Speaker 1: Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
Speaker 1: were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
Speaker 1: past and present.
Speaker 2: Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
Speaker 2: recorded on de rug Wallamuta Land. Hey guys, and welcome
Speaker 2: back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany, I'm Laura,
Speaker 2: and today I feel like.
Speaker 1: It's a very special interview. Now, I feel like we
Speaker 1: do say that all the time, don't We're always like
Speaker 1: this is super special, We're super pumped about this, but
Speaker 1: it really is because we're interviewing a wonderful Australian woman
Speaker 1: named Megan Marx. Now, Meghan is actually a friend of
Speaker 1: mine because we did a TV show together the last year.
Speaker 1: We did The Challenge Australia, which you may or may
Speaker 1: not watch. Chances are you didn't watch it.
Speaker 3: We're basically put.
Speaker 1: In a house, Heather, how are the ratings on that one?
Speaker 1: For it?
Speaker 4: I don't even know. I didn't watch it.
Speaker 1: It was like a Big Brother kind of house where
Speaker 1: you like, you know, mix with survivor.
Speaker 2: A little bit.
Speaker 3: It was a weird thing.
Speaker 1: But basically, for like a month, Meghan and I were
Speaker 1: together in this house with no connection to the outside world,
Speaker 1: you did know what was going on, very much like
Speaker 1: The Bachelor, So we really got to know each other
Speaker 1: on a deeper level there because you talk all day,
Speaker 1: you genuinely are present with people in your life, which
Speaker 1: was probably my favorite thing about it. No phones, no news,
Speaker 1: no phone calls outside. But you also might know Megan
Speaker 1: from our TV screens on another TV show, because she
Speaker 1: was on Richie Strawn's season of The Bachelor, and she
Speaker 1: was probably actually know she was. She was the first
Speaker 1: bisexual woman that we saw on our screens. And if
Speaker 1: you remember that time, if all of you at home,
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, Because Meghan left the show
Speaker 1: and she ended up being in a relationship with another
Speaker 1: female contestant afterwards, the scrutiny that she faced around that
Speaker 1: time and the public backlash was truly horrific.
Speaker 2: Well, Megan ended up in a relationship with Tiffany, who
Speaker 2: was also a contestant on Richie's scene, and I think
Speaker 2: there was so much speculation as to whether it was
Speaker 2: a real relationship, as to whether it was just for publicity,
Speaker 2: Like people honestly couldn't fathom or get the head around
Speaker 2: the fact that these two women were together, and also
Speaker 2: it was just like the point of gossip within media
Speaker 2: for so long, and I think the way in which
Speaker 2: a bisexual relationship was viewed then is so vastly different
Speaker 2: to how it is viewed now on reality TV. But
Speaker 2: I mean, I have to admit when brit said that
Speaker 2: she really wanted to interview Megan and her story, which
Speaker 2: it is incredible. Her story from the time that she
Speaker 2: was born and to where she's at now is an
Speaker 2: incredible life story. I had my own biases around it
Speaker 2: because I didn't know Megan apart from watching The Bachelor myself,
Speaker 2: and so I had this perceived idea around who she was.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure as to whether I wanted to do
Speaker 2: the interview, and Britt, you very much sort of said that,
Speaker 2: I mean, you had a personal relationship with her, but
Speaker 2: you really spoke about her experience, what she grew up
Speaker 2: in as a child. She grew up in a cult.
Speaker 2: It is fascinating, but also it really makes you question
Speaker 2: this idea of judging a book by its cover. And
Speaker 2: I am so grateful that I got the opportunity to
Speaker 2: interview her. She's incredible, the things that she's been through
Speaker 2: and also her resilience is something that shines through in
Speaker 2: this episode and I'm so.
Speaker 1: Glad that you listen to me on that aspect, Laura.
Speaker 1: But apart from just you know her truly incredible story,
Speaker 1: which does involve growing up in a cult, it does
Speaker 1: involve getting married at the age of eighteen and then
Speaker 1: getting divorced again.
Speaker 4: Going on these TV shows.
Speaker 1: She gives a really fascinating insight into what that life
Speaker 1: looks like. But there's another layer to her story and
Speaker 1: it was what really drove me to do this interview.
Speaker 1: So Megan has recently been diagnosed with a neurological condition
Speaker 1: called spino cerebella a taxia, and we are going to
Speaker 1: speak about it, so I'm not going to get too
Speaker 1: much into it, but it's basically a condition where she
Speaker 1: is going to deteriorate and she doesn't know how quickly.
Speaker 1: And this idea of knowing your mortality but not knowing
Speaker 1: when and not knowing how fast it's coming. And I
Speaker 1: guess I felt like I had this little connection because
Speaker 1: she started to notice some symptoms when we're in the
Speaker 1: house together for this TV show, So she didn't have
Speaker 1: that diagnosis then, but there are a lot of little
Speaker 1: things that we would laugh about, and now it's horrible
Speaker 1: that we laughed about it, but you know, her balance
Speaker 1: would be off on a lot of activities and things
Speaker 1: like that, and different memory and she couldn't find a
Speaker 1: word sometimes and it wasn't enough to be alarming at all,
Speaker 1: which is why we would laugh about it. And that
Speaker 1: turns out the start of this condition, and I really
Speaker 1: wanted to give Megan the space to talk about that
Speaker 1: and educate people on what.
Speaker 4: She's going through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess the other thing that we touched on,
Speaker 2: Like we said, there's so much, but Meghan also very
Speaker 2: generously donated her eggs to a couple to have a baby.
Speaker 2: And so when you found out that you have a
Speaker 2: genetic condition, and it is a terminal genetic condition in
Speaker 2: the long run, how do you then grasp with the
Speaker 2: fact that this generous, active kindness that you did where
Speaker 2: you gave your eggs to someone could also then have
Speaker 2: implications for them as well.
Speaker 3: There's so much of this.
Speaker 2: We hope that you enjoy the episode, and it truly
Speaker 2: was such a privilege to interview Megan.
Speaker 4: Welcome officially to life on cut Nah.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: You have had so many pivotal and interesting things happening
Speaker 2: in your life over the last little bit, so many
Speaker 2: of them which we're gonna unpack and get into. But
Speaker 2: before we get into any of the serious stuff, we
Speaker 2: start every episode in the same way, and that is,
Speaker 2: without accidentally unfilled. The story is your most embarrassing story,
Speaker 2: which you just said, you have a good one. You're like,
Speaker 2: I have some money, but I picked up the one
Speaker 2: that is possibly the most humiliating.
Speaker 3: I was actually thinking back recently to when I first
Speaker 3: started dating after my divorce, and I had come out
Speaker 3: of kind of like a semi cult at the time,
Speaker 3: and so I'd moved to the city, and like I
Speaker 3: was studying full time, working full time, I didn't know
Speaker 3: anyone because I had no social circle because I was
Speaker 3: sort of excommunicated from the church and I'm single. I
Speaker 3: start dating, and I started going to this yoga studio,
Speaker 3: which I wasn't allowed to do in the church either.
Speaker 3: Yoga yoga was the devil. And this really hot guy
Speaker 3: comes up next to me and like, you know, he's
Speaker 3: doing yoga, doing all the moves next to me, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, this is great, and he starts chatting
Speaker 3: to me, and he's like, hey, do you want to
Speaker 3: just like come to a work event with me? And
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I don't know anyone here. It's a
Speaker 3: bit weird, like going as a date to a work event.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like, oh yeah, sure, why not? I was
Speaker 3: in my yes era. So I get dressed up, like
Speaker 3: I put makeup on, and I'm like feeling all nervous
Speaker 3: going going with this hot guy to this work event
Speaker 3: where I don't know anyone anyway. So I walk in
Speaker 3: and there's like people on stage clapping and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh and singing and like all wearing suits,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I've just entered into another you know,
Speaker 3: this is a church event? I think, is this what
Speaker 3: work is for? Is he a past daisy? A preacher?
Speaker 3: And I walk in the first thing he does is
Speaker 3: introduce me to his girlfriend, and I'm like, what the fuck.
Speaker 2: Is going on?
