I Wish I Could Fix Her- how even a recovering anorexic doesn't have all the answers

Photographer unknown

Through this disease I have met so many others who struggle with food and other substances.  I have met some  truly amazing people both in the treatment center where I stayed, and through my advocacy work.  I have encountered others  with eating disorders and addictions all over the board.  When I left the hospital, it was advised by the some of the staff to cut off all ties with other patients I met at the facility.  I have lost contact with a large number of the people I met during my three month stay in Denver.  However, there are few I have chosen and feel safe enough to stay in contact with.  Social media has made it easy to know how others are doing, or to keep my distance.  At the treatment center there were many patients that came from my neck of the woods since at the time treatment in the Pacific Northwest was very limited for eating disorders.  A small community consisting of others who know this battle has been helpful in my own recovery journey.

I care deeply about the people I have met through this recovery process.  I see similarities and differences and respect the struggle these men and women are going through.  There is a certain empathy I have.  A compassion and a patience that perhaps people on the outside might not have.  After all, people who have never had an eating disorder or an addiction problem often find if very difficult to comprehend.  I have felt and thought the very same things as these people who struggle.  I get it.  All the twisted thoughts and behaviors, I understand.  I have been there.  And it has been a huge support to me in my recovery to know I have never been alone.

However, the fact remains, that even though I have been there, starving, purging, shoving donuts in my mouth,  stepping on that fucking scale obsessively, abusing myself, even after all of this: I still don't have the right words.  If I could save someone, I would.  But I can't.  This is hard for me to come to terms with because I feel like I should be able to.

This brings me to the present moment.  I currently have a dear friend who is drowning in anorexia.  I am afraid for her.  Over the last couple of years I have seen her deteriorate at an alarming rate.  If she doesn't get more help, I am certain she will die.  The thing that surprises me is that I don't know what to do.  I cant' fix her.  I can't convince her.  I cant' make her see what I see.  I feel like I should know just what to do, and still I try.  I keep thinking if I say the right combination of words and commit to the right actions, she will miraculously see the truth from the lies her eating disorder tells her.  She will recover.  I could be the one to help her.  I figure since I have been sick, and since I am doing so well in my own recovery, I should know just what to do.  I don't.

Even though I worry every day that she could die from this, there is nothing more I can do except pick up the phone when she calls.  Listen to what she has to say and know the pain.  I don't have to try to fix it.  Though, that is what I feel like I should be able to do.  Ultimately this journey is hers and has to be.  She has to want life.  She has to choose to fight for herself.  I can only tell her how much I care about her.  I can tell her the truth I see.  I can be the honesty that the eating disorder is hiding from her.  That is all I have the power to do.  It is hard for me and the ones who love her to watch her suffer.  It makes me think of what my friends and family must have gone through when they watched me disappear.  I now understand the fear, the frustration, the sadness, the anger and the helplessness.  I know her as a person who is incredible even when in the grips of anorexia.  I just wonder if I will ever get the chance to know how amazing she could be out of it.  I hope I get this opportunity someday.

For all of you who wonder what to do for their loved ones in this disease, I wish there were a straight and exact answer.  We only have actions over ourselves.  All we can do is show we care, and be honest about our own feelings.  In the end, it really is up to each of us to choose recovery.


Live on,


-Kristy

I Could Change My Arms, But Then What?

I hate my arms.  There.  I said it.  When I look at the reflection of my arms all I see are wobbly and soft appendages.  To me, they are not strong or beautiful.  And, as usual  I see them (along with many other things) as too big.  Over the fall and winter my awkward arms could be hidden and concealed.  I have been able to kind of avoid seeing myself.  But spring has arrived with a vengeance here.  The sun is out, the temperature is warm and I want to get outside.  I want to get away from the stupid sweaters that I've been hiding in these past few months.  Logically I know that I am way more critical of my arms, and every other part of my body, than anyone else is.  I apparently tend to see things that aren't necessarily there in the scope I believe them to be.  "But I SEE IT!"  This is part of the dysmorphia element that I struggle with.  My typical pattern would be to "fix" my arms.  Easily done.  Start working out obsessively.  Doing yoga with weights on.   Starving myself.  The problem is, once my arms are "fixed" then what?

