Lets get personal for a moment. Let me tell you the story of the day that I died.
No, I wasn't in a car accident, in fact I didn't actually medically die as such.
I was lying there, on my bed, end of the summer ball in my final year of university and it had been a rough year. As bad years ago, it was not pretty. I remember lying there in that bed, 20Kg heavier than I was at the start of the summer, burnt out to a crisp, spent the last year hopped up on diet cola and candy instead of eating actual food just trying to avoid my emotional turmoil from a big break up. Working a full time job, full time degree, lead in a play, trying to juggle 4 extremely emotionally unstable people, being a full time responsibility mom to everyone ever. Baking Queen. Friend. Social Hybrid. Cleaner of the house. Needless to say, I was busy with an eating disorder raging out of control. Panic attacks every other day. Anxiety and finally, depression. Just to round it all off.
As I lay there, thinking about the best way to die. It occurred to me that it would be so easy to just walk into the room next door, grab all those doctor proscribed pain killers hidden under someones bed and just eat them. No one was there to stop me, the door was never locked. I was home alone, at the end of my tether, no one there to save me and I could have done with saving.
It's kind of like the light just finally went out when a candle reaches its end. Everything inside my heart and soul died and I saw no way out. The flames flickered and the candle went out and I didn't move. Just laid there, feeling the darkness take me.
But I did not die and this is where my journey began, my rebirth if you will.
I did not wake up the next morning as a "changed woman", in fact, I woke up and just kept trundling along, diet coke and candy to hand but something had changed. I had seen the abyss, I stood on the cliff, ready to fall, ready to just not be in pain anymore. But I wasn't going to fall. I only have 2 weeks of university left, I'd cancelled my plans to go teach abroad and all I could think about was just making it home. One step at a time. Getting home. I was never real fond of home so its a sign of how desperate I was just to get away from the soul sucking, suicide inducing life I had. My primary goal, was getting out and all I had to do was survive.
I did get home, running on 1% power. Slept for what felt like a year.
One week later, we went to Prague, my sister and I just needed to go, we'd booked long ago and we went. This is where we realized my caffeine addiction was.. let's just say.. hella bad. I couldn't move without a Starbucks triple caramel frappe in my hand.
Then I returned home, to a place I never wanted to go back to. I already had a job, working at a hotel just cleaning. All I wanted was a job where I didn't have to think.. at all. Just something so boring that I could just go in, do it, go home. A few months later I got this job, basic office bitching working. It was great. Did nothing interesting, literally sat reading bullshit news articles and scanning papers. Occasionally running to the shops! Loved it. I had literally lost the ability to feel anything at all. At. All. And I liked it. I didn't wanna feel anything ever again. I just wanted to survive and that’s all that went through my head. If you can survive today, that’s a win. The trauma I had experienced was still very much inside me, but I wasn't ready to deal with it, so I felt nothing.
But how is this rebirth if I was on 1% survival mode?
Because I had decided I wanted to live a better life. I was unhappy with every aspect of my life, I had always felt not good enough, unattractive and unworthy of anything. And I didn't want to live like that anymore. The process was slow, it took about a year. I enrolled on a course doing what I really wanted to do, cake decorating. I did things like go to concerts with my sister and we planned more travel. After that, I took up a sport, I began to Crossfit and I hated it. For Ages. It look 6 months for me to start to like it. But the point is, I started trying new things that would make me happy. I loved baking, I loved travel, I loved exercise. So that what I started doing and life got better with every step. I started to lose weight but that didn't matter because I was adjusting my mental state about my body, thanks to All About The Base by Meghan Trainor. I started to deal with my loss and I closed some doors, moved forwards. Started to think about real things I wanted to go with my life. Travel.
If you can do nothing else in life, travel. There is no faster way to become a better person than to go to another country and learn stuff.
The second thing you can do is pick up a book that focuses on your biggest issue and read it, do the things they suggest which By the way, are always the same. Be Kind to yourself, say affirmations, meditate, do yoga, spend time on you, don't be selfish but don't take no shit, don't buy yourself material goods, find pleasure in walks in the park, be brave, try new things, be yourself and Love Yourself.
Love yourself.
It’s so funny because its so simple but so hard. How does one love themselves when society is telling them that everything that is unique and special about them is wrong. So if you're always wrong, why would you love that? Luckily we have a thriving Drag Queen community to help with that. Be yourself because it makes the world a more interesting, funny and gorgeous place. And you love yourself, because why wouldn't you? It is literally a waste of time hating yourself, time that could be spent, doing things that make you happy.
Doing things that you have always wanted to do without the overarching doom of you have to be doing something else like applying for corporate work or writing an essay or some crap like that. There was no first "self help" book that I picked up, I just started reading more. The more I read, the happier I got because I had to unlearn that I am not worthy with HOLY SHIT, I am enough and its okay.
Because I had to learn that I am good enough, just as I am. Curves. Flaws. Terrible fashion choices and all. I may not be anyone’s cup of tea, but it's my damn cup. If I want it to be covered in pink paisley patterns then I will. My soul drive to get better was to become happy, to make sure my sisters never suffered as I have suffered, they are beautiful, smart, vibrant people and they deserve to know that. So I lead by example and you will never find better people in this world than my siblings and because of their brilliance, I want to help others to become just like them.
I really have come quite a long way.
Since those dusty days of self hate, my life has catapulted forwards, to the point where I look back and I can't understand how I even felt like that because I have worked SO hard to not be that person who died on June 3rd 2013.
I remember the date so well. Forever burned into my head.
Jade 1.0 died that day and since then, new updated operating systems have been put in place to make me up to Jade 3.0.
Jade 1.5 was a riot, she experimented with things she loved and really tried hard to accept herself for who she was.
Jade 2.0. She was brave, she quit her job and flew out to Australia with $200 in her bank account, she climbed Everest, she decided to commit to her dream of travel.
Jade 2.5, she was wonderful, she decided to have faith in the universe and worked diligently to improve herself because she wanted to be a better more successful person.
Jade 3.0 decided that she would face her biggest limiting factors and fought to become enlightened.
The day I died was one of the worst days of my life. But it was also one of the days I will always be most grateful for, because I am who I am, thanks to it.