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Simone Brick | Strength, Survival, and Always Looking Forward
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Content warning: This episode includes discussion of eating disorders, sexual assault, self-harm, suicide, psychiatric hospitalisation, trauma, and PTSD. Please take care while listening, and skip this episode if it is not the right time for you.
In this deeply personal episode of Peak Pursuits, James sits down with Sim for an open and honest conversation about the story behind the runner many people know today.
Sim shares the experiences that shaped her life long before trail running, including her battles with anorexia, trauma, self-harm, psychiatric hospitalisation, and the long process of understanding her own mind and body. She also reflects on the power of language, the role of therapy, and the motto that has carried her through so much: doing what you can with where you are currently at.
This is a heavy but powerful conversation about survival, recovery, identity, and slowly finding your way back into life, running, and possibility.
***Don’t forget, use code PEAK at Bix’s website for 20% off Bix products, exclusive to PPP listeners!***
Thanks for tuning in to Peak Pursuits! Connect with us on Instagram @peakpursuits.pod to share your thoughts, questions, and trail stories. Until next time, keep hitting the trails and chasing those peak pursuits!
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Transcript
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:15
Speaker
and welcome to the People's Shoots Podcast. My name is James Sieber and in today's episode we are going to be joined by our very own Simone Brick. Simone's story is one that has been well documented. There is plenty already out there that go into the high level stuff of Sim's story.
Simone's Running Journey
00:00:30
Speaker
You can listen back to i think it's episode three or four of our podcast when Sim and her coach Tim Crosby sit down to introduce her to the show to all of you and get a real good insight into her journey through running and a bit of a background story into her life before this.
00:00:44
Speaker
However, there is a lot more that goes into what has made Simone one of the strongest people that I know and an example of what we can all do despite the situations that we find ourselves in.
00:00:55
Speaker
Her story is one of resilience. It is one of never giving up and it is one of never knowing what tomorrow is going to bring for you.
Mental Health Struggles
00:01:02
Speaker
Heads up before we do get into this, Simone's story is one of severe mental health struggles with eating disorders, abuse, trauma, suicide attempts. And so these topics are very heavy. And if this is going to be a challenge for you to listen to, please leave this podcast for later because it is pretty consistent throughout the whole story as this is Simone's life that we're going to go into.
00:01:22
Speaker
With that said, Simone's story is one of incredible strength as I've already mentioned and I hope that you listen to this, you are not able to resonate with too much and if you are, my heart goes out to you but even if you aren't, there is so many good little to snippets of information in here that can translate into any of our lives with how we approach day to day and how we approach any struggle that you may be facing in your life. all right, I'm going to leave it to Simone to describe the rest of it because honestly, I cannot do it justice in this pre-show. So enjoy, listen all the way through, ride the journey with us and thank you so much for being here.
In-Person Podcast Recording
00:01:57
Speaker
Sim, welcome to my house, firstly. Yeah, you got a good little crib here. I absolutely love it. Yeah, we're definitely happy. This is dream. Yeah, no it's been a very good big move. I'm glad we're doing this one in person. like We've put this one off for a bit because of wanting to do this podcast in person.
00:02:13
Speaker
And it is, yeah, it's cool. It's kind of surreal seeing someone literally sat there, not across the screen, but like it. Yeah, yeah, because I've done this once with Vlad and yeah even he was just like, that's one of my favourite, one of his favourite podcasts and i'm like, yeah, because you just get to sit there and have a combo. Yeah. Like, yes, we're holding mics, but at the same time. The mic feels weird.
00:02:30
Speaker
The mic, yeah, because we're in because we're sitting comfy on the couch just to paint paint the picture for everyone here. Like, we're holding mics, which does feel a little weird as opposed to just having it sit in front of you. But at the same time, yeah, it's still so much more personable than the screens and the internet connections and the, I hate technology. Yeah.
00:02:48
Speaker
yeah Hopefully we don't have internet connection issues because that takes us both out. Yes, it does. That one doesn't happen. So... This, you've been on a lot of podcasts before. Like anyone that's listening to this, they will have heard your, likely they would have heard what your intro one that you did on the pod.
00:03:02
Speaker
Same with Vlad, Jess, Brody, everyone had like that. Yeah. that it Meet us kind of thing. And going through to get ready for this, don't actually realize quite how many podcasts you have done and
Beginning of Running Journey
00:03:13
Speaker
been on. Yeah, quite a few. It goes back a long way as well. Like going back to 2018, don't think there's anything before then.
00:03:19
Speaker
No, no, there wouldn't be because 2018 was pretty much the start of the running side of things and there was definitely no podcasts I would be on before then. so And it's been, like which is great because it gives us a lot to go off.
00:03:32
Speaker
It also, there's normally these little clips in it, like you say something that the podcast might not have picked up in the moment because they're in the in the flow of it. but There's a motto that you you said, and this was I heard this back in the 2018 running matters podcast or something like that, but it says, do what you can every day with where you're currently at.
00:03:53
Speaker
And As a little saying, like, that is incredibly powerful, but it has a lot more meaning for your life and your story to get to hear. Yeah. When I say that, what's the first memory that gets brought up for you? Oh, that's a good one, actually. Because that is, like, that is something that's become very spiritual to live by. Mm-hmm.
00:04:12
Speaker
i And even now, even in any challenge I face in anything, my approach to running, my approach to life is like, that is my motto pretty much. It's like, what can I do today? And it always framing it in there, forget what you can't do. What can you do? That's going to help you in
Butterfly Program Experience
00:04:28
Speaker
future. So but yeah, my first, I suppose my first memory of it would have, that would hark back to um eating disorder treatment like when I was in the butterfly um program because that was my first sort of foray into actually exploring what's going on in my mind and um
00:04:48
Speaker
I think that was actually I've got this quote book. um I made one of the ways I got through that whole eight-month period was I made a book, which is by far one of the most impressive things I've ever made and it's not – super duper artistic but I'm just like the amount of effort I put into this damn book because every single day once I got home from the program because I couldn't do anything else like I wasn't well enough to engage in much in life I would um make a scrapbook page with a positive quote and I think that was one of the quote first quotes I put. Like the front says, um ah no matter how long it takes, I'm going somewhere beautiful. I think something like that. But that that quote alongside the do something today that your future self will thank you for. Those two quotes hand in hand were, I think, some of the first quotes that went in.
00:05:37
Speaker
um And I think like that's my first memory of it but then my first memory of kind of embodying it would have been probably a few months later still within that um program when I got kicked out because I wasn't I wasn't engaged. Well, I was engaging, but I wasn't gaining any weight. I wasn't progressing health wise. And I was given the ultimatum at that point um of you, you have to leave for a week. And if I hadn't gained 500 grams, 500 damn grams by the time I got back um in on the next Monday at my weigh in, i would be kicked out of the program for good.
00:06:19
Speaker
um And this was, I think, three months into my stay in the program. um And essentially, I knew that if I didn't gain that 500 grams at that point and I got kicked out of the program, the only next step was to be hospitalized. And up until that point, I had avoided overall being hospitalized for anorexia. And the I knew that what came with that is a loss of autonomy, a loss of ah To be fair and to be perfectly frank, the main fear was that no, then they can force me to have a feeding tube and you have all of those things that can come into play. Whereas because this program, it works and it worked incredibly well because it is voluntary, because you have to choose to go. And you have there is so many rules about if you don't follow the rules, even in one given day, um if you don't eat all of your morning tea and you don't eat, then eat all of your lunch. And so two meals in a row, you just get sent straight home.
00:07:14
Speaker
They're like, you're not engaging, go home. And essentially, yeah, my version of that was I just was doing anything and everything to avoid any weight gain, which obviously the whole point of why I was in there was I needed to gain weight at that point in time.
00:07:28
Speaker
um And so, yeah, throughout that week, I cried through every meal, every snack, but I just kind of had this like ultimatum of like, okay, no, no, no, we have to give this a week to if I want to turn this around and try and stay here. And Like there's so many ways that an eating disorder and when you've got it will manipulate your brain. And there's part of it that was definitely going, no, you have to stay in this program so that I can maintain some control. Like I can't, the eating disorder didn't want to lose the control that being in a voluntary program where I still stay at home every night gives it.
00:08:03
Speaker
um So there was definitely that part of it, but in order to overcome and in order to reach that goal, I still had to do what my mind up until that point for the last year and a bit feared the absolute most.
00:08:17
Speaker
um And so it was it was through that week, which was ah like one of the hardest weeks of my life um of being at home and going, well, no one else is actually going to do this for me.
Struggles with Eating Disorders
00:08:29
Speaker
No one else is actually going to help um in the – like no one else can help. Obviously, I've got mum there. She's helping with every meal in that way. But no one else can eat food for you. And if that's like – that's the hardest part of – what I was going through at the time mentally is you are forced to face your biggest fear six times a damn day to follow this program because you're having three meals and three very large snacks and eating a lot of food.
00:08:53
Speaker
And yeah, it's literally just fear after fear after fear. And there's about maybe an hour between each eating. So you you don't get much. um But it was in that time where I was following it as closely as I could. And I couldn't, like, I couldn't bring my brain around to doing it perfectly, but I was like, okay, but what, what can I do? And I was like, I was looking back on the quotes and that one was one of the ones that stuck with me of just do what you can today, do what your mind lets you and keep pushing that boundary. Because as i did what my mind let me that day, it kind of, your comfort zone very, very slowly um increases and Like that was in some ways in that period of my life, um um it that was still then a turning point for me in that like I got back the next week and you have the very humiliating weigh-in which is something that is it's so hard to describe because like you have to you have to get fully down to it um just a hospital gown. and You have to get on the weight get on the um scales backwards. You're not allowed see the number. Like there's someone else in the room with you the whole time making sure that you haven't drunk a whole bunch of water or like there's so many ways around it. So you're not allowed of wear your own clothes. It's just, it's quite a, like the whole of the treatment is overall a very invasive and humiliating process in a way. um
00:10:12
Speaker
But it was the first time that I did that. I sat there for the 10 minutes or whatever it took for then my coordinator to come in and sit on the couch with me. And once she told me that I gained exactly 500 grams, cause you know, I'm a perfectionist and all that at that point, not that you can, not that you can guarantee that.
00:10:27
Speaker
It wasn't a feeling of failure. It wasn't the feeling of fear. It was just a feeling of relief. And it was that sort of so slight turning point of going the, the healthy brain in me winning out on that day. Um, and then it, I suppose, became through that process, that quote then helped me get back on track anytime I took steps backwards because it's so easy to take steps backwards and keep letting that slide happen and make that then the momentum goes backwards instead of forwards. And by waking up every day and going, no, today you're just doing what you can um with where your mind and your body is currently at. And some days that was nothing.
00:11:13
Speaker
Some days that was going backwards. But it was still just then waking up the next day and going, no, but today we're doing what we can. And forgetting about anything in the past, forgetting about any limitations that anyone's trying to put anywhere. um And at that point in time, I learned it and I learned the value of it through food and tackling the side of my brain that was trying to starve me.
00:11:36
Speaker
But then it's pretty quick that you realize that that can translate to almost anything, especially when you're tackling challenges. um And yeah, put that, I think it reminds me to give myself grace because so many people and so many things that um when people are trying to push through things it's like no no i just grit your teeth and bear it and go through it and um keep pushing and most of the time that's to your detriment it's not helping and so by going no no no do what you can but with where you're currently at
00:12:14
Speaker
Don't expect more of yourself in this moment than where you know you're at. Be that realistic, um like as I said, give yourself the grace of going, no, i I actually internally know what I'm going through and I know what I bring to this situation. So I'm going to do everything I can and not expect more of myself. um But then there's times where you can you can flip that and go, well, if I'm doing everything I can ah all the time in as many circumstances as I can in that moment, it's like you are giving your version of 100%.
00:12:49
Speaker
um And that's like magic can happen sometimes when you do that. it goes It goes both ways in sort of making the most of positive situations but also trying to remain positive and make the most of the negative situations too.
00:13:06
Speaker
There's a lot that going through this. that we'll come back to. was going to say, this is going to be an interesting conversation, guys. It's also going to test, it's going to test my memory and my ability to not hold on to some thoughts. But I think that one of the things that is probably hard for people listening to this to fully understand is, is actually like where your mind goes when you're in the depth of an eating disorder.
00:13:27
Speaker
And the idea of, you know, Gaining 500 grams is going to seem so simple to so many people. And like, you would just always get those thoughts of, well, just eat. It's so simple. Just put the food in your mouth. It's it's just food. like And then you also get societal expectations that we see in work. People burn themselves out because it push, push, push, push hard. You can do this. Like start your own business and you grind seven days a week.
00:13:52
Speaker
90 hour weeks and that's just the expectation but that isn't healthy it's not sustainable no you're not giving yourself the grace to respect the fact that like I'm burnt out right now I need to stop when you do think to sort of if you could sum up or to describe like how it does feel to be in where your head is at with an eating disorder
Addiction and Anorexia
00:14:10
Speaker
where would you take that for someone Oh boy.
00:14:15
Speaker
um It's definitely one of those things that unless you've been there, you you don't. And it's a good thing. When someone says I cut' don't understand it, I'm like, amazing. I love that for you because I wouldn't wish anyone understanding it um upon anyone.
00:14:29
Speaker
um And I suppose in some ways my mind wants me to go, well, before I go too deep into this is just going, well, the the this in in so many ways, and especially for me, at least for my personal experience, like the eating disorder was such a, it's a chapter and it's a symptom of so many bigger things. um And I feel like so many of the past things that I've, and and because it is easier to talk about and it's fine to start here.
00:14:54
Speaker
um But there's so many things I've done and put out and um I've been associated with in media and those sorts and and so many have chosen to gravitate towards it um because it almost became like the the easier to not even relate to but um less taboo mental illness in so many ways. Like it was just even for me coming into the running media and podcasts and those sorts of things, it was the thing I always um deflected to almost to go, no, no, no, I'm just one of those one of those people that got this. But um it it's – and i've I'm yet to – like my perception having been through and met many people and I have many friends and um obviously I was in many different treatments um with other people for this, like i still am I still struggle to see an eating disorder ever being a standalone condition.
00:15:48
Speaker
it is not It is something that is a symptom of other things, and which is that one of the traps I fell into of going, now, this is the one thing I'm tackling and this is the one thing wrong. so once But um in some ways, I i describe it ah for myself and my experience of it. of of it's almost it's It's a way of coping with life that is actually very similar to addiction. It's very similar to um even like and this is still an eating disorder like and that's why it can go both ways of too much food or too little food um it people's vice is the people that smoke i'm like well you know it's bad for you but you do it anyway because it helps you cope um and for me it like it did start in that normal fairly normal way of i'm an overweight girl i'm i'm literally told by doctors you need to lose weight for your own health and initially having that whole like celebration from the people around you of hey you're looking amazing and this is great and obviously this was like and it's it's I think hopefully better now but I'm not I'm not a teenager anymore but a teenager in what the 2012 2013 of it it's still very much like the the idolized body is still very skinny and those sorts of things so um for me the one thing that highlights is that yes that was that was a
00:17:11
Speaker
passageway for me into this eating disorder. But the problem was that once once I was malnourished, once your once your brain is malnourished, your brain does not function.
Mind's Power in Eating Disorders
00:17:23
Speaker
And even my very first eating disorder psychologist, she's like, no, anorexia um and malnourishment at that level is akin to psychosis.
00:17:31
Speaker
And 100% it is. Because my brain could convince me of of so many things that you're just like no but but it's not that like the it's not rational that's why it's hard to understand um but I it's almost like all of the positive sensations that you get from eating um of feeling full feeling satiated satiated um and enjoying the taste of food, if I got any of them, my body my body had the good response and my mind translated that into being a bad thing. So if I liked the taste of a food, that became a fear food. If I felt full, i like your brain worked it up so much into feeling nauseous, into feeling horrible, into changing how you saw your body, just even in that moment of feeling full.
00:18:23
Speaker
um And then the opposite was also true of going, well, if I stand up and I'm really dizzy and I see stars or if I faint out on my run, like great sign, amazing, this is a great thing.
00:18:33
Speaker
um And it it's definitely like it flips, it it literally just flips what's good versus what's bad when it comes to food, at least for me it did. And also the power the how And I maintain that anyone that's been through an eating disorder, the power of their mind, if if you if they can learn to channel it in another direction, is immeasurable. Like what I pushed myself through in those early – and like this is technically – when I was started losing weight, it is technically when I started running –
00:19:09
Speaker
But it was um actually very short-lived because I very quickly went, well, no running makes me hungry, therefore running is bad. I'm going to walk instead. um But it is also the start of me learning my own capacity of like ah having gone the like at the worst of when i was i was fearful of water out of the tap.
00:19:30
Speaker
I was fearful, like I would only drink water in bottles that And these are actually quite hard to find. A bottled water that specifically says on it that it's zero calories.
00:19:40
Speaker
Most water doesn't have nutritional info, so good luck finding it. But I found some. So that would be all I would drink. um And I wouldn't touch anything oily for fear that I was absorbing it through my skin.
00:19:52
Speaker
yeah And that's what I mean when I'm like, it's not rational. There is, and you cannot, you cannot argue with rational thinking. You cannot, like you just, you just can't combat it in that way. Um, and like in throughout that period of then going, well, um,
00:20:10
Speaker
fainting is a good thing, like feeling feeling empty because it for me for me, this is where the sort of coping and ah an addiction almost came in. um I associated the feeling of emptiness with the feeling of calm and still and my brain being quiet, um which is where then as soon as you eat, your brain has energy and you can think and mind goes off. um But yeah, like being able – Even now, I look back and I go, obviously, would never, ever do this again, but especially as when as it translates to ultra running. I'm like, I once went seven days eating drinking 500 mil and eating one apple a day running every day, and I would faint, and I would get back up, and I would run, and I would faint, and I would get back up and keep running, and nothing was going to stop me from finishing that run.
