Meg Robson-Austin

Kaikki, jotka olivat epäileviä minua, eivät saaneet mielestäni tuota paikkaa. En jätä heitä mukaan. Olen todella vahva uskaltaja, ettei sinun voi välttämättä haittaa itseäsi ja ettei sinun voi välttämättä haittaa itseäsi. Ja se on paljon parempi paikka olla, se on varmasti. Enrollointiin ei ole loppupuoltajia. Ei ole million dollarin kontrakteja koulujen jälkeen. Mutta mitä löydät, on joku, joka näyttää itseään joka päivä.

When I spoke to her from her home in England... The two words that pop into my head is soul-destroying, or it can be, if you are unable to get a handle on it. It was very soul-destroying when I didn't know what it was to start with, and when I didn't have any hope or any plan or know that there was a way to move forward. I think even though you feel the pain physically, for me and I know many others, the mental weight that I carried with it probably was worse.

Yeah, going from, you know, all the competing and being a really athletic individual who loves running around and very active to not. And then to just the not being able to escape the pain, being in constant pain, not being able to pick up my daughter. You know, she's only seven now, but when she was tiny, I wasn't able to pick her up and walk around with her. And yeah, just, you know, it impacts every single part of your life.

Kyllä, mutta mitä en yrittänyt tehdä, oli pysyä eteenpäin. Ja minä tein niitä, minä olisin saanut foam-rollera, tai minä olisin saanut mitä tahansa seuraava gimmick, ja yrittäisin sitä viikossa, ja se ei toiminut, joten minä sitten kirjoitin itseäni. Ja sen sijaan, että olisin itse asiassa ottanut omaisuuden siitä, ja ottanut huolta omasta kehityksestäni, minä olisin halunnut ostaa jotain tai ostaa jotain tai ostaa jotain. Joten ottaa omaisuuden siitä ja tunnistaa, että olen ainoa henkilö, joka voisi pysyä itseäni. Se oli minun mielestäni haastavaa.

Kertoisitko meidät tuohon hetkeen, kun olet yhdessä kohtuullisessa pahassa? Tarkoitteletko, että pitäisi antaa tämän kaikkiin ja ei voida tehdä mitään? Tai ehkä olet jo siinä tilanteessa, kun ei tehdä mitään? Kyllä. Kun olin yli 9 vuotta kumppiittimisessä, en pystynyt kumppiittimiseen, koska en pystynyt ymmärtämään, miksi olin yhdessä kohtuullisessa pahassa, yhdessä kohtuullisessa pahassa, yhdessä kohtuullisessa kumppiittimisessä. Sitten minulla oli isäni, ja se tuli vielä huonosti. Kuten sanoin, oli aikoja, joissa en pystynyt kumppiittimiseen.

And I was very much in a place, well, this is me forever now. But I did start looking on Facebook and a Tom Morrison ad popped up and it said something along the lines of, you're not special, why do you think you're the only one that can't be fixed? And I was like, oh, he's just reached into my soul and spoken to me. So I reached out to Tom and it sort of explained the situation and he gave me a bit of advice, which I started to follow. And that small...

Ja kyllä, se on itseasiassa melko vahva tunne. Voin ajatella, että jos pystyt sen ylös ja sanot, että tiedätkö mitä, ehkä en ole erilainen. Se on itseasiassa iloinen asia.

Anyone that ever doubted me, they don't get to have that space in my head. I'm not letting them in, so I would much rather be led with love and kindness and people that believe in me and people that have invested their time in me. Why would I listen to people that are doubting me? I would much rather go, yeah. And I'm a very strong believer of you can't hate yourself into success and you can't hate yourself happy. And it's a much nicer place to be, that's for sure.

So what was the journey of recovery like for you, time frame wise, pain wise? When did it start feeling like actually this is getting better? It started a little bit too quickly, to be honest. So I started getting better after a few months and then I was like, oh, I'm fixed now. So then I started trying to compete and broke myself again. So it was a very sharp reminder that just because something is working, it doesn't mean you stop doing it. It means you continue to keep doing it.

So I actually started weightlifting because I broke my leg playing rugby and I couldn't run anymore. So I decided that chasing egg-shaped balls around the pitch wasn't safe, so I'd pick up big concrete ones instead. Naturally. Yeah, I was in the gym one day and I was only about 60 kilos at the time. And one of the personal trainers said to me, Meg, come and have a go at deadlifting. And I just walked up to this bar, picked it up and all the boys were like, oh my God. So it weighed about 100 kilos and they were like, oh my God, you're really strong. And one of them then said, for a girl. And I was like, what?

So at that very moment, I decided that no one would ever add for a girl on the end of the sentence. I was like, I'm going to get so strong. I'm just going to be strong. Saw a competition advertised. My first strong woman competition. As much as I love the running around with the weights and stuff, I got a real insight to what women supporting women look like. And I'd never had that before. And it was just the most powerful and amazing thing. And I was just like, yeah, these are my people and this is my jam. And yeah, it started from there.

So in what way? What did you love about that? Complete strangers. So my fiercest rivals are some of my closest friends. And my first competition and all the women were supporting each other, lending each other kit, showing each other how to do things, cheering each other on. And just, you know, we've all kept in touch ever since. And it was just a really amazing experience. And has anyone added for a girl since that moment? I don't think they have. I don't think anyone's been brave enough to quite briefly answer.

Oh, fine, okay, working on that then. I just got shown something to compare. The 230 kilos is about the size of an alligator, which is quite, that's a lot of handbags and shoes and belts to be honest.

It was a moment in time that even now, like what we, two years later, yeah, when I think about it, I'm like, did I really achieve that, given what I was like as a teenager and all the terrible choices I made? Should we go back to some of them then? And I don't want to make light of this actually, because you had a tough time, didn't you? Mm-hmm.

Kyllä. Olin hyvin huonosti huonosti huonosti huonosti huonosti huonosti huonosti huonosti

Se liittyi minulle siltä, että minulla oli paljon itsevarmuutta, eikä minulla ollut mitään tykkäystä itseäni, mikä teki minua melko yllättäväksi. Ja kyllä, tein paljon huonoja valoja ja aloin ottaa rikkoja ja nukkua 13-vuotiaana ja just, kyllä, elin hyvin erilaista elämästäni, mitä teen nyt, se on varmasti.

How long did that go on for you? Probably till my late to mid twenties. There was one major turning point. I was around someone's house and I'd never done anything like smoking crack ever. But they gave me a crack pipe and I literally took a breath in. And as I blew the smoke out, I saw two, I still to this day don't know if it was a hallucination or not.

but I saw two tiny little kids sat in the corner and they were in dirty clothes, skinny, scared. And my brain said to me, you need to get up and you need to get out right now. Because if you do not leave, that's going to be your children and this is going to be you for the rest of your life. And that was a huge turning point for me. And did you get up and leave? I did get up and left. Again, I can't remember. That's the only bit I remember. I don't know where I was, how I got home, but I knew from that very moment things needed to change.

And that road to recovery, though, I can't imagine was straightforward from that point, right? No, because when you mask things with drugs and alcohol, or there was self-harm, there was eating disorders, when you stop doing those things, you then have to listen to the trauma that's going on in your head. So you have to find a much healthier way to cope with it. I started training to be a counselor and a therapist and a coach, which really helped. And then doing the weightlifting,

Because a lot of my trauma was caused by females or being in, you know, not a very nice environment when I got bullied at school. That healed, being with those women healed a lot, like a lot of that past trauma for sure. Does it feel like a different life to you now? So different, like it's just crazy to look back at...