My Mental Illness: Meet Bethany

and i meant it hello hello my homies welcome back to a little intimate setting with your girl annika your girl solei whatever you want to call me i'm out you're living life and i have been sober for three months intentionally last time i did a little life update with you i was going through [ __ ] man i was going through it so basically i decided to be sober for this term because i wanted my life to be focused on myself in school and only those things and so going through my sober days aka the last three months i've learned a lot about myself and not just about sobriety because why i went sober was to avoid something that was more than just drinking she came back this time i decided to really accept what's going on and let's just say she relapsed she's back um my eating disorder i'm i'm here to talk about her we we shed that light on sobriety and me saying oh my gosh look at me focusing on school but in reality the sobriety was to focus on me and dealing with my eating disorder and that was a wake-up call because i thought i was good after i gained my weight back two summers ago i was like oh my gosh i'm ready for university to live by myself i'm back to my healthy bmi and i'm cured there's no eating disorder anymore we're done and um yeah no that does not know how life works mental illnesses uh do not go away by gaining weight getting to a certain number anywhere really um they don't go away they they control you less and you can be in control of yourself more with the right steps moving forward and the right healing process let's talk about it basically when i decided to move out to victoria two years ago after covid and after gaining my weight back to a healthy bmi there was so much happening in my life that that distracted my eating disorder and my eating disorder sat in the back seat of the car that i was driving all the way to victoria saying holla girl she eating the wand anymore she's uh trying out new places she's exploring she's dora um she's got her boots you know like i don't have a monkey but that would be really sick if i did i should have brought a monkey anyways dora was exploring and she got to this island called victoria bc and she spent her first year as a writing student enjoying her studies and that was all that was really on her mind was her studies and hanging out with new friends new people in the new environment so of course an eating disorder would be in the back seat if we have all these new things happening so yeah girl kind of got distracted from the ed who was sitting in the back you know she's in the back seat she's on the road trip she's the one like always sleeping in the back never really says much is always on her phone listening to her like angsty music or sleeping listening to netflix that she downloaded so she's the passenger that really doesn't speak up she's just vibing out waiting to get to the destination right well then summer started and i left victoria last april like literally a year back from today i'm it was back in prince albert saskatchewan where i got two jobs and eventually that was a lot on a girl like me a girl like me anyone two jobs is a lot for anyone okay i was working as a server and i was working as a lifeguard so i had some income coming in i had some money coming in because a young girl was like i don't want to stress about having a job in victoria well i'm doing my studies next year so i was like ballin i was like all right let me get let me get this bread this cash flow i'm ready to feel secure because my biggest fear is not having enough money to live and in victoria the housing is not cheap so as i move into this new house in september of 2021 with my friends i need to be able to pay for my own [ __ ] groceries rent hydro wi-fi all the fun stuff you know you enjoy as an adult paying your bills yeah fun stuff just really good fun stuff and so i was like i'm going to grind up two jobs and that ended up being crazy because your girl is not working no like two part-time jobs she was like let's wake up at five in the morning and work my shift at 5 30 to 1 30 then i'd go to my serving job at like 2 30 to 7 30 and then we don't know when we're getting cut so that means that my shift would be 2 30 to 7 30 and they'd be like i need you till 9 30. so it ended up sometimes being 16 hour days of working now that was not like the craziest highs but like mostly i'd work like maybe a 4 to 11 pm type of thing as a server and when i'm serving i am serving honey there is me walking around in circles in this building giving food picking up plates throwing food that has not been eaten in the garbage touching everyone's gross saliva knives a lot of that and i learned so much from both of these jobs like lifeguarding i got lifeguard of the year what all my hard work okay so i do not regret that serving i don't regret it at all because i've always wanted to be a server i love like being in the customer service type of vibes where i can chat to people learn about people but when it's like stressful situations and it's like very fast paced and you have to get to one place to the other in five seconds and think about what your next move is in the next two minutes and two seconds it's just like okay so i'm not here talking to people i'm here to do my job and what i wanted to do was like get to know random strangers and the surfing job was me walking around a restaurant with food and saliva all over my hands let's just say during the summer i was definitely dealing with my eating disorder so she was back in the um she was back in the front seat beside me i was driving right i had my skirt i had my little like volkswagen whenever i was driving uh no my mom's kia soul is what i was driving but anyways my eating disorder was in the passenger seat beside me and so she was loud in my ear she was like you don't need to eat you need to exercise even though i was working two jobs where i was moving around constantly i would exercise when i had time between these two jobs i'd literally go to my first job for eight hours exercise for like an hour then go to my other job would i be eating enough no because i'd be restricting stop thinking about it now i don't even wanna ah why would a girl do that to myself ah none of that please like the hustler culture let's do like the self-care culture because let's bring that into the mix anyways hardcore eating disorder moment for me was this past summer which i didn't want to accept that that was eating disorder back i was just like oh i'm just busy all the time and i want to work out and i just wouldn't eat enough and then i went to greece and it was so fun and i just like ate whatever i wanted because we were in greece were were on a cruise ship