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With all of the stress and limitations, what made me stay. Why was I willing to put myself through all of that? Then after all of the sacrifice and hard work, what made me leave? Why would I give everything up that I had fought for, cried for, even sold myself for? All the hardship paled into insignificance against all of the gains. Starting over in a country where I knew no one, had no family nor friends. A completely fresh start. An opportunity to reinvent myself. I became me. Or who I thought me was. All the negativity of the old country was no longer important. All the things that made me angry or depressed went straight over my head. Issues didn’t seem like issues any more.  If it was that great what made me leave?   

Officialdom and Big Brother are everywhere in every country in some way and to varying degrees. Annoying and to some threatening enough when a legal citizen. Imagine this formality and crosschecking when illegal.  Voting and census completion. Neither areas of concern the last time I engaged in either activity in the UK. Until I moved country and became illegal.  Australia took both of these areas a lot more seriously than I did and more seriously that I was used to. Both were compulsory activities. Unavoidable.

What else could and did I do when the job opportunities dried up. Surprisingly there were quite a few options. Sadly most of them were illegal. What were my options? Keep lurching from crap job to crap job or leave the country and throw in the towel? My choice was limited. Self-employment seemed logical then. Bloody stupid idea in reality. The difficulties that would raise their heads above the parapet like chads to taunt me were pushed to the back. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. Failure was inevitable. The underlying problem still existed. I needed money. I’d still been applying for jobs during this time and each requested proof of residency. That was no longer an earning avenue. I had one of my stupid brainwaves. I worked out that I was crap at earning any income by traditional means. I decided to try something less traditional. 

I merrily rattled along for years doctor visit free.  It’s only as those later years rolled on by that things started to happen that I never took into account. As you get older, things fall off, seize up, stop working, slowdown or go into overdrive. Imagine the difficulties faced as an illegal immigrant when needing medical care. The Oz system is relatively simple, expensive but simple. The major plus is that you don’t have to register with one particular medical practice. You can go to any medical centre. Why based on how I said the system works should I have problems? It’s pesky form filling and partial cover of costs that the Australian system provides. In the initial years of my illegality this really didn’t prove to be a problem. I had no need to go to a doctor. It’s only as the later years rolled on by and my age increased, that things scary started to happen. 

A skill for lying when dating as an illegal immigrant is paramount. Also too common when dating as a legal citizen. It’s all part of the game. Oh the lies I’ve heard. That skill, despite being a poor one, came in very useful when throwing myself into the dating scene. Single after 25 yrs, I ventured in to internet dating. My time doing it in a legal capacity was quite limited and very short lived. In many ways it was a very good grounding for when I tried it as an illegal dater. It’s a world of lies. When illegal, the fabrication became far more imaginative and involved.   

The costs of integrating as a fraud illustrates the fallout my situation could have created for others. My efforts to integrate may have some extremely dire consequences should my fraud have ever been discovered.  I don’t just mean for me for a change. I was trying to live this illegal life, as though it were completely legal. That meant socialising, mixing and networking. As any legal individual would normally do. Eventually there became a period of quite a few years where everything was settled. The illusion of normality had set in. There was absolutely no reason to stop me doing anything. It never crossed my mind the effect on others should my residency status ever be discovered. All I worried about, with my illegal situation was the likely effect on me. 

The irony of wondering who to trust when telling a lie is more complicated than you might think. When living a life hiding a huge secret that entire life becomes a lie. A life of fabrication, fantasy and farce. Who could I trust with my secret? Initially I was honest. In the early days of my covert existent, an alarmingly large number of people knew of my secret. One horrible day. I had to face the consequences of my misplaced trust.  The next phase was to be selective as to who I shared my deepest darkest with. Very selective. It was during this time of selective sharing of my secret I found a friend to be somewhat unreliable.  I learned my lessons. No one else from then on would or could be party to my secret. That should have made things far easier and less stressful. It didn’t. My values became extremely fluid.   

I did move to Australia with the full intention of gaining legal employment and building that boring bill paying life. For some inexplicable reason I fully believed that getting a job in another country would be far easier than getting a job in my country of birth. The original goal was to secure a 457 sponsorship visa immediately after the student visa ran out with the hoped-for drawing power of the brand-new MBA. An investment of 20 grand deserved some sort of recompense. I actually did secure that elusive 457. It lasted for 4 whole days. After losing my legal employment the next move was to find some work. Any work. Bugger the MBA and searching for something that would make use of my skills and experience. I needed to survive somehow. Pay the boring bills.  As with the UK, big employers of good jobs have strict employment requirements, particularly when it comes to proving the right to work in the country. The options were crap unskilled jobs with no future, ultimately, not great on your CV. Crap pay, crap hours, crap work, crap companies.  For an intelligent woman I continued to do some very dumb things, so many dumb things on so many occasions. I’m beginning to wonder where on earth I got this idea from that I’m an intelligent woman at all.

This episode covers how I went from being a legal entrant to my choice of paradise to an illegal one breaking 1 of the top 5 federal laws in Australia. How I set myself up for my disgraceful fall into an illegal life.  I began my legal life on a student visa. Those early days of legality helped prolong my illegal life allowing me to establish some basic survival necessities. Although I’m not advocating this series of podcasts as a self help guide, I would have appreciated such when I set upon this path What basics did I get?   Officially, failing to get a  sponsorship visa, I should have left the country.  I had nothing to go back to, ergo I stayed. I overstayed a lot, with all of the drama, fun and stupidity covered in the following episodes.

This initial episode sets the scene as to why I moved country in the first place. How did this ludicrous situation of illegal immigration all come about? There are commonly held views of who is an illegal immigrant. Or maybe that’s just my biased opinion fuelled by too much fake news. How did I compare with these views? What drove me to abandon my homeland and become one?   I decided to take the plunge and give Australia the long term pleasure of my company. Student visa and Australian MBA here I come. I assumed that everything would fall into place once I set foot on those sunny shores. 18 months later I was an illegal immigrant. A middle-aged white woman, native English-speaking, well spoken, educated and exceptionally law abiding. What is it truly like living a life as an illegal immigrant? How did I get away with it? Listen to a true confession.