation, what would you like them to take away?
Bill Cornhoff: Hitting rock bottom is hard, but I’ve done it twice and found my way back. Failure isn’t fatal unless you give up, so please don’t give up. Self-reliance is essential, but so is asking for help. Life beat the hell out of me, and it took strength to cry at a meeting, text someone at midnight, and say, “I need help.” That’s courage.
You’re lovable even while healing. Even with mistakes, even when healing isn’t done yet, you’re worthy of love. Your dog can read you better than most humans—loyalty doesn’t flinch. Telling the truth, even the ugly kind, is powerful. Saying the messy, real stuff is your superpower. Your story will save others—not by being perfect, but by being honest.
Becca Powers: I love that. How can the audience follow you?
Bill Cornhoff: My Instagram is William.JC, and the TikTok link is there as well.
Becca Powers: Awesome. We’ll put the links in the show notes.
Bill, thank you for your vulnerability. Your raw honesty will hit someone who needed to hear it.
Bill Cornhoff: Thank you for inviting me. It was great seeing you, and congratulations on everything you’ve done.
Becca Powers: Alright, I’ll see you—stay on, but I’m waving. Bye.