00:21:03
Speaker
And so it was just like the, and it is, it's desperation. It's it's complete desperation at that point. Um, I suppose for me at that point, it was also just that hard thing of, I'd come from such a high weight.
Health Struggles Despite Normal Appearance
00:21:18
Speaker
So I, at at that stage when realistically I was at my worst Um, behavior wise, I wasn't yet in treatment. Um, and I looked normal. I looked perfectly normal to everyone around me because my body weight was finally within the healthy range. Um, probably praised for it as well. A hundred percent. I was praised for it. And people were telling me I was doing amazing things and I'm like, cool.
00:21:40
Speaker
ah Not eating is doing amazing things. Great. And I experienced firsthand that shift in the way people um approach you, the way people talk to you and treat you. And then I experienced that shift again when all of a sudden you do look scary skinny and people walk up and go, I'm i'm i'm scared for you. Or like you just get the sly looks of the like, like, you know, you look sickly.
00:22:01
Speaker
um and But again, like my brain at that point was that thing of going off. Finally, I've made it. People look at me and know I'm sick. So therefore, I've i've kind of, um I think it it obviously it doesn't help that um throughout that period of me being at my worst but at a healthy weight, um which speaks to how bad I was at the time.
Suicide Attempts and Misdiagnosis
00:22:21
Speaker
um which almost wi can we can put it at the start but the um that that was my first suicide attempt through that period.
00:22:32
Speaker
And throughout that, like having to spend a week in hospital ah to recover from that in the medical hospital and then quite literally being told that my BMI was not low enough to ah qualify for the eating disorder treatment in the hospital.
00:22:48
Speaker
Um, which my brain, and I said this to mom straight away as it happened, I'm like, yep, I'm too fat for the eating disorder bed still. So I'm clearly too big. Like I, I didn't, I wasn't exercising anymore. I just gave up.
00:23:00
Speaker
I stopped eating, but I also just lay on the couch and mom would bring me, I can still remember mom bringing me like three or four rice crackers and trying to get me to eat them or like half a cup of rice and um then it was it was almost like that became the challenge because by the time then I did get into the treatment that I was on the wait list for lo and behold I uh I qualify um and I would have qualified back in the day back um in the hospital, but the the mindset that keeps you going in that, like you've got, I had to use the same mindset to get out of it.
00:23:32
Speaker
um But in order to describe, it's your mind at a complete battle with biology Which is a really interesting thing to observe um in the way that, and this is this is true of most people that I know, especially with anorexia and any eating disorder, of I refusing to eat that whole time, but all my brain would let me do is watch cooking shows and look up recipes and look up food Because your brain wants it. yeah your brain Biology is telling you this is what you need. So I literally could not focus on a single thing other than food. That that is why it's it's almost easy to become a calorie counter in your own head and go, yep, I know the difference in weight between two different apples. I can look at them and go, that's that one, that's that one.
00:24:25
Speaker
um and how many calories is going to be in that, how many grams of fat, all of those sorts of things because my your brain doesn't let you go anywhere else. And of course it becomes an obsession because what you are doing is trying to go against biology. And on on the outside, it would look like obsessiveness with how you look, obsessiveness with like health or the orthorexia side of things. um But of course your brain becomes obsessed with this thing that you need to live. Like it's this, I suppose the the way it differs from a lot of other addictions in some ways or coping mechanisms is that
00:25:03
Speaker
um when you're an alcoholic and you turn to alcohol or smoking or anything like that to cope, the solution is to abstain and is to stay away. When you have an eating disorder, the solution, you you cannot get ah you cannot separate yourself from the thing that you need.
00:25:20
Speaker
um And so there's that's where the battle, the complete battle is there. And that's why we lose so many people with eating disorders, especially ah That's why it's the deadliest mental illness in my mind because it's it's one of these ones where you're really fighting the physiological and mental battle at the same time.
00:25:39
Speaker
um And it's you you cannot separate food from living. And that's why it can feel impossible to get out of in the moment because all you want as someone that's in the depth of it is you have – and we taught we are taught, and this is actually a really cool tactic that I've used in things that aren't at the eating disorder at all – But we were taught day one of the program I entered, ah separate, like name the the voice, name the eating disorder.
00:26:07
Speaker
And some people called it Ed, some people gave it other names or some people would just call it, um like you had to completely separate it from yourself so that it became you and your treating team against that voice.
00:26:20
Speaker
that was part of it. And so like one of the most therapeutic things we did, which in hindsight I can see the therapeutic nature of it and I suppose during I almost could too, um after every single meal we got a piece of paper that was split in half. And on the left side we had to write the eating disorder voice and on the right side we had to try and come up with rebuts for every single thing. That would have hard.
00:26:43
Speaker
so so The hardest part of that actually was this program had only allowed sort of 8 to 12 people in it at any time. And when you're doing this process, it is and it is after every meal, it is after every main meal that you do it. So for eight months straight, I'm doing this after every meal.
00:26:59
Speaker
And to begin with, like it's actually a really cool document I have because I have all of these sheets of paper still. I have every single one from day one to day whatever it was. um And you're not doing that in isolation, you're doing that in a group. So once you've written those things down, we have to read out the eating disorder voice to the entire room, to every single other person. Because what happens is if you don't have things on your side of the page, you then write down what everyone else gives you.
00:27:27
Speaker
And so you're saying the eating disorder things of like whatever whatever it's saying to you in that moment, which honestly, it's it's literally just think of the worst bully or troll you've ever seen and it's it's that. It's just you doing it to yourself. um But and if if you haven't written anything down, you then read all that out and it's it's quite a weird experience to be reading out your own inner thoughts, especially when it's like, You're so fat, you shouldn't have eaten that. This is this bad thing's going to happen because you you did that and this sort of thing. But you're reading it out to the group and then having all these other people um give you back of going, well, here's why that's not true and here's why that's not true.
00:28:07
Speaker
But the value in it is you know the people in the room giving you that are also thinking the same thing about themselves. And it makes you flip it because you then hear everyone else's voices too. And you go, but that's not true to them. And then you go, but shit, I wrote that myself.
00:28:22
Speaker
But it's not true for them, but it is true for me. And it slowly starts to undo the irrationality of it yeah because you have to watch someone else rationalize. Like you have to rationalize it for someone else.
00:28:33
Speaker
um And the value of doing that in so many avenues of life of just going, okay, put myself in
Therapy and Mental Health Challenges
00:28:38
Speaker
their shoes. is it is Does this apply to them? um in Like, would I expect this of them? Or is this true for them? If this was my best friend, okay, why do I expect this of myself if I don't expect it of someone else?
00:28:51
Speaker
m And that's that's a really cool process to go through. But that, that I suppose, ah explaining that process as hopefully helps describe like where your mind is at in that moment if you haven't got ah someone else so your own um other voice there to rebut what's going on. um But, yeah, that was probably a very long answer for the what's it like. And that speaks to the fact that you can't you can't understand. All I can tell you it is it's...
00:29:22
Speaker
it is one of the most detrimental places to be but the most powerful like ways like over your mind overriding biology takes so much power um and so much energy um that yeah it's it's weirdly beautiful of showing the capacity of the mind, um but obviously heartbreaking in the way that that capacity is driven um and hence why you flip it and you get. and And the thing is that, and this is I think is what confuses some people is they go, oh, but you're so smart, so you should know. You should know that the logic of why that's not true and this isn't true and that's not how biology works.
00:30:06
Speaker
But when you've got a malnourished mind, your your mind just goes, nah, but that's that might be true for you, but it's not true for me. yeah And the number of times I went, like, because, and I used to hate it when people would do this because you'd call yourself, like, you'd call yourself names and you'd call yourself fat or say that something was wrong. And it was, for me, it was, it wasn't about how I looked.
00:30:27
Speaker
I didn't like how I looked. at all. For me, it was the numbers and it was the feeling of emptiness and it was the like it was the the result of um what.
00:30:38
Speaker
And it was also the justification. Like my mind, because of the the timing in which it happened and how malnourished it was, my mind did the usual thing my mind does and went, okay, I haven't done this well enough yet. Fuck you. I'm going to get better at it when the hospital told me that I hadn't lost enough weight yet.
00:30:52
Speaker
They hadn't told me that, but that was weird the way my mind took it. Um, so that became the challenge for me, but it, I used to irk me and I understand where it comes from, but when I would like, you'd say, oh, i' but I'm so fat and I need to lose weight. And then the person next to you would go, oh but, oh, well then what do you think about me?
00:31:10
Speaker
Like, or you must think I'm huge or something like that. And if there's one thing, I'm just like, that made everything worse because when i'm when When a person with an eating disorder is saying those things, you are you are incredibly self-absorbed because your brain doesn't have the capacity to think outside yourself in that moment. Your brain is quite literally trying to survive starvation.
00:31:33
Speaker
So it doesn't have the capacity. And as soon as someone else says that, it does open up that capacity briefly and then make you feel worse about yourself because you're like, oh, crap, now ah now they think I've offended them and you just go deeper down that train. Yeah.
00:31:46
Speaker
And I never, ever once thought a bad thought about someone else in that whole process, ever. And it wasn't, it was never about other people. That's the thing. So yeah, I suppose, random bit of advice. Just don't don't say anything along those lines.
00:32:01
Speaker
Well, I'm going to come back to that in in one sec, but I think that it's, our internal voices has, in so many people's cases, this temptation to go negative and to abuse ourselves and be to be the bully that we would never, would never talk about our daughter or a brother or a parent in that way or a best friend. But we, that internal voice is, is incredibly hard to stop. And and I really like that method. If you were, you capture capture yourself saying anything bad about yourself and you have to write that down from an external question's perspective and reframe it as like the you version.
00:32:32
Speaker
Just the concept of that in my head, knowing sometimes when i hit when you have those those thoughts about trying to look for the positives, that would be so challenging, but also a way to get you out of it. Yeah. And then again, if you had to show someone those thoughts on that written on that page, like if you had to if you had that thought and then for you personally, you wrote it down and you had to show that to Shiv,
00:32:49
Speaker
Think about how much that would also make help make you reframe it in so many ways. And vocalize it. Yeah. To actually say those words. Yep. that but And that's something that that that I always come back to with people is that saying something in in our head is one thing.
00:33:03
Speaker
Yeah. telling yourself you're awesome for example you're you're trying to kind of force force that positivity in your mind it can be easy to say out loud it can be like someone's zipped your mouth shut oh that's why if if anyone spends enough time with me um and matt and matt my partner knows this i'll walk around going i'm awesome oh yeah i'm good at this shit yeah yeah and and it it is it's if you it goes both ways you can you can use it to Your own mind can build you up and break you down um and there's there's battles that people never choose to fight that changes whether whether it's which direction it's going in for sure. um
00:33:40
Speaker
But it's once you know that and like I suppose I hadn't – At this point in time, I still hadn't learned the bloody power of my mind um in terms of the the depth it could go to because like once i was once I physically and in many ways mentally recovered from the eating disorder, everything just got worse, not better. um but But yeah, it it if there's one thing my journey has taught me, it's oh my gosh, the mind is kind of everything. Yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker
The bit that we finished up on there was the power of what somebody says can feel so, ah well, in one person's mind might be helpful or it speaks to their own insecurities and it can feel really inconsequential to that person, but it can have every consequence to the person that's in the midst of that or is struggling.
00:34:30
Speaker
And when I was going through the stuff they sent me through for this, for a documentary that you're going to be be making, There's a few key points where people say something that whether it was ill intended or not has a massive impact. Thinking to your soccer coach that said you had all the skills, but you need to lose some weight. now you Your BMI was too high to be admitted into the ET or that you're going to go your entire life and consistently get admitted into um different psych hospitals. Yeah.
00:34:58
Speaker
Thank you. And all those little moments that just, and and i'm i'm I'm guessing probably because they happen at different times of your life, they probably had a different impact level. One might've been, well, fuck you, I'm going to do this.
00:35:10
Speaker
They're telling me I can't. And the other one would have been, I'm going right like deeper into this hole that I am in right now. And just the power of what people say about you and how you internalize that. Yeah, 100%. But that's all going to be very individual and there's so many – it's always interesting talking about everything now because even back in 2018, 19, all the way up to I'm going to say like 2023, all the way up actually – almost all of the interviews I've had that are actually out there they're all kind of done without um without my own having gone through my own journey of figuring out the precipitating factors beforehand and it changes everything but it it's
00:36:01
Speaker
It changes nothing and changes everything at the exact same time. But for me, one of the things it was like, okay, well, that explains the reactions. um And for everyone, like when when you do react in certain ways to say what someone else has said, um exploring that and going into why is one of the hardest things but also one of the most worthwhile things to do. Um, because knowing how and why you react, um, is the path to changing how and why you react.
00:36:32
Speaker
Um, but yeah, there's definitely my, my sort of like, and this is, this is just innate in so many ways or just the way I was brought up with, with my family and those sorts of things of just someone tells me I can't do something and I'm pretty much going to just go, okay, well, that's now the goal.
00:36:50
Speaker
Um, which is great at times and as we learned during the eating disorder period, like that is horrible in that time. um And, yeah, it's it's why I never do things by halves, which is, yeah, an interesting way to live.
00:37:07
Speaker
You've alluded to this a couple of times and I ah do feel like it's it's incredibly relevant to your story because your story isn't, to me, an eating disorder. Like you said, it's it's it's a result of other things that have been going So many, yeah. And yours your story starts when you're incredibly incredibly young and what you've kind of alluded to that coming through in past podcasts you haven't really even known or been ready to talk about it. Are you comfortable talking about Yeah, I think in so many ways, like my my life has the chronological order in which I lived technically lived things and then it has the order in which my mind processed things.
00:37:48
Speaker
Very different orders, unfortunately, hence some of the problems. um But yeah, I didn't – I – Growing up, um I'm one of seven kids, beautiful family, um and I'm the second youngest. So I grew up like chasing the ball. Like there's so many things I have to thank for that of just trying to keep up with my brothers as I was younger and those sorts of things. But I also grew up um all the way through primary school even, like not – And knowing that I was, something was wrong, sort of, but never being able to voice it or not knowing, no I wouldn't have the words or the capacity or the, even the ability to understand. um
00:38:33
Speaker
But then The way that I lived life was essentially like I have this recurring nightmare and it is that it is a night. And that was me all lit quite literally all the way up until the the first sort of shift didn't happen until what, 2020?
00:38:53
Speaker
How old was i then? 26? When you say recurring, like with what frequency? Oh, incredible frequency. um As a kid, i wouldn't i wouldn't know.
00:39:05
Speaker
it it's It's vivid and it's kind of like the – like I suppose enough frequency that even through like high school, um like I can still remember mum, she would put lavender drops on my pillow, turn on the ABC classical CD that I had in the thing beside me and I'd have the light on and that's the only way I could get to sleep.
00:39:27
Speaker
And it was – It was like this constant like, um yeah, fit for years actually that was the setup for a long, long time. That was my, um like, and even then it wouldn't necessarily help. But, le yeah, there was, I was also a sleepwalker and a sleep talker because, i would and I would get up and go into the lounge room or whatever. Like I was quite,
00:39:52
Speaker
like active sleeper in a way. um he so did Do you know if when you were talking in your sleep, if that gave anything to your parents, any idea? As far as I'm, as far as I ever remember, I was, it was gibberish. Like I was taught making noises, but wasn't really talking. um But enough frequency. And then especially in 2020, it was kind of just like the, oh, there it is again. like you Like you almost become desensitized to it until I started questioning it. And the reason, There was there was many reasons why it wasn't until that point because 2020 was like after so much had already been through so much that there was just like all these questions of like, well, why did that happen and why did that happen?
00:40:36
Speaker
um And then obviously the it It was in some ways helped by the COVID and everything shutting down and me being like having more time to myself in some ways. But it was also just being more exposed and more aware of other people's journeys, et cetera, of me going, well, hang on, is this a nightmare?
00:40:56
Speaker
Which I suppose I had the first questioning of that a long, long time ago as probably a teenager, honestly, probably as things were all getting bad in my mental health anyway.
00:41:07
Speaker
um But then for yet many years I pushed it back because I'm like, no, that's too convenient. after After the fact, after I'd been through everything, I'm like, no, now your brain's just trying to come up with reasons.
00:41:18
Speaker
um And that's that's a cliche. that's And it was just like there that was all the things I'd tell myself of like, no, no, you're making it up now. And also it was, and there still is, which doesn't bother me anywhere near as much anymore. Thank you, my psych. But there's that whole, you can't prove it.
00:41:38
Speaker
Can't prove a thing. That's the thing that reading was like, damn, you can't. But how do you process that? Nope, you can't prove a thing. But essentially, ah without going into a crazy – which i'm I am actually – the more you put words to it and the more open you are, for me, it it lessens the effect. Yeah.
00:41:58
Speaker
So I'm more than happy to be incredibly open. I'm just never quite sure what other people are ready to hear, to be perfectly honest. um But essentially what it came down to is I was sexually assaulted as a toddler. like And I wouldn't be able to even tell you the age. um I can tell you that in my dream and in my first-person dream, like I am below the bench height and I'm waddling, like I'm not walking normal because of like how my age. um But it's a bathtub, right?
