Speaker 1: Hi, guys, Welcome back to Thursday's episode. It is solo
Speaker 1: sam oh I was playing will isn't it? What does
Speaker 1: that call alliteration? Okay? Fuck, if it's not the ruruation,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sound so stupid. But anyway, Yeah, back
Speaker 1: onto our solo episodes. I think this is the first
Speaker 1: one I've really really done alone. I'm sitting in the
Speaker 1: room with our producer Blake, so I'm gonna be speaking
Speaker 1: to him as well because I feel all good but
Speaker 1: not used to it. Today, I wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: open up about my journey with my eating disorder. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's been touched online a little bit, like
Speaker 1: I've obviously spoken about it here and there, but I've
Speaker 1: never really gone into detail about my journey. I was
Speaker 1: quite afraid for a few years, and I wasn't really
Speaker 1: over it as much as I probably should have been
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But I wanted to share it
Speaker 1: with you guys a little bit. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: into the details that I feel the most comfortable with sharing,
Speaker 1: and there are so many episodes I could do about
Speaker 1: this because it's such a complex mental illness and something
Speaker 1: that everyone, I feel like has not to extreme lengths.
Speaker 1: But some people and a lot of people I know
Speaker 1: have dabbled with body image issues or eating issues, or
Speaker 1: self doubt and low confidence issues. So I think it's
Speaker 1: a really important topic to talk about. But I want
Speaker 1: to quickly make sure that you guys aren't taking my
Speaker 1: word as a bible and not thinking that that's the
Speaker 1: way to do it or that's the way to have it.
Speaker 1: Like I'm speaking from experience, not from a medical professional.
Speaker 1: If you are really really struggling and this is a
Speaker 1: really hard topic to listen to, please don't listen to it.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking you to sit through and put yourself
Speaker 1: through hell and listen to my experience when you're going
Speaker 1: through your own journey. There are so many episodes that
Speaker 1: you can listen to that are way more positive than this.
Speaker 1: And if you are really struggling, please contact professional and
Speaker 1: someone who actually really knows what they're talking about and
Speaker 1: not speaking from their experience and can speak from an
Speaker 1: educational standpoint that can actually help you recover. And there
Speaker 1: will also be a whole heap of resources and links
Speaker 1: in the show notes for you girls to reach out with.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can this will inspire you to have a
Speaker 1: chat with your parents or seek help from your boyfriend
Speaker 1: or someone close to you, that you guys can go
Speaker 1: on this journey together and live life and enjoy life.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think let's just get straight into my story. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: a bit of backstory. I'm twenty two years old. I
Speaker 1: think some people think I'm a little bit older than that,
Speaker 1: but no, I'm twenty two and I was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: anorexia novosa at the age of seventeen, when I was
Speaker 1: in year twelve, so that was twenty twenty and it's
Speaker 1: been a journey ever since. But I don't think it
Speaker 1: really started there. My whole life, I grew up really
Speaker 1: really healthy. I loved being active and I loved playing sports.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a really healthy, active household, which
Speaker 1: was amazing. And I also quickly want to preface that
Speaker 1: my family and everyone around me have always been an
Speaker 1: amazing sort system. They'd be my number one supporter shouting
Speaker 1: me from the sidelines, and it's not any of their fault. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking from experience and how I've processed things in
Speaker 1: my life, and that is never my family's fault, and
Speaker 1: my family are amazing people. But I did grow up
Speaker 1: in quite a tumultuous household. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: things going on in my family that I will never
Speaker 1: speak about. But because of that, my eating disorder was
Speaker 1: a play on effect of me feeling like I didn't
Speaker 1: have any control over other people's actions and other things
Speaker 1: that were going on in my life. So it kind
Speaker 1: of developed into me having orthorexia, which is an extreme
Speaker 1: obsession with healthy eating and exercise. I was just obsessed
Speaker 1: with it. I was a playing state hockey at the time.
Speaker 1: I was playing for so many hockey teams. I loved it.
Speaker 1: I was really active, but there was a click one
Speaker 1: day where my love for it became an addiction. And
Speaker 1: eating and food and controlling those things is actually an
Speaker 1: addiction that you have to break. And that's why I
Speaker 1: sometimes recovery it seems so impossible, because you're addicted to
Speaker 1: the feeling, and you're addicted to that voice and that
Speaker 1: validation that that voice is giving you. And yeah, because
Speaker 1: twenty twenty happened, obviously, COVID happened. I think that really
Speaker 1: then highlighted that because I had nothing else to do,
Speaker 1: I was stripped from all my workout classes, I was
Speaker 1: stripped from my hockey team and all of those things
Speaker 1: that made me me suddenly left and I was only
Speaker 1: then responsible for me and growing up and everything like that.
