WEBVTT - Julie Goodwin on the Conversation That Saved Her Life 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.360 We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.840 on which this podcast was produced, the Galligle people of 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:10.440 the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:16.000 This episode contains discussion of suicide. If this raises any 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.919 issues for you, support is available through the links and 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:20.560 phone numbers in the show notes. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.480 It's twenty twenty two and Julie Goodwin's phone is ringing. 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.639 It's the producer of Master Chef inviting Julie to come 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:35.640 back for the Fans and Favorites season, thirteen years after 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:40.360 winning the first Australian season. Julie is utterly terrified at 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.080 the thought of returning to where it all began. You 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:51.360 are first Master Chef. This show completely changed her life. 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.240 Her win catapulted her into the spotlight and with it 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:02.480 came book deals, a cooking school, radio show and hosting gigs. 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.880 But in twenty twenty everything came to a grinding holt. 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.240 Julie couldn't cope with the pressure any longer and didn't 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:16.440 want to be here anymore. Her despair reached crisis point, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.400 resulting in a five week stay in a mental health facility. 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:27.400 Two years on, she's in a much better place. Despite 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:32.440 being terrified, she says yes to the opportunity, a far 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.560 cry from the woman who couldn't step into a kitchen 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.720 just a couple of years prior. Julie is back in 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:48.040 the pressure cooker. I'm at Middleton and this is Headgame today. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:57.560 Julie Goodwin on the conversation that kept her alive. Julie, 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.680 we first met on Dancing with the stuff. 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.120 We are dancing buddies, aren't we. 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.080 We are dancing buddies, and we got on really well. 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:11.000 I really enjoyed your journey. I really enjoyed your your presence, 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.600 your aura, your energy. Have you always been like that? 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:21.000 Oh god, I don't know. I don't know, I've always 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.200 I don't know. I just love new experiences and getting 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.560 to sort of chuck myself into something completely different. And 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:28.840 always the best part of those things is the people 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.040 that you meet, isn't it, And what you get to 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.240 do with the people that you meet. And you know, 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.160 I really loved I really loved seeing you sort of 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:42.320 progress through that competition. But your acknowledgement, because obviously such 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:49.160 a sort of physical beast specimen, your acknowledgement of the 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:53.560 dancers and how fit they are, and what what a 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:55.800 different kind of discipline ities and that you can you 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:57.480 can be really at the top of your game in 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.600 one area and still have no dear about other other things, 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.000 and you know, things you're unfamiliar with. It was so interesting. 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:05.960 Yeah, I sort of swapped out my army boots for 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.200 dancing shoes, and you swapped out your spatulate hand for 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.720 dancing shoes. Let's go right back before we get into 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.040 the nitty griitty of master chef and your life and 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.240 you know where you are today, Let's go back to 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.840 how where it all started as a youngster growing up? 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:26.200 How did life look for you? 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:32.080 I grew up in the suburbs of Sydney, blue collar family, 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.520 sort of fairly fairly normal, I would say, you know, 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.120 Mum and dad both had a working ethic. I was 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.360 raised by my stepdad, who is still my dad. Like 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:43.800 mum and dad had been married for coming on fifty 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:48.920 years now, and so my biological father left when I 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.080 was very young and what age just I was three? 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:55.960 Oh wow, do you remember your biological father? 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:56.400 I do? 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:56.680 You do? 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.440 I have? It was like one of my earliest memories as. 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:00.520 Well, your early memory. 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.120 The first thing I can attribute to that time in 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.960 my life was the memory where he had left. Mum 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:13.200 was pregnant when he left, and he popped back to 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.200 collect some of his things, and I was so excited 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.000 to see him because I hadn't seen him for ages. 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:24.120 You know, little kids get excited. And Mum said, I 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:25.960 must have been so excited. I need to go to 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.919 the bathroom. And when I came back, he had gone again. 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:35.080 And yeah, and I didn't see him again until I was, oh, gosh, 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.000 coming out for fourteen fifteen years old. 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:42.000 Wow, So that memory was it was a positive one 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.680 in the excitement, but ultially a super negative one because 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.159 when you came back, he'd obviously popped in, grabbed his 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:50.320 stuff and left. 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.919 Yeah. I don't think he wanted to do the goodbye. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.680 I don't think he wanted to tell me that it 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:56.760 was goodbye. