Speaker 1: This episode contains discussion of suicide. If this raises any
Speaker 1: issues for you, support is available through the links and
Speaker 1: phone numbers in the show notes. Oh, this is a
Speaker 1: beautiful episode. This is a heavy episode. But saying that
Speaker 1: Julie Goodwin, Oh oh, I mean, who doesn't love Julie Goodwin.
Speaker 1: I get to have her for a whole had her
Speaker 1: for a whole hour. You get her for a little
Speaker 1: bit less with me, you get the best bits, not
Speaker 1: the me forgetting what I was saying halfway through me
Speaker 1: saying it. Everyone knows Julie good when she graced our
Speaker 1: screens on Master Chef. She was the original OG of
Speaker 1: Master Chef two thousand and nine, fifteen years ago. She
Speaker 1: won Master Chef and we've loved her ever since. And
Speaker 1: she's never gone away. And I love that she's never
Speaker 1: gone away because they're people that you may never hear
Speaker 1: about again, and I'm really glad that she's one that
Speaker 1: stayed around. Her story, though, is hard, and it got
Speaker 1: harder as she started to get into her life post
Speaker 1: Master Chef. She went through a lot to get to
Speaker 1: where she is today. She's written a book. We talk
Speaker 1: about the book, we talk about Master Chef, We talk
Speaker 1: about her, we talk about me, of course. Please enjoy.
Speaker 1: If that's the word, I don't know, Please listen and
Speaker 1: let me know what you think about this episode. I
Speaker 1: always ask you to let me know about every episode.
Speaker 1: But here is my interview with Julie Goodman. You've got
Speaker 1: a book. Yeah, I'm so glad. I was just saying
Speaker 1: before we started recording that I'm glad it's not a
Speaker 1: cookbook because there's so many interesting stories about people behind cookbooks,
Speaker 1: and we often don't ever get to know about them.
Speaker 2: No, only the little stories that match the food. But
Speaker 2: in this book, I've I've got a few little recipes
Speaker 2: that match the stories. Yeah, sort of the other way
Speaker 2: around here.
Speaker 1: I like that. How are you going really, like right now,
Speaker 1: right today? Like are you doing well today?
Speaker 2: I am? I am. I've just had a loss. So
Speaker 2: I lost my little dog the night before last. So
Speaker 2: you know, honestly, I'm heartbroken. But I'm better able to
Speaker 2: deal with that than I would have been a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so sorry. That breaks my heart.
Speaker 2: It's devastating. You know, you you're a dog person.
Speaker 1: The pets are harder I find than.
Speaker 2: Well, they're in your life all day, every day, you know,
Speaker 2: and they loved you unconditionally. It doesn't matter what crappy
Speaker 2: stuff you've done. Your dog and still loves you.
Speaker 1: Best of all, they will come and watch you ship.
Speaker 2: They will good for you and be excited about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is nothing. I mean, don't even get me started.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry to hear. But did you have your
Speaker 1: puppy for a while, like, yeah, she.
Speaker 2: Was nearly thirteen? Great, yeah, good in us. Yeah she's
Speaker 2: got a first sister and a third brother who are
Speaker 2: kind of sad now, but yeah, we'll get through it.
Speaker 2: My beautiful grown sons and husband and the dogs, and
Speaker 2: we were all together when that happened.
Speaker 1: So oh good. So you were home and got to
Speaker 1: say goodbye. And yes, I think that's really important. Oh
Speaker 1: for humans as well, Yes, you know, to be able
Speaker 1: to say goodbye. And it breaks my heart when people
Speaker 1: lose someone that they've just never got to Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like heart attacks and things like that.
Speaker 2: Exactly really hard. I'm doing well. I've got a lot
Speaker 2: of strategies and things in place to keep my mental
Speaker 2: health on an even keel. It's not to say it
Speaker 2: always is, but it's a lot better than it was.
Speaker 2: So as long as I keep doing the things, yes,
Speaker 2: things are okay.
Speaker 1: And that's what they say with mental health and mental
Speaker 1: illness issues is it's all about keeping the tools going,
Speaker 1: having for the right things in your toolbox, and using
Speaker 1: them like you're actually using them. I have my own
Speaker 1: mental health issues, which I think everyone does, do.
Speaker 2: They to one degree or another? And yeah, to one
Speaker 2: degree or another. We all experience stuff and we've got
Speaker 2: to find our way through it. But you know what,
Speaker 2: I would say that there are times where you might
Speaker 2: have tools in your toolbox, but you just can't access thems.
Speaker 2: So it's one of those things where it's kind of
Speaker 2: unhelpful if someone's in the midst of a crisis, to
Speaker 2: say them.
Speaker 1: Oh, just go for a walk.
Speaker 2: It's not helpful because sometimes you just can't. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, it can be a really slow path back
Speaker 2: to health. And once you're back to health, the path
Speaker 2: isn't straight and it doesn't finish. It's a rocky road
Speaker 2: and you've got to just keep plugging away.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you don't even want to go to the tools,
Speaker 1: Like I leave my tool at the door sometimes and
Speaker 1: it gets really dusty and stays there for too long.