Speaker 1: I'm the third child to my parents kind of always
Speaker 1: told me how resilient I was, and I never really
Speaker 1: knew how to open up to people. I was quite
Speaker 1: a broken kid in the way of like, I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to speak about my feelings. I had had
Speaker 1: bad experiences with psychologists, breaking confidentiality and everything like that,
Speaker 1: so I kept a lot to myself and I just
Speaker 1: kind of took it to an extreme. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go into details about it because it's not that
Speaker 1: important to the story, but I pretty much just went
Speaker 1: down a big rabbit hole in COVID and got very
Speaker 1: very ill, very quickly. Because I wasn't leaving my house,
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to do anything, and my brother actually
Speaker 1: was the one who noticed it and brought it up
Speaker 1: to my parents because my parents were so busy working
Speaker 1: and everything like that, and pretty much I just crashed
Speaker 1: and I was really really sick. And I was had
Speaker 1: turned eighteen at that time, so I was an adult,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't forced to do anything. And again, this
Speaker 1: is where my strong minded headspace comes from. That I
Speaker 1: refuse to have a problem, and I think their best.
Speaker 1: I think I get asked a lot of questions about
Speaker 1: how do you help people that are around you with
Speaker 1: disordered eating and that mental illness, because it actually is
Speaker 1: a mental illness. And sometimes people think they only care
Speaker 1: about what they look like and that's what they're doing.
Speaker 1: It's actually not. It's a lack of control that someone's
Speaker 1: trying to control in their life, and it could be
Speaker 1: about a million other things besides food, and majority of
Speaker 1: the time people with an eating disorder are actually obsessed
Speaker 1: with food. They actually love it way more than of
Speaker 1: the person. But it's a control thing for them, and
Speaker 1: that's what mine was. And I was going to these
Speaker 1: doctors appointments, and I was voluntarily going to those doctor's appointments,
Speaker 1: so I was making sure that I was like still
Speaker 1: okay enough to go through life. And there was obviously
Speaker 1: boundaries and everything that I had in place that I
Speaker 1: was able to do. But I could barely walk upstairs.
Speaker 1: Guys like I was really not well, and I didn't
Speaker 1: really notice it until I then discovered that I had
Speaker 1: a problem. And I think that's like the biggest turning point.
Speaker 1: And girls will that haven't gone through recovery is like
Speaker 1: you one day and you will know where you have
Speaker 1: taken this too far and your life is horrible. My
Speaker 1: life is miserable. I could barely stay awake. I was
Speaker 1: sleeping because I all I wanted to do was sleep
Speaker 1: off the days. I wouldn't leave my house, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: go to social events. I wasn't enjoying life because all
Speaker 1: of those things came around and what my eating disordered
Speaker 1: mind deemed as bad and deemed as anxious and everything
Speaker 1: like that, which is not. They're the joys of life
Speaker 1: and they're the best things ever. And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: I met my boy ex boyfriend Caleb and honestly like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not together now and everything like that, but I
Speaker 1: wholeheartedly will give him my life because he saved my
Speaker 1: life and he taught me that food is not There
Speaker 1: is no such thing as good or bad food. Everything
Speaker 1: is amazing in moderation and seeing someone with such food freedom,
Speaker 1: like he felt like a burger. He just went and
Speaker 1: ate a burger. He didn't think about it, and he
Speaker 1: felt like ice cream after DESRT he just went and
Speaker 1: got an ice cream. And I was so freeing because
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, you haven't thought about
Speaker 1: that for like six hours. You haven't like calculated your
Speaker 1: whole day. You just felt like an ice cream and
Speaker 1: you went and ate it. And he was like yep.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, like that's kind of good.