I'll tell you what.  I will dislike another part of my body.  No matter how much I weigh, how much I lose, how little I eat, how much I exercise, there will always be something.  And at some point I will eventually  hyper-focus on something I can't do a damn thing about.  First my arms, then my legs, then my tummy, then my thighs.  Next I will criticize my face and all it's permanent flaws.  It's never ending.  And it is also not the real problem.  There is something much deeper.  My job at this point is to notice it's happening and try to figure out what the real issue is.  When I go down the road of physical self abuse, there is always, ALWAYS, something else going on.  This is also where people who do not suffer with Eating Disorders or Body Dysmorphic Disorders get the wrong idea.  The issue is not about vanity, (and I was called "vain" this week) it's about other stuff.  Deeper, not so superficial crap.  This is just how it manifests itself.  Perhaps I am struggling with fear, shame, sadness, anger, stress, boredom, and or none of the above!  My brain tries to protect me from looking at the uncomfortable or painful issues.  After all, it's easier to fix my arms right?

So back to the job at hand.  What's going on in life that has me so focused on my body, and not looking into my feelings?  I realized that the last week or two there has been a lot going on around me.   I have taken on too much emotionally.  But then again, that's who I am and what I do.  I crave that connection with people during times of stress.  But how do I take care of myself in the midst of chaos?  How do I take a step back?  What if I don't want to?  What if my compassion fatigue sets in again and I just turn apathetic?  That could happen if I don't remember that I come first.  My world does revolve around me.  My well being and healthy state of mind have to comes first to me.  I cannot be the effective and compassionate person I want to be if I am not these things to myself first.  I need to give myself the oxygen before I can help anyone else.  This is very difficult for me to actually put into place.  I feel like I always have to give, give, give.  Perhaps I need to give to myself too.

As I look at this deeper and try to find the reasons why I start hating on my body I take a deep, patient breath.  I try to remind myself that I am lucky I have my arms.  I don't like to look at them.  But I am reminded to think of all the things they do for me.  They carry my children.  They hold on to my daughter as she tries to ride her bike.  They wrap around my kitty while I nap.  They embrace my best friends genuinely.  They carry trays off food to people in need during a disaster.  They're not beautiful, but they are perfect for me.  Who knows how long I will be able to have them, or any other part of my body for that matter.  They don't need to be corrected.  Just respected.  I have other things to work on.

Live on!

-Kristy

Study of Arms
by Leonardo Da Vinci

My Sexy Evening

When you’re 36, married for 16 years, have a full time job outside of the home, have two crazy kids and a few pets, nothing says wild, sexy, crazy night like…crashing at 10:00pm in a deep, drooling, doze.  Bring on dreams of Ryan Gossling.  Ahhh…..there you go.  The perfect sleep.  Warm sheets, a nice pillow.  Yes.  I have waited for this moment all damn day!

Now, what can snap your ass awake from a make-out session with the above mentioned?  The following 4 words:  “Mom, my tummy hurts.”  Shit!  What?!  “Are you going to throw up?”  All of you parents out there, you know that when a child confirms that vomiting will commence, that means you should have been ready for this 20 seconds ago.  “THE POT!  GET THE POT!”  The pot you ask?  Our 6 year old is overly dramatic about the act of yaking and insists it be done only in “the pot”.

My snail-like husband stumbles up to find the blessed receptacle.   I hear him looking in cabinets, then the dishwasher as my daughter proceeds to spew.  I desperately try to catch the chuck in my futile hands.  It was hopeless to even try.  The warmth hits me.  The smell hits me.  I yell for my still absent husband!  “FASTER!  HURRY UP!”  I hear him pick up the pace.  Any damn pot would have done at this point.

Apparently when you are a cat, you don’t have to do a damn thing when someone is sick.  You can continue sleeping and dreaming about whatever the hell you want to dream about!  Lucky.

I sigh, my little angel looks at me scared.  “It’s ok.”  I soothe her.  “It’s alright.  Let’s get you cleaned up.”  I strip the bed trying to beat the seeping into my mattress.  My cat finally moves.  I stumble dizzy and adrenaline filled to the washing machine trying to not actually touch any more sick; as if it matters, the girl threw-up in my hands for God sakes!  I get the machine going on hot, hoping the noise does not wake my 10 year old.  He’s obliviously in dreamland.  Lucky.  I sort out the laundry while I am at it.  putting in the soap, the softener, checking the settings.  I am there for a good few minutes trying to compose myself.  My husband stumbles over after remaking the bed.  “How is she doing?”  he asks me.  I glare at him, “I don’t freakin’ know!”  I snap.  “I have been here doing the laundry!”  The poor man backs off.  No question is a good question when you have just been puked on.  I think he understands.

