Matt Breen: Welcome to the R4R podcast. My name is Matt. I’m here with a new guest today, who we’ll introduce shortly.

The idea behind this podcast is to share stories, talk about mental health, and champion whatever’s going on in our community to keep it growing stronger. We believe that a suicide-free Canberra is possible, and we believe that one way to achieve that is to share stories, not just from myself, Benny and others who are familiar faces with the audience, but everyone from within the R4R community.

So we hope that we’ll get many guests and many hosts, which we’ve got planned, and it’s exciting. But today we’ve got Lili, R4R GIF champion, and I believe Batemans Bay Half Marathon champion.

Lili Mooney: I’m very glad you mentioned it.

Matt Breen: We’ll talk about it later because I think we’re going to get into it pretty quick. Lili, you have your fingerprints all over R4R in a way I don’t think you saw coming.

Lili Mooney: Definitely not. No.

Matt Breen: The newsletter we started maybe three, four years ago?

Lili Mooney: Yeah, 2021.

Matt Breen: And you were the second?

Lili Mooney: I was the second.

Matt Breen: I was just having a read before. We didn’t know where it was going to go. We just wanted to build familiarity within the community, but we asked you a question about the hardest moment in your life, and you shared something that kind of tilted us on a good path.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. Well, I don’t actually think I know if we’ve ever spoken about why I chose to share that. I remember you messaging me with the questions and asking if I would like to take part in the survey, or the get to know the runners, and of course I did.

I remember messaging you back saying, “Well, how deep do you want me to go here? Is this taking it a bit too far if I share this?” And you said, “Share whatever you feel comfortable with.”

And I thought, “Okay, let’s go for it.”

There were sort of two reasons why I did it.

Matt Breen: What did you share?

Lili Mooney: I shared that I had suffered from an eating disorder. I was diagnosed when I was 15, and I was in and out of treatment until I was about 22.

It obviously had a huge impact on my life and my family’s life, and continues, I guess, in a way to have an impact on my life.

It’s not something I speak about all that often. People that know me, I don’t hide from it. People that know me know that’s what happened and what I went through. But I never really spoke about it publicly.

When you asked me those questions, the first reason was it kind of felt like I wasn’t being super genuine if I didn’t answer the way that I did.

But the main reason was that when I was diagnosed with anorexia, I was 15. So obviously quite young. And that’s also now, what, 15, 16 years ago? So quite a long time.

I feel like mental illness in my circle anyway, we were all teenagers, and it wasn’t spoken about as much as it might be now. So when I was diagnosed, there was a lot going on. I was obviously in denial, but I was ashamed and I was embarrassed.

There are all those memes about mental health and being, you know, the psych ward patient. And that was my reality. At some points, I was in a locked psych ward. And I felt really ashamed by that.

I thought that everyone else had their life perfectly together and I was the only one that was going through anything bad.

As I got older, I realised that’s not the case. A lot of people have things going on. It doesn’t have to be a mental illness, but most people at some point have a chapter in their life that’s not ideal.

But knowing that, I would still log onto social media and see people in my community, my friends, people I went to school with, and just think, “Oh, their life is so perfect. Mine’s not like that.”

Matt Breen: You remember thinking that?

Lili Mooney: Yeah. And I don’t know if anyone has ever looked at me and thought that, but I thought when you asked me those questions, maybe there’s someone in the R4R community that has seen me at the runs and thought, “Wow, that girl’s got everything together,” and they were ashamed by something they were going through, or embarrassed, or struggling, and felt alone.

I thought if I can help one person by sharing my story and showing that it’s not all what it seems, then that’s a win.

I actually never thought about the impact that it would have on other people feeling comfortable to share their stories. But that was a really cool thing that unfolded over the next few weeks and months with the Meet the Runners. It was really cool to see people feeling comfortable to share their stories and helping people see that you’re not alone and everyone goes through things.

Matt Breen: And now where we are. Podcast. What you just did there, I don’t think many people can do that. So well done. And we’ll go a bit deeper.

Lili Mooney: I actually really struggle to say that I’m proud of myself a lot of the time, but I’m really proud of that having had that impact on Running for Resilience all those years ago.

As I said, I struggle saying that I’m proud of things I’ve done, but that was something that when you and Ben reference it to this day, it makes me feel really good that I’ve had that impact and helped in that way.