00:42:26
Speaker
it's And and the the other thing is that, it in and to be fair, my psych keeps trying to do this with me and and my brain still just pushes back on the idea and doesn't doesn't let me do it too much. But it's i I remember feelings, sensations, events, hands, not a face, not a body. Yeah.
00:42:45
Speaker
Um, and I remember exactly, remember words, um, like for years, I could not hear the words, you're a big girl now without just losing it.
00:42:58
Speaker
And it's kind of those sorts of things where when you actually start to question, it's fucking scary. Because you're just like, but I suppose that's not a normal response.
00:43:10
Speaker
So why do I have that response? And then for years and years, my brain just went, no, I don't want to know. Like you don't want to know. um And so you push it back. But then it's almost like that when i started voicing that with my current psychologist who it took me freaking forever to find and he's like an associate professor in neuropsychology because psychologist kept knocking me back saying I was too complex and I'm like great thanks guys um finally found a guy that could actually walk this path with me um and it was him that kind of then helped me actually broach into sort of going oh yeah that happened um and actually being out of voice that no it
00:43:54
Speaker
like as far as almost every single thing that's happened in my life points towards, it's not a it maybe happened. It's a, okay, that's a memory. That's not a nightmare. That's a memory kind of thing. And it took me from 2020 all the way to probably till 2023 to actually slowly come to terms with that and see what it was going. And there was times in there where it was just like,
00:44:14
Speaker
Like, and weirdly I was mostly overseas, even like my first Golden Trail series, like I was having nightmares galore and it was shocking and I was overseas by myself and it was just like I was having emergency site consults on my laptop like days before my first few races over in Europe and it was, I suppose that was always part of the journey that I wasn't ever going to share in the moment and people had no idea what was going on like most people.
00:44:41
Speaker
Um, but it's, it's those little things that then I'm like, oh, well that reshapes so many pieces of my childhood where that I kind of knew but also couldn't voice at the time. Like even in prep, um my first term I was all fine off I go to go to school but obviously as normal in prep you're given a year six buddy and my year six buddy happened to be male and and I can still remember I think it we must have been towards the end of term one but at the school assembly that closed the term we had to hold hands and I can just remember my little body. Like I know I wouldn't have understood why but I can –
00:45:17
Speaker
picture, i can still picture walking up the damn steps to the hall holding his hands because that's the impact it sort of had on my body at the time. And the entirety of term two, I had to be physically separated from mum because I would scream every morning that I didn't want to go to school.
00:45:34
Speaker
And it took the entire term for, i know I don't know what then happened and changed at term three because mum's like, no, it was all the way up until the last day of term two. But then term three, I was kind of okay again.
00:45:45
Speaker
um But it was little things like that as well as just an innate fear of any male that was older than me that wasn't my brother. It was the fact that I didn't, I hated, i didn't associate with other kids and I was just kind of like I didn't understand, i didn't understand social interactions or anything like that which actually came through like I i have been diagnosed as autism level one which so many women late diagnosed. um And I'm like, well, that that shows that box. But i was I was most comfortable when I was out of sight. Like my favorite spot in primary school was one of the tall pot plants behind a tree because it was so bushy that once you're in the pot plant by the stem of the tree, no one can see you, but you can see out.
00:46:31
Speaker
And it's those little things where you go, I spent my whole childhood like sitting in a room searching for exits or searching for threats and searching for dangers and they ah Don't get me wrong. There was times that, and i as I said, I was incredibly lucky with the the family I've got and some of the friends I had. And like, it's it's a really weird one where I go, well, on the whole, my childhood was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. All these happy memories, which is another thing that stops you from questioning. And it makes you push back and go, oh, but no, you had a great childhood. Nothing, nothing. You had an awesome childhood. So anytime when I first started getting sick with all these mental health issues, it was,
00:47:10
Speaker
when they asked, oh, did anything happen, like how was your childhood? I'd go, um no, i was I played sport all the time. I did all of this. I was incredibly bright um to my detriment in so many ways because that does separate you in school. Like I learned isolation early. I learned that kids didn't want to verse me in school quizzes or anything like that. And like I, in so many ways, hated school, hated primary school, hated high school. um Like I just, I'd never...
00:47:37
Speaker
could get my head around i loved the the academia of it and my brain could latch on to that as this concrete thing it could do i could latch on to that and I could latch on to sport as movement um but then and I don't know whether this is like mental physical and one of my favorite books is actually called the body keeps the score by Dr Bessel van van der koek Um, I think that's you say that, but, um, like I was like up until maybe I was seven or eight, I was perfectly looked like all the other kids, normal size. But then by the time I was 12, I was already, i was already 80 kilos. I looked different. Like I, and that's despite eating like everyone around me, that's despite being as active as they come. Um, and it was just this other thing where I'm just like, well, I'm different, but I'm not doing anything different. And as a kid, you're like, well, why? i don't understand. Why is this happening? Um,
00:48:28
Speaker
And it's it's it's things all through there, all the way up to high school, all the way to the absolute crash that my mind and body went through um because after high school, because ah essentially high school finished in 2012.
00:48:44
Speaker
By that point, I'd been through the whole, like I'd tried to do some sport um in soccer. i was I was good. My skills were great. And overall, like ah fitness really wasn't even that bad, especially for my size. But Once I'd sort of gone, well, no one, no one wants to, no one cares. Like I had the mind of an athlete still in the way that I idolized athletes, I idolized sports. Sports was my happy place, but it was kind of like, well, that's not an option for you. So by the time I stopped and then end of year 12, I'm yeah, I'm very big, a hundred kilos of, and very unhealthy, asthmatic. Like by then I had anxiety, like I had all these things. And once I lost the structure of school, my mind had free reign.
00:49:28
Speaker
um And that was where the eating disorder came in. But then alongside where this journey of what my body had been through at such a young age and the trauma of that and how that lived out is kind of honestly, and this is where the parallels get messy in so many ways, is that 2013, which is the year when I've described earlier the mindset I was in of not eating and running and um the full-blown um eating disorder side of things and losing all the weight. Like starting 2013, yeah, as I said, 100 kilos, but then back to by the end, ah under like well under 50. So while all that's happening though, I was working as a waitress at –
00:50:17
Speaker
At a local restaurant. I'm not going to give too much away here. was working as a waitress at a local restaurant um and here I am, 18. And oh that I suppose that's the other part of this that is semi-important is that i I did enjoy the comfort of when you are a bigger teenage girl, you don't attract male attention.
00:50:42
Speaker
Like that I wouldn't have recognized it at the time. It's only in hindsight that I'm like, oh, yeah, of course, that was a more comfortable spot for me to be. So um I had one really cute little boyfriend back when we were like seven.
00:50:55
Speaker
Definitely counts. It definitely counts. Lo and behold, he was like the ADHD kid that only came to school every now and again and I resonated with him so much like, geez, I wonder why. But up until, yeah, all the way to 18, it was like I was surrounded by relationships and all of the teenage absolute mayhem that goes on. But never, zero experience, very naive, incredibly naive.
00:51:22
Speaker
And it was then, yeah, as a waitress in this restaurant that the, ah not the not the top, top chef, but the one under him, um essentially it was like I'd started losing weight and I started getting attention.
00:51:39
Speaker
And it's the first time of getting attention. And I'm also like I'm on a path of self-destruction already. So, it, it's like ah going through this with my psych when he was just like, well, your body and your mind, ah like they, I was, as I said, self-destruction, but it's going to choose in some ways or gravitate towards a path that's kind of known in some ways.
00:52:03
Speaker
Um, or like, I don't know, the research and everything about the susceptibility of early in life assault to late in life, ah so later in life assault and those sorts of things. But, um,
00:52:13
Speaker
I, feels weird, in I knew what a good relationship looked like because I got my parents, they're a beautiful relationship. But I didn't know what being inside one looked like. I didn't know what, like I couldn't care for myself so I didn't know what actually being in a good healthy relationship and caring for others looked like. um But essentially this is where some of the indoctrinated beliefs I'm going to say, like I ah a Catholic school, Catholic family, um which is great. And I do love religion. I don't like the church at all, but I love religion.
00:52:46
Speaker
um But essentially this is just painting the picture of where my mind was at at that point it's This is actually – it's what I'm still exploring mentally of going, well, why were my actions like this and what what was going on? Because there's so much of when it comes to sexual assault later in life where people – And it this is mostly in the court system and stuff, but your actions get questioned so much.
00:53:14
Speaker
um And so then it leads to your own mind, at questioning your own actions and that's where the self-blame and all this sort of stuff comes in. But essentially the facts of it is is just going, well, I was an 18-year-old, I was a fresh 18-year-old, I was just 18. And to this day, I don't know the age of this guy. I spent eight months in a relationship with him and he refused to tell me his age.
00:53:36
Speaker
First red flag. Look, I'm, as I said, naive. Yeah. um Very naive. And he was, he was obviously in a position of power at at work. um But the the main thing was that the, there's this, there was this really, there was obviously this very influential night, but the, after one of the work parties, um he invited me back to his place and it was, it was As I said, like it was early days. I didn't really know him that well, but it was early days and it was one of those things as an 18-year-old, you're like, oh, this is exciting.
00:54:08
Speaker
Initially, you're like, oh, this is this is exciting. Like this is new and different and having had no experience, it was just like, oh. This thing that all these other all my friends and all these other people have spoken about, like that he's invited me back, okay, and he's like, oh, we we let's go watch, it was I think it was Fast and Furious or some shit. I still can't watch Fast and Furious, my God. um But I can still remember the feeling and the sound almost. Like it's amazing what your body and brain remembers and is imprinted so quickly. of I can still remember like actually then stepping through the door and the door closing and going fast
00:54:46
Speaker
Like, okay, it was good and like it was that adrenaline rush up until now and then it was that shit. And then it was, there's so many things that I do actually see out in social media and everything now that I'm like, go the world at the moment, to some for some people at least, of the awareness of,
00:55:07
Speaker
Not a single person in my life ever had spoken to me about what consent looked like. Ever. Oh, interesting. Not a single person like, like in my mind now, I'm like, oh yeah, I would ingrain in someone that like in my mind, taking the step through the door was consent.
00:55:23
Speaker
Yeah. Like being there and it was like, oh, well, you've put yourself here now. You've made the bed lie in it sort of thing. um And that was that was quite literally where my brain went of the whole, well, no, now you've done this.
00:55:36
Speaker
It's you. It's on you. there's no There's no backing out. There's no you can't leave. It was – That was where my brain and what I was stuck in, um which obviously now I can see that it very much opened up a previous trauma response of freezing and going, I don't know what to do. And there's still then this like, air like I can see now I'm like, okay, Obviously, I can see everything with hindsight of going what i what you can do what and what should happen in relationships and how they go. Like, we we hadn't been on a date. We hadn't been anywhere. But essentially, with how that that night panned out, it was for so many years, it was just, a well, no, you chose that.
00:56:21
Speaker
You put yourself there. And it was – that's where some of the self-blame comes in but also for me because it was a freeze response, it was a you didn't say no.
00:56:32
Speaker
You didn't say anything. And I'm like, well, yeah, but a good guy going fucking ask, aren't they? And they're not going – but there's so many things now where I'm just like, okay, no – Just because there wasn't a no doesn't mean there was a yes. But also this is where I was going with the sort of indoctrinated beliefs of in my mind I wanted to make it go away and I wanted to make it not happen. And my mind's way of making that night not happen the way that it can be described of going, no, I wasn't raped because he's now my boyfriend.
00:57:05
Speaker
So if I keep coming back and if I stay in this relationship and I call this a relationship, it can't be. It's not that. yeah Not at all. It's essential. Exactly. If I keep coming back, if I keep subjecting myself to this, then it's it's totally fine, right? Like that makes it all go away. Whereas if I had have chosen to walk away at that moment, it does become that one thing where you're just like, shh that happened and I have to deal with it now.
00:57:30
Speaker
Whereas it was, it became this thing of me honest, and that was at the start of my weight loss. This is where it goes with the whole, like, um, the eight months I was, ah with him was then also the eight months I lost all the weight it was the eight months I started self-harming. It was the eight months or started help self-harming worse. It was the, in the middle of that was my first hospitalization, hospitalization and suicide attempt. like And the people around me could see it but as an 18-year-old, as soon as, again, as soon as someone tells you you can't you shouldn't do that or you can't do that, I go, you can't tell me what to do and you get the arc up and all the things. And so it was it was one of these things where,
00:58:12
Speaker
i I kind of did like I enjoyed the I have this thing going on in my life that's this distracting thing and it's like the feels cool feels like all but then it was like I can forget about what goes on behind closed doors behind closed doors and i I just have to put up with that so that I can say i have this thing because and then at work I'm like oh my boyfriend's the chef and as an 18 year old and and and a naive 18 year old at that. Like there's so many things that you're like, oh my gosh, that doesn't matter.
00:58:43
Speaker
like that None of that matters. But in the moment, I'm just like the the way it conditions you, and this is one of my other things, I suppose, in my experience when it comes to sexual assault survivors,
00:58:57
Speaker
And it's similar in some ways to the whole um eating disorder thing of people questioning the mindset and questioning why. and even more recently, like I went through this with my psych of going, but I know my own actions.
00:59:10
Speaker
I know what I did um throughout all of that. And that's that's part of why you go for so many years of going, well, externally, um nothing illegal happened. Yeah. Now, is it also a red flag that just beforehand he checked that I'd just turned 18? Yes. Is it a red flag I didn't know his age? Is it a red flag that there's ah power misconception and is there a million red flags of exactly what went on? 100%.
00:59:40
Speaker
then I learned in myself that the way to control the situation was to invite the situation. So this this is this weird thing when it comes to when every time I see a woman's actions questioned of going, why was she wearing that?
00:59:58
Speaker
And why was she acting like that? I go, well, I... I hated all of it, but I would never tell you know never have told you that at the time. But I would have been, when you know something's coming, when you know that it's going to happen regardless of what you look like, what you wear and what you're doing,
01:00:18
Speaker
you learn ways to fake controlling it. So it's like going, well, if I wear the high heels and I wear the skimpy clothes and I look the part and i instigate, it's over quicker.
01:00:33
Speaker
It's done. Um, if I, yeah if you If you instigate, fake it well, not only do you get to control when it starts and when it ends, you get to like deny yourself into thinking it's fine.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. Because the type like it had already been tested of even if I don't do this, it happens anyway. So if I do this, it gives me the illusion of having some control over the situation. And there's still times I can remember going to parties with –
01:01:03
Speaker
I'm in five inch heels, the skimpiest clothes you've ever seen that he's bought me and given me and told me this is what you've got to wear. I'm around all these guys and the way they're talking about women is absolutely feral. Idea of a date is to go to a strip club and him order me a lap dance so he can watch.
01:01:18
Speaker
Like there's so many things now that I look back and I'm like, oh my gosh, you poor child um of me going, but this must just be how it is. This must just be what happens and this must just be like, and and almost living in that whole, even the Catholic in a way mindset of ah ah once like it's a sin and it's a sin from the beginning. So once it's happened that you, you that you're in it you so and you stay in it for whatever reason. Um, And that's, I didn't know there was an out for so for all of all of it right up until the end. um
01:01:54
Speaker
And I didn't know that it wasn't normal. Like there was, we still it still makes me laugh that I got one gift from him ever and it was a week after I broke up with him. And it was a freaking life-size teddy bear delivered to my door.
01:02:08
Speaker
And I'm still, in my mind, I still question what the hell that was about. It was like a six-foot-tall teddy bear. Jeez. And I'm just like, I don't get it because I'd never got a single thing. um And, yeah, suppose living through that experience and thankfully then coming out of it, even reading my book,
01:02:27
Speaker
journal from the eating disorder as I entered the treatment. Like it's no coincidence that ah I think the three-month period I spoke about where I wasn't following and I wasn't gaining any weight or anything, I broke up with him just before the week of being sent home.
01:02:47
Speaker
on Just after. It was like in that period of going the the turning point um of actually getting out of the situation I was in. But that period of my life and my my actions when with him and what went on, like that that is actually – instead of when I was younger as that one-off traumatic effect, this one is like, well, no, I've got the memories. You've got them for life. You can't get away from them and for years trying to push them away. But that is where all my current PTSD and all of the triggers are from. It's from that period um because at 18 you can't just randomly forget it and you can't suppress it as a childhood memory, unfortunately.
01:03:31
Speaker
um But I think – the perspective that gives me of how people end up in these situations and understanding the path to them of going, oh, no, that would never happen to that person.
01:03:44
Speaker
And like I was i was a really high ATAR, super intelligent Catholic schoolgirl. And a year later I'm in hospital, I'm dating this guy that honestly anyone meeting him would know is bad news.
01:04:00
Speaker
Um, I'm at parties dressed off skimpy, surrounded by drugs, surrounded by situations I've never, ever been in before in my life around, around much, much older men having no idea what I'm doing or how I'm doing it, but doing the whole fake it till you make it kind of, kind of deal.
01:04:17
Speaker
and And that's where you learn to become that chameleon and adapt. And that's why I understand why people question, but why are you acting like that if if that's the the if it's traumatic and it's a bad thing, like later it becomes traumatic. And you're just like, okay.
01:04:32
Speaker
I wish I could tell myself not to act like that too, but I wish I could have understood the ways out of that path. But until someone shows you them, there's not there. They're not there for you. And all you're trying to do is the best you can with where you're at in that moment. And where I was at in that moment was just trying to survive.