Speaker 3: And I realized it's one of those multi level marketing schemes,
Speaker 3: like a pyramid. It's a pyramid scheme. So I've come
Speaker 3: along thinking that I'm going on a hot date and
Speaker 3: he's introduced me to his girlfriend and I'm like, how
Speaker 3: am I going to get out of this, and what
Speaker 3: do you know, another girl ends up coming thinking she's
Speaker 3: also his date, and we're standing there, me, this guy,
Speaker 3: his girlfriend, and me and the girl end up just
Speaker 3: leaving on our own. But it was pretty kind of
Speaker 3: embarrassing for me thinking I was like, this is gonna
Speaker 3: be my first date after my divorce, and.
Speaker 2: It was a pyramid shame he signed up to cannot
Speaker 2: possibly be an effective way of signing up people, because like,
Speaker 2: if everyone's arriving thinking that they're on a date, who
Speaker 2: is signing up to be part of this pyramid scheme?
Speaker 3: Well, it was like him and his girlfriend knew what
Speaker 3: was going on too, Like his girlfriend was like, you know,
Speaker 3: like trying to get sign ups through a hot boyfriend.
Speaker 1: Well you're more life you to get the sign ups.
Speaker 1: If you're a smoke show, for sure, whatever, I'll do it.
Speaker 2: Nigan, you just mentioned, and we've only been speaking for
Speaker 2: like a couple of minutes, that you grew up as
Speaker 2: a kid and you came out of this olt like environment.
Speaker 2: Can you explain to us what that was, what your
Speaker 2: upbringing was like, and how you kind of slotted into
Speaker 2: this life.
Speaker 3: Well, I was born into it, so my mom joined
Speaker 3: when she was pregnant with me, and she met a
Speaker 3: man who eventually adopted me and became my father. So
Speaker 3: it was more like, I don't know if i'd go
Speaker 3: so far as to call it a cult. I mean,
Speaker 3: sixty minutes recently did an episode about what I was
Speaker 3: brought up in. Actually, it was very much like, you're
Speaker 3: sort of cut off from society a bit. So you're
Speaker 3: not allowed to watch movies, you're not low to listen
Speaker 3: to what they'd call secular music, you're not a low
Speaker 3: to dance, you know, all how to spend time with
Speaker 3: people that aren't part of the church. You know, you're
Speaker 3: not all travel unless it's for if you think of
Speaker 3: like the Westboro Baptist Church, if you've heard of them,
Speaker 3: they carry signs on the streets, you know, saying like
Speaker 3: gays are going to Hell and things like that. So
Speaker 3: as a kid, that was me carrying signs on the
Speaker 3: street and like preaching on the street and door knocking,
Speaker 3: the whole thing. And so I got married when I
Speaker 3: was eighteen, you know, to a guy from the church,
Speaker 3: and it was just, I don't know, it was different
Speaker 3: to the way most people are brought up. And I
Speaker 3: left when I was twenty four, so me and my
Speaker 3: husband left together, but our relationship didn't really last six months.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember when you were talking a lot
Speaker 1: to me about this in the house, and when I
Speaker 1: say the house, it's the TV show The Challenge where
Speaker 1: it's like it's like The Bachelor or anything else. You
Speaker 1: don't have phones in there, you don't have anything, so
Speaker 1: you just talk to each other, which I think is incredible.
Speaker 1: But everything you told me from your life was like
Speaker 1: an oh my God moment to me because I'm so
Speaker 1: far removed from that world. I didn't grow up in
Speaker 1: a church. I didn't up religious at all, so everything
Speaker 1: felt extreme. But I don't think it's just for me.
Speaker 1: It does sound like your upbringing the church was extreme
Speaker 1: compared to other people's experience in the church. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about some of the other things that were really
Speaker 1: kind of left field, Like, you know, you couldn't even
Speaker 1: do yoga, you couldn't watch TV. What was some other
Speaker 1: things that were real stand out to you.
Speaker 3: Ah, it's funny because these things, you know, they've only
Speaker 3: really come up for me in the last couple of
Speaker 3: years because you're so used to you know, it was
Speaker 3: just my life, you know, it was felt so normal
Speaker 3: to me. But I was talking. When the sixty minutes
Speaker 3: episode came out, I reconnected with a lot of people
Speaker 3: from my church, you know, people I grew up with.
Speaker 3: And our church was kind of like half underground with
Speaker 3: all these different rooms. And I remember when I was
Speaker 3: a kid, for Halloween, every year the church would hold
Speaker 3: a Halloween event, so all these different rooms they would
Speaker 3: have a different scene. So, for example, I remember my
Speaker 3: mum playing a car accident victim, so they had like
Speaker 3: the hood of a car and then she was like
Speaker 3: sprawled out on top with like blood all over her.
Speaker 3: So they would invite people to come in and go
Speaker 3: into these different rooms and it would be more about
Speaker 3: this is how you're going to end up if you
Speaker 3: don't get saved by Jesus kind of thing. I remember
Speaker 3: my friend playing an aborted baby, and my husband as
Speaker 3: a kid, he had nightmares because he was sort of
Speaker 3: forced to participate, or maybe not forced. I mean we
Speaker 3: all wanted to be involved, you know. It was like
Speaker 3: you want to impress the elders and your parents and everyone,
Speaker 3: but it was quite traumatic. So we weren't allowed to
Speaker 3: watch movies, but they did let us watch from you know,
Speaker 3: there was no age. It wasn't like you had to
Speaker 3: be a certain age to watch these films. But they
Speaker 3: had these films more about the rapture. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if you know what the rapture is, like the
Speaker 3: end of days? I don't, yeah, like the end of days.
Speaker 3: So we'd watch these movies about the end of days.
Speaker 3: And so the idea is that God comes at the
Speaker 3: end of days and takes the bodies of everyone that
Speaker 3: Jesus has accepted, and everyone else is left behind. So
Speaker 3: for example, you would get home, say your parents wouldn't
Speaker 3: be there, or there'd be a parlor clothes on the
Speaker 3: floor because their bodies have been take up to heaven.
Speaker 3: And so it was always this big fear as kids
Speaker 3: that you would be left behind. If we used to
Speaker 3: prank each other, you leave piles of clothes and hide
Speaker 3: for your friends, you know, and your friend would get
Speaker 3: back and be like, oh my god. I remember a
Speaker 3: few situations, you know, kids freaking out and absolutely losing
Speaker 3: it because they thought they'd be left behind. And if
Speaker 3: you get left behind, the only thing that you can
Speaker 3: do is be a martyr in order to get to heaven.
Speaker 3: So the films would be about heads being chopped off
Speaker 3: and women being pulled screaming through streets and and so
Speaker 3: you know, you're not really desensitized to film, but these
Speaker 3: are the kind of films that you're watching. So as
Speaker 3: a kid, I had a lot of sleep issues. You know,
Speaker 3: there were exorcisms in the church, and they didn't call
Speaker 3: them exoricisms, but it was casting the demons out, so
Speaker 3: you know, we all had our chance to be exercised,
Speaker 3: that's what you call it. So, yeah, it's interesting. And
Speaker 3: I didn't think that I had, you know, issues from
Speaker 3: growing up in the church when I left, because you
Speaker 3: really just want to put it aside and distract yourself
Speaker 3: and live your life. Finally, you know, I hadn't traveled,
Speaker 3: I hadn't dated, I hadn't you know, I lost my
Speaker 3: virginity or my wedding night. It was, yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: different world. And then it's not till you get outside
Speaker 3: of that you're like, wow, there's a whole life to
Speaker 3: be lived here.
Speaker 2: When you got married at nineteen, eighteen eighteen, when you
Speaker 2: got married at eighteen.
Speaker 3: Stupid, don't recommend it, no, I mean.
Speaker 2: Like, I can't even relate to the environment in which
Speaker 2: you grew up in but I used to be part
Speaker 2: of an evangelical Christian church and they were very very
Speaker 2: strong in encouraging people to marry young so that they
Speaker 2: didn't sin, so that they didn't have sex out of wedlock.
Speaker 2: There was a huge encouragement. And I would have been
Speaker 2: fifteen sixteen at the time, and there were people who
Speaker 2: were eighteen who were getting married. And did you feel
Speaker 2: as though that was the natural progression of your relationship
Speaker 2: with your husband at the time, or did you feel
Speaker 2: as though it was forced in an expectation of the
Speaker 2: church that you would get married so young.