Matt Breen: I get goosebumps from that now. I know Benny articulates it pretty well, where he goes, “Shit, somebody else has got something going on in their life.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it in real life, where people’s shoulders relax when they see someone else going through something similar. And they go, “Oh, thank God I’m not alone.”

You said you felt ashamed, and part of that is because you thought you were the only one that was going through what you were going through. Is that true?

Lili Mooney: That I thought I was the only one, or that I was ashamed?

Matt Breen: That you were the only one.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. I think especially when I was first diagnosed, I was 15 and quite young, and new. I’d never experienced any mental health issues. I’d never been around that sort of environment.

I think I had a very basic understanding. I didn’t even really have a full understanding of what anorexia was.

I was in denial for years about it. I didn’t think that I would have that. Then you get put in hospital or treatment, and suddenly all these things are happening to you, and I just felt like a bit of a train wreck.

I thought, “How has this happened?” And I felt embarrassed that I’d put this on my family, my parents and my two younger brothers. I just felt ashamed of it.

Matt Breen: Do you remember the first time that you thought something was up? I know you said you were in denial, but the first time you had to push back on what people were telling you?

Lili Mooney: I think the first time I realised within myself that something probably wasn’t right, I started disordered eating when I started high school.

I started when I was 11 and a half, or almost 12. So quite young.

Matt Breen: What does that look like?

Lili Mooney: It was subconscious. I didn’t realise that’s what I was doing. I had just sort of worked out that if I ate less, I felt better.

I was always a pretty normal kid. I was sporty and I wasn’t overweight or big, and I’d never really seen myself as that. So it wasn’t like I was trying to lose weight.

I think I was just really stressed about starting high school. It seems silly now as an adult to be like that, because you’re not grown up when you start high school, but that’s what it was at the time.

Matt Breen: Exactly. And that’s all you can know.

Lili Mooney: That’s all you know. And so at that point in my life, I was just stressed about all those changes. You’re sort of going through puberty and there are things happening. There was just a lot going on at that time.

I had sort of worked out that if I ate less, I felt better.

At the same time, which kind of contradicts what I just said, there was obviously no social media at that point, but the “it girls” at that time were Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Britney Spears, and they were always on the front cover of magazines, which I would see when I was in the shops with Mum.

It was all about their weight. They were all very thin, and that was the look that was in. The headlines were focusing on their weight.

So I think at the same time as not wanting to grow up, I was kind of like, “Oh well, I’m growing up now, and this is what women do when they grow up. They don’t eat.”

So it was a weird mix.

Throughout my high school years, I was in and out of heavy restriction, and then I would sort of pull myself out and eat a bit more.

Matt Breen: When you say heavy restriction, like you’re not eating much at all?

Lili Mooney: Yeah. Just really, really trying to limit what I ate. And consciously at this time. I think as I got a bit older, I started to consciously connect the dots. The guilt and anxiety I would feel if I ate.

So I would be like, “It’s better not to eat as much.” That was how I managed it.

I didn’t really know what a calorie was. My understanding of a diet was like, you know, chocolate and ice cream bad, apples good. It wasn’t as intense as it got later. That was just my very basic understanding and the way I went about those years.

I was also very into running. I think there was a big focus on the fact that if I was running and I was doing relatively well, there couldn’t be any issue going on with my eating.

Matt Breen: You said before we came in here, when I told you not to use up all your gold, that you didn’t have a traditional way of getting into an eating disorder, if there is such a thing. It sounds like you sort of fell into it over many years.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. And I think that was the harder thing about trying to climb back out of it. It was all I’d known for so many years.

Matt Breen: You’d built up habits.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. And that’s honestly what I struggle with today as well. I don’t really remember a time where I didn’t think a certain way about food. It is what it is.

Matt Breen: Let’s jump a few years. Jump straight to that. When you say you struggle with it today, how is it the same, but how is it different for you? Because obviously you look after yourself a lot better now. What’s different?

Lili Mooney: What’s different is I can eat now, and I know that I have to eat.

I think I put a lot more thought into what I eat than maybe the average person, and I definitely have a lot more anxiety around food.

Those that spend a lot of time with me sometimes get very frustrated with my inability to choose things, but then also my very quickly snapping into that real hangry kind of vibe.

Matt Breen: We’ve all been there.