01:04:48
Speaker
um And it it actually did take a circumstance where I quite literally thought that he was going to kill me that and And in some ways I i didn't. Like i'm I don't want to – there's parts that made me stay of going, oh, but it's not so bad. Because that's the thing with men like this. of They're very good at the the two faces. The, oh, I'm going to make you this really nice meal and I'm going to light candles and I'm going to do all this. um while all this is all going on in the background sort of thing. um But the the biggest piece of PTSD I currently have in terms of, and it actually comes to play sometimes in running or in life, to be fair, it came came to play very, very much so during COVID. I got an exemption for wearing masks because of it was just the
01:05:38
Speaker
the And this is such a vivid thing for me of going, the it's the first time i went, oh, you've got this, the second time, because it was after my first suicide attempt of going, you've got this second chance in some ways, and going, this needs to stop. But the, being choked until passing out, and that feeling, that minuscule moment before everything went black of going, is this it?
01:06:06
Speaker
And then the weird, it was almost like I came to and the disconnect of then reentering the faking and reentering the facade of no, it's fine. It's fine. not that's it i I understand. It's fine.
01:06:21
Speaker
Nothing happened.
01:06:24
Speaker
Having it so chalk and cheese, it was the moment of going, crap. Like I can't – this can't be it. This can't be it.
01:06:35
Speaker
This can't be the end. um and And in so many ways, like I don't want to – he wasn't – this is the weird thing. It's like the – I actually – I feel for so many men in situations of going – When you can see their path to where they got to as well and you can see why, which is a dangerous place to be, I know, um and it's it's never an excuse, but when you can see the reasons, your brain is a bit like it's it makes its tries to make it more okay. It's not okay. Yeah.
01:07:07
Speaker
But at the same time, and now, after going through all of the hindsight and the thinking, I'm like, oh my God, I feel sorry for him. Yeah. Because I see, and um um I wouldn't go into detail, it's not my journey, but I see how he ended up like that.
01:07:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I see how he ended up there. And I actually, and even um my parents, because like this guy came to Christmas, this kind guy came to family Christmas, like people around me knew him. I got to know him. I didn't realize at the time that there was times he tried to take me away on holiday or something and my parents did step in. Like I had no idea of this fact but they did step in and not let him m because of how sick I was at the time and those sorts of things. but um And the fact I had no idea that happened, still I'm just like, whoa,
01:07:46
Speaker
where Where did this come into it? But thank you, mum and dad. um But also, like, even they would go, oh, we we did through him seeing me and what I was going through. They're like, we did see changes. And he was one of those people you can see the good in And you can genuinely see the good in and see the struggle.
01:08:04
Speaker
that doesn't that's that's also still not a reason to stay like and going i' I'm not here to fix anything and and like it's not my job and it's still not okay um but yeah I suppose that's where I now come to life with of going well I know what it's like to be there and I can also i can also in the same breath go well I genuinely feel sorry for the path you've had to lead that's put you there too that makes you think that's okay as well um which It feels like it's like it's a good spot to be in now.
01:08:31
Speaker
does it It's weird though because even though I'm there, it doesn't take away the physical trauma or the triggers. And I really thought it would but there's still so many things that I'm just like immediately I'm like I can't.
01:08:46
Speaker
I'm done. And my body freaking out and the panic attacks and all those sorts of things. I'm just like, I really thought that having this understanding and process and genuinely being able to speak about what actually was going on through so many of the things that in past I would just be like, yeah, that year I had an eating disorder.
01:09:04
Speaker
um I suppose it's lessened it in some ways. um But that's the thing. That's, I suppose, the journey I'm currently on of going, oh, I wonder what process and how I need to process this in order to lessen the internal nervous system physical effects still.
01:09:20
Speaker
um But yeah, that's that's part of the ongoing yeah ongoing journey, I guess. But The the problem for them the next few years is that still I would, I wouldn't, like oh I still, most people in my life, I haven't told how bad exactly it was or like and um actually no one except maybe my psych have I told exactly what happened and and how bad it was. um But fit for the next few years, it was almost like that and that was never addressed, that and was never happened because I wouldn't bring it up.
01:09:48
Speaker
And so it wasn't something that was ever looked into. as a cause for what was going on, which is in in my mind now I'm a bit like, seriously guys? um But at the same time, um it's this like, I suppose the pathway into and out of and into and out of the periods of struggle in the near future from when that happened because that was 2013 2014.
01:10:19
Speaker
twenty fourteen twenty thirteen to twenty fourteen And what by the end of 2014, I'm living in hospital pretty much full time. Um, and even in that moment when all that's happening, it was, I B I became a hundred percent. I became the, I give up. I'm a victim. Yeah.
01:10:35
Speaker
Like, and I, I completely gave up on life completely. And I didn't understand why. I wouldn't have told anyone that that that was the problem or that the nightmare was there or that the, like, I i suppose I didn't really and even engage in therapy in so many ways for years because it was just like, no, I'm just a victim of all this.
01:10:55
Speaker
Like, I don't know why. I almost, like, wanted it to... Like even when I first, this is a what, a year, 20, no, 20, yeah, 2015. twenty fifteen Yeah, it was about a year later of, um or later that year almost of being hospitalized with psychosis and then being in a hospital in a high dependency unit and I was the only person in the unit that had wasn't withdrawing from ice and drugs.
01:11:21
Speaker
And then one of the guys just going, well, how the hell did you end up here? And I just went, I'm the magical unicorn that my brain's just done it. Like, and it was almost like I wanted to wear it like a badge of honor of going, well, no, that nothing's happened to me. My brain's just this powerful. yeah My brain just decided to give it up and I'm just like the rare one um as opposed to the, no, there's a very clear path into exactly how my entire body and brain and nervous system just gave up on life for a little while there. Yeah.
01:11:52
Speaker
But yeah, it's put piecing it all together. Like I still don't have the timeline right because I don't remember the timeline right. My brain can't. um But yeah, it's it's almost like now be living in the running world and living in running life. Like there's two lives, well, there's multiple lives I've lived, it feels like. But there's a very clear distinction between that was before and it was after. yeah um And, yeah, it's the the ins and outs of um the the journey of the living in hospitals and those sorts of things. That was always... the easy part to talk about because it was the concrete part of going, well, yeah, this is what it's like to have this and this is what it's like to have this.
01:12:37
Speaker
And then it's always the, but this is why it happened. That's actually the hardest part to go Tell yourself and tell others. um Because no one wants to face that shit. Like reality is, it's like, and the way I put it is like when you're you're forced to confront the worst parts of humanity and live through it, it's it's like at any opportunity your brain gets, you want to forget that that happened or that that is part of the world. um But that just results in so much denial of your own experience that you you start to deny yourself more than you think, um yeah, through that mentality.
01:13:20
Speaker
It's interesting listening to that. and In the sense that, first of all, with the guy that you're in the relationship with, sort of you can understand the trauma, but you can you can never excuse his actions. like The fact that that came across and you were the brunt of essentially what he's going through. Oh, 100%. No, it's disgusting. It's horrible. Yeah.
01:13:36
Speaker
But you can also, i can see it when you're talking, like but and and maybe I'm not not not seeing exactly where i think, am but it's like this temptation to like drop back into almost justifying it.
01:13:47
Speaker
Yeah. And it's it's it's interesting because you can tell, like I'm sure we had the same conversation five years' time. There'll constant evolutions of this. Oh, and there's times. There's times we had this conversation, I'd just let loose yeah and just be angry. And I need to, and the thing, I suppose the thing that I'm not very good at feeling anger because i know for a small period of my life, I felt anger. And the way that came out and the way that like it was a lot of it directed towards myself but I hated it when that started being directed towards others. Yeah. like the punching walls, the breaking things, the shoplifting, the swearing, the like like even having memories of the being in hospital and all these nurses that are trying to help you and you're kicking and you're biting and you and it's just like – and again, that's one of those times where I'm just like I would walk into a room now and goodness – Like if someone saw me then and saw me now, I'm just like it did how do you describe that path? Like you can't. um But even then if you saw me before and and then I got there, it's it speaks to that whole well it can happen to anyone in so many ways. um but
01:14:54
Speaker
But you're so right in the whole – For me, the reason the reason it's good, like I learned it's good for my brain to explore the why did he do that is because it takes away the some people are just the well some people are just evil and some people are like that. It reassures me that, you know, there's a path for everyone for why. Like there's a path for me for why what happened to me happened to me and there's a path for why people do evil things.
01:15:23
Speaker
um And it's not just this luck of fate. Well, it is a luck of fate, but it's not just this like innate thing. Like it it almost, it doesn't give you control, having reasons, I'm not going to say it softens the blow,
01:15:40
Speaker
it Helps process? Process, yeah. Yeah. Helps with the process um of not, like I suppose it's it's human nature to ask why in so many ways. And having that, having at least some idea of that answer always helps because it takes away a bit of the questioning.
01:15:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Especially as well if you are someone who is smart, who is scientifically minded, you're going to naturally ask why. Yeah, 100%. In so many ways, I'm like, why the hell did I do that? But then I'm like in the same breath, why the hell did he? um And you can you can hold space for both while also staying true to going like ah those those boundaries and that understanding of what's okay and what's not.
01:16:23
Speaker
I think it's also important to recognize the fact that you're speaking incredibly freely and openly about this now, but also in a way that the thoughts they've been worked on for years with psychiatrist to get to this to this point. Guys, I've had some therapy. Yeah. like it's It's easy to to sort of become detached. You trivialize what you've been through because you're able to talk about it now but the process that you've had to go through to get from where you were and it it sounds like there was a bit of an inflection point where you had that experience where he chose you out and i' I'm guessing it's not that long later that you dumped him not at all then you had the period where you got sent home and had to gain 500 grams that was in that same time frame yeah same time frame
01:17:05
Speaker
You did it, you came through, you got rid of him.
Turning Point Post-Breakup
01:17:08
Speaker
that feel like… That was a huge turning point. It was just a very short-lived turning point. yeah I had a beautiful few months there. I was progressing, I was gaining weight, I was gaining health. and i like ah Being in the program and having that structure was incredible. It was like but having a school and I genuinely loved a small period there. like it was It was the feeling of making progress and working towards something and achieving something But it was that even better feeling of going, I'm achieving something good that other people are actually agreeing with and and supporting me. in And it's not like I'm not, I'm no longer, because when when you do, it is a case that you, when you're hurting yourself in such extreme ways, you're hurting others around you, which which is fine. Like they signed up for that too by loving you. So that's okay.
01:17:53
Speaker
um But at the same time, it's like my mom had had to quit her job and become my full-time carer. Like there's so many things where you just like, I'm such an onus on others at this point. And so when you when I started kicking like ticking boxes of getting better and better, it was like, oh crap, okay, the light at the end of the tunnel is there. um And it actually was only about a month ago um in the process of filming a documentary that is in the very, very slow process of being made that I tried to go back on the timeline. Because in my head, which is a good thing, finally it has a positive bias of thinking that that was quite a little, quite a bit of time.
01:18:26
Speaker
And then I looked at it and i wasn't even discharged from the program for a month before I landed in my first actual psych admission that lasted seven weeks.
01:18:38
Speaker
And I suppose in my mind, I i actually had a stable period there. um But that is so not not the case, clearly. um Because, yeah, like within a month of not having the structure and the help from the butterfly program. But then not only that, it is an incredible job. And I suppose give myself the credit, I did an incredible job of then also not returning to eating disorder behavior to cope.
01:19:04
Speaker
But that just meant my brain got even more overwhelmed and I no longer had outlets and no longer had ways to
Dissociative Disorder and Self-Harm
01:19:10
Speaker
cope. And that is where my my self-harm got a lot worse, a lot worse. And I developed dissociative disorder, one of the scariest things imaginable because I just lost chunks of time, didn't know what I was doing. And in for me, most of the time, like it it would be that when you're really overwhelmed with emotion, my mind would just dissociate and it would say sayonara I'm gone for a little bit and I wouldn't know what I was doing in that period of time but most of the time that would result in me running away and finding some implement to self-harm and the number of times I would then like I have a distinct memory of sort of it's not even coming to I'm not I'm not unconscious but the coming to is like re-entering my own body in so many ways um of I'm in a public bathroom and I'm absolutely covered in blood
01:20:02
Speaker
And then it's this process of like my family got devastatingly, heartbreakingly used to the process of calling an ambulance and then sitting with me. And I like I would that was the weird thing. Sometimes this was why some some some of the medical people at that point in time would go, but it's just attention seeking because I would call for help.
01:20:27
Speaker
Um, and then it was almost like you were like, um, reprimanded for your actions. I'm like, I don't bloody remember doing the damn thing. And then the number of times they'd question and then be like, oh, like, it's almost like you just felt like you were never believed. but my mom My mum was steadfast, always going and advocating and believing and all those sorts of things. And there was one period there um because the dissociative disorder eventually, like I was in and out of hospital. I think I'd last maybe two weeks out of hospital every time I got out of hospital and it wouldn't it wouldn't last long. I was having, I'd have to have surgery to repair things that I damaged and i at one point um I was developing delusions throughout this time. um And I mean proper delusions eventually because i was, um i was just, my brain, my body was done. Um, like I would think that the, if a light flickered, it was a camera. I would think that like the little, I don't even know what they're called, but they're like fluffy flowery things that come off trees and float around. They were
Severe Mental Health Crisis
01:21:28
Speaker
cameras. Um, I would, I stopped talking because I was like, everyone can hear my thoughts. And as soon as you tell me you can't hear my thoughts, then you're now lying and you're now against me. So you're now the enemy.
01:21:38
Speaker
um And you can't tell me that because it's not true. um And then also what was one of my biggest fears was i was I would lose a chunk of time and I'd hurt someone else.
01:21:51
Speaker
So I started going, well, no, I need to protect other people. Like I i i can't, i'm not so it's not safe for me to be out because what if I actually hurt someone else? Now, I don't think I ever would have, but at the same time, that was my biggest fear. and is Is that what happened for your 20th birthday?
01:22:10
Speaker
Yeah. So this was all in the lead up to my 20th birthday, which is must yet two thousand end of 2014. So this is a relatively quick period now of going. I got out of Butterfly in May of 2014.
01:22:22
Speaker
um I was in hospital by June of 2014. And it was June to August of that year that i just just everything went downwards quick. Yeah. Um, and it was like, I did my poor parents. I think I can't even remember what it was, but I'm pretty sure it was like the first night that they felt they could leave me at home and go out for the night. That just the two of them.
01:22:46
Speaker
Um, my mind had for whatever, and this one still baffles me. This one, I'm just like, okay, okay, brain. Sure. We went there. I did. it It decided that every one of my problems was in my little finger.
01:23:00
Speaker
And I cut off my little finger, like almost fully off. It was hanging off. And i can still, i can still remember. This is one time I don't even think I don't, didn't associate because I can, I have the vision of me doing this to myself and I can remember the feeling of cutting through a nerve.
01:23:18
Speaker
And it was bonkers. But either way, um i didn't I didn't actually succeed in getting all the way through. And for whatever reason, my brain then just went, okay, and went to sleep.
01:23:30
Speaker
And so mum and dad get home to find me in bed with a finger mostly off. I've had multiple surgeries on my Harry Potter fingernail. And thankfully, it is attached. um But that was one of the – and I feel for my parents. I'm just like, oh, my gosh, you poor thing's finding me like that. And that was, again, before I think – yeah, that was before it would have been before my 20th birthday. And essentially over time the fear of hurting others became this innate – this delusion and belief that if I lived past the age of 20, my entire family was going to die.
01:24:07
Speaker
Couldn't tell you how. But they were they were they were gone. So i it all it literally in my mind became this sacrificial mission of I have to not be here before I turn 20, which obviously that's then coming up soon at this point. um Now, I do think that that is part of my mind – latching on to 15 year olds me packed with myself of 15 year old me was more or 14 year old me was very much the yeah the depressed state like why am I doing this what's the point I don't want to shower I don't want to brush my teeth like very depressed state at that point um and making this packed with myself while sitting atop a beautiful cliff watching sunset of going it's okay give life a chance if you feel like this when you're 20 still then you can go
01:24:52
Speaker
And that that then in my mental state that I was in at the time became, it was almost like my brain was trying to find this reason to make me go through with it almost. ah like that's I suppose this is me just trying to understand it.
01:25:05
Speaker
and e they No idea if that was the case. I'm just like, where did that come from? And that's where I can pick it from of going, well, maybe that's it. um But either way, that was ah that was another weird period of then, yeah, mum having to advocate really hard because I was i was open and i was I was like, this is what I'm thinking. um And it was almost like then because I was able to say it, they were like, oh, but that's that's fine then. Like you you don't, you're not as high
Misdiagnosis and Psychiatric Ward Experience
01:25:34
Speaker
of a risk. And my psych at the time, I hated my psychiatrist at that point in time. He had misdiagnosed me with borderline personality disorder and my heart goes out to every single human with borderline personality disorder because I think they are the most and so misunderstood humans on the planet.
01:25:49
Speaker
um But the thing that happens when you that's on your diagnosis rap sheet is you rock up to an emergency and your any behaviours are deemed attention-seeking. Like one of the symptoms is attention-seeking. Right.
01:26:04
Speaker
And it's almost like they were the times, once that was on my rap sheet and I started, then when I rocked up to um emergency, that was when you started to feel like this child being told off or like, um like instead of being admitted, you're like, okay, time for you to go home. You settled down now, got home. um And so mum, from my memory, i you have to ask her, but from my memory, mum had to actually fight in some ways to get me admitted in time for my birthday. um So I think I was admitted only a couple of days before. Oh, wow. After I was, and when I say admitted, sorry, I was in private hospitals. But the private psych hospital system is voluntary.