Speaker 1: And then he would be like, why why didn't you
Speaker 1: try it? You do that? And then I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I guess it wouldn't be that bad. And guess what,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that bad, Like I think, once you really
Speaker 1: dumb it down, it's not that bad. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: fucking kill you. And I don't want to talk about
Speaker 1: logistics about it because I think that could scare people
Speaker 1: about it. But I tell you right now, it is
Speaker 1: so fucking hard to gain weight that one ice cream
Speaker 1: is not going to kill you. One burger is not
Speaker 1: going to kill you. Putting rice in your dinner is
Speaker 1: not going to kill you. Like, none of those things
Speaker 1: are gonna kill you. And if anything, they're gonna fucking
Speaker 1: save you. And they saved me. They literally brought me
Speaker 1: life back. They made me a human again, and I
Speaker 1: got color in my face, I started to look more
Speaker 1: like a woman. And obviously it's really scary with all
Speaker 1: of those changes, but I think I'm living proof of
Speaker 1: my life got so much better after I I chose recovery.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's not linear, and you do battle with
Speaker 1: those thoughts for the rest of your life, but it's
Speaker 1: earning those tools to not live and then not give
Speaker 1: into those negative thoughts, and that's what you do with
Speaker 1: a nutritionist. I worked alongside a nutritionist and a psychologist.
Speaker 1: But the people that really saved me with the people
Speaker 1: that I opened up to and told that I had
Speaker 1: a problem, because for a long time I kept it
Speaker 1: a secret and it wasn't worth it. Like I ended
Speaker 1: up giving into that and was like, yep, like, guys,
Speaker 1: I really need help here. And everyone would sit around
Speaker 1: the table and everyone would not talk about oh, that's
Speaker 1: so bad for me or anything like those words were
Speaker 1: off limits and they weren't allowed to say that. It's like,
Speaker 1: we're having passive dinner passes, so young, let's eat pasta.
Speaker 1: And I think the changing the language around food is
Speaker 1: really really important. And having support networks and telling people
Speaker 1: that you need extra help is proving to you and
Speaker 1: proving to others that you're actually way stronger than what
Speaker 1: you think you are and asking people for help is okay,
Speaker 1: and that's what I would do. I'd be like, look,
Speaker 1: I really need to eat lunch today, and I probably
Speaker 1: will put it off unless I tell someone that I
Speaker 1: need to eat lunch day. So I'm telling everyone around
Speaker 1: me that I'm spending the day with you've got to
Speaker 1: make sure I eat lunch. And everyone was like, all right,
Speaker 1: got it, perfect, It's lunchtime, Sam eat lunch. Because I've
Speaker 1: told everyone I felt like I had. Everyone had to
Speaker 1: hold me accountable and everyone had to make me eat lunch.
Speaker 1: And then because you're around people, you're not thinking about
Speaker 1: it and you just eat the lunch. And those little
Speaker 1: things I think were the best tools for me to
Speaker 1: get my life back. Actually, and since that, my life
Speaker 1: has become so much better. Like I travel, I do
Speaker 1: all of these things. I enjoy nice food, I love
Speaker 1: drinking with my friends and all of that stuff I
Speaker 1: never did when I was really really struggling. And now
Speaker 1: I'm on my own journey. Now I've you toy back
Speaker 1: and forth, like you go through hard times, and I
Speaker 1: think sometimes it's really easy to fall back into those
Speaker 1: old patterns, and I can tell in myself how strong
Speaker 1: I've become over those years to never give into those
Speaker 1: thoughts anymore. And now I'm like a healthy adult and
Speaker 1: I could. I always used to look at those people
Speaker 1: who chose recovery, being like, I don't know how the
Speaker 1: fuck you've ever did that. When I was in the
Speaker 1: root of it, I was like, that fucking cheek is
Speaker 1: fucking amazing and how I don't know how she got there,
Speaker 1: and I'll never get there one day. I always thought
Speaker 1: I was never going to be that girl, But I'm
Speaker 1: living proof right now because I'm clearly speaking about it.
