AI Summary
5 min readLissa Paustian was 20 years old when Emirates called to offer her a job as a flight attendant. She had just walked out of a psychologist's appointment where the recommendation was that she check herself into a residential care facility for her eating disorder and anxiety. Instead, she took the flight to Dubai. That decision, she says, was both the best and one of the worst she ever made — a contradiction that runs through the entire four-year experience she describes in this conversation.
The job that owned your body
The hiring process alone was telling: 200,000 people apply to Emirates every year, and only 3 percent are accepted. Paustian was one of perhaps five Danes in the company. The contract she signed came with a penalty of roughly 60,000–70,000 Danish kroner if she resigned within the first six months — a deliberate trap that made leaving early almost impossible for a young person without savings. But what she emphasizes more is the total surrender of bodily autonomy. Every six months, crew members were "insured" — weighed and measured to ensure they had not lost or gained weight. Paustian gained six or seven kilograms at one point and was told she had to lose it because her uniform no longer fit. When she asked for a larger uniform, the answer was no. If she did not lose the weight within a set period, she would be "grounded" — unable to fly — and while grounded,
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Introduction: From Stewardess to Influencer** - Host frames the conversation around getting beneath the surface of Lissa Paustian's public persona as a journalist, influencer, and former Bachelorette participant.
- 2 (01:10) **The Dubai Decision: Choosing Adventure Over Treatment** - Lissa describes accepting a job with Emirates as a 20-year-old, calling it her "life's best decision," while revealing she had just been advised by her psychologist to enter a residential care facility for her eating disorder.
- 3 (03:35) **Roots of the Eating Disorder: Bulimia as Self-Harm** - Lissa traces the origins of her bulimia and anxiety to a lonely, bullied childhood and her parents' divorce.
- 4 (05:30) **The Emirates Contract: Total Control Over Body and Identity** - Lissa details the oppressive terms of her employment, where she became a staff number (453349) for four years.
- 5 (09:12) **A Culture of Fear and Reporting** - The work environment amplified her anxiety, with a system of verbal and written warnings for minor infractions.
- 6 (10:54) **The Toll: Rituals and a Captured Identity** - Lissa describes the daily rituals that developed from her fear of going to work, such as locking herself in a toilet to do breathing exercises before flights.
- 7 (16:52) **The Breaking Point: A Relationship and a Leap of Faith** - The catalyst for leaving was a breakup with a boyfriend, which gave her a "spark" to take control.
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Show Notes
I en samtale med Morten Messerschmidt fortæller Lissa om tiden som stewardesse i Emirates med vanvittige regler om bl.a. løbende vejninger og en bøde på 60.000 kr. for at sige op. Vi hører også om løgnene for at kunne være sammen med sin kæreste. Om hendes flugt ud af landet, da hun troede, hun var gravid. Og hendes vej ud af det hele og tilbage til Danmark.
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