Lili Mooney: You’re not you when you’re hungry.

It’s always funny because I relearn this almost every day. I suddenly eat something and then I’m like, “Oh, it’s actually not that bad. I can cope with everything.”

Matt Breen: It looks like you’re able to bring some humour into it as well. Do you think you’ve comprehended what you’ve been through enough where you can laugh? Not laugh at yourself, but I certainly can with myself. Do you find the same?

Lili Mooney: Yeah. Well, sometimes if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, so sometimes that’s the best thing.

I actually bumped into a nurse that used to look after me a lot in the paediatric ward a couple of weeks ago, and I hadn’t seen her for years obviously. I am the first to admit that I was a pain. I was a brat.

I was a teenager, and I was also going through a lot at the time. So I apologised to her, and she said, “You don’t need to apologise at all. We knew that you were going through something incredibly difficult.”

Because obviously my anxiety was around food, and I had to eat six times a day. So six times a day I was freaking out.

But it was actually a really nice chat because it was sort of full circle. We were able to laugh and remember some of the more bizarre things I used to do. It was really nice to see her.

Matt Breen: What was that time like where you were in care?

Lili Mooney: Interesting.

That’s when I sort of get flashbacks now to when I was in that acute inpatient setting and just sometimes think, “Surely that wasn’t the same person,” because some of the things I used to do were truly bizarre.

I spent a lot of time in hospital. I was first admitted when I was 15 to the paediatric ward, which was just a general paediatric ward. It wasn’t specialised for eating disorders.

Matt Breen: How does that happen? How do you get admitted? Your parents are concerned?

Lili Mooney: Yeah. So I started doing an outpatient day program, and that’s when I was formally diagnosed at the start of 2010. I was 15, and it was also the start of year 11.

Circling back to when I said I started restricting when I was starting high school, starting college or year 11 was another big change. I was someone that didn’t really know what they wanted to do. I felt like everyone around me had plans for the future and what they wanted to do when they finished school, and I didn’t. So I was very stressed.

There was a lot going on in your life at that stage. You’re getting older, things are happening. That’s when I really just couldn’t pull myself out of the heavy restriction.

My parents noticed, obviously. They’d noticed the entire time. They were always on my case about things, but they were like, “This is going too far.”

Matt Breen: It’s gradual, which is hard to draw a line, but there was a point where they said, “Yeah.”

Lili Mooney: Yeah. So they took me to a psychologist at the end of year 10, and that was a complete waste of time. I think I said 10 words to her the entire four sessions we went in. I just sort of looked at my feet and shrugged.

So then she said, “Look, we’re not getting anywhere here.” And they got me involved with the eating disorder program, which is when I started a day program. That’s when I started more formal treatment. I had to be weighed once a week. I had a meal plan. They were very strict on no exercise.

I started doing all of that treatment for a couple of months, but my weight was just going down. They had certain criteria for when you had to be admitted to hospital, and when I met that criteria, they were like, “Into hospital you go.”

Matt Breen: Into hospital. And is it the normal hospital, like Canberra Hospital?

Lili Mooney: Yeah, it was just Canberra Hospital, in the paediatric ward. As I said, it was where I needed to be at the time, but it wasn’t specialised.

I guess that’s where I feel the guilt, because I had all the nurses and all the other staff at the hospital just trying to do their job, and they had this very intense teenager who didn’t want to be there, and was a pain, who they had to manage eating six times a day.

I was tube-fed for a long time as well, and I used to play around with that. They had to somehow manage that as well as all their other patients.

Matt Breen: How long were you there for?

Lili Mooney: That time I was there for quite a few months. Then I came out, and then I went back in, and then I came out again. I was in and out.

Then I went up to Sydney to a clinic called Northside Clinic, which has a specialised eating disorder floor. I was one of the younger ones there because you had to be 16 and older to go to that clinic, so that was not the right place for me at the time.

Matt Breen: Do you remember your thinking at the time? I know you said you look back and go, “It was so bizarre,” but do you remember what was going on inside your head? Was there any sort of rational objective or logical thought?

Lili Mooney: I don’t think so. I kept a diary for most of that period, and it’s quite interesting to go back and read it because I wasn’t thinking straight at all.