Speaker 1: And once you gain that control back in your life,
Speaker 1: you were literally capable of everything. That is the hardest
Speaker 1: thing I've ever had to overcome in my life. And
Speaker 1: now it's not a thought in my everyday life. It's
Speaker 1: not something that controls me. I now can go to
Speaker 1: the gym, and I enjoy going to the gym. I'm
Speaker 1: not using it as a punishment. I'm not eating anything
Speaker 1: because I can't have it and stuff like that. Like
Speaker 1: I love eating healthy, I love eating whole foods. I
Speaker 1: love doing things and nourishing my body that make me
Speaker 1: feel good. But fuck me, if there's bol of fries there,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fucking eat the bowl of fries. And I
Speaker 1: never used to do that. I never used to do
Speaker 1: any of those type of things. And I think now
Speaker 1: as a twenty two year old looking back at the
Speaker 1: eighteen year old, seventeen year old, nineteen year old, all
Speaker 1: the way up till I was about twenty years old,
Speaker 1: I just want to give my old self a hug
Speaker 1: and tell myself that it's going to be okay. And
Speaker 1: I think, if you're young and you're really struggling right now,
Speaker 1: I want to give you a hug and tell you
Speaker 1: that it's going to be okay. But the only person
Speaker 1: that needs to convince themselves it's going to be okay
Speaker 1: is yourself. And that food is not the enemy. And
Speaker 1: food is a joy of life, and food is purely
Speaker 1: a vessel for you to live. And if you want
Speaker 1: to live and have experiences and enjoy life for everything
Speaker 1: that it has, you need eat food. I saw a
Speaker 1: psychiatrist once when I was going through that whole journey,
Speaker 1: and she literally said to me, and I think this
Speaker 1: is like one of the biggest turning points. She said,
Speaker 1: I diagnose people. I work with people with schizophrenia, I
Speaker 1: work with people with all of these mental illnesses, and
Speaker 1: I can medicate them to help them and to get them,
Speaker 1: help them get their life back on track. Do you
Speaker 1: know what your medicine is, Sam? And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: what is my medicine? Like rolling my eyes like this
Speaker 1: bitches like honestly not going to help me because I
Speaker 1: was so stuck in it. And she was like walking
Speaker 1: into Woolies, grabbing a fucking basket and putting food in
Speaker 1: your basket and then eating it. That's your medicine. And
Speaker 1: I can't convince you to do that. I can't convince
Speaker 1: you to swallow a burger, but that's your medicine. I
Speaker 1: cannot give you a tablet or a prescription that's going
Speaker 1: to fix what you're going through because the only person
Speaker 1: that's going to fix that is you walking into the
Speaker 1: supermarket and you buying yourself food. That is your medicine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, obviously this is kind of like the first
Speaker 1: part of me talking about it. I think for so
Speaker 1: many years I didn't want to talk about it, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to open that can of worms because
Speaker 1: I wasn't truly ready to let that part of my
Speaker 1: life be on the internet. I kind of talked about
Speaker 1: it a little bit the other day on TikTok. But
Speaker 1: I don't want those huge comments. I want to be
Speaker 1: able to talk about it in the space that I'm
Speaker 1: comfortable with without other people telling me I'm doing something
Speaker 1: wrong or telling me I'm not doing it enough. For
Speaker 1: all of those things, recovery is individual and there's no
Speaker 1: right or wrong way to do it. There's obviously a
Speaker 1: line to follow along, but everyone's got to do it
Speaker 1: in their own way. And I think this is the
Speaker 1: next step almost in my recovery, is creating a community
Speaker 1: around that and talking about those things to help hopefully
Speaker 1: help other girls to choose the right path. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where I'm at in it all. Obviously, not a psychologist,
Speaker 1: I'm not a genius. I'm just speaking from experience, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's I'm at, finally at a point where
Speaker 1: I'm ready to accept that that was a part of me,
Speaker 1: but I no longer identify as that. And for a
Speaker 1: long time I still kind of identified it as it,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't completely over it or at a good
Speaker 1: enough point in my life to speak about it. But
Speaker 1: I've been an amazing, massive journey. I had to give
Speaker 1: up uni I had and that's how I fell into
Speaker 1: social media and then having my life on social media. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you have people commenting about how you look every single day.
Speaker 1: But I think this is a time where I'm ready
Speaker 1: to be open with you guys in such an important
Speaker 1: subject that I'm ready to talk about in certain times.
Speaker 1: So if you guys want to hear certain other things
Speaker 1: about it, or if you want other people to talk
Speaker 1: about it, if you want people to come on the
Speaker 1: podcast and talk about it and we can unpack and
Speaker 1: find some solutions, please message me. My dms are always open.
Speaker 1: I will read them all. But yeah, that's a little
Speaker 1: bit of my story about my eating disorder. She's a
Speaker 1: fucking bitch, actually, and I fucking hate her, but she's
Speaker 1: long gone. She's an enemy and she's I've delisted her
Speaker 1: from my life. But yeah, I love you, guys, And
Speaker 1: if you are really struggling, please go to the show
Speaker 1: notes below and reach out speak to your mom and dad.
Speaker 1: I know it's a really, really tough conversation, but tough
Speaker 1: conversations always have good outcomes majority of the time. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I love you. Turned to Segesta papers a banana patasana
Speaker 1: papers a