01:26:42
Speaker
You can't be involuntarily admitted against the Mental Health Act. um They're all voluntary. So you can leave at any point in time they and they can't stop you leaving. Now, i was i was it was this really weird period of going, at times I was entirely within the delusion and at times I was myself going, oh my God, this is scary. What am i about to do? What's happening? and what what how to Help me, please, essentially. um And so i it was the finally mum fought hard enough to get me um under the Mental Health Act section. So I'm an involuntary patient in the psych ward, um which thank goodness she did. And thank goodness that finally it happened. Although i must say public psych wards, four damn, like I don't know how anyone heals in there.
01:27:25
Speaker
I genuinely don't know how anyone gets better, at least the way it was at that point in time. um But, yeah, that was that was a – honestly, and i so I still to this day struggle to tell it without it almost – in my mind, it's it's it is borderline humorous at the same time as being just this like – the most traumatic experiences ever um of just the desperation my mind had of I was in the i was in a shared room because and that's fine, I was in a shared room um but as it got to the day before my birthday on the 25th of August, the
01:28:02
Speaker
I don't remember when and I don't remember what exactly happened, but I didn't have any form of hurting myself, obviously, because they search all your belongings. They take everything off you. It's that whole the usual dehumanizing process in some ways of getting admitted to a psych ward and having to give up all your rights to almost anything and then going, and you can't leave.
01:28:20
Speaker
um I managed to kick the shelf off the wall of the toilet. There was a little shelf above the toilet. I managed to break that off the wall and then break the nail out of the end of it that was holding it to the wall so that I could get my hands on something to hurt myself. Like that was the level of desperation I was in at that point in time, which resulted in me being ah essentially sectioned within the section of being put on the single person isolated room. Literally, the the like what it it is what you see in movies. It's the white white room, blank walls, bed in the middle of the room um sort of thing. And it's almost like i the memory I have of it is literally almost as if I'm watching myself from above of,
01:29:05
Speaker
like not the weirdest thing of almost having me there and going, why is this happening and why are you doing this? But having mil it powerless to stop it. um And that is the time where I remember they sectioned me and I've got to see a person sitting at the door watching me because you end up on one-to-one. So there's a person in the door, there's me in this really bright room. And even to much to this day, I'm like, why does the room have to be so bright? It's always really bright. Like it's always the...
01:29:34
Speaker
glaring lights down the plain white walls and I'm just like this is this is making everything worse like it doesn't help um but either way I'd still i was still I was whacking my head against the bed I was whacking my head against the walls I managed to draw blood from my forehead at one point and this is still to this day I'm like oh my god Simone you literally just behave like a bloody movie character at this point um because i can still remember the face of the guy that was watching me And he was trying to just read a book was because often that's not a nurse. It's like someone that's employed just just just because they're just a guard. They don't do anything. They just sit there. um And their job is to then alert someone if if help's needed. um And it took until the point where I quite literally took the blood off my forehead and was wiping it on the walls and cackling.
01:30:23
Speaker
And to this day, this memory of myself doing this, I'm just like, oh why? Like what are you doing? ah Anyways, i'm and in the sounds that come out of a human at that point and yourself, it's almost like you're making a noise and you go, a crap, that's me making that noise. like And there's a few times in throughout this process that that had happened. When I screamed for help um after my first overdose, there's that same feeling of I'm not making any noise but no, hang on, that noise is coming from me.
01:30:51
Speaker
kind of like detachment and I was completely detached at this point but yeah that that's the point where yeah they it this it's still kind of the scariest thing but my mind is kind of process not processed it it chooses to put it as if I'm watching a movie and it's a horror movie kind of thing of sitting on the bed and watching five people approach you ready to pin you down and inject you and that's where like it's I don't even know if anyone in that circumstance would not fight Like i ah and maybe, maybe they would.
01:31:22
Speaker
But at that point, because you're so riled up and I understand you're literally like a and a an animal, a caged animal at that point. um But when you're approached by five people and one of them has this, ah you know, a medication that's about to knock you out cold and my desperation was to be awake so I could harm my harm myself. Yeah, like I had one, a person on each limb, a person on my head and they're trying to flip you over and pull your pants down to inject you in the butt.
01:31:49
Speaker
And it's just this whole like sometimes my mind puts it in one of those memes almost of like the the image and then it goes and how did I end up here? um And yeah, so essentially I was just that the solution ended up being I was just sedated through my birthday. Um, well through the time at which I was born, I was born at 1220 AM, which is probably a good thing because it was, for me, it was the time I couldn't turn 20. So 1220 AM was the time.
01:32:18
Speaker
So yeah, essentially that was then almost a turning point in itself of waking up the next day, mom and dad are there, everyone's actually okay. And me going, well, crap, it didn't happen.
01:32:31
Speaker
the world the world hasn't ended I was still fearful of going but it might so I still spent the next that was when I was I was on the high dependency unit and I was transferred hospitals and it was a very eye-opening experience of how um like severely uh the severe wards or the high dependency wards on mental health units work because the stories that come out of that of like a patient goes off and literally the SWAT team comes in like I'm talking with their big shields and their helmets and that yeah Yep, someone goes off and the the nurses are off into their room.
01:32:59
Speaker
um And my mind is probably exaggerating this. I will 100% say that. i I was not mentally well at this point in time. But when when a patient starts acting up on one of these wards, everything's soft. um But this particular patient acted up at food time. So there was food being thrown everywhere and there was crap going everywhere. Like the TVs are behind walls. the furniture is all soft furnishing. Like there's nothing you can really do. um But it's just so wild that like the nurses all go straight into the nursing station, which is completely blocked in. There's well there's like all the pretty much I'm assuming almost bulletproof grass glass around the whole damn thing.
01:33:35
Speaker
And you as a patient are just left in there. and But there's only six people on the ward or five people on the ward or whatever it is, but you're just left in there in the room. Now, thankfully, for the most part, and I have every faith that they they're going to look after you, but for the most part, anger in those circumstances is directed at the staff and not at your fellow patients. It's almost like we have this brotherhood, sisterhood going on of like, no, no, no, we're going to look after each other, but they're the enemy.
01:33:59
Speaker
um But, yeah, watching this group come through of like trying to get them against the wall and pin them down and all that sort of stuff, I'm just like, holy shit. And by this point, i was this was this was almost at the end of my admission when I was about to go home. I was much more with it.
01:34:14
Speaker
um And so the clear memories I have of it is almost just this like, what is happening and like the like actually processing it in the moment so it wasn't in any way traumatic or anything along those lines it was more just this like well human behavior is wild um and yes it but once the like still once i got out of that it was um a that part of that journey of recovery became then changing psychiatrist because that's where that quote came from of you're never going to get better like list sitting there and listening to my psych after this admission and quite literally his exact words were look at me in the eyes and going, this is fucked.
Financial Independence through Disability Support
01:34:54
Speaker
I'm like, well, if you think it's fucked, like, you're not helping. it um And then the one amazing thing that that psych did for me, which I'm forever thankful for, it's the one good thing I got out of him was him signing the paperwork that got me the disability support pension, um which is was actually hugely beneficial for me because it gave me some sense of I can do things for myself and I'm not a burden on everyone around me and I have a little bit of autonomy back and those sorts of things. But whatever he signed on that paperwork meant that they never checked whether I still qualified.
01:35:26
Speaker
Like i fit i was i actually had to take myself off it. um and that was only a couple years ago because um it was like I thought that they'd recheck every ah for a mental illness. I'm pretty sure they recheck every year or couple of years or whatever. Whatever he signed, I never heard from them. and i never and Because well he was – You basically said you were fucked and yeah. I was pretty much on the same disability pension as someone who's like blind or has an amputee sort of thing on it. It's like an incurable illness essentially. yeah Yeah because he was happy to sign the fact that I would be institutionalized. yeah um
01:36:01
Speaker
and and When you say these words now out loud like how how are you feeling right now talking about this? It's a great question. As you said, like in order to relay it in a way that others will absorb, you do have to mildly detach.
01:36:19
Speaker
There's only a certain amount you can re-enter and feel it in the moment while still being able to speak. So, in that way, it it's by no means the detachment that I felt at the time. of the it's It's more this conscious, um you process and you enter the facts, a little bit of the feeling, but not much of it. um And which is fine. Like I feel later.
01:36:50
Speaker
You learn when to when it's good to process and and you learn like it it it never works if you try not to feel at all. um But I've gotten very good at going okay. and And it's almost like it gets easier and my body and brain is a lot more willing to be open because it knows okay at some point you're going to go sit and be quiet and process and feel.
01:37:11
Speaker
um And that enables it to to happen. So I suppose right now, it i don't ah I feel fine. um At some point, whenever whenever i whenever I feel like doing it or whenever my body needs me to do it, like I just feel everything. And you when even it's not even a but good, it's not even a bad, it's just fucking everything. it's It's anger and pride and all sorts of things all rolled up into one. um But, yeah, in the moment, talking about these sorts of things, I think it's – there's times um where you want – you enter into the emotion to to actually articulate it properly and feel the power of it, um but it's fleeting.
01:37:51
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm going to come back to that as it pertains to your running now, because I feel like your relationship with Tim and like him helping you sort of tame those emotions, like that capacity to get the most of yourself.
01:38:04
Speaker
It sounds often it sound like that's that sort of has happened, but...
Support System: Mother and Maya
01:38:08
Speaker
Before we go there, there's two other people, live forms. I want to just to note on, like your mum has come up a lot of times from like what you said, like she's, she is, she quit her job to look after you. Well, yeah, I don't know. She wasn't working full time by any means, but yeah, she, she was the, she was the person that was forever there. Yeah, sure.
01:38:28
Speaker
And then Maya. Yeah. Good on Maya. And just like the impact that both of them have had in the fact that to get you to where you are now, Well, interestingly, in my mind, um I didn't have Maya at this point, but I did.
01:38:45
Speaker
and And I genuinely was shocked when I looked back at the timeline. I adopted her in early August of that same year. And in my mind, I'm just like, hang on a second.
01:38:57
Speaker
I just have zero recollection of her being in the picture um at all at that point. But Obviously, she was she was hugely influential moving forward. But, yeah, so um I remember if we adopted her from a place near the hospital I was staying at so that we could go visit and see her a few times and those sorts of things. And um in so many ways, we the hit that we chose Maya because drew walking through the um rescue shelter at the time, she was the the one dog not barking and Dad went, that one looks good. But, yeah.
01:39:28
Speaker
but Yeah, exactly. She was was this calming presence that she'd been through her own shit. Like it was she was come off the street. she I had no idea what had happened to her but she herself had been abused and you could tell she was fearful of male voices. and she it was almost like this like embodiment of what I felt in a dog um in so many ways. um But she was a huge part alongside like having the disability support pension and the fact that I'd started ah my relationship with running like a sort of around this time somewhere. I ah wouldn't know the date, wouldn't know exactly how, but it some started somewhere here. um
01:40:06
Speaker
And it it was like Maya was the conduit to me having autonomy back and me having my life back because we did train her up as my service dog. um We never got her officially certified.
01:40:19
Speaker
and not sure she would have passed because she was her own being, that woman. um by that dog but um But at the same time, um even through the through the process of training her, like i could take I could go on the train again and because she'd come with me. And I could go watch movies and she'd just sit, and and literally in the movie theater, she'd just sit on my feet. And it was almost like I re-entered the world because i could take Maya with me.
01:40:43
Speaker
Um, and I still had, I still had many hospital admissions, but mum, I really don't think there was a single day that I was in hospital that mum did not come visit and she didn't, she didn't bring Maya.
01:40:56
Speaker
Um, every single day without fail. Um, and so like the hospital got to know her and like you could bring the dogs in, which was great. And, um, yeah, she was as well known as I was because everywhere I went, Maya went, but the one time I had to be away from her was in hospital, but every day she was there.
01:41:12
Speaker
um And it was it was like the after that point of then getting out of all the that like exiting the psychosis in a way and and recovering from that. um Obviously throughout all this I'm very heavily medicated too I should say. like I actually think that some of the medications caused a bunch of the problems just because of how heavily sedated I was on medication. Like I was taking levels of medication, hence why I left the psychiatrist as well, that just blow my mind. Like if I gave you, of Quetiapin, Seroquel, if I gave you like 12.5 milligrams, you'd probably be asleep pretty soon because it's quite, um and you get used to it, so the dose always goes up. i was a 50 kilo human taking 1,200 milligrams of that damn thing.
01:41:56
Speaker
And I would wake up and take it. Because it would then sedate me through the day pretty much. Like I was pretty much just living life chemically sedated, um which that didn't change until May of 2025. Sorry, March of 2025 when I changed psychs and I changed hospital. And my next… 2015, yes. March of 2015, changed psychs, changed hospital. The next psych, honestly, the first thing he did, he's like, I'm admitting you to get you off all the meds.
01:42:24
Speaker
Best thing ever. Because I was at this point addicted to benzodiazepines. I was having Valium and Tamazepam daily and I was having 1200 milligrams of Quetiapin or Seroquel and I still wasn't sleeping.
01:42:36
Speaker
um And so he was trying to get me off all the meds and Maya was the one thing that In many ways, she helped me recover from the psychosis and dissociative disorder in so many ways in so because once i would she was trained that I would get overwhelmed um and I would start to start to show signs of overwhelm and detaching and dissociating and she'd come and just she'd just lick my face and she'd sit in my lap and she'd give the pressure therapy and lick my face and just be that that grounding feature of every coming to. and she was quite literally my like reason for going, no, I want to get better because i'm i need my...
01:43:14
Speaker
um Like previously, my little brother for so many times had been my reason of going, no, I need i need to be okay for John. um i was I love my little bro. He's my little Bubba. I'm sure he loves hearing that now. Yep. He's still Bubba in my phone and I still call him Bubba. I'm sorry, Bubba, but I love you. um but um But yeah, it was then that next hospital admission, which was my last really long one, thankfully. and But that did end in electroconvulsive therapy because they couldn't find anything that worked. And thank goodness that works because my goodness, that stuff is wild. um Like they still don't understand how electroconvulsive therapy works, but damn it does.
01:43:50
Speaker
Um, but that process then of going through that and the next sort of back half of 2015, um, it was November, 2015.
Running as Therapy
01:44:00
Speaker
I ran my first marathon.
01:44:02
Speaker
Um, but I started running, I think my first half marathon was the start of 2015. and it was pretty much like the process of me, uh, finding something to do with my brain and body and time became, I'm going to go for a run with Maya.
01:44:20
Speaker
And mum for the start, mum would accompany me. I was never allowed to – honestly, for years of my life, I was never left alone, ever. Like I'm getting taken to the fucking bathroom. Like it was – I lost all autonomy for that period. um But at the same time, then it became that the what the what I could be trusted to do was to go for a run, just me and Maya, and leave and come back and go for my run.
01:44:45
Speaker
And it became the avenue for me trusting myself again too. Um, because if I was let to go for a run by myself, goodness knows where I'm ending up. And there was times, um, I can still remember my poor Maya, I made her run a half marathon and I shouldn't have. She was, I didn't have water for her. I didn't like, I did eventually stop at petrol stations and ask for water and try and get her water once I realized that she wasn't going to stop at all and she was struggling. um But I had a panic attack mid-run essentially and I just ran to, like I'm in, we're in Bymaris. ran to Dandenong, Heatherton where my psych is. I'm in the hospital. is I just ran there with Maya.
01:45:24
Speaker
And I remember calling mum and she's like, where are you? like, I'm on Heatherton Road. I'm just running towards the hospital. I don't know why but I'm just, that's where I'm going. She's like, I can't get you. Yeah. But poor Maya had to run a half marathon with me that day. But it was just that that fact of m it was almost like that because it wasn't just me anymore. Like who knows where I would have run if I didn't have Maya. But because I had Maya, there was that thought of I need to go somewhere safe.
01:45:48
Speaker
um And in that fact, it kept me safe. And for so long then, like that's why like I've got the photo of me in my soccer uniform with Maya in her soccer uniform because she became the the team mascot of every single place I went, she went. And she was she would open the door in so many ways of just you can do this. um And the then process from there it was almost like um it was a good and bad thing. I actually would hate to think if something bad had happened to Maya through that period.
01:46:18
Speaker
Thank goodness my baby girl stuck around and for as long as she knew i really, really needed her. um But at the same time, it was then the next step from ah of autonomy because And there's not really, like, I love your mum, but there's not really any 20-year-old or 21-year-old or whatever I am at this point that wants, like, to rely on their parents for everything. I'm sure your mum would quite have to not be relied on for everything either. Trust me. Trust me. My mum does, yeah. She taught us independence from a very young age. But at the same time, sort of the next step then, I went back to uni.
01:47:01
Speaker
um I had a whole bunch of physical health problems at this point in time in twenty ah early 2016. After that first marathon, I actually got back down to a really unhealthy weight because of ah reflux. I had to have so major surgery on my stomach. Like my body was a little bit all over the place. um But then, yeah, I was back studying nursing. So I had that purpose thing. And so I was slowly rebuilding my autonomy, but it was still very much me, Maya and mum.