I try to clean myself off as best I can.  Nope.  A shower is the only thing that can get this smell off.  One does not simply wipe off the smell of spew.  This is a smell that must be scrubbed off.  I get in the steaming water.  Might as well wash my hair while I am in there.  I finally make it back to my bed.  It is clean and fresh, thanks to my sexy man.  My little girl lay between us, feverish and innocent.  I kiss her goodnight.

My sexy evening.

What did you do?

Live on!

-Kristy

Letting Go- my journey into Radical Acceptance



Girl with the red balloon by Bansky

My thighs touched this morning.  I accept this.


As a woman who has struggled with an eating disorder for most of her adult life, the idea of Radical Acceptance seems foreign.  Crazy.  Impossible.  After all, the main function of an eating disorder for me and for many others, is a fight to not accept reality.  It is a way manipulate or avoid the facts.  If I don't like what is going on in life, if I don't like how I feel, if I can't accept and let be the world that is, well damn it all I can lose weight!  That is what I can control.  That is what I can change.  I can put my blinders on.  While to the unknowing population an eating disorder is a vain attempt to "look good", this is not it at all accurate.  In reality, it was a way to pigeonhole or disengage from everything.  The world is too scary, chaotic and out of control.  If I can focus on what I eat, how much I eat, how I eat, where I eat; then I don't have to really think about the deep shit I don't want to think about.  The hard stuff.  If I can focus only being the perfect version of myself, if I can focus only on getting that number on the evil metal and plastic square down, down, down; then I don't have to think about the world around me.  I don't have to think about my fears, my failures, my hopes or  my dreams.  There are none.  There is only a shell of a woman, and her eating disorder.  The never-ending plight to go lower.


I can no longer feel my bones.  I accept this.


Now that I am this far into my recovery, I am having to practice something new; something besides the strict behaviors and rituals of an eating disorder.  I am having to see.  I am having to experience.  I am having to practice Radical Acceptance.  It's weird.  It's scary.  What is it?  Psychology might describe Radical Acceptance as the letting go of control.  Letting be what is.  Not trying to change, alter, hide, manipulate reality.  Things are what they are.  The good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly.  They just are.  So what am I having to accept in myself that I previously was not able to?  Well, Before I was only able to hide or change the things about myself that I did not like or accept.  Now, they are all in my face.


My body is what it is.  In recovery, I am obviously having to let my body find its natural balance.  It is doing what it needs to do.  I am learning to accept that.  If I want to be fully well, I have to let my body be.  I cannot fight to change its shape and size.  I cannot fix that lump here or starve away that bulge there.  I cannot purge away arms I don't like or the tummy that has carried two babies.  I have to look myself in the mirror and say to myself, "Yes.  That's me.  That's what I look like under my clothes."  I have to take a deep breath and take it in.  It's hard.  Sometimes it SUCKS!  Sometimes I can't look for very long.  But the next day might be different.  I accept.


My age is what it is.  Now I know you may roll your eyes.  I know I am not an old woman.  However, I am not young woman anymore either.  This is a recent realization for me.  We all come to this conclusion or will at some point in our lives.  I will be 36 this month.  I am closer to 40 than 30.  And it's ok.  We're all going the same direction.  None of us are moving back into youth.  I am getting wrinkles around my eyes.  I have tinsel in my hair that I am not dying away.  I have made the conscious decision that I am not going to fight this process.  I will not let my daughter see that I am desperately trying to turn back the clock.  I will show her that I accept and respect myself.  I will not cling to the past.  I will not dwell in my youth.  There is something beautiful in letting nature take its course.  I do not want to play into the culture of fear.  I do not want to buy jars of hope and clothes of fantasy.  I want to age as gracefully and as beautifully as I can.  I'll still wear a little make-up because it makes me feel pretty.  I'll wear my hair long or short whatever suits my fancy.  I will get a tattoo because it tells my story and feels real to me.  But I will not try to alter myself to stick to something that is passing away for everyone.  I accept.


