All the tears

If I had an American dollar for every tear I’ve leaked in the past couple of days, we’d be able to set up the Shauna Memorial Tears And Snot Scholarship to help thousands of people come here to Green Mountain.

I’d figured after 30+ years on the diet/binge hamster wheel, there’d be stuff to work through, but part of me thought I’d rock up in Vermont with my reporter’s hat on and cruise through the weeks, sharing my experience with you awesome people hopefully in a helpful way, while picking up some insights and practical tools to help me with the bingeing.

I didn’t realise there was so much lurking just beneath the surface. It’s like a calm (yet uptight) river is being dredged, and all the bodies, cars, and abandoned shopping trolleys are coming up.

They create such a beautifully safe environment here. They put on all these physical activities that invite you to move and reconnect your brain to your body. They feed you nicely. They guide you through these clever, crafty programs of learning and experiences that seem to have been magically engineered to unlock everything.

To top it off, I've been lucky to make new friends who get it, which is guaranteed to get the tears (and wild cackling laughs) flowing.

And then there is a beautiful big golden doodle dog wandering around with gigantic feet and gentle eyes that seem to speak to your soul and say sweetly, HEY LADY, WHY U SAD?

So I’m raw and red-eyed and unravelled. But at the same time, this is fun and fascinating and genuinely hilarious. I feel alive and hopeful, so it all feels very necessary.

Also: every day starts with the best Greek-style yoghurt in the universe! That alone could make a grown woman cry.

I partnered with Green Mountain at Fox Run, in which I received a three-week stay at Green Mountain in February 2018, in exchange for writing about my experience. The stay included the Green Mountain core and Pathway programs at the Women’s Center for Binge & Emotional Eating. I covered my travel expenses. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Update, January 2019 - Green Mountain has now closed.