I didn’t think I needed to be there. That’s where a lot of my issues came from, because I didn’t want to be there, but I also didn’t think I needed to be there. I thought everyone was being dramatic. There was nothing wrong with me.

I had that unhealthy way of being like, “I’m not thin enough to be treated for anorexia,” which I know now is not right, but that’s what I thought at the time.

Obviously my weight and all that was low, so I did need to be there, but it was hard for me to see that.

Matt Breen: I think everyone in the moment of whatever struggle they’re going through sees it because you’re right at the coalface. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

Do you remember a moment where it shifted? Because you said the way you got out of it was a little bit different as well. Do you remember the moment it shifted, or that first moment where you go, “Ah, maybe I can do something about this,” or, “I want to do something about this”?

Lili Mooney: I think it took quite a few years because when you’re in that kind of environment, everything revolves around what your next meal is. Have you ticked it off? I used to have people come and tick if I had my morning tea or cross if I didn’t.

I was being weighed two or three times a week, and everything revolved around whether I had eaten and what my weight was.

People kept telling me, “There’s a beautiful life out there for you to live, and you’re wasting your life. You’re wasting the best years of your life in hospital, and you’ll look back on this and regret it.”

It’s very hard when you’re in that mindset and in that environment to see how. From my perspective, at this stage I was 19. I hadn’t finished school. I hadn’t got my licence. I’d pretty much lost contact with a lot of my friends. I didn’t have good relationships with my immediate family because we were constantly having World War III at every mealtime.

I couldn’t see what else there was for me because everything I had to do to get to that normal life that all my friends and peers were living just seemed like such a big ask.

Matt Breen: And you didn’t want to do it as well?

Lili Mooney: It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it. I just couldn’t see how I could do it because there were so many steps that I had to take to get even remotely close to where I should be as a 19-year-old.

Matt Breen: Did you come across somebody else’s story that helped you?

Lili Mooney: I read so many stories, and people were always giving me stories or telling me about people. I think when I was in that really bad mindset, I was always like, “Yeah, but they’ve got something to live for and I don’t. They’re good at this. They’re pretty. They’re whatever. They’re better people.”

I just didn’t think that I was any of that. So what was the point?

Matt Breen: Who did you rest on? Family would have played a massive part.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. My parents. I always say I wouldn’t be here today without them. They went above and beyond. I don’t know, I guess because they’re my parents, maybe they should, but they were just there every step of the way.

We went through it all. Arguing, all the emotions, crying, everything. I feel bad now about what I put them through, but I’m also so grateful for them. We have a really good relationship now.

They were just there every step of the way.

My mum got me enrolled in the vocational college at CIT because she was very big on, “You need to finish school.” It wasn’t an option for me to go back to my old school because it was just too hard to go back and be in a younger year group.

She used to drop me there, and I only went once a week at the start, just one class. But that was sort of the beginning of me being like, “Oh, there is more out there.”

Matt Breen: That was the beginning?

Lili Mooney: Yeah. And I would sit in a class where no one knew me. No one knew that I was Lili with anorexia. I wasn’t the anorexic girl. It was just, “This is Lili.”

No one was asking, “Did you eat today?” or all that. So it just gave me a break from my life. I used to love going to that. It was every Tuesday.

Matt Breen: Isn’t that interesting? The change causes stress initially, but it was almost your outlet to reverse it all as well.

Lili Mooney: Yeah.

Matt Breen: I could see you, and sorry if this is a bit of a hand grenade, I could see you get a bit emotional, but in a good way, about your parents.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. Like you said, a lot of gratitude. My whole family. My grandparents, my brothers, my sister. We all went through it.

There was a really good quote. I think it was on 60 Minutes years ago, one of the first interviews they did on someone with anorexia. It was this young girl called Bronty, and her family sort of said, “Bronty didn’t have anorexia. The whole family had anorexia.”

I was like, “It’s so true.” So unfortunately true.

My poor younger brothers going through high school and having to deal with my problems. I feel very bad about that.

Matt Breen: I know you feel bad, but are you also able to be kind to yourself as well?

Lili Mooney: Yeah. I think now the relationship that I have with my brothers in particular, because they’re younger than me, is really good. They don’t live in Canberra anymore, but we’re still incredibly close. I love them so much and I’m so thankful for them, and thankful that we’ve moved past that phase.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually told them, but they were a huge part of me getting better. They don’t know it.