Who I am is who I am.  This one is tricky.  I'm not entirely sure who I am yet.  I am still trying to figure it out.  I suspect I will always be trying to know myself.  Accepting myself as I am inside is hard.  Forgiving myself  for past mistakes is hard.  Letting go of expectations of myself is hard.  Putting away the individual masks I wear for each person is hard.  I have to come to terms with the parts of myself that I don't really care for.  I can be loud.  I swear like a sailor.  I am often judgmental.  I can be immature.  Sometimes I have the patience of a 2-year-old.  I am often kind of scatter-brained.  I can be terribly lazy.  I am extremely gullible.  I don't say theses to berate myself.  I say them only to accept them and remember that everyone has characteristics about themselves that they don't' like.  I just happen to be writing mine down today.  There are great many other things about myself that I think are pretty badass!  Instead of trying to fix or ignore, or deny these things about myself, I am going to say, "Yes.  Those things are there."  They are only pieces that make me who I am.  The are not all of me all the time.  They don't' need to be denied or shamed.  I accept.


My world is what it is.  I have a depressive organized brain.  I tend to lean into the sadness of the world.  I can relate to sorrow.  I have immense empathy and sometimes it all feels too much.  An eating disorder was a way to turn off that part of myself.  I cannot change the atrocities of the whole world.  I cannot make children come back to life.  I cannot make the "bad guys" disappear.  Natural disasters are not up to me.  I have to understand that sometimes bad things happen without any rhyme or reason.  Things are out of my hands.  I can do the best I can in my own little space, but I cannot be responsible for the world.  I can see it and learn lessons from what I see.  But it is not all mine.  There is great beauty in the world and in people that often gets overshadowed.  The good and the bad exist.  I accept.


My middle is round and soft.  I accept this.


So this is my journey right now.  I have to remind myself to practice of Radical Acceptance every single day.  There are some things that can be changed and should be.  There is a great many things that just are what they are and need no altering.  I accept.


Live on,


-Kristy


For more reading on Radical Acceptance try
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pieces-mind/201207/radical-acceptance

Emotional Yoga- moving the body and mind

Yoga in a train station.  Brisbane Australia

I went to my first yoga class in months last Thursday.  For those of you who know me, you know that yoga used to be my "thing."  I practiced pretty much every day.  Sometimes even twice a day.  In 2006 I awkwardly took my first class.  I was hooked from day one even though I was uncoordinated, falling down, and was extremely ungraceful.  Imagine a flamingo trying to do yoga, all knees and awkward.  That was me.  Even though my first few classes were challenging and I felt like an idiot, I still really dug it.  I stuck with it even though it felt weird.  I had actually found a form of movement that I liked!  I eventually felt strong, confident, determined and beautiful.  This was my kind of exercise.   It was slow and calculated.  Calming.  I could breathe and concentrate on only me and what my body needed to do.  I could turn my thoughts inward and connect with myself.  I craved it.  I was even considering becoming a yoga instructor.

Then something happened.  Once I relapsed back into my eating disorder, yoga turned into something very different.  I started focusing on the wrong things.  Instead of loving what my body was capable of doing and accepting that, I started to worry rather than relax:  What did I look like?  What body part wasn't right?  Why were my arms so big?  Who here is thinner than I am?  Damn it, why couldn't I do this pose?  Why wasn't I perfect at this yet?  I wasn't good enough.  Like many other things in my life, if I was not perfect, if I was not the best, I didn't think I had any business doing it at all.  My practice became more about what I should be able to do and my expectations of myself rather than an authentic experience.  It was no longer a release for me, but another thing to stress about.  My mat got shoved in the back of my car under the jumper cables; forgotten.

I would occasionally go to a class here and there.  I even got to do light yoga while I was away in the hospital for treatment.  I didn't stick with it as I had before because it fell second to the eating disorder.  I didn't fully appreciate my body.  Inside I loathed its weak boundaries and  incapability.  But last week I gave it another go.  Those true, original thoughts came back.  The appreciation, the patience, the acceptance.  I couldn't do everything I once could do but I was ok with that.  I wasn't quite as flexible, I needed some adjusting, I had a little trouble following instruction.  But it was alright.  I accepted my imperfections.  I accepted where I was that day.  I didn't put any pressure on myself and it was an amazing practice.

During the final pose (savasana) I started to cry.  Not a sobbing, earth-shattering wail, but fat tears rolled down my cheeks as I lie face-up on the floor.  I figured they might.  I could feel them rising up even before the pose and this wasn't the first time this has happened.  Having an emotional release during yoga is actually quite normal, especially during that final pose.  Even so, I was really hoping no one else would notice.  After at first trying to stifle them back, I decided to let go and be gentle with myself.  Instead of judgmental and critical of myself, I became curious as to why I was crying.  I came up with this:  I have been mean to my body.  Awful to it really.  I have been terrible to myself.  While the kind words of my instructor pierced my consciousness, I took her words to heart.  What I have done in the past, is past.  I am forgiven.  I forgive myself for how I have treated myself.  I have abused my body both in the physical sense and the mental.  No, my body is not perfect, but it is mine to take care of.  It is the only one I have been given.  Why have I punished my body so?  Why have I denied it care, fuel, love and compassion?  What has this body done that is so wrong and unforgivable?  Nothing.  It doesn't deserve the treatment I have dealt it.  I don't deserve it.

