Sandi’s Story

And perhaps

What made her beautiful

Was not her appearance

Or what she achieved,

But in her love

And in her courage,

And her audacity

To believe:

No matter

The darkness

Around her,

Light ran wild

Within her,

And that was the way

She came alive,

And it showed up

In everything.

Morgan Harper Nichols

 

I’m not quite sure which part of me agreed to do this and yet, here we are. Sitting in a room in Boston, on the opposite side of the world to where I currently call home. That I am here with you is a privilege and is also really scary. I also want to acknowledge my privilege living in a straight sized, able-bodied, white, mostly cis-gender body that functions well and has survived, to this point, without illness or physical disability.

I agreed to step out my comfort zone, out of my bubble, to share this story of recovery so that others might also allow themselves to be seen and heard. So other people can maybe know it’s okay to show themselves and to speak your truth. My biggest hope is that we can all find a path to healing and I hope that in sharing my story it can inspire you somehow to find your own path.

The theme of this talk – ‘hope and inspiration’ – is challenging to talk to because I don’t really find myself inspiring. I live all day everyday with myself and looking from the inside out always looks very different. Its noisy in here behind the scenes and there’s no filter in there so I see everything, not just what I allow others to see. And although I get feedback at times that my story is inspirational, which I deeply value and appreciate, my actions have come from that a pure instinct to survive, to navigate this thing called life, and to find the people and places that enliven my spirit and bring laughter and freedom into each day. This is what keeps me going, these connections and community I have stumbled across.

I’m intentionally not speaking to parts of my story to protect me and to not set up a “your story is worse than mine” or “my story is worse than yours” kind of dynamic because I did this. I compared my situation to what others said and always always came up as being “not sick enough”, not at rock bottom yet, and various other turns of phrase. This kept me stuck for a long time and didn’t serve me well.

So let me tell you a story about a little girl named Sandra Margaret Stone—a joyful, playful, and spirited kid from what I can remember. As she got older she was often labelled as naughty, independent, rebellious, or defiant which, while not inaccurate, are merely facets or parts of her and her need to be seen. Writing her name evokes a real deep sadness in me, as it confronts me with a past where nothing was as it seemed and she didn’t want to be

Sandra’s existence began in 1969, conceived out of wedlock in an era where that mattered, where that was judged and frowned upon harshly. Her parents married late in 1968 which makes her born within the marriage.

Sandra acquired a younger sister when she was almost 4 years old so was raised as the eldest daughter. Her father was (and still is) an alcoholic, and not a very pleasant one. There are not many stories I can think of to tell of good memories that involved him. Not a lot of good memories really at all, although there are some. Somehow the unpleasant memories stick more firmly. She grew up trying to be invisible, to be quiet, to not upset anyone. She wasn’t very good at any of those things even though she did have some very solid role models.

When she was eleven years old she found out she was not the eldest child in her maternal bloodline. She was informed by her father that she had another sibling, older than her and not his child (His attempt to get her “on his side”). Her world was a confusing mix of secrets and realities, of discoveries and unspoken truths that shaped her existence. Until that point she never questioned that she was the first and oldest child in the family. She was excited to find out there was an older child, a girl baby born in the same hospital that Sandra was but who was born with red hair. She was not allowed to ask any more questions nor ever to speak of this other child, ever. This part was harder than finding out because she had a curious mind and really wanted a big sister, a real flesh and blood one, not just an imaginary one that she could never mention. She had a lot of questions that remained unanswered until, in 2021 a DNA test gave us information about how to get in touch with her.

The house she grew up in was volatile at best. There were a lot of secrets in this family. A secret kid that we never, ever talked about, secrets about the fighting and drinking, secrets about all the things that happened behind closed doors, secrets about the things that happened to her, to her mum, secrets about the things she saw and heard, secrets she knew but that were denied and covered up. I guess if no-one talks about it then it isn’t really happening right? If no-one talks about it then its not real? But it was real. Yet so many of these things remained secret or she got told they didn’t happen.

She loved to be outdoors; it was safer outside. Especially anything to do with water or feeling the wind in her hair. She was a good swimmer and although she was competitive, she didn’t care enough to dedicate everything to winning. She was always told she could be an Olympic swimmer if she committed but this wasn’t anything that she overly interested in. She wanted to be celebrated but not be the centre of attention. She was an average runner; she was pretty good at Netball, but she was terrible at soccer. She played cricket on the boys’ team because there was no girls team. She joined the boy scouts and was kicked out of the girl guides. She became one of the boys with her long brown plaits in her hair.