01:47:28
Speaker
Like obviously the rest of my family are all there, but mum's the one. That was sport network. um And I was slowly relearning to trust myself to be not really ever by myself. I was with Maya, but to do things and not um not um not have my brain hijack them in a way. And I still had, i had a couple other rounds of magnetic seizure therapy, um, which is like ECT, but they use magnets instead. So, which is quite an onerous process of, um, you have to go in three times a week, have a general anesthetic. They induce a seizure and like Monday, Wednesday, Friday for five weeks. Um, so I did that in, at the end of 2015, August, 2015, and then again, August 26th, uh, October, 2016. Um, which is interesting because I was actually going through that process, uh,
01:48:13
Speaker
The Friday i would have gone in had a seizure. I would have on that weekend run Melbourne Marathon and then Monday again gone into hospital and had an induced seizure. Like I'm just like, oh, my gosh, the things you did, girl. But um like and there was definitely in that period I was using exercise to cope. I was using so gaining strength to cope. Like I had to go through the whole long process. Like I think you see many people do of – learn Leaning on things too heavily and then learn having to learn to detach, um and which is which is fine. Like everyone's got to walk that path and learn for themselves and all these sorts of things. But it was then the next major pivot point and actually what did detach me from being just obsessive about movement and trying to figure out what I could do was Tim because it was um Melbourne Marathon 2016.
01:49:04
Speaker
When I just, I love my audacity and I love my naivety at running at that point. I had no idea you were meant to, really meant to fuel. I had no idea how to train. Like I'd i'd gotten Steve Hoare, a coach, to write me a little training program, but I wasn't following it. i was injured all the time. like My idea of, i i think two weeks before Melbourne Marathon that year, I ran 36Ks at marathon pace and the week of the marathon, because I was tapering back running, I cycled 250K the week at the marathon And every single day I did a session at marathon pace because I was scared that I wouldn't know marathon pace. Like even up to the day before the session, I was like, I have to run at marathon pace.
01:49:40
Speaker
um And lo and behold, then the usual me and my like... absolute stupidity, but also it paid off. I still, and I love, ah I love that I have these memories to work on and to go with, you know, but you might be able to, because I didn't know what you're meant to do in a marathon.
01:49:57
Speaker
Same as my first marathon. I just took off and I fricking ran and I'm going for it. So I run Melbourne marathon and I'm just like, yep, I'm running this to raise money for butterfly. There's all these bigger purposes. And I'm just like, and and to me, I'm on a start line. I race, I go. so I managed to whittle my way to the front. Like I'm talking the front, front line of Melbourne marathon. I'm standing,
01:50:16
Speaker
on the startling mat i happened to start this damn race. And um ah originally my goal was to run because I'd had the surgery only six months earlier. I'd only been back running for three months. So i had the goal to run like three hours, 30 or something. And then very quickly, I don't know, I decided I was more confident than that. So it became running 320 and then it was just run. um And um yeah, took off, ran stupidly fast, ran. And I can still remember the distinct moment of being in the pack at 15K and some me yelling out to dad who's on the bike dad I've never run 15k so fast in my life and the guy next to me just looking at me and going oh oh girl you're gonna die and I got so angry I just sprinted off I'm like see ya I'm no I'm gonna be fine mate um and I was I was so fine it was all good and like I slowed down a little bit but then my last two k's were my fastest and I just I didn't know and when you don't know it's not a barrier anymore and
01:51:13
Speaker
And so many people limit themselves because they know too much and they go, someone will tell you that you don't you shouldn't do that. i'm like, yeah, but why? Like, do you have proof that that that's not what you should do in this case? And sometimes you do.
01:51:25
Speaker
And when you've got the proof, listen to the damn proof. um But at the same time, I love, I try to bring that naivety into so many things of going, hey, you don't know what could happen. Like, don't let someone else's idea of this is going to happen if you do this stop you from trying something different. So, But yeah, it was straight after that, having run 307, which off the training I'd done, even to this day, I'm like, hey, that was pretty good.
01:51:47
Speaker
Like you did decent woman. um Yeah, started with Tim. And that was then a whole, I suppose, the next learning curve of him teaching me to rein in the, I need to just work and work and push and push to the, no, we need to do this smarter. Yeah. Um, like I just went to him and went, I want to run ultras. I want to run, I want to run really long. And he went, no, you're running a three K. Um, I think he signed me up to a 10 K and I was so scared because I thought, um, he's, he actually said, it's like, if you can run that time in a marathon, you can definitely run a sub 40 minute 10 K. And that was to me, such a mental barrier. I'm like, no, no, no. All the superhumans run sub 40 minute 10Ks. And he just entered me in a 10K and went follow Bron at the time. He's like, just follow and you're going to paced to 40 minute 10K. And I didn't have the heart to tell him that I had never in my memory run like a sub four minute K. I'm I don't have heart tell. And so I just, and it was, that was the first time in running because even in the marathon, I didn't know what was good. didn't know what was bad. I had no thing, but I'd done a few 10 Ks and I'd seen the people that had broken 40 minutes and I was like, oh, that's just another level.
01:52:50
Speaker
Um, and so it wasn't face planting as usual, me style, face planting across the line in 39, 58, um, was then that moment of me looking at Tim and kind of going, okay, I'm in what's next. Like I will, I don't trust my own brain.
01:53:06
Speaker
So you are now the brain. i am outsourcing and I will not, I will question why. i always want to know why, but I will not go against what you say. um I will, whatever you write in the plan is what I will do.
01:53:18
Speaker
To begin with, that was even to my detriment. Now, he doesn't even write a plan. We just make it up as we go along. But he also became the person that – and I didn't even know this at the time because I joined Crosby Crew. I not only got a coach, I got a community.
01:53:33
Speaker
um And I got a community that was different. The community I knew at that point in time was a mental health community. It was a lot of other people that – beautiful people and very good friends but also unwell.
01:53:45
Speaker
And what happened was I ended up and my Instagram handle at time, that mental girl. Like i was I was just known as the the unwell person um and it was kind of what I lived. Whereas I entered this community then where no one had a clue what I'd done or who I was or what I'd been through. And Tim in his way was very careful of going, they don't need to know.
01:54:07
Speaker
you just You're just another one of the runners. And he's done that the whole time. No matter what's going on in my running career, um he's just the whole time been, no, you're just Brick and you're just another runner here. That's fine. um But I didn't realize he did ask people to sort of go, hey, bring Brick along for the long run. And because Crosby Crew has, they've got six runs a week.
01:54:24
Speaker
There's your structure. There's a community. There's everything you need in terms of actually building sort of this other side to life. But not only that, because I had Tim there and he didn't understand so many things. And I know I've taught him a hell of a lot because of who I am and him going, here's what I think and here's why and explaining things. But also, and I don't even know where this came from, but he was very good at sort of me going, because I was still self-harming at the time. That was a long problem. That was a very long-term problem. But he was very good at going, hey, anytime you feel overwhelmed or you're feeling like you need to do that, let me know and we'll go to the track and we'll run some 200 repeats. He'll just work me hard. Like it was just this case of him going, we're going channel that energy. And the number of sessions that I'd end and because of the emotional turmoil of sort of relating that session to something I'd been through or anything, I'd end in absolute tears and Tim would be there to pick me up off the tan track and just be like, well done, we got like good work.
01:55:31
Speaker
And just having, I think for him, it was this person that had no idea where I'd been. was never going to understand it but I could just be very frank and open with and go this is exactly what I'm thinking this is this is exactly what I've been through and he wouldn't bat an eyelid it was like this beautiful thing of like the the lack of reaction was the reaction I needed um and anyone that's met him will understand what I mean of just yeah i was about to say that for anyone that has met him that is going to listen to that and go yeahp yeah yeah I can 100% that makes sense wouldn't respect anything ah anything else from him but in like
01:56:07
Speaker
In that process, and I've heard him speak about this before, about you and also just in general, that he's, by having the Crosby crew, he's given you this place to move away from being the sick girl to just be one of the crew. But then it works on the other side of when, because he has Sinead working with with him for a while, that like she's still just one of the crew. like it It brings you up, but it also pulls you down. into like Yeah, well, Sinead was there when I first joined. And so all of a sudden I'm rocking up to these sessions and you've got Sinead Diver there. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Like once I learned who she was, to be fair, I didn't know who she was either. But it was it yeah it was literally just this whole getting fully enveloped in that was actually such a huge part of then creating me today.
01:56:49
Speaker
And not the me I was. It was it was this the start of some of the separation. And it wasn't actually then until, like this was what, the end of 2016. So we had like a really solid 2017 of just Tim essentially teaching me how to run and teaching me what running is about. um And i didn't I didn't have much context for how fast I was running or what I was doing pretty damn good. Yeah.
01:57:10
Speaker
Now that I look back, at the point that point in time, I felt like I was doing shocking because you're your own worst enemy. But at the same time, it was just that. That was the formative year of so much. I spent a year, oh, well, this is just another side to life, but um I spent a good portion of time in 2016 learning to skydive ah because I could and I spent a whole month in the start of 2017 volunteering as a nurse in Kenya. um And there's so many of those formative experiences which actually must have been petrifying for my poor parents when I shipped myself off to Kenya as a 21-year-old, yeah, 21-year-old, completely by myself to go volunteer for an entire month in Mombasa, just off the back of everything. was just like... I do love that my parents are the sort of like, you're going to learn, it's fine, and not creating boundaries in that way. Well, I'm sure so many parents, the temptation would be wrap in bubble wrap and never let you out the sight. 100%. But that was never going to be the case with my parents, thankfully. It was very much the, no, you're your own human, go beat your own human kind of thing. But at the same time, yeah, there was just a few formative experiences throughout there and then going back to actual uni, to biomed, that then gave me this sort of foundation building a life and not
01:58:31
Speaker
being as destructive and not, um, even 2017 was actually the last time i spent, I spent the entire month of August. August every year is a rough month, not going to lie. Um, it seems to be the month that my body decides is the struggle. Um, but I spent the entirety of August 2017 in hospital again. Um, but it was a voluntary, it was very much a, um, it was very much a voluntary, I'm doing this because I can see that it's going to be the best place for me to process what's currently going on.
01:58:59
Speaker
um And I came off all medication at that point. Like I just came off everything. um And yeah, that was the last time I spent – no, it was last time I spent a month in hospital. I had to go in and out for different treatments of TMS, which is transcranial magnetic stimulation, like ah a – I've honestly, I've had every, I know, honestly, I know, I know the system left, right, back and front. Um, but, but that was the last time I spent a whole month in hospital, but it was like this really fun month in a way of I'd go to hospital and I'd do my shit I'd process. And then on the weekend I'd go rock up to an XCR ah race and no one had a clue I was in hospital.
01:59:32
Speaker
No, no one. Um, which I was just like this really fun, like, no, this fear finally feels like I'm doing it for me. Um, and yeah, essentially that, that then is like the up until 2017 end 2017 where I was like, just in this, it was still a very rocky spot. I'm not, I'm not about to say that I was by any means like in a very good spot.
01:59:57
Speaker
I was just in a better one. um And I was on, i was, I'd started the path towards a good spot and was 2017. And it was this foundation year of like having Tim there and having the crew there. Like they were such a huge part of 2017. And they were such a huge part huge part of them building what happened next, which was the Donna Double of March 2018, which everyone's probably heard the story of.
02:00:20
Speaker
going from sort of where I was. as like And even i was i was in the hospital for the whole month of August 2017. Fast forward to March 2018 and I have this month where i was actually 2018 I started uni. But March 2018 I started uni.
02:00:35
Speaker
I ran on a double. I ran my first states and I signed this contract with Solomon. And then four weeks later I win the national championships of mountain running. And I'm just honestly, I just remember feeling like I was white knuckling that entire period of going, i have no idea what's doing what I'm doing. have no idea what's happening, what is life. But finally, it was just like this weird other extreme of like, there's so many things that have happened in life that I'm like, well why the hell did that happen? And this was another one. I'm like, how the hell, why the hell did that happen? But also, finally, it was something good.
02:01:05
Speaker
so Yeah, it was, that was then the start, I suppose, of the the runner, the career runner that people know today yeah. I then, and I leaned on that quite heavily. Yeah. In so many ways that became then an avenue to experience the world and relate to the world that again had nothing to do with where I'd been.
02:01:25
Speaker
um And that was, I suppose, yeah, yeah people, you people can easily like listen back on the journey of some of the interviews I've done in the past and all those sorts of things of like, I came into it and immediately I was, I was on the front cover of the trail run mag in March, 2018 or May or whatever the next one was, 2018.
02:01:43
Speaker
That was already part of my story but it was the eating disorder part. um And it was like the – I feel like I put tidbits in along the way and every time I did interviews, there was always part of me that went, this doesn't feel genuine.
02:01:56
Speaker
And I'm forever speaking up for advocacy and being genuine and like I feel – and it was fine. There's not a problem with me doing it because I was not ready. And you should never, ever, ever – And I don't know anyone sharing any part of this story and I know that and that's fine. But it felt like every time I did choose to share, when I shared snippets, it was just like I feel like I'm doing a disservice to sort of like going, oh yeah, it was just that.
02:02:25
Speaker
Or it was like I didn't even – Yeah, I don't know how to put that but it would it honestly just felt like I would walk away sometimes and be a bit like,
Confronting Trauma and Healing Journey
02:02:34
Speaker
ugh. And even the Golden Trail um TV series of 2022 when I was part of that, I was actually for the most part incredibly open in that interview. um But then they also chose the eating disorder avenue for the most part on that interview. and There was just, even watching it back, I was just like, that that's not me.
02:02:56
Speaker
That feels so ingenuine because I was just like, that was one year. And yes, is it an extreme experience? 100%. will I always be happy to speak about it, to build awareness, to help other people that are stuck in that? Because I still know people today have coached people and have friends that they've been going through that for 40 years. Like 40 years of their life or 50 years of their life has been in that mindset.
02:03:21
Speaker
And I'm like, it feels, in I'm just like, I was A, one of the lucky ones that got treatment because so many people don't, there's not enough resources out there. But also it was such a small snippet of my personal journey that I was like, when when it it's reduced down to that,
02:03:38
Speaker
I'm like, oh, no, like it feels like I'm disowning the almost the more taboo sides of what I've been through and the harder to speak of sides of what I've been through. And then also the like especially I suppose um in some ways it felt like early days I was almost using the, yeah, I've had psychosis as this wow factor.
02:03:59
Speaker
it was It was, that it in itself was also felt ingenuine of going, um but that that that was, it was coming from a good place of going like this can happen to anyone, but I hadn't processed it yet enough to be able to speak um in depth on it or understand it even myself um and I'm talking up until sort of yeah like the 2020 was when I um uh got this current psych psychologist that I work with um and that was the first time I went to my psychiatrist and I went yeah the whole time in 2013 I wasn't ready for the younger childhood stuff, but I finally told the psychiat psychiatrist who I'd had at this point for what, four years or something, um that I'd been sexually assaulted.
02:04:46
Speaker
And he kind of went, well, yeah, i I thought so, but I wasn't sure when you'd be ready to say. And I wasn't sure when you'd be ready to process. And he went, go see this guy and blah, blah, blah. And then that that process whole started.
02:04:59
Speaker
And interestingly, like all of the other things that happened from 20, like my old my early life of like being depressed at the age of 14 and questioning whether life is worth it and then being going through all of the anxiety and the eating disorders and everything, very, very hard.
02:05:17
Speaker
But it feels like you are, someone else has thrust you into that hard. You then are there and you try and survive your way out of it. which doesn't take away the fact that it's really freaking hard. But then I found myself in 2020 and 2021 and 2022 going through this process of like the psych I was working with.
02:05:39
Speaker
He scared me in session one, which I knew was a good sign because I knew the ways around every psychologist at that point. I could talk my way out of anything and he was the first one that went, no, no, no, you're not doing that.
02:05:49
Speaker
No, no, no, we're going back here. And I was like, crap, you're scary. And he was the one that went, you're not going to actually get any better until you choose to re-enter the heart. Yeah. Interesting. it's because what the, like the problem with PTSD and and all those sorts of things is you have the panic attack and it's the same scenario. The heart is thrust upon you. You then have to deal with it, recover and move on.
02:06:12
Speaker
And the, like there was certain areas of, I was avoiding I couldn't walk near I couldn't walk past I couldn't smell I couldn't experience like there was songs that would come on the radio that were very common songs and I had to turn it off and there was all these things that um you can't get away from in life but I would just avoid and try and push back and honestly I'm gonna say that the actual hardest thing was that process sort of the majority of it is still what I do now. Now it's a bit more second nature or not second nature. Now it's a bit more having experienced the benefits of it going, okay, it's it's slight, it's hard. No, it's just as hard to do.
02:06:57
Speaker
but But I suppose you learn. But at the at the time, and at this point i was I was, I was a runner for Solomon. I was traveling the world. i was like running all these races and there'd be times that like I'd have like a trigger before a race and like there's no one there that knows. There's no one there that understands. And I'm just like... And then it would, I wouldn't want to tell anyone because I'm just like, well, now it feels like I'm coming up with an excuse for a bad performance. And there was, there was a long time there, um, where it felt a bit like running was still good and it was still the highlight, but it felt at times like it was, it was, was a little bit working against me having, ah expectations and having, um, uh, some sort of like even, even just having some notoriety in the sport. Um,
02:07:46
Speaker
was actually a hard thing for a little bit there to actually then be going through this process in the background that was by a long way. Actually, in some ways it was similar to that week in the eating disorder when I got kicked out and I had to do it for myself. It it was very similar of my psych going, no, no, no, you have to purposely choose to walk into a trigger and sit there and process it and understand and try to understand it. And it's always within, he would say, like tolerable proximity. um Like there's a certain point where he's like, no, you walk away. It's fine. And it's okay to walk away. um
02:08:22
Speaker
But that was so much harder. And that whole time, it i did fall back into that trap a little bit of doing the whole I'm going to appear fine and I'm going to appear strong and to everyone around me I'm going to be was normal and fine. um Thankfully at this point I did have Matt.