So yeah!  Wow!  How could I not cry while coming to this realization?  Now I wouldn't say that this one yoga class "healed" me.  I have had a difficult time with my ED as of late.  But, if I can bring this up again, if I can be gentle, curious and non-judgmental of myself, maybe I will be heading in the right direction.  More yoga, more emotion and more connection.  Namaste.

Live on!
-Kristy

From Funk to Friends- finding reconnection

Let's see how many of my friends read my blog!  Haha!

I'm in a funk.  Yup.  A compete funkfest.  I'd love to blame it all on the season but I am afraid it 's more than that.  The weather here has been beautiful with the exception of today, so it's not just the fall blues.  I'm not feeling down all of the time.  I have moments of funklessness.  But for the most part, I am feeling low and melancholy.  Oh, and when I say melancholy I mean I could totally spend this dreary day at my favorite cemetery reading Sylvia Plath and listening to my poor-me playlist.  "Did she just say her favorite cemetery?"  The thing is, I think I could fix this.  I know what I need to do.  It's just getting my sad ass up and doing it.  What I need to do is eat, (obviously, duh) and connect; both with others and myself.  These two things seem so simple.  Eat and connect.  Voila!  The problem with depression is it likes to keep me idle and detached.  It disables me from moving forward.  The role of the depression is to lock me up and throw away the key.  Logically, I know what to do.  I just have to shake this devil off my back.

Friends Under the Rain 

by Leonid Afremov

 

So, here is a shout out to all of my friends:  you will most likely be getting a call from me.  I know, sit by your phones, have your Skype up and running.  I'm coming out of my hole.  I have some amazing life-long friends and some incredible newer comrades.  One friend in particular has been in my life just a few years and in that time she has always been there for me.  I know if I needed her she would come running.  I just have a hard time asking.  She needs me too.  However, since I hit these patches, I tend to isolate and hermit myself.  In short, I haven't been putting out the effort.  I have not been the greatest friend.  What do I expect in return?  I have friends I haven't heard from in a while and I take that personally.  Maybe I am too much.  I am too overwhelming.  I have outworn my welcome.  Used up my friendship card.  This can't be true for all of my friends.  The phone works both ways.  The people who don't want to be here will show themselves out and some have.  But not everyone.  The people who have been in my life have proven that they don't mind that I am...well...me!  I have to remind myself, it's not always about me.  The friends I haven't heard from might be going through their own "funk" and I would know that if I put the effort in and connected with them.  Instead, I tend to turn it into a "me" thing.  No more.  Phones will be ringing, texts will be sent, reconnection will be established.  If any of my friends are reading this, you have been warned.

What I  also need to do is go over the list of people I have in my life and the people I want in my life.  I must let go of the people who have made it clear that a relationship with me is not a necessity for them, and really focus on the people who do what to know me.  For too long I have been wasting my time forcing relationships with people who don't need it as much as I do.  I have to let those go.  I have to quit trying to change me for them.  I will never be everything for everybody.  Kristy is not everyone's cup of tea and I truly have to accept that.  I need to put my energy back into the circle of people who are important to me and those I want to have a relationship with.  Those who really want to be in it with me.

I think once I make that human connection with that important circle again, the eating part will come more naturally.  An eating disorder really wants its host to be alone.  It's easier to survive if there is no one around to challenge the rigid and crazy rules and behaviors.  One is so much easier to control when there is a disconnect with people and feelings.  Connection is the eating disorder's enemy.  If I can force myself to take that step, accept me as I am, and see that my loved ones do too, I believe the food piece will fall back into place.  So here I go, one reach-out at a time.  I'm calling.