Matt Breen: How so?

Lili Mooney: When I was a little bit older, I think I was 22, my brother was in year 12 and he was turning 18. He was growing up, doing what brothers are doing. It was a weird feeling when it’s your younger brother as well, and it’s kind of like, “He’s more advanced than me.”

But I think just watching him go through that, turning 18 and getting his licence and all of that kind of thing, I just thought, “Well, why can’t I do that? He’s living his life. There’s no reason why I can’t either.”

It really motivated me to keep going, to keep pushing ahead and keep moving in the right direction.

Matt Breen: There are a couple of things coming to my mind, and they’re all good things.

One, I think I spoke about it with Benny in the first episode, is that resilience safety net. You had your family, your friends, your brothers, your grandparents, your parents, and they were there to help catch you when you fall.

But then you’re also saying it’s the power of community as well. When you see others doing well, you kind of want to join in. It helped drag you out of what you were going through.

When was the first time you felt normal?

Lili Mooney: Do I ever feel normal?

Matt Breen: That’s a good question. That gets philosophical. But there was a moment where I felt normal, and it gave me hope that I wasn’t going to be controlled by this thing hanging in the back of my head, and this uncontrollable fight or flight that was just with me for three months.

I got a bit of normality for half an hour and I was like, “Thank God. I’m going to be okay.” Or at least in the moment I thought that.

Do you remember having that moment?

Lili Mooney: I don’t know if I remember a particular moment, but I guess there was a period of time when I was 22 and I’d stopped any formal treatment. I was just living my life.

That’s honestly what helped me, taking the shift away from my eating disorder and focusing on me as a person, not an illness, and what I wanted to do. Not revolving my life around appointments and therapy.

I think there was just a period of time there where I had weight-restored myself, which I think is actually a pretty key point in recovery. As I said before, you’re not you when you’re hungry. The reality was I’d been hungry for 10-plus years.

I remember the doctors always telling me that it takes a little while once you’re weight restored for your brain to catch up, and for things to seem a bit easier or clearer. I never believed that because I would be like, “Well, I was at a healthy weight then and everything still felt the same.”

But in reality, I was at a healthy weight for not very long before I then lost weight again. So my brain, I guess, never had a chance to catch up.

I had been weight restored for a few months. I had deferred uni, so I didn’t have that stress. I was just working full-time and figuring out my next move.

I remember being out for dinner with a friend one night, and normally that would be a huge thing because it would take up so much bandwidth. I would either not do it, spend weeks stressing about it, or lie about eating.

But I was there eating, and I just thought, “This is so much simpler than it has been.”

That’s when it clicked to me. I was like, “I need to go back to uni.”

Matt Breen: You felt like you were ready.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. Life was a lot easier to cope with when I wasn’t hungry.

Matt Breen: Bit of a thought experiment. That girl who was shrugging her shoulders in the psychology room, or that girl who was fiddling with the cords in the paediatric ward, if you could walk into the room and see her, what would you say? Would you say anything? What would you do? Or would you just sit there and be there?

Lili Mooney: I think I’d first of all give her a big hug. And I would say, “You are enough. Just being you is enough, and you don’t have to make yourself seem better. Just being you is enough.”

Then I think I would just sit there for a while.

Not that I ever felt alone, because as I said, I had my parents there.

Matt Breen: But you were on your own in your own struggle.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. Or at least it felt that way.

I appreciate that if you’ve never had an eating disorder or disordered eating, it’s a very bizarre thing to try and wrap your head around.

My poor grandparents, my granddad in particular, love him to bits, and he’s done so well, but I can imagine how frustrating it was for him to sit there and see this very slim girl just refusing to eat.

Matt Breen: Why won’t she eat?

Lili Mooney: Yeah. It just doesn’t make sense.

It’s very hard for other people who haven’t been in that position to understand the anxiety and the guilt, and what drives that very bizarre behaviour.

Matt Breen: I think that’s key. If you haven’t been through something, you don’t know what the other person’s going through.

I certainly judge mental health differently even after my dad’s passing, until I went through my own. I was like, “Oh man, I have a lot more sympathy and empathy for my dad now because of what I’ve been through.”

I can only imagine what your family would have gone through.

You walk out of the room after being with yourself for a bit, and you see your parents in the hallway. What would you tell them?