She always believed she wasn’t smart enough. Smart enough for what? She was smart enough but somehow this was not ever part of her awareness. She got by at school, flying under the radar as much as possible. Sometimes in trouble but mostly just being quite unassuming and trying not to stand out too much, other than the fact that she talked a lot in class and was often called “attention seeking”. Imagine her surprise if she could know that we are doing a doctoral degree in psychology – mind blown. I only wish I could let her know we are, eventually, going to be ok.

Being stuck inside a classroom and doing what she was told was not her happy place. In high school she had her own desk and chair in the hallway outside classes, always a great idea to stick the naughty kid in the hallway alone, right? She talked too much and was too disruptive to be allowed to be in the classroom so she found ways to entertain herself outside of the classroom. At home she tried to comply, to be quiet, to not be noticed.

She was a latch-key kid, entrusted to take care of her little sister after school and get them both home safely. She learned how to make after school snacks for them both, most often a cheese sandwich because it was simple.

She grew up in the water. She dreamt of being a mermaid. Whether it was the ocean with her grandma (Mim) or the pool where the laps and training became an escape, the water was always a safer place than land. This is still true today. If I could find a way to live and work in the water I’d be there with bells on.

We lost her grandmother – my Mim – when she was 11. This was a significant event in the life of little Sandra. Mim was a stable thing in her life. She lived near the beach. When we would stay with her she would take us to Gunnamatta Bay. We would walk there. On the way we would stop at the bakery and get fresh yummy bread rolls. Then we would stop by the fruit and vege store and pick up some tomatoes and cheese. Mim would have packed butter and salt in her bag and we’d head to sit under her tree where we would have fresh rolls for lunch. She’d sit under the tree and watch us while we swam and played in the water. I miss her. I miss these times. I miss being a kid and feeling safe in her care. Then at 11 years old I arrived home from school, or at least pretending I’d been at school. I clearly remember walking in the door to the news that Mim had died. Part of me broke that day, crushed into little bits then buried deep. I wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral – apparently, I was too young to understand or something. I’ve done a trip back to the place her ashes were scattered. There is no plaque, just rose bushes. I’ve kept things that were hers and little things she gave me. Sometimes I can still smell her perfume.

She lost a part of herself that day, she lost a friend, she lost a sense of safety. No more Gunnamatta Bay trips, no more hugs from Mim. She kept swimming, she kept running, she found ways to experience fun and laughter and joy outside. Outside what was happening at home. She also found drugs, but more on that later.

Swimming training and being in the pool as often as possible was the most effective escape she had available and lasted until she discovered substances when she was 12. At this stage swimming and sports almost became secondary, although continued until around 14 years of age when it all got too hard to maintain the façade. Substances provided a much quicker and less time-consuming way to escape pressures of having to fit in and succeed. She ducked out of the success fallacy not too long after reaching high school and gave into the rebel, the rulebreaker, the escape. Starting with the more ‘friendly’ or acceptable and readily available substances and progressing from there. The eating disorder was probably there in various shapes and forms from around 11 or 12 years of age, alternating with the substance use disorder. She hated that her body was developing, and that people felt the need to comment on this, to bring attention to the parts that were growing as she hit puberty. She found a way to exist in a world that felt as if she didn’t belong. She found a way to continue, and, in some ways, she found a place to belong.

It’s actually all very messy, as is mostly the case with any kind of recovery. No single episode of care or approach that helped me find recovery. People often seem to have a substance use or an eating disorder recovery story. I don’t have that. It’s tangled and blended and combined with other behaviours and mental health diagnoses which all coexisted. A composite of trial and error with different diagnoses and labels and a multitude of providers – some of whom got it and others who tried to put me a box and make me do it “their way”. I needed to find the path that worked for me not one from a textbook.

It has always been part of her to take the long road, to do things her way, the hard way, the path of most resistance, going against the flow while also trying to belong somewhere. The duality of desperately wanting to fit in, to belong and be part of something and the need to rebel against the norm, to stand out, to be noticed. Falling into the darkness of addiction and an eating disorder not really even knowing that was happening nor how to stop it. Not wanting to stop it because it gave her a sense of community, people to “hang out” with and a reason to leave the house. Conflicted is a word that comes to mind. The natural human need to belong and feel valued and important, while also not wanting to fit into what others said was “normal”. A lot of the time she felt like an outsider, that she didn’t belong in this world. As I say this I can feel the confusion, the fear, the uncertainty. Baffled could be a slogan for her life. Maybe it’s that she didn’t understand the rules of life within the box. She didn’t really have a guide and navigating on her own led us down some interesting paths. Being known as being vague and confused is another way out though, another way to escape, to avoid. It is like a protective cloak. Showing up as not knowing provided space, a way to get others to try and make sense of things, a way to get out of things or get someone else to do it. Or maybe it was a way to feel safer in a world that didn’t make sense, a way to survive when she never really understood why the world is as it is.

