Chloe-Anne, a contestant on Destination X, has openly talked about living with a health condition she has had since childhood, hoping to overcome it while competing in the BBC series.
The Oxford-based historian was one of 13 strangers competing on Rob Brydon’s new gameshow, which takes contestants across Europe to complete challenges that help them figure out their location. In a twist similar to The Traitors, Chloe-Anne was eliminated in the very first episode but made a comeback earlier this week.
Her return didn’t last long, as she lost the chance to win the £100,000 prize after guessing the wrong location in a series of tense challenges shown earlier this week.
Read More: “We’re All Accountable”: How Destination X is Paving the Way For More Sustainable Television
Even though she left the show, Chloe-Anne said she was proud to have reached her personal goal of beating her anxiety, according to the Mirror.
I grew up with crippling anxiety, like I had such bad anxiety when I was growing up that I couldn’t go into a cinema without screaming, crying, or throwing up and running out, it was really extreme claustrophobia and anxiety. When I was about 15 years old, I developed this phrase to help me get through it, which is ‘Be more Tiger-Lily than Wendy’. I wanted to be more like Tiger-Lily from Peter Pan than Wendy because Wendy was this wimp who couldn’t do anything by herself and just cried all the time, and I just felt like she was me, and I didn’t want to be her. I wanted to be this badass warrior princess like Tiger Lily, who could do absolutely anything, and I felt like this was the final challenge to that. I’ve come so far with being more Tiger Lily than Wendy, and this was the ultimate way of proving to myself you really can do anything like this.
In an exclusive interview, the 27-year-old opened up
As a teenager, Chloe-Anne worked hard to overcome her anxiety, starting with small steps like going to the cinema by herself.
She later moved on to public speaking and is now training as an aerialist, performing circus routines while hanging from the ceiling.
Hoping to write historical fiction, earn a PhD, and launch a social media series sharing historical facts from every country in the world, she has made big progress in tackling her anxiety but saw Destination X as her “ultimate challenge.” Chloe-Anne had also auditioned for The Traitors and wanted to join Destination X not just to face her anxiety but also to honour her grandmother, who had a huge influence on her and with whom she spent many hours solving puzzle books as a child.
My grandmother was a huge part of my life growing up and she’s always been a huge inspiration for me. She passed away almost exactly a year before the filming of the show, and we used to do puzzle books and riddles together, and she always used to love doing stuff like that with me. It felt like a bit of a sign with the timing of it a little bit.
She told us
Reflecting on her experience, she called it “phenomenal” and a “whirlwind,” though she admitted she felt “gutted” to leave.
It was a very strange experience in that it both felt like it was a really, really long period of time and a really short period of time at the same time. It feels like a crazy amount happened in a really short period of time, but yeah, it was phenomenal, a completely unforgettable experience. It was like nothing else that is going to happen to me again, probably, or has ever happened before.
Source: Cornwalllive