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.360 And for that to be one of your first memories 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.560 as well, so obviously in plant as he does, right 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:06.000 as it does. How did that affect you sort of 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.040 moving forward with your let's say, your your your new father, 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.520 your your stepfather, and your mom did was there any 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.120 sort of hurdles there where there was resentment or anything 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.160 like that or age. I suppose you're quite multiple, aren't you. 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:26.520 Totally? And when my stepdad dad came on the scene, 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:31.400 I just loved him and he loved us, and so 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.400 he like he just stepped into that role and has 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.680 maintained that role. He took me to band practice, and he, 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.080 you know, loved my mom and he we're a family, 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:46.480 you know, So I'm I adore him and he adores us. 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.039 So you know, I don't feel like I missed out 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:50.719 on having a father figure in my life because they 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.680 got married when I was six, So I had this 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.960 beautiful male role model in my life. But now what 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:02.240 I've just been unpacking through all this psychological journey I've 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.640 been on for one of a better word, is that 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.599 that early leaving it does shape how you interact with 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.840 the world, and so my persona And when you ask 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.920 if I've always been like that, I guess what I've 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.640 learned is that that always trying to be really shiny, 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.280 do really well at school, make everybody happy, never let 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.960 anybody down, all of that really comes from a terror 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:29.440 of being left. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.920 Wow, And that makes complete sense because when that gets 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.279 snatched away from you, I suppose it sort of lived 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.320 as you you know, it's like, what did I do 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:40.120 wrong or how could I do things better to make 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:41.799 sure that this doesn't happen again? 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.280 Absolutely, yep, absolutely, And you know I didn't know until 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.480 recently how much that shapes you, you know, because I've 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:49.520 always thought, you know. 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.720 And when you say recently recently as in the last 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.880 couple of years, or recently as in your adulthood, past 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.640 past four years, past four years, yep, Wow, when did 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:02.120 that sort of trigger and when did that sort of 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:02.479 click in? 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.760 Well, it clicked in when I started having pretty intensive 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:10.840 therapy for a complete mental breakdown. So that's all been unpacked, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.640 all that and a bunch of other stuff that happened. 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:19.119 And yeah, it's traumas that happened in childhood that aren't 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:26.800 acknowledged or resolved. They don't go away very similar they do, 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.440 and you can paper over the cracks all your life, 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.400 but it'll find a way out. And so that was 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:38.160 all part of the cumulative process towards completely falling apart. 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.720 Did that affect your school where you're a good kid, 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:42.840 were your cheeky kid, were your naughty kid? 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:44.680 Was super good? 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:46.840 You're super good, super good? Yeah? 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:49.960 I believe that that sort of had an impact on it, 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.080 so to be hard to swallow. You know. It's like, well, 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.440 I worked really hard at school. I did well at school. 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.200 I was a real goodie two shoes. I would have 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.160 been of pain in you. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:00.360 You know. 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.120 I was the school captain at Hornsby Girls High School. Like, 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.360 achieving was really important to me, and it upset me 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.000 to find out that that might be because I was 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.480 frightened of being abandoned. That's how I learned that that's 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.360 how you make people happy with you. And if you 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:17.520 make people happy with you, they stick around. So I go, well, 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.360 hang on a minute, if I'm just a set of reactions, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.720 who am I? Who am I? So you've got to 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.840 sort of tease out what's your natural state and what 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.160 came about because of what happened to you and all 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.000 that sort of stuff. So it's all a bit of 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:32.040 a tangleballer wall. 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.960 Do you come from a big family or you an 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:36.440 only child? No? 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.079 So I have a little sister. She was the one 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.679 who was in the oven back when my father left, 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.560 and for a while I had a couple of step siblings. 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.319 But I was pretty energetic and active, and I a 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:52.679 round a lot, and I loved sport hyper competitive, but 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:58.120 my schooling was more geared towards academic and musical, So 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.840 that's sort of where I leaned into study and music, 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.120 choir and band and all those hyper cool things. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:10.200 You were roper goodysues. If you could fit the persona 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.160 of a goodye SSU school, it's bad, it's it's in love. 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:15.200 That massive. 