Speaker 3: It was definitely like I was in love. He was like,
Speaker 3: my fat He's an amazing person, Like he's great, he's
Speaker 3: you know, good looking, smart, surfer kind of guy. He's great.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't that it was like I was forced
Speaker 3: into marrying someone. It was like, you know, we fell
Speaker 3: in love. But it was very much like you can't
Speaker 3: have sex until you get married. It was kind of like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I guess we have to get married, you know, because
Speaker 3: we're horny.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean we wouldn't have gotten married if if it
Speaker 3: wasn't expected of us. We would have dated like normal
Speaker 3: people and maybe in our twenties at some point got
Speaker 3: married or but yeah, it was I guess it was expected.
Speaker 3: And it was also if you wanted to be in ministry,
Speaker 3: which my husband wanted to be what they call sent out,
Speaker 3: so you become like a pastor and you become the
Speaker 3: pastor's wife, you have to be married. So it was
Speaker 3: just what was done. I remember I was a bridesmaid
Speaker 3: five times by the time I was nineteen.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: And the wedding was it wasn't your own. You got
Speaker 3: married in the middle of a church service, so it
Speaker 3: wasn't like you had your own day either. I remember
Speaker 3: hating my wedding day so much. I'd invited a few
Speaker 3: people from my work and it was basically the sermon
Speaker 3: was just about hell. It was about sinning and hell
Speaker 3: and this pastors screaming at all my work colleagues, and
Speaker 3: it was I remember feeling really embarrassed and also a
Speaker 3: bit like should I you know, is this the right idea?
Speaker 3: My best friend at the time wasn't part of the church,
Speaker 3: and she was one of my bridesmaids, which wasn't looked
Speaker 3: upon well, and I remember her being like, come on,
Speaker 3: let's just fucking run.
Speaker 2: Let's just go.
Speaker 3: To being a little bit tempting, but I you know,
Speaker 3: I loved I loved who I was marrying, and that
Speaker 3: was the most important thing at the time.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, Australia met you on Richie Strawn's season
Speaker 1: of The Bachelor, So that was I think, I guess
Speaker 1: seven years ago. I can't do math quickly seven years ago.
Speaker 1: And what we did see, which I think is the
Speaker 1: first representation really that I can think of on TV
Speaker 1: of bisexuality, was you left that season with another female contestant.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about what that time was like,
Speaker 1: but I want to take that back first to when
Speaker 1: you were a teenager or growing up and you were
Speaker 1: still in the church. Did you know that you were
Speaker 1: bisexual at that time and it was something you had
Speaker 1: to hide because I guess you were going to hell?
Speaker 1: Or is that something that you didn't even let yourself explore.
Speaker 3: My first few kisses were with girls in the church,
Speaker 3: and part of me is like, how did I get
Speaker 3: them to kiss me? It was like it was preached
Speaker 3: so much that, you know, homosexuality was a sin. So
Speaker 3: I definitely had that deep seated shame not just about
Speaker 3: liking girls, but about the facts that I'd followed through
Speaker 3: with some things, and it was very much hidden, like
Speaker 3: no one knew. You didn't tell anyone. So I knew
Speaker 3: growing up that I was attracted to women, but when
Speaker 3: I married Chris, I was all about him, so it
Speaker 3: wasn't really in my mind until we split up and
Speaker 3: then I started dating women. But it was hard in
Speaker 3: the way of you know, I think one of the
Speaker 3: worst effects from being part of such a fundamentalist church,
Speaker 3: if you could call it that, is the sort of
Speaker 3: shame and guilt that carries on that has been about
Speaker 3: my sexuality and about other things too, Like someone will
Speaker 3: cut me off in traffic. I mean, I'll cut someone
Speaker 3: off in traffic, and I'll think about it all week.
Speaker 3: I'm useless. I shouldn't have done that, And you know,
Speaker 3: just this shame and guilt that sort of stays with
Speaker 3: you and you try and attach it to things even
Speaker 3: if you've done nothing wrong. And I certainly felt that
Speaker 3: about my sexuality, but you know, it gets better with time.
Speaker 2: How do you come to a decision to leave an
Speaker 2: institution like the church that you're involved in when so
Speaker 2: much of your life, your identity, your belief system is
Speaker 2: wrapped up in it. What changed for you and what
Speaker 2: was the catalyst that made you want to leave.
Speaker 3: I had wanted to leave for a while. It was
Speaker 3: actually my wedding day. That was one of the first
Speaker 3: things that I was like, this doesn't feel right. It
Speaker 3: was so controlled, you know, it was like meant to
Speaker 3: be your one day, especially as part of the church,
Speaker 3: because you're not allowed to do much, so it's meant
Speaker 3: to be your one day where you can it's about
Speaker 3: you and you can enjoy yourself. And it just it
Speaker 3: wasn't like that at all, and there were just so
Speaker 3: many rules, and I had a lot of questions. You know,
Speaker 3: I've always had a lot of questions, and you start
Speaker 3: to be seen as what they'd call a Jezebel for
Speaker 3: having questions, and you start to get socially excluded. There
Speaker 3: were a lot of things that didn't add up for
Speaker 3: me personally in the Bible. So I'd wanted to leave
Speaker 3: for a while, and I'd sort of brought these things
Speaker 3: up with my partner because I still wanted to be
Speaker 3: with him, and he was kind of like, no, you've
Speaker 3: got to pray about it. You've got to pray and fast.
Speaker 3: What they'd say, you'd fast for three days and pray
Speaker 3: and then God would listen to you and give you
Speaker 3: the answers. And I was trying all these things, but
Speaker 3: nothing was happening. So I'd wanted to leave for a
Speaker 3: really long time. And then one day my husband said
Speaker 3: to me, hey, like, I've got to tell you something like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: and he's like, I don't believe in any of this anymore.
Speaker 3: I want to leave, And I was like, sweet, that's it.
Speaker 3: He struggled a lot because his sister had died of cancer,
Speaker 3: and so she'd been married like six weeks or something
Speaker 3: when she died. We're all part of this church, and
Speaker 3: he always believed that she would get healed, that God
Speaker 3: would heal her and she would be okay. And she
Speaker 3: had a severe liver cancer, which is pretty bad. She died,
Speaker 3: and he always I think he carried a little bit
Speaker 3: of guilt for not spending more time with her because
Speaker 3: she thought she would always be around, Like, you really
Speaker 3: believe this stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, you've done everything right by the church do
Speaker 1: so why wouldn't she survive? From what them was saying.
Speaker 3: Exactly, And so I think he carried a lot of
Speaker 3: you know, pain about that, and it was just a
Speaker 3: slow progression. And maybe it's also like you're young and
Speaker 3: you're looking out of the church and seeing people do
Speaker 3: these amazing things, and you're so you know, you're spending
Speaker 3: your saturdays down the street preaching and door knocking, and
Speaker 3: like we literally he had events on every morning and
Speaker 3: every night, so before work and then like after work
Speaker 3: it'd be a Bible study or a concert, or you'd
Speaker 3: be door knocking or street preaching or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: And it was like your whole life is taken up
Speaker 3: by it. And I think, I don't It's funny because
Speaker 3: I don't feel like I've really talked. We didn't really
Speaker 3: talk that much about it, about the reasons for leaving.
Speaker 3: It was just like he didn't believe anymore, and I'd
Speaker 3: wanted to leave for a long time, and it was
Speaker 3: just like we did. But a big problem that people
Speaker 3: have when they leave the church is a lot of
Speaker 3: people end up it sounds wild, but becoming drug addicts
Speaker 3: and alcoholics and really messing their lives up because you
Speaker 3: have no sense of what morality is. You know, you
Speaker 3: have to redefine that, and it's very easy to leave
Speaker 3: the church and kind of go off the rails, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure a lot of people would think that about me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I left and it was like, well, I've never drunk
Speaker 3: alcohol before, you know, and you don't know where the
Speaker 3: limits are, and you've had no one teach you the limits.
Speaker 3: You know, celibacy is taught not safe sex for example. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was definitely hard. And Chris and I both dealt
Speaker 3: with being in the world differently. For me, I wanted
Speaker 3: to travel. I just got a promotion at work, which
Speaker 3: meant I was able to move. And for him, I
Speaker 3: think he is not like that now, but at the
Speaker 3: time he was like, well, I want to party and
Speaker 3: I want to meet people and I want to you know,
Speaker 3: which is understandable. And I eventually got to that stage too.
Speaker 3: But it's yeah, it's hard. It's like, morally, where do
Speaker 3: I stand, Like, I don't have a God telling me
Speaker 3: what to do or a church telling me what to do.
Speaker 3: I have to make these decisions on my own.
Speaker 4: How did the.