02:08:41
Speaker
um So he became, he he, at this point he was the one and Tim, always Tim. um The two of them kind of were the pillars that copped the brunt of it of going like, um I've just had a psych session and it's pouring rain and for whatever reason I'm just running in circles around the freaking city not knowing what to do with myself and like Matt was away at that that night and there was times where it'd be like, okay, I'm crashing on Tim's couch because there's nowhere else I feel safe.
02:09:09
Speaker
And I just needed someone that understood so that then the next day I'd wake up and pretend all was fine. And it was fine to do that because I needed to. I couldn't, it would have been even harder if I had to enter that and enter it almost full time sort of thing. And I didn't have the outlet of then going, I can forget about it and be the runner now.
02:09:28
Speaker
but that was such a dichotomy of experience of going, I'm doing the hardest thing that it feels like I've ever done and I've been through a lot of fucking hard shit and this feels harder than all of it to walk into this and choose to process and choose to think and be through it and um like – yeah, choosing to walk into something that makes your entire body feel like it is going, it is dizzy, can't breathe, your heart rate's high and you just like choosing to put yourself in that state is just shocking.
02:10:04
Speaker
Like it's not, it's no way to around it, but the he was right and that it's never going to lessen and it's never going to stop surprising you until you choose to walk through that
Loss of Maya and Its Impact
02:10:13
Speaker
process. So Yeah, that was then all the way up.
02:10:16
Speaker
And as I said, still now, but the main, the brunt of it was yet at 2020 to 2023 kind of time um when I was trying to establish myself in running and all of those sorts of things of 2019 was my first major injury. And then there wasn't another one until 2023.
02:10:33
Speaker
But if you look back on my, even my running career, I could probably tell you what was going on in every race where it's like that was a pretty crap performance. um And it felt like I was fighting this uphill battle of the the good races were few and far between. um I was, it was good enough, but there was also so many times where I'd have this decent performance and everyone go, oh no, you did great. and I'm like,
02:10:55
Speaker
know i I know i know it myself I can do better. And I'm still in that state now because of life circumstances of then getting to 2023 and I had that injury and it was then that was the first injury. I got injured and I'm just like, cool, I can rest and I can relax and I can take time off running. And it was just a much calmer process. And then not running and so separating myself from running in that time, once I returned to it, it did feel different. um Like late 2023 when I i won um and I was in the middle of the injury and it was just like this whole um oh this feels this feels better and this feels a bit new again um and then I still had that hit the hip troubles though and 2024 was still a pretty crap year um and then I had last year so then I had the absolute shit show of um yeah losing my poor baby last year in in March and honestly Wandi Cross last year if they had to run that whole damn course that would have been one of my best races I i felt so good that day and know I like honestly mid way after after i'd dealt and it took a long time to process losing Maya and not having that there and I still am like she's still I have her dog bed next to the TV so that I can lie in it and watch TV like I'm i'm always gonna have that there but
02:12:15
Speaker
um yeah I suppose the the the period after that of doing Ueda and doing um Malaysia Sky Race and like having decent results but I know the period I'd been through just before that my training wasn't great my mind like I was I was doing it a bit more for fun and going I just again do what I can with where I'm at and where I'm at isn't super fit but it it's I'm always willing to have a crack even though I'm not fit.
02:12:40
Speaker
And that's fine. i don't At the end of the day, the results mean absolutely nothing. Oh, my gosh. Don't really care? Do I love the feeling of running across the line winning? Sure. But at the same time, sometimes you can run across the line and you haven't won, but you feel like you have.
02:12:53
Speaker
So that's fine. But immediately after that period, there was this time and I'm just like, life why you do this? But that was what April, May and then the whole of June. Like I was doing these sessions and even Tim was like, whoa, okay, we've progressed. And like I can still remember, like i ran i ran one second off my 5K PB two days after a forty five k run one day.
02:13:17
Speaker
The day after a 45k run when I wasn't even trying and I was just like, where the hell did that come from? and then two days later, I'm running, um, or three days later, I run the track session and I think it was some 400s and we just get to the end and Tim's like, you average, like that, that was fast.
02:13:32
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, I feel good. Like everything's ticking. um And then 1D Cross felt great. But then as soon as they announced that it wasn't going to be the full course, you lose, as I ran through halfway, you you lose it. And you're just a bit like, okay, now this is just a jog for fun. But At first half, i was like, yes, I'm on. I'm on. Let's do this. um and then And then the flu happened the day before Buffalo, not Buffalo, Brisbane. um And I didn't know at the time that that was the start of this next, I suppose, journey. But it's it's an interesting one of going, well, um obviously it affected that race. And then a month later, I find myself in Poland in hospital and my whole body shuts down.
02:14:13
Speaker
And again, i i can i even in the moment, because of all the processing I've done and all those sorts of things and learning to put things together, I'm like, I can see why. i just lost the biggest nervous system and body regulator I've had in my life. Like I had Maya there for 10 years and it's it's it can't be understated just how much it affects you to have something that regulates you so well.
02:14:37
Speaker
Um, and obviously like I see a geneticist tomorrow as we speak. Um, and there's, there's other things going on. Like I know my body's not made for running. I'm an asthmatic celiac that freaking has so many problems going on and in internally. But to me, um, uh, they, they feel minuscule.
02:14:58
Speaker
I'm just like, there yeah I'll make it happen anyway. Um, but this was very much then my body, like the last period that we're up to sort of now and I'm slowly coming out of that I'm very excited sort of of the what the result afterwards will be is just this whole, i okay, no, you need to take an actual freaking break and you need to let your nervous system just learn to cope on its own um without Maya there and without relying on sort of, I still have Matt and he's he he's definitely a help, but um like that self-reliance, but also the break. I haven't had that much of a physical break from activity in a decade. Like, and when you think about it, I'm like, that's kind of why cool, but wild. um Like having, even when I had surgery, like I had major surgery 2016 and as soon as I could, I was doing every bit of activity I possibly could.
02:15:53
Speaker
Um, and this time around, it was literally like, uh, spending November. Like I couldn't sit up, like I couldn't sit up for more than 50. I was, it was not, ah ah my body was just like, nah, we are done. Um, and mentally it was actually okay. Like it was hard, but don't get me wrong, but it was actually okay because I was a bit like, it's okay.
02:16:15
Speaker
I ah know what we've been through. We've been through a lot. And I understand. um And it's fine. I'm going to give you the time, body. It's okay. Like we can slow down because what I what i started to get almost in the trap of, and it's a good trap to be in, is you you have to learn to say no to the good things too.
02:16:31
Speaker
Like when so when good when so many bad things have happened and then good things start happening, I just want to say yes to everything, every opportunity. I'm like, yes, let's go, let's go. And I'm i'm more than willing to jump in feet first and just go, let's let's have a crack. Yeah.
02:16:45
Speaker
But I think it it was my body's way of going, well, you you need to say no to things and look after yourself. ah You need to say no to good things too. um And yeah, so I suppose where i'm where I'm sitting now is like the the fact that I got through that whole period in of like September, October, November, December last year.
Rest and Reflection
02:17:07
Speaker
And it was ah in a weird way, in a very weird way. Physically, it was shocking. But mentally, I was in a brilliant place. And it was just like, I'm fine. This is fine. And whatever however long this process takes is fine. The new chapters it opens is great.
02:17:24
Speaker
um The new answers it's given me of genetic conditions and all sorts of things that I can now get treatment for. Like, my asthma has never been better after they finally started. They've figured out I've got mast cell activation syndrome and started the medication. And I'm like, oh, crap.
02:17:37
Speaker
This is easier. This is better. um And there's so many things that I'm just like, my brain goes, ah that's fine. Just put up with it and keep going. That now it's like, oh, no, we get to address this finally. um And that's exciting. And then it's it's, I think what can happen is when something like that happens of like your body completely shutting down, ah it's really hard to mentally deal with if you're asking why and you don't know why.
02:18:00
Speaker
Whereas I was just there, I don't know why. I can tell anyone why. and I know in myself and I'm willing to admit to myself exactly why this is happening. um And that's fine.
02:18:11
Speaker
And it's okay. And again, I was just like, it's still nowhere near as bad as what I've been. So it's that perspective thing that you just get really thankful for. But this time around, it was so much easier because... People are like, how dealing with not running? I'm like, I have so many memories of running.
02:18:26
Speaker
Beforehand, when I was trying to deal with not doing anything and not getting out of bed and being locked in hospital for ages, like I didn't have any good memories to live on. Not a single one. I had all these traumatic memories that would just rerun. Whereas this time around, I'm like, sure, I'm stuck in bed. but Oh.
02:18:40
Speaker
Guys, I've lived. I've lived a really cool life and I've had so many experiences and and in so many ways. If I couldn't run for the rest of my life, I'm fine. I'm so fine. And that's a very freeing thing to go, no, I'm choosing to do this. I don't need to do this. um And this is my avenue that I've chosen to ah experience life through because it's a beautiful one and we all know it. Everyone that's listening loves running. Like they're probably listening because of that. But it's...
02:19:07
Speaker
It's then I'm like, well, this is now almost the next exciting chapter of I get to, i get the gift of starting again and I get the gift of rebuilding stronger and I get the gift of like, i I'm going to give my body the gift of we're going to do this slowly, we're going to do it right and we're going to do it sustainably in the hope that ah one day I do actually get to show what I know I can do. Like I i think I've shown it a couple of times in some races but very rarely.
02:19:36
Speaker
And there's so much through that of the running career I've had that's just been frustrating. I'm bashing my head against a wall and and part of it was Tim going, well, no, you need to get better at the shorter distance while me going, that's not my physiology. My physiology is the the long distance. um And so it feels like, yeah, now we're starting the next chapter um and everything should hopefully be, well, everything won't be better. Everything will be just as hard. But it's it's this refresh um and i have and i mine ah i may never get to show it. My body may not let me and that's fine.
02:20:11
Speaker
But I have the innate belief of what I know I can do in the sport and I haven't done it yet, yeah not by a long way. um And that's such an exciting place to be. So speaking of getting excited about what's to come, yeah and as said, i think that, because you're still 32? 31. 31. Like, as we're seeing at the moment, a lot of years still ahead. Oh, so many.
02:20:34
Speaker
Especially if you have some answers and you're moving further away from the past and into the future. Silas. Oh, yeah. This is a bit of Which is quite an exciting thing. I'm super curious.
02:20:46
Speaker
How did this connection even come about?
Sponsorship with Kailas
02:20:49
Speaker
ah I think that's one of the really, really cool things about the um the experiences Solomon gave me and in some in so many ways, but just the experiences that I so did say yes to And, like, I have no regrets. I've lived so many incredible, incredible things. um But the the network of people that you build when you when you dive into the overseas running world, like the people I know now and can call friend, I'm just like, he's cool. You you can name drop pretty well. Yeah, yeah. I know i know a lot of people. um But at the same time, um this exact connection was actually ah a really, really cool happenstance.
02:21:28
Speaker
And like when ah when one contract's coming to an end, it's ah it's a really nerve-wracking process in so many ways, especially when Solomon themselves were restructuring and there was not much um surety of what was happening and those sorts of things. And Being in that period, um being very unwell and knowing that I'm in so many ways like and damaged goods in some ways of just like going, I can't, I'm not an athlete right now and I can't be and I wouldn't expect myself to be. And that still is what this entire year is is is for me. But um essentially the connection just came from um one of the athletes I met, like Penang Sky Race last year where i came second. That's a Kylos event.
02:22:06
Speaker
Um, so I already, and I'd already seen them all around and I knew a lot of people, um, ah I knew of them and I know of them quite well. Um, but then one of the athletes I raced there, I think, I think she came fifth or fourth, uh, Dasha, um, she runs for Kylas and she ended up coming to, she worked the ski season at Buller, um, and we went on a long run while she was in Melbourne.
02:22:28
Speaker
um And, yeah, she's a Kyleus athlete and she just reached out saying i'm coming to Melbourne and we'd met at the race. I was like, 100%, let's go for a long run. We ran for four hours. um ah And that would have been around the time that i sort of, i already knew of the whole restructuring going on with Solomon. And so it was kind of this cool, exciting period of going, hey, I'm i'm probably going to be looking around other brands and, And as fellow athletes, it was part of the conversation of what's what's coming up in the future and all these sorts of things and um the state of trail, I suppose you could say. um And it wasn't long after that, that Dasher just messaged me and she's like, hey, here's this person's number. They're interested in talking.
02:23:10
Speaker
And I was just like, cool. Didn't have to search hard for that one. Happy days. I'm like, they know who I am. She's like, yeah, they know who you are. um And I was like, well, that's very, very cool. and And like the initial talks were while I was still well. and they were still like, yeah, ah like yeah they were in that initial period. I actually ended up um going to meet everyone and I went to the Kailas event, which was quite nerve wracking, I must say. um I went to the Kailas event at UTMB week last year.
02:23:40
Speaker
So i met everyone in like UTMB week last year, i was actually in the Kailas store and then I'd take their shoes out for a run, but I'd try and hope I just didn't see anyone and It was a very interesting, that being said, I had permission. Like I was allowed to be doing it. There is a lot of contractual stuff that comes at play of when you're allowed to talk to other brands and what other, um, how that can look and all these sorts of things. But I was, I was given free reign. So I was, I was fine, but it was, it's also still that thing of when nothing's sure, like you don't want to, um, you don't really want people to know. So Matt came along with me. Uh, we met the Kylas team and, um,
02:24:15
Speaker
I was immediately just like, this is a cool space. This is a very cool space. Like from their origin story of like the the um the guy that ah started Kylas was the first Chinese man to learn to sit ski um after he became paraplegic and he was a mountaineer and it's ah It's a very cool origin story for a brand. That was a very quick summary. i can think We can do that one later. but um But, yeah, and just the the event I was at and the way they spoke and they had all the big wigs there and just the way you can get the vibes.
02:24:46
Speaker
of what's going on. um And I was very much like, no, this is a cool space. And the way they were championing like lesser known athletes in some way or athletes with really cool stories, but just, ah yeah, they had, cause they've got Watson Maya Buddha at the time that had how ha tea and this will do. um But it's, it was just one of those moments where I was there and I'm like, no, this, this does actually feel quite right.
02:25:08
Speaker
um Now, lo and behold, I then get very, very sick. um And I'm just a bit like, I can't, um I don't want my body's capabilities tied to my finances and and and who I am for this year. Like having lived that life, it's a beautiful life. It's a stressful life.
02:25:28
Speaker
um And when your entire income is coming from your physical capabilities and running, especially when you're someone with chronic illnesses and all sorts of things going on, it's ah it's a very, yeah, it feels unstable.
02:25:42
Speaker
And I was like, the one thing my body and brain needs right now is is stability. So i was actually in many ways ready to walk away from ah any contracts for a year and just be like, i'm I'm me for this year and that's it. But I was still i was still chatting to other brands um and and I had other opportunities um there that I could explore, which which were all exciting, but there was just that gut feeling of this one feels good.
02:26:08
Speaker
And, um, obviously Kailas aren't in Australia yet. They're not, and they're not entered into the sphere here. And so it was a bit of this, um, like, uh, they do have two, two arms. They've got the professional arm and then they've got the Fuga Mountain Club arm and it, and which is slightly more community based and, um, those sorts of things. And,
02:26:29
Speaker
um Essentially, having the opportunity to go, well, I can enter the Fuga Mountain Club and have and be part of the team, um but be more, at least it's it's ah I'm a bit more separated than I was from my entire life being about my performance.
02:26:49
Speaker
And about ah rocking up to race as fit and healthy and strong and able to win and those sorts of things. um And so just the opportunity that was put in front of me through them ah that we changed around to suit my circumstance.
02:27:03
Speaker
at the moment, ah again, felt right because it felt like this whole, no, I can give my body time and I don't need i don't i don't ah don't need to race at all this year if I don't want to. But at the same time, obviously, I want to. um But, yeah, just and when you're supported throughout that whole process and especially when it was just like, hey, I'm really sick and they go, oh, that's great.
02:27:25
Speaker
horrible how can we still support you and how can we work through this and those sorts of things and when when a brand's coming at you that way it's a bit like well this is this is a very cool environment and this is this feels good and right and supportive and also China I loved I went to China when I was 12 it was my first overseas trip I love China like I really do and it's the thing it's is such a different culture but it's such a beautiful culture and it's such a the environment there I like I like It is a place that I know some people, like they might not know so much about it in so many of the places, but it is a place that like I've looked up heaps of the mountains there and I've looked and i know they're invite and i've always looked at the environment but not been there. and i was like, oh, this feels like the right opportunity at the right time.
02:28:07
Speaker
Um, so yeah, essentially that was the, the journey of, uh, like, and it also in a weird way felt right to be at that, this whole long transitioning point of my body and what it's capable of and like all of the different things. if It kind of felt right to say goodbye to Solomon. Yeah. It felt like the right time to go, well, no, I'm, I'm, I'm ready to grow a bit more. Um, and I'm ready to experience different and new things, um, and not stay in my comfortable bubble. Um,
02:28:38
Speaker
It does feel like you're at this point where they're like, and especially what's happened since Old Ghost with the injury and then now since last year getting sick and we're right now kind of taking this step back, that it is the right time to also step forward into something a bit different.
02:28:53
Speaker
um Something that's going to allow you to, i guess, ah go into this next version of yourself in a way. um and I know it's exciting obviously as someone it's the same thing same when recording this with Vlad like having that extra level of connection like you you you become very invested in people's journey yeah and you can see that oh there's like there's always been these glimpses but there's also been this thing kind of Not hot necessari necessarily, or maybe it's holding you back, but that you've had to also press it at the same time. Oh, there's been heaps of things holding me back.