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.640 Going into sort of your later education, was there any 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:22.959 sort of career that really really excited you? And I'm 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.680 obviously going to get into cooking, but before that was 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.640 did you have a have a good idea of what 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:31.920 you wanted to do and were you It sounds like 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.360 you were very settled and very structured in your life. 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.760 Was there a career path that you decided to take 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.960 before obviously you got whisked away onto master chef. Oh? 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.880 Yeah, When I was at high school, I wanted to 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.880 be I was tossing up between criminal law and journalism. 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:53.640 So those were the directions I wanted to hit in. 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.720 Those were both you needed, like good marks and all 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:02.040 that sort of thing to do those things. In year eleven, 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.400 I had a bit of a thing happened. I had 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.880 a memory resurface, a suppress memory from childhood which was 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:13.360 a trauma and that I didn't really know that that 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:15.360 set me off the rails until I sat down to 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.040 write my life story in an autobiography and then the 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:19.839 timeline just was there in front of me. 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:22.960 And that was that was that recently that you wrote 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.640 your book last year, because you're exactly the same as 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.320 myself when I started writing my memoir. You sort of 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.719 go back and because you just go back and you 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:36.120 sort of break down those memories and you go really 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.840 into your find a detail of it, you start to 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.320 you start to learn so much about yourself. You start 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.320 to learn so much about what happened. You start to 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.840 rely understand what were the triggers for here, the things 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:48.800 that you never knew that you would do. Unless you 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.240 really dig in. It's extraor memoir. 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:53.880 It's extraordinary, isn't it? And I would actually recommend it 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.679 to anyone, even if you just write your life out chronologically, 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.520 if it's not for publication. The learning in the understanding 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.679 that came from that process was quite mind blowing. I 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.600 actually needed a bit of therapeutic help through the process 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.600 because it was really hard, and I remember I sat 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.400 down to write I'm not sure at what point the 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.040 wheels fell off these ambitions. But as I'm writing it, 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:21.320 I thought, look when it happened this. The wheels fell 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:29.160 off just after I had this memory resurface, and all 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.480 sorts of stuff started to go wrong after that, you know, 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.480 that's when everything changed. I was a skinny little kid. 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:36.840 That's when I started to put on weight and eat 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:41.199 in an unhealthy way. That's all sorts of stuff. 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:42.480 Went wrong from this memory. 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.559 And now I know it's I didn't know it then 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.760 because I shoved it, shoved it straight back down. I 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.360 wanted it, but it you know, it's like trying to 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:55.880 unring a bell, you know. And so from going to 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.439 wanting to be a criminal lawyer to a journalist to 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.120 I just kind of gave up a little bit, and 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.199 so I didn't I knew I wasn't going to get 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.079 the marks I wanted. So then I thought, well, I'll 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.240 be a teacher, which was lower a lower entry score 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.800 into university. And then I went to university. I only 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.319 lasted eighteen months at university. I turned into a ghost. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.200 And was it. Do you think that that memory that 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.400 you had in year eleven is that you like your exams? 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.120 That's quite a critical year. How old. Are you at 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:23.040 that stage? Yeah? 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:25.280 I was sixteen. Yeah, when the memory came back, I 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:30.920 had completely suppressed it and then I remembered it, and 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.600 it was not a welcome memory, and it wasn't there 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.480 wasn't a big light bulb moment. It was almost like 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.040 it was like a book on a bookshelf that I 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.240 hadn't looked at for a really long time. It had 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.600 always been there, but on this one particular day, I 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:53.480 just took the book out and looked at it and went, oh, oh, 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:59.199 that's right, there's this book on my bookshelf. And as 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.360 a sixteen I didn't know what to do with it. 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:03.920 So I stuck it back on the shelf and I 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.080 put my back against it, and I braced my legs 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.080 against it, and I held it there as hard as 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:09.839 I could. I didn't want to know. I didn't want 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.559 to know that book was there. That's that's as n 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:14.920 close as I can get to describing what happened. 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.040 Yeah, that's a great analogy, and that's what we do, 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.120 you know, especially when we can't face it, and it's 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.760 something that did you have it? Did you have a 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:26.839 support network that you could have spoken to or I 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.960 suppose at sixteen. You don't. It's a case of you do, 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:30.880 don't you shove it away. 