"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you.  You just got to find the ones worth suffering for."  -Bob Marley

-Kristy

What The? -10 random things I learned while traveling abroad-

I just returned home from visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Australia.  The two of them moved there three years ago and I finally made it out to see them.  I brought my 9 year old son on his first trip anywhere.  We had an amazing time.  I have to say, I learned some interesting things about myself and the world on this first trip abroad.  Here are some of my random realizations, in no particular order:

10.  I am not as prepared for world travel as I thought I was.  Go to Bali?  India?  Brazil?  Of course I can.  After all, I now have a passport!  I would love to!  However, after this first international trip, I have learned that perhaps it is not as easy as I thought to seamlessly slip into another culture.  I mean, I was in an English-speaking country for crying out loud!  I still had issues figuring out which coin was which.  What was the woman with the accent was saying?  Which direction is north?  Driving on the right hand side?  Terrifying!  Finding food I recognized? Help!  Grams?  Litres?  If all of this was a shock to me in Australia, what on earth would I do in a significantly different foreign country?  Australia is a great place for me to practice being out of my comfort zone.  I realized I need to get out more!

9.  Skip looks on a 24 hour travel mission.  Go for comfort!  From my house to my destination we were traveling for 24 hours.  One flight alone was 14 hours long.  Now, I don't want to go into a lot of detail about this, but let's just say my yoga pants were fine during the long travel.  What I was wearing underneath the yoga pants was not fine.  And a bra?  Oh heck no!  A supportive tank top or sports bra is the way to go.  From now on it is comfort over cute when traveling.

8.  Study up!  A "napkin" means something completely different in Australia than it does in the US.  A "fanny pack" is apparently not a little purse-like pouch one wears around their waist.  I could have spared myself some embarrassing moments if I had studied up on my Aussie lingo a bit more prior to my trip.

7.  I am not a pleasant person on a 6 hour drive in a cramped car.  I don't like waking up from naps or riding in a car for long periods of time.  On this trip I had to do both simultaneously. I later had to apologize to my hosts for any foul language I may have spouted out and for calling my brother-in-law a jerk.  Thank goodness we're all family.

6.  What? I have an accent?   "I'll have the raspberry muffin please."  Apparently my accent was difficult for the baker to understand.  "Oh you mean rosburry?"  "Ummmm yeah. ROSBURRY."

5.  I am not actually afraid of flying.  In a previous blog post I wrote about my fear of flying.  I discovered though that while I don't particularly care for take-off or landing, what really makes me nervous is the navigating of the airport.  The process of getting through security, customs, passports, boarding passes, baggage, lines, strange airports.  All of the chaos of getting from here to there is the real issue.  I don't like turbulence or the loud noise of the plane.  But I am not particularly afraid of being up in the air once I am there.  Once I am up, it is actually a sense of relief!

4.  I don't need any stinking makeup!  I for the first time since I was probably 14 years old I went completely makeup free for two weeks.  Granted I don't normally wear a lot of makeup but consciously not bringing any with me was slightly nerve wrecking!  I have to say, I spent much less time in the mirror while on this trip.  My hair got combed at best.  There was just too much to do to worry about how I looked.  I noticed I was much less self-conscious.  It was all sand, sun and adventure.  I really didn't care what I looked like.  What a relief!

3.  The world is really big!  Since I have never been anywhere besides the US, I finally got to see another piece of the world.  I mean, I knew the Pacific Ocean was big but when one is flying over it for hours and hours...and hours it is monstrous!  I felt so small and insignificant while flying in that huge, yet small and insignificant jet.  It has never taken me more than 7 hours to get anywhere.  This journey around the planet was eye-opening and awe-inspiring.

2.  The world is so small.  On the other side of the world there were so many differences: Styles, accents, geography.  Yet, there were a great many similarities as well.  I would notice all the things I recognized from home: kindness in people, some of the same songs on the radio.  A sign for Coca-Cola or a Subway sandwich shop.  It reminded me of our unity and humanity.  We are so far apart from each other, but so much the same.

1.  Don't touch it!  It will probably kill you!  From poisonous toads to extreme electrical outlets, this place was deadly!  All the things I was comfortable with at home went out the window in Australia.  See that spider?  DON'T TOUCH IT!  That kangaroo there?  IT COULD KICK YOU!  My sister actually had to tell me to back off from the 5 ft (1.524 m) wild carpet python.  Cars have the right of way over pedestrians so even crossing the street has to be thought about more carefully!  Apparently I feel safe at home and all common sense was lost.  It really is a miracle I survived.
So there it is.  Just a little of what I learned.  These are strange things that I did not take into consideration before.  Now I know some helpful tips that will make my next adventure go so much more smoothly.  Oh, and I had better start brushing up on my metric conversions before returning to Australia.

Live on,

-Kristy