The ED part of this existence really hit when I was in my later teens and early 20s. When the expectations from others got too big and heavy to carry. When people wanted me to have goals, to have a career, to have a clear plan for life as an adult. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t want a plan. Success was finding enough money to survive. Success was surviving another day when I really really didn’t want to. There was always a part of me that wanted to stay to see what was possible. And then the parts of me that were scared, that were unhappy, were lost and confused. They would step in and take over. They’d ask who cares what is possible? Why does it matter anyway? It’s just life. It ends. Let’s get it over with and opt out now.

We didn’t. We stayed. We hung in. The eating disorder ramped up hard every time I was admitted for treatment of the SUD. I couldn’t just be. I didn’t know how to be. Nothing felt safe. Nothing felt real. Nothing felt like it mattered. I didn’t feel like I mattered, despite what people said or how much they said I did matter. I didn’t believe them. I wished I could stop existing.

Somewhere in here I changed my name. I became Sandi James. An attempt at transformation? Maybe. I needed to not have the surname that was my fathers. I needed to lose the name that identified me as his child. I needed to be free of that somehow. It didn’t work at the time, I was still deeply entwined and tangled in trying to get his recognition and approval – neither of which have ever come.

So we carried on.

When you have no money, it’s difficult to connect to other people. When you are using, you don’t really have any friends, but you have connections – plenty of connections but always watching your back, never really able to trust anyone. My survival no longer depended on being good at things but on having enough money for substances first, then a place to sleep, a meal, and someone to be with me in that. Success meant having shelter, food, and enough money to ward off dope-sickness.

My treatment journey did not start by choice, which is the same for a lot of us. I was using a lot of substances, I did have a preference for my substance of choice and, at the same time, any substance would suffice if the one I wanted wasn’t available. Anyhoo…. My stepbrother was part of the 12 step program and decided I needed help. He said he would take me to a meeting in a detox centre – which he did. It sucked and I hated it, obviously…. But then he left me there and I got admitted for 11 days of treatment. What a shitshow that was. Rules, rules, and more rules. Don’t talk to other patients, only allowed to have 12 step reading material… talk about brain washing – which failed obviously.

One vivid memory from that first treatment episode was doing art therapy (something I avoided for years and years after this). The instructions – or prompt – was to draw a place you dreamt of living at. A possible future or something like that. I didn’t quite understand what they wanted. And as usual I got it wrong. I drew a lovely big house with trees and garden and a dog in the yard and all the nice ‘normal’ things that we were meant to want. I also drew a shed. The shed was to hold a never-ending supply of my preferred substance. The staff were less than impressed with my imagined future, with the dream I had for my life. I got removed from the group and “spoken to” in the office. I didn’t and don’t understand why but this was not ok to draw, to imagine, to want for myself. At that time that was my dream house. All the things plus a way to make me feel ok with that life in the suburbs. It took me a very very long time to be honest in therapy again. A really long time.

This experience was pivotal to how I work now. I would explore the image with them. I would not tell them that it is wrong. If I had to do that activity again, my drawing would look really similar although I do now actually have that shed in my backyard. But it’s empty.

I wandered through life the best I could. I experienced trauma, many times. I saw things I wish I didn’t see. I did things I wish I didn’t do. I witnessed people getting hurt, really hurt. Sometimes they didn’t survive. I survived it all. I wondered a lot why I survived. Why I was left behind here in the world. Why others could get off this roller coaster and I was trapped in it.

The eating disorder is so intertwined with the substance use disorder it becomes impossible to distinguish one from the other. Essentially they are the same beast I guess. It was always a trade-off. Get treatment for one, the other would increase. Get treatment for that and we’d go back to the other. The see-saw of ineffective treatment. Self-harm was another pretty consistent theme as well although I think that happened more often when I wasn’t using substances, it was another strategy to try and manage distress. All of these things, all of them, helped me survive waking up each day. An expression of pain and distress, even though I did work very very hard to keep all those parts secret.

I worked from the age of 14 and 9 months. I finished school somehow. I had a couple teachers who saw me, saw the mess I was. They showed care and interest in me. They helped me finish secondary school. I worked in Target. When I left school I got a job as a bank teller. An interesting choice of employment for a human who used illicit substances. I lasted there a year or 2. I moved houses and towns – often. I changed jobs frequently. I worked in pubs. I worked in factories. I did things to get money that were outside the law.

Searching for belonging. Searching for my place. Searching for my people.