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:35.199 It was the nineteen eighties, exactly. It was the nineteen eighties, 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:40.480 and it just wasn't spoken about enough. So it wasn't 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:45.160 spoken about, you know, and that led to actually in 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.280 year twelve. And see again, this is stuff I hadn't 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:55.520 thought about for years until my world fell apart nearly 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.000 five years ago. Now I hadn't thought about any of this, 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.160 but that that was I had an attempt on my 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:03.280 own life in year twelve. 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.160 So the domino effect of it. Was it the domino 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.680 effect of this memory, yep, and you. 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.120 But I didn't know that's why I did that, and 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.280 didn't know it until I wrote it all down. I went, 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:14.800 oh my god, that's why that happened. Oh my god, 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.080 that's why that happened. I now know that when I 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.680 went to university, I was severely depressed. I would go 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.400 whole days without speaking to anybody. I didn't have friends, 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.720 and went from being, you know, the school captain of 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.160 my high school and involved in every extracurricular group you 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.440 could think of, and in this leadership role to go 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:35.520 to university where I would not speak for whole days 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:36.040 at a time. 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:38.920 You're well just flipped upside down ultimately. 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:45.600 Completely, and I just never knew why until recently. Yeah. Yeah, 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.520 So it was a big, big thing to come to 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:48.000 terms with. 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.440 And you mentioned just in year twelve there that you 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.520 that you wanted to take to take your life. Was 0:14:54.600 --> 0:15:00.200 that planned? Did it sort of escalate into right, going 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:01.360 to plan this, so I'm going to do it? Or 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.800 was it just right? In this situation, I don't want 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:05.680 to be you anymore. 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.040 There was so much pressure, And this is why every 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.040 year when those exam results come out, I reach out 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:15.200 to everyone I know who's waiting on them, and I say, 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.760 this is not the rest of your life. This is 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.000 one moment in your life, and it will only determine 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.240 what you do next. It will not determine what you 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.400 do for the rest of your life. So whatever happens, 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:31.200 don't worry, because I know the despair I felt as 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:33.720 And it was the day before I had a trial 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.720 HSC exam and I was left on my own in 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.440 the house to study, and I just decided I could 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.000 not face that exam the next day, and so that's 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:47.560 what I did. And the response then and again it 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.880 was the nineteen eighties. There was no support. It was 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:59.880 there was quite a sort of sneering attitude towards kids 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.840 and their cries for attention. So it was decided, and 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:08.720 you know, with all great love to my parents, their 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.480 belief was they were doing the best thing for me. 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.040 It was kind of decided that we would just keep 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:20.600 it to ourselves because stigma. Because of the stigma, they'll 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.600 take the school captaincy away from you. You'll never get 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.600 over this. Your reputation will be destroyed, you know. 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:28.720 Into the family as well. 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:33.880 Shame, the shame of it, and so you know, the 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.720 hospital can't talk about it because they're bound not to. 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:39.360 And we decided as a family that we would never 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:41.720 to speak of it again. And so I had no 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.680 there was no unpacking of that. There was no psychological support. 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.560 I'll never forget the social worker who came into the 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:53.040 hospital after a few days I've been in and she says, well, 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.240 are you going to do that again? And I said no, 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.080 She said all right, then she signed me up. That 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:03.840 was That was the extent of the mental health support 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:05.280 that was available to me. 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.680 So after that moment when you decided to take your life, 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:22.320 did the dominoes keep on falling thereafter, or did you 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.840 decide to sort of get your life back on track. 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.200 How did you manage to do that, because ultimately you 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:29.520 had to do it by yourself. 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:34.960 Yeah, well, like I say, I didn't really the idea 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:39.359 of depression was not a part of our family vernacular. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.800 That's actually people feeling sorry for themselves. That's what that 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.879 was defined as people who can't pick themselves up by 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:48.879 their bootstraps and put a good face on it and 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.240 all that sort of all that tough talk, you know, 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.600 which you know, my parents were raised by people who 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:56.560 went through the war and the depression and all that 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.119 sort of stuff, and it just flows on and I 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:04.719 understand it. I completely understand. There are eras where you know, 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:05.640 that's what you have. 