Lili Mooney: I’m a big crier, so I probably would cry. It is emotional, of course, thinking back to some of those dark days and just the helplessness that they must have felt.

Seeing their daughter. I probably didn’t even seem like their daughter anymore. Dad used to call me a zombie because I would just sit in the family room at home and listen to their conversations, but I couldn’t be bothered contributing because it took too much energy.

I would just sit there and he’d be like, “You’re a zombie.” Like, “You’re not doing anything.”

It would be so hard for them to just watch that, and frustrating at the same time because they just wanted me to be better. It seems so simple, what I had to do.

I think I would just give them a hug and thank them.

Matt Breen: There’s a bit of it. It’s frustrating, isn’t it, that there’s no quick fix for something like that. It’s a lot of enduring, patience and support.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. And trust. It’s a hard one because it is like an addiction, but with other addictions you can live without the substance. You can’t live without food.

So six times a day, I was having to face that. It makes it tricky because the reality is you have to have food. I had to eat to get over it, but that was also what was causing me so much stress.

Matt Breen: I’m very impressed with how you’re talking about this right now. I can see why you’re proud of how you tilted R4R in a certain way. I can see how you should be proud of how you’re talking about this now.

How has it made you a better person? Your family, you said you’ve got a great relationship with your family now. You seem to be comprehending it really well. Are you better for it?

Lili Mooney: That’s a tricky one.

Matt Breen: Why?

Lili Mooney: I think it depends on the day. Sometimes I get really frustrated by how long it took me to get to this point. I think back to years where I maybe didn’t put in as much effort as I could have to get to this point, but the reality is that’s what happened.

Matt Breen: Youth is wasted on the young.

Lili Mooney: Exactly. I think when I have those moments, it’s when I’m in a crisis about being in my 30s. I think, “Well, you wasted half your 20s.”

I don’t know if it’s made me a better person. Actually, it probably has made me more resilient because I think back to the places I was in, and the deep holes that I dug myself in, and I managed to get out of them.

So if I think now to other things that I will probably face in the future, I can lean back on that. Not necessarily the tools because it’s probably a different situation, but just the fact that I did get through it is probably enough.

Matt Breen: A bit of evidence in your back pocket.

Lili Mooney: Yeah.

Matt Breen: And it can be used for good things, like the Batemans Bay Half Marathon.

Seriously though, when I ran my first marathon, I was telling myself, “It’ll get hard, but I’ll be ready.” That was kind of my mantra. “I know it’s going to get hard, but I’ll be ready. I’ll push through.”

How does your previous struggle with eating disorders and your endurance to get through it, but then your overcoming as well, show up in your everyday life now? Or even in the Batemans Bay Half Marathon?

Lili Mooney: I’m incredibly stubborn. So I think that probably helps. I like to stick to what I’m going to do.

It’s funny that you mention the Batemans Bay Half Marathon because I don’t know if you know that I did it last year as well.

Matt Breen: Are you two back-to-back champion?

Lili Mooney: Not quite. I was running in first place at 19K.

Matt Breen: Yeah?

Lili Mooney: Don’t know what happened. Completely passed out. It was a really hot day.

Matt Breen: You were going really hard. Got heat stroke.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. I had a little bit of extra motivation this year to redeem myself.

Matt Breen: To not pass out.

Lili Mooney: To not pass out. Get to the finish line standing.

I sometimes don’t know if my drive for running is because I do have that exercise push in my head from the eating disorder days, or actually, probably more, I’ve always loved exercise. But that definitely did play a part of it.

Matt Breen: It’s interesting because we spoke about how change caused stress, but then change was also really good for you, getting into finishing your Year 12 certificate.

And then you go, okay, exercise and stubbornness would have not been great during the hard times, but now you’re leveraging, I guess, let’s call them predispositions, like stubbornness. I know I’m stubborn. It can be a good thing.

Lili Mooney: Definitely. I obviously love running, and I did love running before I got really unwell.

Then there was a long period of time where I never wanted to run again because it brought back a lot of bad memories. I don’t think running is what caused me to get unwell, but it definitely wasn’t very pleasant there for a while when I was using it as a tool to cope with my guilt.

But now I do think that I have a very healthy relationship with it, and I do it because it makes me feel good mentally.

Matt Breen: It’s a different association.

Lili Mooney: Yeah.