I had girlfriends and found a kind of sense of belonging there. I got involved in the Queer community. Was part of the Sydney Mardi Gras for a few years. Until that all fell apart when I had a boyfriend and that was pretty much the end of my belonging in the queer community at that time anyway. Back then there was no space for what they called “fence sitting”. I was told to make up my mind – straight or gay – there wasn’t any space for me within that dichotomy.

I met my wife at a dance party in Melbourne. I was 21 or 22 years old when we met. Our relationship has never been easy. Nothing I have ever done has been via the easy way. She stuck with me. I adore her for that and I am still not sure why she stayed with me. I was one of those people you get warned to stay away from.

Yet I was able to go to university, studied visual arts then became a school teacher. I did this because the world told me I needed to do something so I did. I think I was about 23 when I started my degree. It also provided a nice façade to hide the reality of the eating disorder and substance use that existed behind the façade. Just another secret. I was great at putting on masks and showing up in acceptable ways. I was great at keeping secrets, until I wasn’t anymore. Hospital and detox admissions were frequent and actually informed the work I produced for my graduation exhibition. I made art. I expressed myself in images that, like my life, looked bright and pretty from afar with deep and dark content once you got close up.

I knew I was different somehow; I was always just that little bit different. I never really knew why or what I had done that made me not quite belong. I didn’t understand why I didn’t fit in and I didn’t understand how to do that. Honestly, I still don’t know most of the time, but I care less now than I did back then, in some ways. I did things that helped me feel part of, to feel like I was part of, to feel like I was “normal” – whatever this even means. I had to learn the rules and being quiet was often my go to when I needed to fit. Being a good swimmer gave me a place to belong, even though I usually felt out of place anyway. Substance use gave us all another place of belonging, a community of people all wanting the same thing. The eating disorder was always a big secret, until it wasn’t, but it was one thing that wasn’t about belonging, the eating disorder was about surviving. These days I am more ok with not fitting in, well most of the time I’m ok with being an odd one. Sometimes I notice that pull to be “normal” is strong and at times I have to surrender to this to achieve the things that are important to me. The world is a strange place. These days I recognise that my value lies in who I am, it lies in my differences, in the things that make me unique, creative, and sometimes annoying (or maybe that is oftentimes….). I have come to a place where I embrace those who value the uniqueness and weirdness. I spent enough time trying to be what others considered acceptable, which I mostly failed at. So who better to be than who I am in any given moment. Darkness and light. Hope and despair. Tears and laughter. They all have a place. I have a place. We all have a place.

So many treatment episodes, so many failures. The 12-step total abstinence philosophy was harmful for me. A harm reduction approach worked eventually. I moved away from Sydney to a small mining town in the far west of NSW called Broken Hill when I was offered a 12-month teaching position. Things fell apart in a pretty epic way out there. Stints in psych wards and a load of total chaos and some pretty dangerous behaviours. So many things happened here. Broken Hill was the bottom of the pivot point, where many things shifted in a lot of ways and other things got worse. This was eventually where we found the beginning threads of recovery, although there was still a pretty long way to go.

We got stuck in this town for almost 10 years. It was here I crashed my car – twice, into the same tree. Ending up in hospital both times and eventually having my driver’s licence taken off me for a couple of years and almost ending up with a custodial sentence. I didn’t mention the big car crash I had when I was, like, maybe 22 or 23 or something. My record was not sparkly which is part of why they wanted to lock me up. I avoided it somehow and managed to get a suspended sentence.

Eventually we made it out of there and moved to a slightly larger (still very small though) town on the Murray River. I started doing Triathlons and made some friends in that community—first part of being seen. I completed my registration internship and became a registered Psychologist. Things improved here until it all fell apart again. I was far far away from the ocean and the brown river water didn’t quite meet the same need.

I still felt like an outsider, like I didn’t belong. I don’t think I did belong. I don’t think I belonged anywhere. More secrets, more hiding behind masks, more performing to meet other people’s expectations.

I had to get out. I had to leave, I had to run. I had dreamed of going and living in Thailand ever since I went there for a holiday – or somewhere in South East Asia, but I never ever imagined this would be possible for “someone like me”.  I did live this dream though, I made this fantasy come true. In 2014 I was offered a job in Malaysian Borneo, same same but different to Thailand. Close enough though. I needed to get out somehow. So we packed up our house and I flew out to Malaysia at the end of June. My partner followed a few months later with our dogs and we set up home in a country where no one knew us, where no-one knew me.