Speaker 2: People around you respond when you decided to separate.
Speaker 3: I didn't really have anyone around me. I know that
Speaker 3: sounds strange, but well, we had left the church and
Speaker 3: I didn't have any friends, and that was another thing.
Speaker 3: That was really intimidating because it was like you're cut
Speaker 3: off from your friends in the church, and I would
Speaker 3: still be in contact with them occasionally, but they were
Speaker 3: only allowed to be in contact with me to witness
Speaker 3: to me, to like try and bring me back to
Speaker 3: the church, and so like I didn't have anyone, you know,
Speaker 3: so in terms of how people responded, like there was
Speaker 3: our families that were very upset, and you know, I
Speaker 3: had left him and it just wasn't where I wanted
Speaker 3: to be anymore, you know. I wanted to have new experiences,
Speaker 3: and it was hard. It was hard for a couple
Speaker 3: of years. Like in many ways, he's the only person
Speaker 3: that really understands what it was like being brought up
Speaker 3: in that church that sort of essentially knows you as well.
Speaker 1: Well. It almost is like a literal rebirth again, like
Speaker 1: you've never had to make a decision for yourself. Really,
Speaker 1: You've always been told what to do, where to go,
Speaker 1: when to do it, how to do it, And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're in an adult body, but I'm
Speaker 1: imagining it like you're a child, because you've never had
Speaker 1: your own autonomy in your entire life. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden You're trying to make these life decisions
Speaker 1: in a world that you've got no one to support
Speaker 1: you because they won't come along with you because you've left.
Speaker 1: I know now that you have a relationship with your family,
Speaker 1: but how long did that take to come back around
Speaker 1: until they sort of accepted you back again and you
Speaker 1: formed that relationship. Well.
Speaker 3: I was actually one of the last to leave the church,
Speaker 3: which is crazy. My dad was the last to leave
Speaker 3: and he's still super religious. But I mean, my family's
Speaker 3: been okay. My mum left to church when I was
Speaker 3: about thirteen fourteen, and we were pretty much excommunicated from
Speaker 3: her at the time, which was tough not having your mum,
Speaker 3: and it was very hard for my mum as well.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of things that could be could
Speaker 3: have been done differently. But my sister, you know, she
Speaker 3: left when she was eighteen, just like I don't want
Speaker 3: anything to do with this, and just left home and
Speaker 3: left the church and lived her life. And my brother
Speaker 3: just slowly stopped going. So everyone had kind of left
Speaker 3: by that time anyway, so it wasn't really a huge issue.
Speaker 3: I was probably the biggest problem. I was the judgmental
Speaker 3: church goer. Which is funny to look back on now,
Speaker 3: you know, I sort of complain a little bit about
Speaker 3: some of the people and the way that made me feel.
Speaker 3: But I used to be that person that would make
Speaker 3: people feel that type of way. And you know you're
Speaker 3: going to hell because you've done this and that, And
Speaker 3: it's funny. It makes you have a little bit more
Speaker 3: empathy when you you know you've been on both sides
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: What about when it came to dating again. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 2: when you very first came onto the screens and became
Speaker 2: somewhat of a public figure, it was through the Bachelor.
Speaker 3: How was that experience?
Speaker 2: And how is dating when you've not had any one
Speaker 2: experience in dating, but you've had nothing to compare it to,
Speaker 2: you know, no idea of like what's normal, how to
Speaker 2: be treated in a relationship, how to put rules in.
Speaker 4: Place or boundaries? Like how did you navigate that period?
Speaker 3: I think I did pretty well, actually, like I was
Speaker 3: pretty excited to sort of start dating again. I think
Speaker 3: the biggest issue was as a woman, you're meant to
Speaker 3: be compliant to men, and so I struggled a lot
Speaker 3: with people pleasing and saying yes to things that I
Speaker 3: should have said no to. That was the biggest thing,
Speaker 3: and I think, you know, I look at some of
Speaker 3: the relationships I've had more recently where I've been treated
Speaker 3: terribly and have been way too forgiving and not judgmental
Speaker 3: enough kind of thing. Just accepted that it's going to
Speaker 3: be it's my fault because I'm the woman, and that's
Speaker 3: been the hardest thing.
Speaker 1: I don't even think that that is just something you know,
Speaker 1: that someone in your position would experience coming from such
Speaker 1: a strict upbringing. I think that women in general, that's
Speaker 1: what we want to do. Right.
Speaker 4: We're brought up to please, no matter what family you're in.
Speaker 1: You brought up to not make too much commotion, to
Speaker 1: accept things that we probably shouldn't have to accept. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. I think it's exactly that.
Speaker 1: I think it goes back way way before, like the church.
Speaker 1: I think it goes back to the fact that like
Speaker 1: women never used to have jobs. Our sole purpose was
Speaker 1: to keept married and make the man happy, be the
Speaker 1: perfect housewife. Whatever he said goes is what it is,
Speaker 1: and for some reason it has seeped through generations and
Speaker 1: we're still experiencing it now.
Speaker 3: It's crazy to me that it's still a thing. But
Speaker 3: I've got so many friends who just don't put up
Speaker 3: with bullshit, you know, and I really admire them the
Speaker 3: first red flag, they're like, no.
Speaker 2: We did a really interesting episode with elist Loan all
Speaker 2: around the good girl mentality and how it's something that
Speaker 2: is almost like a social condition that's bread into us,
Speaker 2: this need and want to quote unquote behave in a
Speaker 2: certain way, and how the flow on effect that we
Speaker 2: can all think that we're above the patriarchy, but it's
Speaker 2: like how it has.
Speaker 4: Affected us in so many ways.
Speaker 2: But also I think in your case, you have dealt
Speaker 2: with all the things that every other female has dealt with,
Speaker 2: but with such an added layer of complexities with religion
Speaker 2: thrown on top. When you hear that story about your
Speaker 2: childhood and your upbringing, it's even more fascinating to me
Speaker 2: that you could put yourself into a position where you
Speaker 2: would go and do something like The Bachelor. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just so otherworldly in comparison to where you came from.
Speaker 3: I think it's also, you know, like I was talking before,
Speaker 3: people they leave the church and they're so desperate to
Speaker 3: have real life experiences that they really dive in deep
Speaker 3: and sometimes dive too deep. And I think I was
Speaker 3: definitely one of those people. I did all the things
Speaker 3: that I wasn't meant to do, or I took a
Speaker 3: lot of drugs in my twenties because it was just like,
Speaker 3: well I can, I can now. I drank a lot,
Speaker 3: I traveled a lot, I lived in different countries, I
Speaker 3: went on a reality TV dated a woman, was on
Speaker 3: the cover of a men's magazine, all these things that
Speaker 3: were so looked down upon, and I think I did
Speaker 3: a lot of them to try. And I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't know what it was like remove the shame,
Speaker 3: trying to do as much extreme things as possible to
Speaker 3: sort of desensitize yourself to the shame.
Speaker 1: It's also like what an ultimate stuff for you to
Speaker 1: the church. He's like, I'm going to date a woman
Speaker 1: publicly on natural television, Like fuck you exactly.
Speaker 3: I think I became a lost cause then where no
Speaker 3: one wanted to, you know, preach to me anymore. They're like,
Speaker 3: she's too she's never coming back. We don't want to back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but what was that time like?
Speaker 1: Because I do feel like you were the early days,
Speaker 1: and I remember I didn't know you from bar soap.
Speaker 4: Obviously I knew on the.
Speaker 1: TV, but I remember and correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: But I remember there see being this mental floating around
Speaker 1: where you and Tiffany, who was the woman that you
Speaker 1: left with, you were getting a lot of heat about
Speaker 1: faking the relationship, like there's no way these two women
Speaker 1: would have ever. You know, you've gone on a show
Speaker 1: to meet a man. As if two women are going
Speaker 1: to get together on the show and leave, they're doing
Speaker 1: it for publicity. I remember something nasty comments floating around.
Speaker 1: What was it like for you to live that experience?