I remember the first fun run that I did when I got back into running. I started running because of the stress of uni in my final year, and it just felt good.

Then I saw that there was a 5K fun run coming up for Lifeline. I really wanted to do it because Lifeline, I’ve personally used it, but I also have had friends, or people I went through treatment with, who unfortunately took their own lives. So it’s very close to my heart.

I wanted to take part in that fun run. Mum and I did it together, and the feeling that I got finishing that 5K was euphoric. It was incredible.

I just felt on top of the world, and I thought, “This is the feeling that I used to get before running turned sour for me.”

Then we started parkrun, and eight years later we’re here.

Matt Breen: I get goosebumps again because I imagine that run would have been quite symbolic. Almost like a new chapter, or the end of a chapter from so many perspectives.

Lili Mooney: It was. The fact that I was running. I was able to run, first of all, physically, and I could do it in a way that was sustainable and healthy.

The fact that Mum, bless her, came with me and did it with me. And that it was for a good cause, and it was good vibes and good community. All of that combined, I just felt like this is the best feeling.

Matt Breen: Calling Lifeline. I know there’s definitely somebody who’ll be listening to this that might be scared to reach for help.

Like you, I’ve followed a different path in my own journey. I feel like I’ve been quite lucky in that I’ve been able to internalise in a healthy way and come up with good conclusions. I never really asked for help, and it’s hard to ask for help sometimes, especially if you don’t know what’s going on in your head, or if you’re scared about the person, for lack of a better term, turning around and saying, “Yeah, you’re messed up.”

That’s what scared me before I spoke to people.

Do you remember the moment you decided to call them?

Lili Mooney: Yes. I was by myself. I was really upset. I was in a very bad place for a whole range of reasons.

I think I’d had a big fight with Mum and Dad about dinner, and this was when I did have my licence, so I’d just taken off.

I just didn’t think I could do it anymore. It had been years. I couldn’t see how, because we were just having these same fights and it was almost like Groundhog Day for me. Every day was just the same over and over again.

In that moment, I was so alone, physically and mentally. I was like, “No one understands this. No one understands what I’m going through.”

It was just having that conversation with someone, and it was almost like a distraction because they just were asking me what was going on.

Matt Breen: What was hearing the ringtone like? You dial the number, and obviously there’s something in you that wants to feel better. What’s going through your mind?

Lili Mooney: I think there was part of me, the negative part of my brain, that was like, “Why are you being so dramatic?”

Matt Breen: You were being critical of yourself.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. Like, “Why? Just get on with it.”

Then the other part of my brain was like, “I need someone to talk to. I just need someone here to talk to.”

I always have this thing when I’m really upset where I don’t want to worry other people. Even now I do it. If I send a message or talk to someone, I’ll always end it with, “But I’m fine.” I don’t want other people to get worried about me.

Matt Breen: I don’t think you’re alone there. Nobody wants to be a burden.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. So I guess I’m very fortunate that I lived right near my grandparents, and I was very close with them, so I could have gone around to their place. But I didn’t want to because I didn’t want to burden them with another episode of Lili and Mum and Dad having a fight over food for the ninth year in a row.

I felt alone, but I just needed someone.

Matt Breen: And then after the call, how did you feel?

Lili Mooney: I was still upset because there were still things that I had to go back home and face, and I still had to get up and do it all tomorrow.

But I think it just took me out of that acute, “I can’t do this.” It got me through that stage and got me back up to that level of, “Okay, this is hard.”

Matt Breen: It gave you a boost.

Lili Mooney: Yeah, it gave me a boost. That was enough to get me through that particular moment.

Then I remember I just sat by myself for a bit in the car, and eventually I came home. My parents were always so forgiving. I can’t remember exactly what happened after that, but I guarantee they would have just given me a hug.

Matt Breen: You’ve got good parents, it sounds like.

I can see why you’ve become such a big part of R4R. You’ve obviously got your personal stuff, and then you said you had friends you’ve lost as well, or people you’ve come across.

When you first came across R4R, was it just another running group, or was it the story? Both are fine, but what was your introduction to R4R?

Lili Mooney: Ben, because I knew Ben from parkrun, was saying, “You should come along.” Then I think it may have stopped for a few weeks with that first COVID.

But when it started back up again, I think in May from memory, that’s when I started coming.