all the food's paid for and like let me indulge so sometimes i get two entrees because it's free and i would just eat so much and it was so freeing and i've never felt that free in so long that was at the end of summer and then i came to victoria so i moved into a house and with an eating disorder brain where i would restrict what i ate i'd add so many vegetables so many fruits in but my meals were not balanced i was avoiding the food that i needed and i made an at-home gym downstairs with the weights i have like we got a bench and stuff a barbell like we got some [ __ ] downstairs to bust down with where i don't have to pay for a gym and so every morning i'd work out but i wouldn't be eating enough to even sustain a person not working out i'm paying for my own groceries i'm making my own meals so that means i can control what i'm putting my body and so that is not a good thing with an eating disorder brain now it wasn't so big in the first semester of school but then when i went home for christmas i decided christmas is about people and food so i'm just going to be around people and food and a lot of food means oh i need to restrict because there's gonna be so much food i'll be indulging so much so i decided you know when i'm there i do cardio workouts every day and i would restrict my food until it was like a big meal time and i went back to work as a server i'd work long hours then i wouldn't eat enough during the day and like all my breaks i wouldn't eat sometimes i'd have like eight nine hour shifts and it's just like me not eating until i get home and when i got home and ate it was like i'm already tired so i'm gonna eat something you know not that feeling and i'm going to bed so a lot of it was like me waiting for the big christmas meals and stuff and then when it came to christmas after this restricting like this okay i'm gonna restrict and then eat when i have meals like given to me made for me that are big so that might be like a binge restrict type of situation in that sense then during actual christmas when the turkey was made the stuffing has been stuffed like we got the potatoes mashed santa came in the morning and i got food poisoning the day before christmas so all of christmas my stomach wanted nothing i just laid there trying to not think about how much my stomach hurt and when i ate it would be something like toast because that's all you can to keep down when you're sick like you have a stomach flu so all christmas i was in pain and i didn't i ate like one piece of turkey like a sliver a sliver of turkey and some potatoes and that's all i had and it was the saddest like i was ready to indulge i was literally like my whole time at home i was restricting to then get to that point and be like i can eat everything because it's christmas and your girl got the turkey out and it was just [ __ ] up then i realized that damn i am in this place again where it just is like restricting restricting and so i get back to victoria after christmas and classes are online now the first time i had an eating disorder classes were online because you know you can't go to school but there's an insane virus going around that is highly contagious and will kill people so obviously you're not going to school but during that time if you're not going to school you're sitting at home and what are you doing at home nothing my eating disorder brain thinking of doing nothing at home equals getting fat because you're not you know you're not moving it's just you at the home with the fridge so that was scary for my brain so it meant that i had to work out a lot so i went back to that at the start of january of 2022 and that's when i decided to stay sober because when i would drink i would binge because that's when i allow myself to eat right you just relax your brains relax so then i can eat because you know it's under alcohol influence it's not it's buzzing around state yeah i the first three months three weeks of school was online and that is when i would exercise like two hours in the morning go for an hour walk in the afternoon do an hour worth of hot like sweaty yoga type vibe before bed and i would not eat enough and so we're back to square one oh my gosh wow and so i decided that you know what this is not healthy because i started weighing myself every day every day after i work out in the morning was not at a healthy bmi so i decided to tell my mom and just be honest and be like something's wrong again i don't feel like i'm happy i don't feel like i'm putting all my energy in the right right place for my happiness then i decided to connect to the campus health center and i got connected to a nurse and then i also got connected to a personal counselor okay so that's great school is in person again classes are in person i went and saw my counselor in person at this point i'm seeing a nurse at the uvic health center and then from that nurse i got connected to a mental health nurse who did a weigh-in for me and checked my blood pressure and then i got contact with a doctor at the university who then gave me a sheet to go get my blood work done so then i got my blood work done and noticed i was deficient in b12 and iron so i got supplements for that and then i also got sent to a psychiatrist and while i was seeing all those people i was seeing my personal counselor so i have gone through many specialists by this time right um this is probably like a month into second term and i'm seeing like five specialists and it was crazy i was like oh my gosh this is life-changing seeing professionals really changed and helped me start my recovery again so now i decide i'm in recovery mode at this point i'm seeing my counselor and stuff and i decide to call my eating disorder bethany okay her name's bethany so when i say name my eating disorder i mean give my eating disorder an identity that is not me so that means i'm separating myself from my eating disorder so bethany that [ __ ] she popped in to the driver's seat she's taking over the wheel at this point right when i think about um coming back from christmas where i was just exercising at least four hours a day and not eating enough that's when she was like she had her hand on my steering wheel i was like pushed to the side like i don't have control of the ox she has full control of all the music she's putting on [ __ ] music get out like first of all don't steer my car and then put on shitty music anyways that was annoying so bethany was definitely in the front seat for a while of my first months of 2022. stupid ass bethany i just named her bethany because i don't like the name bethany and sorry to anyone's name bethany um i am sure y'all are nice i just know bethany back in the day that did not rub me the right way [Music] that's all there's nothing else i just thought of someone who i kind of don't like as much as like regular humans um and i said yeah that's her name now but like [ __ ] bethany anyways bethany is the name of my eating disorder and so once i brought that up to my counselor we were thinking of ways to get her out of the passenger seat in my car push her out of the window as i'm driving down my life path right like who wants that [ __ ] yamming at you in your ear while you're trying to enjoy your life not me and that's why those five health professionals have helped me through my journey when i asked for help that's when things started to really go uphill because it was no longer just me against myself trying to cut out this bethany brain it was now me and five other professionals who actually have studied and gone to school and like done years of training to get bethany's voice lesson bethany kind of out of the car like we're all trying to shove her out of the car at this point just like stupid like mosquito in your ear at three in the morning that wakes you up no ever since my goal to get bethany out of my car this is the goal i noticed that that's that's not gonna happen quick no it's not this this bethany girl she's been here for so long she thinks she can just stay what i'm going through right now in my healing journey is i'm trying to notice when bethany is talking and when annika is talking so bethany's talking when it comes to restricting or you're not good enough or you'll be good enough when you're a certain weight you'll be good enough when you work out a certain amount of hours you'll be good enough when you can control what you eat like bethany is manipulative she decides that oh you're good enough here just kidding you're gonna oh just kidding you're just never good enough but i'm gonna tell you to keep going until you like literally fall off the face of the earth and die this whole video is just talking about how how i've been and how so sobriety has been even though sobriety was just a distraction so i was like i'm gonna be sober look at me but really it was me trying to avoid binging in a binge restrict eating disorder lifestyle now i'm still sober and i've been finished school for a week and there's been i've been to like three parties now or two parties now and i haven't drank any of them and i i don't feel like i need to i think if i do want to drink i will but right now i don't think that's for me and it's not because of my eating disorder it's because your girl loves it when people think i'm drunk when i'm sober because i match the vibes that's a compliment in itself you'll see me on the dance floor you'll see me chatting up with people like i'm not a buzzkill i'm just here in my natural state and i've loved being sober because when i say i'm sober and i'm acting like a fun little gal just hanging out i feel like so grateful for my personality and who i am because i can have fun without drinking and that puts more money in my pocket for spending it on food no seriously i'm not joking i literally spend so much money on groceries i have cooked so much because of my dietitian giving me meal plans so that's a lot of food to buy but just because i love food i've just learned that i have an eating disorder and she's not going to go away by gaining weight she's going to be silenced she's going to be pushed aside hey i noticed you're here bethany but i am not going to listen to you so she can yammer on in my ear as i'm driving the car she's saying turn left and i'm like i'm turning right bethany you are not telling me to turn left because i know where that's gonna take me hell i'm not going to hell so then i turn right and we go to heaven she she can talk to me but am i gonna do anything about what she tells me no i'm gonna notice that she is bethany and i'm not bethany i'm not my ed a lot of my past few years have been taken over by [ __ ] bethany in the passenger seat telling me what to do in my ear so i haven't been living my full self i haven't been my full annika soleil and so right now i'm learning about myself i'm really excited about these these next months to come because i'll be in victoria in the summer enjoying the beaches and not caring about what i look like what's on the weigh scale i haven't weighed myself for two months i don't need to there's no reason numbers are not a big deal we don't need to make numbers a big deal they don't mean [ __ ] and a lot of my life has been devoted to numbers so now we're like switching it up and we're not gonna focus on the numbers we're gonna focus on the moments the memories the people the cookies i got this shirt in angst against bethany because [ __ ] bethany so i got the shirt to wear to remind myself that um i like cookies and i do like cookies oreos [ __ ] spank they are so good thank you so much for watching my homies um i'm glad you even survived this long this is a long time listening to me you should probably go do something else with your life this is a problem you don't need to be listening to me for this long just kidding listen to me think about it do you have a bethany in your life and is there a mental illness that you can name name it anything anyone you want and make sure that they are not a part of your identity because when i decided that bethany was not me that's when i let her be her own thing and that's when i was like shoving her out the car window even more and not listening to her because she is not me if there's a bethany out there that's in your ear name that [ __ ] name that thing that controls your life and then decide to move away from that identity try to find who you are the best thing i did was seek help and be honest with myself so if you think you need some help some professional help take the steps for your self-care because 2022 is for self-care i think i've gone through life focusing on trying to distract myself from self-care and now that i know the biggest flex these days is self-care i will flex that thanks for watching homies have a good rest of your day and comment below if you have a bethany in your life some kind of mental illness some kind of little voice in your head that you do not want there and you don't have to have there you don't have to listen to them either you can choose to be yourself rather than listen to your bethany in your head yapping at you as you're trying to drive your damn car do not let someone drive your car for you you get to do that that's your car anyways we're talking a lot about cars i don't know a lot about cars but thank you [Music] you

Channel: Saule

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Id: WSVJc10XwUs

Length: 22min 29sec (1349 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022