Speaker 3: It was pretty shit, like I feel like, you know,
Speaker 3: And this was seven years ago, which I mean is
Speaker 3: a while ago, but also not that long ago. And
Speaker 3: I remember we were one of the first people on
Speaker 3: reality TV representing bisexual people, and I was actually pretty
Speaker 3: surprised by the amount of hate that we got in general,
Speaker 3: and not just of people accusing us of faking the relationship,
Speaker 3: but just the fact that we were queer. There was
Speaker 3: so much hate. And again, like you know, coming from
Speaker 3: the church and then into the world, I had a
Speaker 3: sh wrongfully assumed that people would be accepting of who
Speaker 3: I actually was, and I was so wrong. You know,
Speaker 3: I remember us going to like a couple of festivals
Speaker 3: and just being absolutely mobbed and yelled at and I
Speaker 3: got spat on once. Like it was. Yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 3: a nice experience at all, and it almost put me
Speaker 3: off dating women all together. It was shit, and it
Speaker 3: was kind of like we were able to pave the
Speaker 3: way for other people. But it's nice to be the
Speaker 3: person after the way it's been paved. But it didn't
Speaker 3: feel like that at the time that yeah, it felt
Speaker 3: like we were the first.
Speaker 2: It's actually so interesting that you put it like that
Speaker 2: because even when you say seven years it's not that
Speaker 2: long ago. You think about how far we've come in
Speaker 2: the reality TV landscape, in the representation landscape. It's not
Speaker 2: rare now to have a bisexual personality represented on the screen.
Speaker 2: There have been so many people who have come from
Speaker 2: the Batch franchise that. I mean, we had Brooke Blurton
Speaker 2: who was the Bachelorette and she was bisexual. So now
Speaker 2: it's some that we have been way more conditioned to
Speaker 2: and I think overarchingly people are like very accepting of it.
Speaker 2: But to think that that was your experience seven years ago,
Speaker 2: and I don't think there's been very many discussions around
Speaker 2: the fact that as somebody who pioneered that space, the
Speaker 2: backlash that you received for it, it kind of was
Speaker 2: like somebody had to be on that first wave in
Speaker 2: order for everybody else to have it so much easier
Speaker 2: as they should have it.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because we received not most of the brunt,
Speaker 3: but a lot of brunt from the network saying that
Speaker 3: it was embarrassing that we were in embarrassment. And what's
Speaker 3: funny about that is the year after Tiffany and I
Speaker 3: broke up, they asked me if I'd be interested in
Speaker 3: being the bachelorette and being the first bisexual bachelorette, And
Speaker 3: that was the year that Sophie Monk did it, which
Speaker 3: I understand why they where they took her and not me,
Speaker 3: but I mean it came down to public opinion. You know,
Speaker 3: we receiving so much hate from the Bachelor community, from
Speaker 3: even co stars. You know, like Brittany, you said you
Speaker 3: had this attitude about who I was before you met me,
Speaker 3: and I've done my best not to feel like I
Speaker 3: have to go online and explain myself constantly with a
Speaker 3: lot of things. It's like, oh, well, if people are
Speaker 3: going to feel that way, then they can. It's kind
Speaker 3: of nothing to do with me.
Speaker 1: No, I would be embarrassed to say my attitude to
Speaker 1: you was you're so and I've told you this, you're
Speaker 1: so ridiculously good looking, and you're even better good looking
Speaker 1: in real life. And I say that because sometimes you
Speaker 1: think that when someone's online that everything's photoshopped, everything's their
Speaker 1: best face forward, you know.
Speaker 4: And I just thought you were so.
Speaker 1: Ridiculously good looking that I made a very naive and
Speaker 1: ignorant assumption that I probably wouldn't get along with you
Speaker 1: because I.
Speaker 4: Just felt and this is a reflection of me.
Speaker 1: Your persona online looks like you're really girly. Not now
Speaker 1: because I've done a week diet. No, not now, just
Speaker 1: because I didn't know you. I just looked at beautiful
Speaker 1: swim streets photos and modeling photos. You're an amazing model.
Speaker 1: But when I got to know you, you're a tom boy.
Speaker 1: You ride motorbikes and you scuba dive, and you with
Speaker 1: sharks all the time, and you surf and you do
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff, and we got along like
Speaker 1: a house on fire. So I had definitely had these
Speaker 1: preconceived ideas of like we probably just wouldn't get along.
Speaker 3: I kind of felt that about you as well, britt
Speaker 3: You were like the big wig of the challenge coming in.
Speaker 3: We were like, we're always decing, Brittany, you're the draw
Speaker 3: card here up, but you do you have these preconceived
Speaker 3: ideas of people, and I certainly had it about you
Speaker 3: as well. Crazy times. Do you remember when that electrical
Speaker 3: pole went through the busy?
Speaker 4: We don't talk about that.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about the fact that a whole bus
Speaker 1: of us nearly died in reality TV.
Speaker 3: Why don't we talk about it? We all almost died.
Speaker 1: It was insane and we're not joking. An electrical pole
Speaker 1: fell through. Okay, let's just say it. It fell through
Speaker 1: as the bus was driving. It swung down, smashed through
Speaker 1: the window in front of missed Kira and Conrad by
Speaker 1: about two inches. Started to fight inside the bus. We
Speaker 1: couldn't get off, the busses wouldn't open, and they were like,
Speaker 1: let's never speak about this again.
Speaker 4: We thought we're gonna die. We've never spoken about it.
Speaker 3: Here we are talking about it. I know Kira and
Speaker 3: and Conrad. The only reason they didn't get killed is
Speaker 3: because they had leant forward at the exact time, you know,
Speaker 3: a few seconds earlier to be like what sorry, what
Speaker 3: did you say? And then they'd leant forward and this
Speaker 3: electrical pole this comes through. It was like and they
Speaker 3: wouldn't let us off the bus because of security and protocol.
Speaker 3: I think that's what it was.
Speaker 1: And I had glass all in my hair over my face.
Speaker 1: Like literally, people think we're exaggerating in this story.
Speaker 4: Were all almost died. It's insane anyway, Yeah, they're probably
Speaker 4: gonna see us. Now, let's keep me real.
Speaker 3: They can't. Our contracts are over.
Speaker 1: True, Megan's something that has happened in your life that
Speaker 1: is absolutely huge. In the last year, you were diagnosed
Speaker 1: with something called spino cerebella a taxia or.
Speaker 4: Sc A six.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about what that is and how
Speaker 1: you came to find this diagnosis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So spino cerebellar or a taxia. How would I
Speaker 3: describe it? It's basically it affects you, sarahbellum and your spine,
Speaker 3: so Pickinge's cells, which are the sole output neurons to
Speaker 3: tell your body what to do, start to misfire and die.
Speaker 3: If I could draw a parallel, I would say Parkinson's
Speaker 3: is the most similar. To what it looks like. And
Speaker 3: one of the reasons I wanted to get tested for it.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's in my family, so my grandfather had it.
Speaker 3: But it was actually when we were on the challenge
Speaker 3: that I realized that I should get tested. I was
Speaker 3: having a few issues on there. One of those, I mean,
Speaker 3: we made a joke about how uncoordinated I was and
Speaker 3: that my balance was off. I've always been pretty uncoordinated
Speaker 3: and lanky and kind of clumsy, but being on the show,
Speaker 3: I was like, there's something not right here, Like my
Speaker 3: motor function skills were off. Even you know, if I
Speaker 3: was cold, I felt like my speech would be off,
Speaker 3: or if I was nervous, my speech would be off,
Speaker 3: and even like running when we would stay it would
Speaker 3: be fine once I got warmed up. But it was
Speaker 3: like I had to conscious sleep, be like okay, legs move,
Speaker 3: and things just weren't happening like they used to. The
Speaker 3: biggest issue was also neuropathy in my hands, my arms,
Speaker 3: my legs, or I couldn't feel my hands. So there
Speaker 3: were a few challenges that we did, and I didn't
Speaker 3: tell anyone that this was happening at the time, but
Speaker 3: like I remembered you know one of the elimination challenges
Speaker 3: where Connor and I had to go into a room
Speaker 3: and blindly feel around, like I couldn't see anything, so
Speaker 3: I couldn't feel what was going on, and so I
Speaker 3: sort of left. But I was also like, I, you know,
Speaker 3: I was going through a very stressful period of time
Speaker 3: in my life, if you remember Britt like kind of
Speaker 3: I'd lost a lot of weight and was just struggling.
