SCORPION PRINCESS’S STORY*

THE FIRST TIME Scorpion Princess met Jackie she had two black eyes and was holding her baby. She paints her relationship to food during her years in an abusive relationship in one word: addiction.

“I hit 157kg. I didn’t have any energy to do anything for myself. Because my self-worth was so low, the only thing to make me happy was food. If something bad would happen, I would treat myself to something like KFC. It would make me feel better as it was going down, but then I’d get sad, and because I was quite depressed around those times, I was just eating and sleeping. I just got bigger and bigger.”

Wanting to take her power back meant a bariatric sleeve surgery. “When I applied for the surgery I got a good hiding. I wasn’t allowed to do it as he said I’d just start going out and I was just going to leave him.”

After 18 months of hard work, starving herself to reach the surgery’s necessary goal weight to the point of what felt like dying, she reached surgery day 1kg over. “I thought I wasn’t going to get it. I felt so bad about it, but they still let me go through with the surgery.”

She has now lost 60kg. With a supplement of $150 a month from The Aunties to buy groceries, she’s cooking for her children and eating healthy foods. The only catch of the surgery is that many foods she once enjoyed now cause her pain and discomfort, or to vomit.

“I can’t eat reheated food, I can’t eat chicken, I can’t eat onions. I can just stomach yoghurt, two years down the track. But I’ve looked at it like this: I’d rather pay for it this way.” She pauses. “Aunty Jackie showed me I’m worth it. She just loved me – it made me smile. I hadn’t smiled like that in a long time.”