Good morning, loyal blog readers and desperate stalkers who still google my name each week. A special welcome to the people of Quora, your allegiance is heartwarming. Mr SEO analysis, on the other hand, is PISSED. No, scarlet-faced man, I will not dumb myself down so that my piece is ‘easier to read’. Easier for whom? Ignorant folk who aren’t a part of the demographic? That’s a good one. Anyway, true to form, I sat down to type out a few paragraphs and wound up going on a complete tangent. In order to spare you some of the monotony, I will split this into two parts. Let’s begin, shall we?
December 2018 was when I officially made the decision to pursue a healthy life. The problem was, I had no idea what that would entail. All I knew was that my life was not playing out the way I wanted. Ambition? Who is she?
I’m not saying recovery came easily. In fact I fell, face-first, into another pit of despair after deciding to estrange myself from my toxic, abusive parents. Coming to the realisation that I had been cast in the ‘sick child’ role a decade or so earlier was quite the wake up call. I do credit my boyfriend Mike, for playing a part in the decision to escape. In treating me with the kindness and support I had lacked my entire life, by contrast, the behaviour of my parents seemed particularly outrageous. While the outpatient program I was a part of at the time did indeed solidify my reasons for healing, the foundation for my most successful recovery attempt had technically begun months earlier. Thank you, YouTube recovery community. A timely development, given that my job fell through right when I told my parents I was done with their shenanigans, so I had to drop out of the course and move to Brisbane to live with Mike. Everything happened at once. Goodie.
Despite the grieving period that followed, the financial burden I now faced and the nasty emails my parents had taken to sending, I managed to just keep it together. Certain behaviours were still apparent, I was an emotional wreck, the diet pill abuse intensified and my dumb ass (literally) fooled around with laxatives on several occasions. Funnily enough, my dad had accused me of this right before we stopped speaking, so it’s almost as if I thought, ‘hey, what a splendid idea’! Mercifully, revisiting the laxatives lasted a month. But, I digress.
So, stressed out over income and not working in a full time capacity, I decided to travel to WA and work as a lingerie bartender. They’re referred to as ‘skimpies’. It proved to be a great financial decision that was terrible for my mental wellbeing. I worked long hours, drank several energy drinks each day and barely ate. Naturally, my weight plummeted and some of the regular patrons I served mentioned that I was far too thin. I’m a little glad that two of the pubs left me terrible reviews after my five week stint. The money was incredible but I needed to avoid situations where I felt oppressed and where my appearance was front and centre. Funnily enough, in my last week I was paired with another girl who revealed to me that she had Bulimia and an equally toxic family. I finally had a companion; someone who got me and I actually had fun that week.
While in WA, I had a lot of downtime and I spent some of it continuing to watch YouTubers who were part of the recovery community. Having discovered this about a year before, I would often watch several videos a day. I wasn’t moving forward in my recovery mentally at that point, I was just trying to remind myself that I could be inspired by these brave, intelligent souls who were sharing very personal things in order to help others.
We’ll stop there even though it’s likely I’ll post the second part straight after. As much as I find it amusing to upset the scarlet man, I don’t want to push my luck. Until next time my friends, stay sane, stay safe and stay the f*** home.