Speaker 3: So I was like, maybe this is just stress related.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm just really stressed. And you know, I wasn't
Speaker 3: sleeping if you remember, I didn't sleep the first four
Speaker 3: nights I was there. But I would take a sleeping
Speaker 3: pill that was meant to knock me out and I
Speaker 3: would still be wired. And it was like, okay, this
Speaker 3: is pretty full on. So a couple of months after
Speaker 3: I got back from the challenge, I thought, okay, I
Speaker 3: need to get tested. But it was also it was
Speaker 3: confusing because my pop he didn't start getting symptoms until
Speaker 3: he was in his sixties. So for me, it was like,
Speaker 3: this is an old person's disease, you know, is what
Speaker 3: I had always thought, And if I have it, then
Speaker 3: I don't have to worry about it until I'm sixty,
Speaker 3: and if I stay healthy and active and that, which
Speaker 3: my pop wasn't, then you know, maybe I'm going to
Speaker 3: be seventy when I start having symptoms. So it didn't
Speaker 3: feel like a possibility, that it didn't seem like an
Speaker 3: issue even if I had the disease. But what we
Speaker 3: didn't realize is that, ah, yeah, So basically when I
Speaker 3: got tested, I found out that I had four more
Speaker 3: gene repeats than my pop, which is a lot, which
Speaker 3: means and they don't fully understand what it means because
Speaker 3: it's such a rare disease, But from what I can tell,
Speaker 3: and my sister's been diagnos with the same disease, is
Speaker 3: that we're having symptoms now in our thirties that my
Speaker 3: grandfather didn't have. It's been hard to come to terms with,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I didn't plan on being disabled. I
Speaker 3: didn't plan on this. Like I got out of the
Speaker 3: church ten years ago, and I feel like I've had
Speaker 3: ten years to live my life and a lot of
Speaker 3: that ten years has been taken up with shitty relationships,
Speaker 3: you know, and I don't think I handled the news. Well,
Speaker 3: let's just say that, like I follow all these inspiring
Speaker 3: people online and I'm like, how are they dealing with
Speaker 3: this so well? Because that wasn't my experience, Like I
Speaker 3: was devastated when I found out, And as time goes on,
Speaker 3: I feel like I've become more devastated because I'm having
Speaker 3: symptoms and it's scary, Like I've seen what it can
Speaker 3: look like. Like my grandfather, he couldn't talk, he couldn't eat,
Speaker 3: he was wheelchair bound. Basically every function that you had
Speaker 3: apart from your wits, Like you're still able to understand
Speaker 3: everything and process information, you just can't communicate. So I've
Speaker 3: seen that head on in a person much older than me,
Speaker 3: but the fact that that's going to happen earlier is terrifying.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm single and you know, wanting to date,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I don't even know how how to
Speaker 3: deal with that in the dating world, Like do I
Speaker 3: have to tell someone like do I even want to date?
Speaker 3: Is someone going to have to look after me in
Speaker 3: ten years?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: It doesn't There's so many things that I have to
Speaker 3: deal with that I didn't think i'd ever have to,
Speaker 3: And it's like I don't have enough super you know,
Speaker 3: there's these things that you don't think about have.
Speaker 2: They been able to give you any indication in terms
Speaker 2: of the progression, the speed of which, like, is there
Speaker 2: any indication that they can give you or is it
Speaker 2: completely unknown?
Speaker 3: It's so rare. It's like one in a hundred thousand
Speaker 3: people have spinocerebella or taxia and they've got no there's
Speaker 3: no research on it. It's not like MS, which you know,
Speaker 3: more people have, so a lot of obviously there's more
Speaker 3: studies on it and a lot of research, but they're
Speaker 3: only just doing the research into what I have kind
Speaker 3: of now, and there's barely any Basically, when I got diagnosed,
Speaker 3: the neurologists was kind of like, all right, there's no treatment.
Speaker 3: There's no cure. It can't give me anything. And even
Speaker 3: with treatments that might be able to help my symptoms,
Speaker 3: treatments not approved for my disease, which I don't know
Speaker 3: when it, if it ever will be. So it's kind
Speaker 3: of like, all right, you know, wipe your hands clean,
Speaker 3: the neurologist, wipe your hands and just go live your
Speaker 3: life and do your best, stay active, be healthy, take
Speaker 3: your vitamins.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can only imagine it's ten times worse
Speaker 1: knowing that there is nothing like. It's one thing to
Speaker 1: be diagnosed with something and know that there might be
Speaker 1: an option or there might it might not work, but
Speaker 1: I can put my energy into this. I can go
Speaker 1: down this channel. It might be a holistic approach, it
Speaker 1: might be science based. Whatever it is, it gives you,
Speaker 1: I guess, a form of hope, yeah, and something to
Speaker 1: work towards where I guess for you, it's just like cool,
Speaker 1: I just go and wait for this to happen.
Speaker 3: Exactly, And that's exactly it. It's like in some other countries
Speaker 3: they've got, you know, a few different treatments more to
Speaker 3: manage symptoms. One of those is what they give people
Speaker 3: for altitude sickness when they're climbing everest or whatever, because
Speaker 3: vertigo can get pretty bad and you can be quite imbalance.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what a tAxiom is. It's in balance.
Speaker 3: So there are treatments overseas and that that maybe I
Speaker 3: could go over and get. I mean, I'm not having
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm not having enough symptoms now to
Speaker 3: warrant that. But the best thing that you can do
Speaker 3: is slow the progression of the disease, which is why
Speaker 3: I would be more interested in getting treatments earlier on
Speaker 3: rather than later. I would try anything, really, as long
Speaker 3: as it's not damaging me further. It's like, my sister's
Speaker 3: been diagnosed. She's got three kids. I've got an egg
Speaker 3: downer baby, which was kind of rough funning out to
Speaker 3: have this disease and giving a you know, you think
Speaker 3: you're giving a gift to someone by here's and now
Speaker 3: you're like, well, shit, maybe this was a bit of
Speaker 3: a curse. I mean, a child is never a curse,
Speaker 3: but it was a tough phone call to make. But
Speaker 3: there's add on effects to it. It's not just about you,
Speaker 3: you know, it's about all the people around you. So
Speaker 3: I would love to find treatment, but it's all experimental
Speaker 3: for the most part, especially with the type that I have.
Speaker 3: It's so so rare. A taxia is pretty broad compared
Speaker 3: to spino cerebella or taxia type six, you know. So
Speaker 3: it's like I worry that with these experimental treatments that
Speaker 3: it could make things worse. But I guess again, it's
Speaker 3: almost like the bisexuality on reality TV things. Someone has
Speaker 3: to go first. So yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Would love to ask you about your decision. I mean,
Speaker 2: you just mentioned that you have an egg downer baby.
Speaker 2: When did this happen and what was your decision process
Speaker 2: around this? Was it someone who was a friend that
Speaker 2: was in need. You often hear about sperm doners, but
Speaker 2: I don't think you guys often hear about egg donors.
Speaker 4: And what was it that led to your decision to
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 3: I had wanted to donate eggs for a long time,
Speaker 3: since my early twenties. I thought it would be a
Speaker 3: cool thing to do. I wasn't sure if I ever
Speaker 3: wanted to have children, and I was fertile. And around
Speaker 3: the time I donated eggs, I had started dating someone
Speaker 3: that had had a vasectomy and they had already had kids.
Speaker 3: They didn't want any more kids. So I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: this is like a way to reproduce, you know, without
Speaker 3: actually having to parents. Yeah. I mean you had to
Speaker 3: go through counseling and it's like a long process in
Speaker 3: order to do it. But it wasn't friends. It was
Speaker 3: I had spoken to someone that ran like an egg
Speaker 3: donation page, basically connecting potential egg donors with recipients, and
Speaker 3: it's kind of like Tinder, you know, it's Tinder for
Speaker 3: your eggs, And I, yeah, I met this couple who
Speaker 3: I really liked, and we facetimed and chatted. And then
Speaker 3: there was a couple that I had talked to before them,
Speaker 3: and I just didn't feel it didn't feel right, and
Speaker 3: then this couple it felt right. So and they knew
Speaker 3: that my grandfather had spina cerebella or taxia, but it
Speaker 3: was again it was like, well he didn't start getting
Speaker 3: symptoms totally sixty. This is what it's like. I've only
Speaker 3: got a small chance of you know, having this disease.
Speaker 3: And they were like, yep, that's fine. And so we
Speaker 3: went through the process.
Speaker 1: So do they not do genetic testing? Did they not
Speaker 1: do that? And if they did, would they not have
Speaker 1: picked this up? Or is this more of a specific test.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly it. Like they do genetic testing for sure.