There were two things. I was really getting into joining running groups again because I had always run alone and I didn’t want to run with other people. But through doing parkrun and meeting people, I was really loving running in groups.

The second one was that I’m very passionate about promoting positive mental health. For my life at the moment, obviously I’m not needing acute treatment or therapy, but everyone still has those days where you’re like, “It’s just been one of those weeks,” or there are a few things going on.

Matt Breen: That’s what I love.

Lili Mooney: Exactly. Running for Resilience is great for that because it’s that boost that I need, with the community and seeing other people.

Matt Breen: I think you referenced it in your podcast, but just getting out of your own head. That’s one of the things that has certainly helped my own. It’s so perfectly described because sometimes you are just in your head, and you need to be somewhere else for a moment.

Whether it’s playing footy, watching a TV show, talking to someone, it’s just a reset for your thinking. You enter the evening with a different perspective.

Lili Mooney: I always leave in such a good mood when I’m driving out of that car park in Kingston.

Matt Breen: Why do you think that is?

Lili Mooney: Sometimes I’ll finish work, and especially in winter when it’s cold and dark and windy, I think, “I can just run from home or I can run from work and get it done.”

But I always feel so much better when I leave because I’ve talked to people. Even if I haven’t spoken to heaps of people, just being around other people and having that circuit breaker for whatever was playing on my mind distracts me from it. That’s the best thing.

Matt Breen: I know before we started this podcast, you were very conscious, I wouldn’t say worried, but you were very conscious that you wanted to talk about your own story, but not from a place of talking on behalf of other people.

What would you say to the broader audience, to someone who might be experiencing something similar to what you’ve gone through? Where do you think they can go?

Lili Mooney: The Butterfly Foundation has great resources and support networks that you can join.

I would also recommend speaking to your GP, or family or friends that you trust, because getting help is the most important thing, and everyone deserves that help.

I think it’s very common to think that you are not sick enough, or that it’s not that bad. But the reality is that it’s unlikely to go away unless you get some resources and support.

The earlier you get onto it, the less ingrained some of those thoughts and behaviours will become. So that’s my tip. Get onto it.

Matt Breen: You said sometimes people need to find their own way through. We spoke about it. Butterfly Foundation, fantastic. There are all these other organisations in different parts of mental health that are fantastic, and it’s no buts. They are fantastic.

Sometimes people won’t resonate with their messaging, and they might need to look elsewhere for help.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. I did every kind of treatment. I did individual, inpatient, outpatient, family therapy for a bit. They’re all good. They can definitely help, but everyone has to be in the right mindset for that help.

Matt Breen: You’ve got to be ready.

Lili Mooney: Yeah. I just wasn’t ready. But what I did find really helped me was finding my life outside of the eating disorder and becoming me again, not Lili with anorexia.

Matt Breen: I think we’re getting close to the end of the podcast, which is not me wrapping you up, don’t worry.

Whenever I ended a talk or whatever, I always liked to talk to one person. It was always, “I don’t need to know you to know that you’re going through something that’s real, and I believe in your ability to overcome it.”

Do you have a message for anyone of that ilk? When I was going through the hardest part of my life, of all people it was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I saw a video of him and he said, “I needed somebody in that time to tell me that it would be okay.” I remember that resonating with me so much.

Regardless of who he is, it just resonated with me heaps. Whenever I had a platform, so to say, I wanted to give somebody a chance to resonate with something.

Do you have anything that resonated with you at that time, or anything you want to say to someone who might be going through something hard?

Lili Mooney: Yes. You can do it.

There are going to be all these obstacles, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. You just have to keep fighting and pushing, and eventually things will start falling into place.

Matt Breen: And it’s worth it.

Lili Mooney: It’s worth it.

Matt Breen: You’ve been great on this, and I don’t want to set a precedent that if I don’t say this someone hasn’t been great, but it’s kind of fun.

I think you’d be really good at interviewing somebody else. Is there anyone out there we could throw into the ether and see what happens, who you’d like to interview?

Lili Mooney: Anyone in the world?

Matt Breen: Anyone in the world.

Lili Mooney: Kim Kardashian.

Matt Breen: Kim K. We can make sure she’s listening. If we can make it happen, we’ll make it happen.

Lili, thank you. That was honestly awesome. Well done.

Lili Mooney: Thank you.