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.399 To do, or situations that were lasted so long, i e. 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.000 The wars that you had to you had no choice. 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.919 You would know you can't be talking about depression when 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.040 you're in the middle of the battlefield. It's like, let's go. 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.240 But you also have to leave the battlefield on the battlefield, 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.520 right and bring compassion into other areas of your life. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.600 So I didn't know that that's what was happening, and 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.439 I didn't realize that that's what had happened until I 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.399 wrote down my story and when the light bulbs were 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.000 going on all over the place. I left Ginnie and 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.800 I drifted through a few sort of not very important jobs, 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:45.560 and I was trying to find my place in the world. 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:47.919 I met the boy who I fell in love with 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:52.320 and I'm still married to decades and decades later. So 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:56.520 I really landed on my feet with the right person, 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:02.680 my life partner. And you know, eventually I found my 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.280 way into youth work, and that's where I found a 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.199 real affinity. That's what I loved to do. 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.520 Oh, youth work helping others. Ultimately, did that give you 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:13.720 a great sense of achievement of purpose? 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:15.240 It can be. I don't know. I think I was 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.320 always looking for purposeful things to do. You know, where 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.760 I met my not yet husband was in a some 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:24.639 vincent de poor youth group. So we used to go 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.119 out and do dawn patrol in King's Cross and handout 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.280 sandwiches at three o'clock in the morning and stuff like that. 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:33.320 So I was always looking for purpose. 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.960 Home meat sandwiches, Oh. 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.600 Yeah, no, we'd pick them up from the Matt Talbot hostel. 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.680 Whether our made in dreadful coffee and earns and stuff. 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.679 So yeah, youth work really gave me a sense of purpose. 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:51.359 And I ended up at Frank Baxter Juvenile Detention Center 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.879 after I got married and moved up the coast. So 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.840 I was working up there in detention with those lads. 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.120 And that was thirty years ago now and I'm back 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.919 there now. So I'm back there, but I've developed a 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.440 cooking course which I go in and teach the boys 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.320 how to cook and we sit down. The cooking is 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.199 and you wouldn't think you'd hear me say this, but 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.000 the cooking is actually secondary in this course. So the 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.280 most important thing is the act of doing that together 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.600 and then sitting at a table together and having a 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.399 family meal. So instead of being served food onto their 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.440 plate which they eat and go back to their cell, 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.240 we sit at the table. It's all served family style. 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.160 So they've got to share, they've got to communicate, you. 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.600 Know, to work together. And it's got a problem solve. 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:39.919 Yes, absolutely, And they've got to look to left and 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.240 right and see if everyone's got enough, and they've got 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.560 to you know, and there's table rules, family rules, you know. 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.320 And I've been the mum, I'm just like, well, you know, 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:50.639 don't go I don't like that. I don't like that. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:52.800 And I say, well, you know family dinner rules. You 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:54.960 don't have to like it, you don't have to finish it, 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:57.919 but you have to taste it, and you know, so 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:02.080 they're trying new things, and so it's been a beautiful 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:06.320 full circle to actually go back into youth work and 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.000 to be able to bring the cooking along with me. 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:12.800 So cooking. Have you always been a sort of a chef? 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:17.200 How did the love for cooking which ultimately changed your 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.280 career and changed your path in life? When did that 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:23.919 sort of become serious? When did you know that you 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.240 were the chef extra half? 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.440 Well, I still don't know about that, but I think 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.440 Matt Preston described it really well once during Master Chef. 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.920 He said, the greatest cuisines of the world come from 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:42.479 that country's poverty. So you know, you think about patai 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:45.680 in France, Well, let's liver. When you don't figure out 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:49.160 that taste good unless you're really hungry, I'm sorry, So. 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:51.320 Unless you're using everything, every. 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:55.080 Single thing, because there's nothing you can't afford to waste anything. 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.840 That's how I started cooking. So I didn't cook a 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:02.080 lot growing up because I'm messy, so Mum didn't let 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:05.240 me messing up the kitchen too badly. But I think 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:08.320 watching the way she cooked and my nan and everything. 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:10.840 When I moved out into my own home, I love 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:15.040