Speaker 3: For embryos I had to in order to donate. I
Speaker 3: also had to do genetic testing, But they don't test
Speaker 3: for spina cerebellerotaxia. It's too rare. It's like, who the
Speaker 3: fuck would have this, which looking back now, I'm like,
Speaker 3: maybe they should have because I disclosed that as a
Speaker 3: potential for me and it was the only thing in
Speaker 3: my medical history that could have been an issue like
Speaker 3: I've got no history of cancer in my family or
Speaker 3: diabetes or anything like my you know, biological family is
Speaker 3: really healthy. So it was the one thing. But they
Speaker 3: decided not to test for it. The recipients weren't that
Speaker 3: worried about it, so we just ahead and they had
Speaker 3: a baby.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean when you said it was
Speaker 1: a really hard phone call to make, because obviously you
Speaker 1: went ahead and let the family know what was their
Speaker 1: response and are they going to go and further test
Speaker 1: their child?
Speaker 4: Are they just going to wait and see what happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they were one of the first people that
Speaker 3: I contacted before my own family, I think because it
Speaker 3: was the first thing on my mind, like, you know,
Speaker 3: the idea that it could affect, and at that time,
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that I had more gene rebeats as well.
Speaker 3: When I made the call, it was still something that
Speaker 3: I thought would be quite far down in the future
Speaker 3: for me. But I mean, they were amazing. They're amazing people,
Speaker 3: and I think at first I'll be like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is this is not good. And I gave them the
Speaker 3: details of my neurologist and how to get tested because
Speaker 3: it took four months. I was waiting for four months
Speaker 3: to get the results as well. I've kind of left
Speaker 3: that in their hands and we haven't really talked about
Speaker 3: it since. They were just kind of like, I'm sorry
Speaker 3: to hear that, and yeah, we'll get per tested and
Speaker 3: that's pretty much outwent. I mean, what can you do.
Speaker 3: There's no treatment, there's no.
Speaker 1: How do you feel like your life has changed or
Speaker 1: you're living life differently knowing that one day your speech
Speaker 1: will go and your mobility will go and it's almost
Speaker 1: going to be like that slow decline.
Speaker 4: How has it changed for you?
Speaker 3: Well, when I first got diagnosed, I thought that I
Speaker 3: was kind of like, all right, I just need to
Speaker 3: live life to the fullest, you know. I need to
Speaker 3: travel and ride motorbikes and scuba dive and do all
Speaker 3: the things that I'm eventually not going to be able
Speaker 3: to do. But and I would love to say that
Speaker 3: I have lived like that, And I mean I have.
Speaker 3: I have in a way this year, you know, I've
Speaker 3: definitely tried to eliminate stress factors in my life because
Speaker 3: they say that stress is one of the worst things
Speaker 3: that you can do. The progression of the disease will
Speaker 3: happen quicker if you're stressed. So it's been getting rid
Speaker 3: of people in my life that aggravate my peace, you know,
Speaker 3: that have caused a lot of stress in my life
Speaker 3: over the last couple of years. Yeah, I've had to
Speaker 3: change a few things, and so, you know, I've stopped
Speaker 3: I used to drink, you know, quite a lot of wine,
Speaker 3: and now I've had to pull back and I'm not
Speaker 3: drinking during the week. I'm really careful. I don't have
Speaker 3: any interest in doing drugs. I try and you know,
Speaker 3: exercise a lot, I eat really healthy, you know. So
Speaker 3: it's changed my life in that way, But I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say that I've just come out of it just kicking
Speaker 3: and again, I feel like I hear so many inspiring
Speaker 3: people that are advocates, you know, they're disability advocates, and
Speaker 3: I don't feel like I'm there yet. I feel like
Speaker 3: i'm I'm still struggling to accept my diagnosis and I've
Speaker 3: struggled a lot with you know, depression over the last year.
Speaker 3: And I don't want to waste my time being depressed
Speaker 3: and not sleeping and being stressed about being stressed. But
Speaker 3: if there's anyone else that has felt the same way
Speaker 3: reach out to me, because it's not always easy, you know,
Speaker 3: and you want to be the person that defies all
Speaker 3: odds and just gets out there. And another thing that's
Speaker 3: been really hard is being single and dating again and
Speaker 3: not really fully understanding what it might look like. Like
Speaker 3: I could have the same symptoms that I have now
Speaker 3: for the next twenty years and be completely fine and
Speaker 3: not have any more issues that I'm having now. But
Speaker 3: we don't know, and I think there's the unknowns in
Speaker 3: it that is scary as well, Like I don't know
Speaker 3: how much time I have, Like I love to read.
Speaker 3: I love to read, I love to paint. I love
Speaker 3: to write. And you know, my vision will will go
Speaker 3: my you know, everything that's important to me. Okay, I
Speaker 3: like to do a lot of adventurous things. I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna be able to do those things. You know. My
Speaker 3: life is going to be cut short in a way,
Speaker 3: not by death, but by illness. And so I guess
Speaker 3: it does change your perspective, but I'm still sort of
Speaker 3: processing and yeah, we'll have to we'll have to see
Speaker 3: how things go.
Speaker 2: I think it is so humanizing though, and I truly
Speaker 2: mean this because we've interviewed some incredibly aspirational people who
Speaker 2: have been through great traumas and have come out the
Speaker 2: other side with this intense positivity, sometimes almost unbelievable positivity
Speaker 2: where you think, wow, like you know, how do they
Speaker 2: manage to savor every day? But I also think it's
Speaker 2: so important to honor the journey towards getting to those places.
Speaker 2: So often we talk to people who have already reached
Speaker 2: that destination, and then for those who are in the
Speaker 2: midst of trauma, in the midst of dealing with the
Speaker 2: big shit that life throws at you, you can feel
Speaker 2: like you're failing because you haven't reached that destination yet,
Speaker 2: or maybe for some people, you never reached that destination
Speaker 2: of full acceptance, and for every single person it looks
Speaker 2: very different. So I think that there is something incredibly
Speaker 2: humanizing about having someone be honest about the fact that
Speaker 2: they have not yet completely accepted or even been able
Speaker 2: to reach this destination of positivity around something that's adversely
Speaker 2: affecting them.
Speaker 3: That's exactly it. And I think there's part of it
Speaker 3: where you don't want to be a victim, Like you
Speaker 3: don't want people to see you as a victim. You
Speaker 3: don't want people to feel sorry, and so in that
Speaker 3: way on my Instagram. In talking about it, I try,
Speaker 3: and I mean I barely talk about it, but when
Speaker 3: I do, I try and be really positive and I
Speaker 3: am grateful. You know, I've had more opportunities than most,
Speaker 3: and I'm very, very lucky. But I predominantly only say
Speaker 3: things like that because I don't want people to look
Speaker 3: at me. And isn't it funny these things that you
Speaker 3: don't think about that I've never had to think about before.
Speaker 3: But it's like, I don't want to be seen as
Speaker 3: a victim. I don't want to be seen as, oh,
Speaker 3: poor Megan. Someone I was with said to me, and
Speaker 3: I've told Britt this before, but a comment they made
Speaker 3: to me was, Megan, I could date a twenty year
Speaker 3: old without a brain disease, and I choose you. And
Speaker 3: this person had disrespected me in many ways, but this
Speaker 3: is the thing that like, I'm pretty sturdy, like I'm
Speaker 3: not easily offended, but this hurt. It hurt my feelings
Speaker 3: so much to hear that, and it was a little
Speaker 3: glimpse into what people might see me as or see
Speaker 3: me like.
Speaker 2: It's because it's been dressed up as a compliment it's like,
Speaker 2: I have the choice of anyone, but I'm choosing you.
Speaker 2: It's like they're trying to imply that it's because the
Speaker 2: person you are on the inside is so special, but
Speaker 2: then by implying that they're saying, well, the person on
Speaker 2: the outside that you are as defective exactly.
Speaker 3: It was very offensive, and they had said this to
Speaker 3: me a few times over the night, and I'd kind
Speaker 3: of pushed it away, and it wasn't until a few
Speaker 3: days later that I brought it up with this person
Speaker 3: and told them. But it also it very much made
Speaker 3: me lose respect for this person as well, because it
Speaker 3: was like, who the fuck do you think you are?