02:29:21
Speaker
But it does feel like there's like this, this launching
Long-term Running Goals
02:29:24
Speaker
pad. Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and it's going to be a very slow launch. I'm going to say like my, when I'm, I'm with running, I'm, I've always been playing the long game yeah and, uh, and I have Tim to thank for showing me that the long game is the way to go. yeah And so even as I sit here now, of course, I'm excited. And yes, will I have cracks at races? And will I, I'm always out there giving my best in a way, but the way that my training and the way that my mindset and the way that my sort of development has been guided is like, okay, I'm, I'm,
02:29:55
Speaker
three years away from like where I think I will maybe be able to be at my absolute best. um And it's that whole exciting thing of going, okay, where's the next stepping stone? yeah um And I'm still on the stepping stones. And like the stepping stones will continue as as you age and as the abilities continue, but there there is always going to be a peak. Um, and even it's exciting that like, even for as long as I've been in the sport now that I'm just like, I'm, I'm not at my peak and I haven't been at my peak and I'm, I've forever been fighting at times a losing battle to even try and get to the types of races and the, um, yeah, the, the environment that I think I can pick in. yeah Um, and,
02:30:42
Speaker
It's been a frustrating one and it's been it it feels like so fast, like I just, I felt in so many ways like just this, again, caged animal sort of thing of just going, oh, just let me at the other stuff. Just let me at the things that I want to do. but um Tim was right in so many ways for so many of the things of going, hey, you've got this body, like you need to work with this body here now that has these challenges and we need to work through them first. And also just the value of going, hey, you the better you get at this stuff that isn't your wheelhouse, the better you'll be at your wheelhouse when you get there.
02:31:16
Speaker
um And it it's really cool because what I have got over the years is this confidence of going. I wouldn't know how good some of my capabilities are on some terrain if I hadn't been up against the best in the world and training with the best in the world and um going like – No, I can with confidence go, I'm a good downheller because I have done sessions with some of these people where I'm just like, um goodbye on the uphill, but I'm gapping you on this downhill. yeah And just the people I've learned from and and then the the environments you get to be in that build that.
02:31:54
Speaker
It's not this, i feel like in in small spurts, I've been able to prove ah to myself what I know I can do. And that builds the confidence to then keep chasing and putting it all together in one piece because I put parts together, but I haven't put the whole thing together.
02:32:08
Speaker
m And so, yeah, it's it's the it's still a few years off putting the whole thing together, I reckon. um And you're going to see me tackling some very different things this year and going at it. I feel like to other people, it might actually look quite chaotic.
02:32:23
Speaker
I mean, in so many ways, like what i do and what I choose to say yes to might look incredibly chaotic, but me and Tim have a plan. Everything is run by him um in so many ways. well No, sorry. When I say run by him, every idea I have, I run by him for checking. yeah um there's And he knows when I'm going to do it regardless. And so he knows he has to say yes. um Because I won't do it if he really says no. There's only a couple of times. He got so angry at me because I secured myself a start to Lerderderg, the down under 135. I got offered a start years ago and I told him and he got, so I've never seen him angry.
02:32:59
Speaker
that angry and I was like whoa I actually genuinely didn't expect that response and he he was funny because he was angry at the people that offered me the spot because he was just he just was like no and um choice words as Tim's very good with choice words but at the same time because of his reaction I went oh no you care yeah and this is because you care and you don't he's like you are not throwing away everything we've built just to go do this now Sort of thing. um And it was again that moment of going, okay, cool, cool. i can I can say no even though so much of my exuberance at that time was like, yes, yes, let's go do it. um
02:33:36
Speaker
And it's going to be even better when I do get to do some of the wild stuff that I'm less actually, ah I'm less desperate, not desperate.
Tim's Guidance and Personal Growth
02:33:45
Speaker
um I don't feel the need to do no but I feel the curiosity to do. um And I don't feel anywhere much as the need to do all of it.
02:33:53
Speaker
There's so many things and goals that I had back in the day that I can see now were just part of that whole almost the destruction yeah side of things. Whereas now I'm like, no, be curious about the performance side of things and let go of the hurting and the pain and the, that side of things. I know what I can do and I know that when the goal aligns with the purpose and the um when it it feels like it's overall in the process of building me up, I will go to all of the pain caves and I know how much pain I can put myself in and it's a lot. um But I've very rarely done that ever and the few times I have, it's it yeah Tim's always called it the brick factor. It's like you can pull out the brick factor. But
02:34:36
Speaker
Yeah, very rarely. Let's save that one. Yeah. Yeah, we're safe we're saving that one um because it's that that, if anything, in in a career or a lifetime is short-lived because I i don't idolise people that put themselves in pain caves constantly or push through anything and everything at all costs. And I'm like, no, no, I know the cost. Yeah. And the cost is not worth it. And I'm not – you don't impress me if – And it used to impress me, um but it no longer impresses me when I see someone absolutely destroying themselves in the pursuit of a very menial goal. Yeah. um
02:35:11
Speaker
But for me, it's less about the goal and more about what I can learn about myself and my capabilities in the process of trying to achieve it than the goal itself.
02:35:22
Speaker
Which if out of everything, like the the running specific stuff, because there's a lot of stuff that pertains to people's running, but like people could just capture that little snippet that like what you learn on the way to what you're trying to achieve is so much more important than what you achieve. Yeah.
02:35:37
Speaker
Like that is, that's thats I think that's, that's what I love about running is that running is a medium for us to explore ourselves. A hundred percent. And I think i sit I sit there saying that because I know that i may never achieve what I in myself trust and know that I can. Yeah. and that's not a given. It's never a given. It's ah's a it a happen. And that's why it means so much when it does happen. But at the same time, that may never happen. But I am forever thankful fact for the fact that I have the belief that I can because of the things I've done in the process.
02:36:07
Speaker
And it's because of, it's it's some of the training sessions that give me the best confidence. It's some of the like, the random experiences, actually when I think about the biggest things that give me confidence, almost none of them are racist. Yeah.
02:36:20
Speaker
And almost none of them are outcomes and achievements. They're quite literally the quiet things that are done behind like in in dark mornings and cold nights. No one's paying attention to it. It's just you. Some of the long runs where I'm just like that for that pace was so easy.
02:36:38
Speaker
And I know that that was good. Yeah. like And I don't need to other people to know that that was good for me to go, no, it was good. Trust me, it was good. And one day I might get to show you and I'm going to try to show you, but I might also not also. And that's okay.
02:36:53
Speaker
I'll survive.
02:36:55
Speaker
When you're saying that you've you've got that that three years, just hearing you speak now, i actually have the feeling that we what it what's building is going to take probably longer. Probably. and But that's also exciting because the process is then goes on for more. You get more of it.
02:37:09
Speaker
The big dreams, big goals, races, you alluded to that this year looks a bit chaotic. As much as you want to say, like what is coming up this year and and what's the big... Yeah,
Race Planning and Personal Satisfaction
02:37:21
Speaker
there's a few. Well, there's one I'm keeping close to my chest because um it is and another one of those things that it's a bit like, um I'm going to go do it, but I'm doing it for me. And also, if it gets to the time and I decide that my body's not ready, I'm also just not going to do it.
02:37:39
Speaker
And i I'm totally happy with that decision either way. Yeah. It doesn't feel like other people need to be part of that. um So it'll be fun when it happens, hopefully. um But some of the other things, I suppose that's part of joining Kylas is you' you're put with this race list in front of you and going, what do you want to do of these races? um And what that you can get supported towards and those sorts of things. But for me, this year in many ways is all about Kima um because I'm doing Jofeo Kima in August and Whether I, like if I have to buy another bloody flight because my current flight goes through the war zone, I don't care. I'll make my way to that start line. um
02:38:19
Speaker
But that's one race that I'm, part of me is sad that it's fallen this year and I know I'm not going to be at my best. And part of me is just happy that it's also fallen in a year where I just get to go for the experience.
02:38:29
Speaker
And for those listening, Drift Air Kima happens every two years? Yes. Yeah. yeah And just give a quick description about what it is. Well, the pod might know a little bit because Brody did it. And I loved how confident Brody went into it. And then when he came out of it, was like, ah, yep. But it's what, 48, 50K with 4,000 up and down. But it's high altitude. You're wearing a helmet for 35Ks. It's mountaineering style kind of race. And, yeah, it's pretty wild. Is that a kylos event? No, sky running. Sky running. I am then two weeks later for the fun of it jumping in Swiss Peaks which is a kylos event. Swiss Peaks 46k right the day before I fly home.
02:39:14
Speaker
Great plan. It fit in there. um And again, it's like obviously if I was super duper fit and targeting these races, you don't do that double up. But i'm I'm treating this year as a, hey, let's just race myself back to fitness and experience, hence why I'm obviously about to do Diverge. I'm doing 1D Cross. I'm just hitting all my faves.
02:39:31
Speaker
um And I'm going to have a hell of a time doing it, which is fun. The other one that I've just probably chucked in there, which should be fun, is the Gonger 100, which is um they touted as China's hardest race. It's this 100K with, I think,
02:39:48
Speaker
7,000 up and down over glaciers and mountain passes and high altitude. I think it maxes out at 4,500. Is this the one September? is this the one in september Yeah. That's, that's only a month after Kima.
02:40:02
Speaker
But again, that's this let's going to be a slow one. um But again, it's, it's just like another one of these ones where I'm like, ah I want to do races like that seriously someday. So it's actually a good time to do it when I'm a bit like, I'm, I'm not prepared. So I'm going in a scared, be respectful of the distance and respectful of the effort, but just willing to be open-minded and Yeah.
02:40:23
Speaker
and go, I'm just going to try and learn this this trade before I take it seriously um too much. So, yeah, there's Gonger 100 in there. There's the then the other one that um I'm hoping – and, again, this one I do want to take a bit more like if my body's there at the time, like a bit more like an actual I'm taking this seriously race kind of thing because it's right at the end of the year. But there's a race called Shenzhen 100 on the twenty seventh of December.
02:40:52
Speaker
um ah well And that that the course doesn't suit me. It's not super technical. it's It's not, it's very, as far as I can tell, very runnable and those sorts of things. But it's a great big Kylos event um right around New Year's. But like, and they've they've, just the way they described it, they're like, it's ah it's a fun experience as well. um But it's also, again, one of those chances to go, hey, I don't think this race suits me, but how well can I do it?
02:41:15
Speaker
Um, and, um, have a bit of fun of trying to do a proper build again and those sorts of things, which I'll, I'll still do, but I'm, I'm, I'm limited still and I'm going to be limited for months. Um, but I'm hoping by then I'll be slightly less limited, um, and more ready to just go, okay.
02:41:33
Speaker
Uh, I, I'm not willing to push the envelope in training in what I can do. Like every single session at the moment, I'm just, I'm just taking very cautiously. And if I have a rip at the end, I have a rip at the end, but not at the start. Yeah. um And I'll keep doing that for most of this year because I know that's the way back to the most consistency.
02:41:52
Speaker
um And even then I'll probably keep doing it through Shenzhen. But at the same time, it it it'll be that that subtle shift of can I try this now?
02:42:03
Speaker
and Is my body ready? And I'll just keep testing it. It's that whole experiment of one. And at some point it will be. If it's there not then, it's fine. I'll find another one
Ongoing Self-Improvement Journey
02:42:11
Speaker
and keep moving. But Expect to see me race a lot next year as well. I'm really keen to get around the sort of Chinese ah trail running scene and experience some of their, even their golden trail races. Their golden trail season at the start of next year, look like and it's because it's quite a short season from like March to May.
02:42:27
Speaker
Their national series. Their national series. And it it looks like a hell of a lot of fun, all the live stream races, good prize money, and I'm just like, this this looks cool and like this really cool way to get back into that sort of environment. So um I'm pretty keen on that for next year, but...
02:42:40
Speaker
Everything is still stepping stones. And even when I say stepping stones, I don't even know what to. And I don't need to know what to. That will crystallize eventually. And because I don't want to put this thing on myself of I think I'm going to be the best at this or the best at this. I just know I haven't found it yet.
02:42:56
Speaker
um And that's kind of the exciting thing and that's why I'm willing to jump in. I'll go the super technical 100K, the other event that I will do at some point that is going to test me for sure and is just this other foray into, hey, how does this go? And how good am I at this these sorts of things? And and it's it's it's more just that almost information building of going, hey, I want this to crystallize at some point and I want to find that spot. um And yeah, as you said, and and you're probably right, and it's probably more like – the sort of five to six to eight year goal for me realistically but that's the that's the thing that I think I am stuck to of going I'm as long as my body lets me and it's not a detriment to my body I am in this for the long haul so yeah it's good fun
02:43:43
Speaker
it'll be It'll be as interesting to me as it will to everyone else. I'll just be like, found it one day. yeah One day. The thing is you probably won won't know you found it until you can't repeat it or there's not a next step.
02:43:57
Speaker
Oh, 100%. There's always next steps. i'm I'm going to say that there's always next steps for a pivot, but there's there's the that discipline of going, I'm content there. And I'm yet to have anything that I'm content with, um which is which is fine. It's a
Importance of Support and Community
02:44:13
Speaker
good place to be. I like being not content with what I've achieved so far um because it's what keeps you hungry. definitely oh sim thank you for that have we broken a record yet we broke the record we've definitely broken the record and i sorry guys i i i feel like we knew starting this that it was going to be hard to condense everything into a podcast even a long form podcast format which we still haven't condensed everything but that's uh yeah the documentary will definitely come into it but
02:44:41
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you being like open, honest, being able to share, being able to actually formulate your thoughts to get to this point. Well, that that's a process. It's taken me 30 years to learn that crap. And I'm sure that everyone listening, like there's going to be a lot of stuff that you physically cannot relate to because they haven't gone through that level of trauma. They haven't got that, like that history with them, but there are little snippets, little messages that you said in there that I'm sure resonate.
02:45:02
Speaker
Even it's just one thing with one person, I found myself though a few times, it was just just just like, hu okay that's why my brain does that yeah or like that sort of led my brain on a bit of a tangent so i think it's going to be studying psychology now yeah and it's an incredible thing it is but yeah i think that people that have got this far in in it and have like stuck around for for that journey which i hope people everyone has because you kind of you have to go through it to experience it and to fully appreciate all the steps the way you've got to now before we started so i said like your strength to get to the version of who sat across from me right now is incredible.
02:45:38
Speaker
And yeah, just, I feel like congratulations is the wrong word, but that's sort of the the sentiment that's intended. so Yeah. No, it means a lot. it it It's, it's again, one of those things where it's,
02:45:52
Speaker
I'm not thankful for it. I'm just making the most of a bad situation in a lot of ways and I i also i wouldn't i wouldn't wish the experiences on anyone else at but I would in a weird way wish some of the outcomes.
02:46:07
Speaker
on other people. um However, I do think a fair amount of the outcomes are only there because of the experience, which is an unfortunate truth to life of the highs and lows and the the the ways you come out of things. But that the horrible thing is that so many people will understand.
02:46:26
Speaker
um And the beautiful thing is that so many incredible people have come out of that. And that's some of the best people in the world. And and Yeah, that's, I suppose, the reason for wanting to share and wanting to speak in so many ways is just trying to highlight that the same person can be both, can be the person that's needed the most help.
02:46:56
Speaker
um And like being able to sit here today and go left to my own devices, I would not be here at all. There is no way I would be sitting here today. So I have other people to thank for my existence, not just obviously mum for birth, um but
02:47:13
Speaker
It leaves you wanting to, in some ways, if you can if you can let, if I could let me know at the time when I had given up and I had just surrendered to the whole, this is too hard now for that period. um if i If I could reach me at that time, it's almost, or even just as I was coming out of it and very unsure. That's the whole, and and I suppose in that way, it's not actually me at that time I'm trying to reach, it's the people around.
02:47:40
Speaker
Because the reason I'm here is because when I gave up, others this didn't. And it's the people around me held the belief for me. And I know that that is the people around, the person in the depths and depths of the struggle is the hardest place to be.
02:47:54
Speaker
Um, and I have, I have some context for that through friends, unfortunately, and I have some context for that through, through loved ones, but those are the people that I think the, the, the good stories and the outcomes are most important to hear because those are the people that actually in my mind in so many ways at times need to be the strongest, um,
02:48:15
Speaker
And yeah, so if you you are someone listening that has has a loved one going through this, yeah I suppose my biggest thing is just don't do not give up on them. um Because as for I gave up on myself for a long time and it ah I'm here because, yeah, others didn't give up on me. And now my dedication to myself and what I'm doing is just to never give up on myself again and what I can do. So yeah.
02:48:39
Speaker
yeah i speak I think that's the most important thing in sharing and talking and having these conversations. it's it's It's highlighting to others that are in that moment of going, is it ever going to get better? To say that it might not, but it also might.
02:48:54
Speaker
yeah and ah And hold on to the might. And if you are listening to this and you have someone that is helping somebody through something like this, you feel like listening to what you've heard be of value, definitely do share it. Like this isn't a call for trying to grow the podcast or giving us reviews or comments or likes. Like this conversation has the potential to really help somebody who is in the midst of trying to help somebody else.
02:49:15
Speaker
And to understand like what they're going through and that they are, like they may not feel it, but they are making an incredible difference. 100%. All right, guys. Thank you for listening, Sim. Thank you for coming up here to do this in person. That's good. Well, yeah, that was that was fun.
02:49:29
Speaker
Thank you. Congrats to anyone that made it this far. Yes. Yeah, well, yeah, you've done well.