This was where I found myself. I made some friends, I learnt to scuba dive and fell in love with being underwater, and I began trail running and competing in the jungles of Borneo. This was the life I wanted. But as usual, things started to fall apart because I was still outside the box. So when I got offered a position in Thailand we took it and relocated to Chiang Mai for 2 years. It was 2017. Can’t say I loved it there, far away from the ocean, but it was also great in many other ways. I’d started my PhD and made plans to go back to Borneo. In 2019 I flew back to Australia to work for a few months while waiting for the new contract in Malaysia. I was due to start work again there in March 2020.

Then COVID hit across the world. Where things fell apart in a massive way when I got stuck in the UK after going there for 10 days to present at a conference. The world closed while I was in Dublin and that was it. Stuck with one suitcase of conference clothes, no job, and no place to live. Stuck for 8 months. The old demons I thought I had dealt with resurfaced in new ways. My mental health crashed and I struggled.

The little girl in me was terrified, again. Feeling unsafe, feeling abandoned, feeling very much alone. She tugged at my leg and my heart. She cried, a lot. We got through and made in back to Malaysia at the end of 2020. I resumed my own therapy with a new therapist, I worked with a dietician, I joined groups and found support. I reached out for help and worked through the shame and embarrassment of needing help – again. I found acceptance and I found compassion and I found people who think like I do. Everything changed, once again, and I made a place for myself.

A new recovery. Another level. Connecting with people across the other side of the world, from a country I had never even visited before. Finding support in places I had never considered before. I found people who wanted to know me, who wanted to help me, and who wanted to encourage me, to help me thrive. This is the sole reason I am here, those people, those connections. I had finally found a place I belong, I think.

I spent so much of my life trying to escape, to forget, to be what others wanted me to be. I discovered that I am never going to be what others want or expect so its better to be just whoever I am at any given time. Sometimes shy, sometimes awkward, often anxious, and always with a hint of humour and silliness. I am finding my tribe, my peeps, the people who want to know me even if I don’t always comply with the “rules”. They value my existence for what and who I am, not what and who they want me to be. They may not always understand, and that’s ok. They don’t try to remove or quiet me, they don’t try to put out my spark, my quirks, my weirdnesses. I have no words to express how much this small mob of equally weird humans mean to me and the life and glimmers they bring into my heart.

We had to relocate again and return to Australia. For how long? I don’t know. For now it is ok. We restarted the process of gaining my Doctoral degree again after COVID saw the end of my last project. My hope for this work is to make a difference in the way people are treated. I have spoken and shared my story, in the hope that others can hear parts of their story and find their own path to freedom. Another life, a different adventure, building hope and creating change.

This is Sandra’s story, intertwined with Sandi’s story. Sandra still lives on in me and shows up here and there. She is safe enough to breathe. She is safe enough to play. She is safe enough so I can take risks – like telling her story.

I’ve learned more about the things that get me through—swims in the ocean, surfing, writing, helping others, motor bike riding, and community and connection. These are the things that keep my cup full, and I know that each of us need to find our own life rafts.

I have learned that recovery isnt a destination that you can reach, or that you may never return from. I don’t believe that anyone doesn’t have the capacity to go back in extreme circumstances. I know that recovery doesn’t look pretty most of the time, but that it is worth persisting through the shit to be able to see the rainbow. I have been lucky enough to find calm, for now.

It’s been a long process of trial and error and I’ve attempted to construct a life with purpose and meaning while also trying earn a living, while also still needing to engage in the behaviours and stuff that helped me feel safer and gave me a sense of having autonomy, even if this was a false sense of security it helped me survive. I’ve had to unlearn, relearn, ignore, pay attention, unlearn and learn again, change direction, hitch a ride with someone else here and there, but at the end I have been able to plant myself firmly in the drivers seat, most of the time. Even if it feels like I often have no idea where I am going or what I am doing, have doubts about my abilities and my sanity, and often get lost or find myself on a road that didn’t lead where I thought it would. The detours and mishaps are all part of the adventure for me.

This a story of fragments of my journey. I can’t share it all because then there would be nothing left for the book I hope to complete one day – if I ever work out how to finish it J

I’m writing stories. I’m collating art works to illustrate the stories. The many many versions of me. The many lives I’ve lived. The many parts of me. The dark parts, The light parts. All the rainbow coloured parts in between. My story will be titled “Not a coffee table book” and maybe it might even get published one day. Working on the PhD and earning a living, all at the same time. I’m learning how to be a public speaker, presenting at conferences and speaking up when there is a need. The journey is far from complete and it is exciting and scary to consider what could be possible. And so, Sandra’s story continues, her legacy interwoven with my being, always present, a figure of the past and a potential future, like the shed at the far end of the yard—always there, and filled with the promise of a future yet to unfold.