Speaker 3: You know that I'm The idea that I should be
Speaker 3: grateful that someone has chosen me was horrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And also in those moments, it makes you realize
Speaker 2: that sometimes, not even just sometimes often being on your
Speaker 2: own is better than being with people who don't and
Speaker 2: can't respect you, will love you in a way that
Speaker 2: you just to be like, it's so hard to get
Speaker 2: to a place in life where you're like, I would
Speaker 2: rather be on my own and have agency of my happiness,
Speaker 2: have agency over my choices than to be with someone
Speaker 2: who has control over that and has control over my
Speaker 2: happiness because of their infidelity or their lying or however
Speaker 2: else they're showing up in the relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly it. And it's kind of a hard
Speaker 3: place to get to. Like I'm sure Britt understands what
Speaker 3: it's like when you're you know, you reached like Britt
Speaker 3: and I are about the same age, and it's kind
Speaker 3: of like, how many times do I have to do this?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I have to start again?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, and it's kind of it's intimidating starting again.
Speaker 3: And I think that's one of the reasons I've put
Speaker 3: up with so much stuff, is because I mean, I
Speaker 3: love good company and sex and you know, all the things.
Speaker 3: But in the end, it's like, am I betraying myself
Speaker 3: to be in this position? And if the answer is yes,
Speaker 3: then you shouldn't be there.
Speaker 1: I appreciate and can imagine the struggle that you feel
Speaker 1: about should I be dating somebody if in ten years
Speaker 1: or fifteen years that this is going to happen and
Speaker 1: they're going to have to look after me. I understand that,
Speaker 1: but I hope that doesn't stop you from dating and
Speaker 1: finding that person, because the right person is out there
Speaker 1: and the right person won't care.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And again it's hard to know how
Speaker 3: the disease is going to progress. Like my mum's been
Speaker 3: diagnosed and she's fifty six and she's completely fine. You know,
Speaker 3: she's having very few symptoms. So it's like, who knows.
Speaker 3: Like I could be absolutely fine, they could die, you know,
Speaker 3: I could get married again and have kids, get the
Speaker 3: embryos genetically tested and have kids and live a really
Speaker 3: normal life, or it could be completely different. But yeah,
Speaker 3: we don't know, and I don't want to let it
Speaker 3: stop me. I think my confidence has really been affected
Speaker 3: by some of the comments and things that have been
Speaker 3: said to me in the past. And it's also hard
Speaker 3: because you can google my name and one of the
Speaker 3: first thing that comes up is Megan Mark's diagnosed with
Speaker 3: you know, neurological disease. So I don't even really have
Speaker 3: the choice to start dating and decide when I want
Speaker 3: to reveal that, because I mean, let's be honest. You
Speaker 3: google people you know you're going on a date with them, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you google them, you look them up on social media,
Speaker 3: and you see what's going on, and there's it's like,
Speaker 3: I don't have that choice. So it's difficult, and I
Speaker 3: think maybe I'd have more confidence if I was able
Speaker 3: to reveal that slowly to someone. And you also, you
Speaker 3: don't know how Yeah again, I was going to say,
Speaker 3: you don't want them to assume that you're a certain
Speaker 3: way when you're not. And but you can't give someone
Speaker 3: answers either, Like, even if I was going to have
Speaker 3: that conversation with someone, it's like, well, I don't know
Speaker 3: what's going to happen to me, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: I think that this has been a progression over the
Speaker 2: last few years. But you were very public facing for
Speaker 2: a while across social media, across public engagements, But it
Speaker 2: seems like over the years you have moved further away
Speaker 2: from that life. Was that a conscious decision. Was that
Speaker 2: a conscious decision around privacy or was it just simply
Speaker 2: the you know, how life is transpired and where you've
Speaker 2: moved to, Like, what does that look like for you
Speaker 2: now in terms of how public facing you are with life.
Speaker 3: I think I went through a stage a few years
Speaker 3: ago where I've wanted to I mean, it sounds so
Speaker 3: sort of wanky and cliche, but I wanted to live
Speaker 3: a little bit more authentically. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 3: you can't do that and be on social media. Of
Speaker 3: course you can. And I'm still on socials, but now
Speaker 3: I only post what I want to post, and you know,
Speaker 3: I can be pretty real about suffering from a bit
Speaker 3: of depression lately, and that I've been going through a
Speaker 3: hard time and I've lost a lot of weight because
Speaker 3: of stress. And I've been able to talk about those things.
Speaker 3: But it's more, I guess it didn't feel good anymore.
Speaker 3: It just didn't feel good anymore, and I just wanted
Speaker 3: to live a quieter life and not feel like I
Speaker 3: have to explain myself. I always felt like whenever I
Speaker 3: did get on social media and voice and opinion that
Speaker 3: I got so destroyed by the media or by various personalities,
Speaker 3: and I wasn't very good at handling it. You've got
Speaker 3: to have really thick skin, almost callous skin. I'm sure
Speaker 3: that you two do.
Speaker 4: You know it's not think enough either.
Speaker 2: You have to and I definitely I mean something in
Speaker 2: which it was very public last year. It might have
Speaker 2: been the year before, but it was the conversation around
Speaker 2: ADHD that transpired in the media how do you deal
Speaker 2: with situations where you feel as though you've been misrepresented, misunderstood, miscommunicated,
Speaker 2: and then you don't have the ability because like when
Speaker 2: you're up against almost like a fight online where you've
Speaker 2: been misrepresented, how do you explain who you are and
Speaker 2: defend the person that you are when you've been misrepresented.
Speaker 3: You have to get to the point where you understand
Speaker 3: that no amount of explaining yourself is going to make
Speaker 3: you win. Is the most important thing, And for me,
Speaker 3: you know, the first thing I try and do is
Speaker 3: take some accountability and have a look at myself, like
Speaker 3: if you're getting a whole lot of negative energy put
Speaker 3: towards you. Not all the time, but sometimes you're wrong.
Speaker 3: You're wrong, and you've got to accept that. You know,
Speaker 3: obviously people are going to take one line of what
Speaker 3: you said and pull you through the colls. But for me,
Speaker 3: I mean, at the time when that ADHD conversation happened,
Speaker 3: I was waiting for the results of you know, the
Speaker 3: disease that I have right now, and so it was
Speaker 3: a very interesting time to be called ablest And when
Speaker 3: I was on the show, I was taking ADHD medication.
Speaker 3: I've been diagnosed for quite a while. I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't want to get into it and try and explain
Speaker 3: myself again because I feel like I'm about to do that.
Speaker 3: But I think the thing is that sometimes you don't
Speaker 3: deal with it when you get that much vitriol and
Speaker 3: hate spat at you. Sometimes you just don't, you know,
Speaker 3: and it's like, oh, you know, the best thing to
Speaker 3: do is to not read the comments and to not
Speaker 3: engage and to not and for sure, but it still hurts. Again.
Speaker 3: It was another reason where it's like, Okay, I'm taking
Speaker 3: a step back from social media because it just wasn't easy.
Speaker 3: And at the same time, it's like, well is this
Speaker 3: good for my mental health? And you want to sort
Speaker 3: of take a step back and work out what you
Speaker 3: value and why you're talking about the things you arehether
Speaker 3: you should or not, And yeah, I'm sure it's different
Speaker 3: for everyone how they deal with it.
Speaker 1: I specifically saw a story set that you did a
Speaker 1: little while ago where you were genuinely really vulnerable and
Speaker 1: I know you said you don't like to go on
Speaker 1: to your socials and show a weakness, will be a victim,
Speaker 1: but there was a moment where you were trying to
Speaker 1: raise awareness for your disease because it is unknown, and
Speaker 1: watching your vulnerability in the fact that I get up,
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to cry talking about it, but
Speaker 1: watching how scared you were in that story set where
Speaker 1: you were like, I don't know what my future is
Speaker 1: and no one's helping me.
Speaker 4: No one is there to help me.
Speaker 1: I messaged it to the girls and I said, like,
Speaker 1: I want to put her on a platform where she
Speaker 1: can talk about it and more people can understand, because
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how isolating and lonely that feeling must be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, I'm part of a small cohort
Speaker 3: of people that has an incredibly rare disease. There isn't help,
Speaker 3: and part of me feels like I can't ask for
Speaker 3: help either, because it's like what I'm dealing with affects
Speaker 3: such a small cohort of people, So why why ask
Speaker 3: for it? There's more important things, there's more important disease,
Speaker 3: and so it's been incredibly isolating, really isolating, and it is.
Speaker 3: It is hard. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, but thank
Speaker 3: you for giving me the platform and thank you for
Speaker 3: allowing me to talk about it. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: We hope that you enjoyed today's interview guys, and if
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