Speaker 1: But last time I went without therapy, and then the
Speaker 1: next I saw a therapist. She said, why are you
Speaker 1: here and I said, well, basically, my tools are rusted
Speaker 1: and I don't and most of them aren't working anymore.
Speaker 1: I need to sharpen my tools, get my tool belt
Speaker 1: going again, actually get it out of the shed. And
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, that's a really good way of kind
Speaker 1: of you know, talking about it. And I said, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't be bothered lifting it up for a while
Speaker 1: and thinking I just don't want to deal with this
Speaker 1: right now, because you know, mental health, you have to
Speaker 1: keep it healthy, and like anything in the world, you
Speaker 1: just let it go sometimes and it gets.
Speaker 2: Out of it can get out of here at hand
Speaker 2: and people.
Speaker 1: You know that whole Are you okay? I really love
Speaker 1: that that kind of thing has come in because it
Speaker 1: does prompt you to say yes or no. I'm a
Speaker 1: huge one for yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine, no matter what.
Speaker 1: I just do not like to burden people, which I
Speaker 1: think women. Do you think that, Well, I'm not mad,
Speaker 1: of course, but women have a they've got to take
Speaker 1: care of everyone else.
Speaker 2: That's one hundred percent true. And you know, we talk
Speaker 2: about are you Okada. We talk about corporate responsibility around
Speaker 2: mental health and all of those things, and so talking
Speaker 2: about mental health is not new, and we're doing a
Speaker 2: lot better than we did. Certainly while I was growing
Speaker 2: up it was to boot, but now we're talking about it.
Speaker 2: But what I actually still think needs to happen is okay.
Speaker 2: So we're all willing to help, We're willing to look
Speaker 2: for the signs in others, We're willing to accommodate whatever
Speaker 2: we need to accommodate for others, but still carry these
Speaker 2: internalized messages that I can't speak up or I'll be
Speaker 2: seen as incapable, i will let someone down, I will
Speaker 2: be being ungrateful, or I'll be aren't weak, all of
Speaker 2: those things, and that's the internal stuff. So I think
Speaker 2: the conversation needs to obviously keep flowing, but I think
Speaker 2: it needs to turn a little inward to ourselves and say,
Speaker 2: I am willing to give help. Am I willing to
Speaker 2: accept it? Am I willing to examine the bits of
Speaker 2: my life that aren't working for me and say, you
Speaker 2: know what, I've got to hand some of this over. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's where I think we really need to push this conversation.
Speaker 2: And as you say for women. I mean, I've raised
Speaker 2: three young men, and I'm married to a man, and
Speaker 2: they have their own things that they don't want to
Speaker 2: acknowledge or talk about. You know, there's a whole lot
Speaker 2: of you know, we can go stereotypical if you like,
Speaker 2: but there's a whole lot of stuff that men don't
Speaker 2: want to bring to the table either, And so I
Speaker 2: just think it's as important as being willing to reach
Speaker 2: out to somebody else, it's as important or more important
Speaker 2: to be willing to show compassion to yourself.
Speaker 1: I often say go gently to myself. It was something
Speaker 1: I learned to say, go gently, come on, like cause
Speaker 1: you know those voices, especially as young girls, teenage girls,
Speaker 1: we just we get taught pretty much to hate ourselves
Speaker 1: and say how ugly we are, and that's where a
Speaker 1: lot of our issues can come from. Go gently.
Speaker 2: Think.
Speaker 1: Another one that I find is being able to say
Speaker 1: to the people that ask are you okay? I'm still
Speaker 1: not yeah, because often with any illness, like you know,
Speaker 1: a cold or something, are you doing better today? Oh?
Speaker 1: Much better today? You know, everyone expects you to get better.
Speaker 2: Like it's a linear thing.
Speaker 1: It's like a linear thing, and it's not. It's just
Speaker 1: not it's you have to become comfortable with saying to
Speaker 1: your loved ones. Yes. Still, you know, it's still a
Speaker 1: work in progress, like that's what we're I.
Speaker 2: Am, That's exactly what it is. And I can tell
Speaker 2: you that I still find that frustrating. But I'm not
Speaker 2: at the finish line. There is no finish line. And
Speaker 2: I think that if we can find language around that
Speaker 2: that's unthreatening to the people asking, because you don't want
Speaker 2: to shut down the conversation. That's right by them going
Speaker 2: oh god, I don't want to ask because every time
Speaker 2: I know yes, and it doesn't have to be who
Speaker 2: you are all the time. We've got to acknowledge that
Speaker 2: we can be different things, you know. So my beautiful psychologist,
Speaker 2: who I write about in the book quite a lot
Speaker 2: because she's a legend. I love her. I was only
Speaker 2: with her before I started this book to and I'd
Speaker 2: had a couple of very flat days, you know, and
Speaker 2: you know those ones where you've got to arrange your
Speaker 2: face into the right expression before you can leave the house,
Speaker 2: and it's a real effort, you know, everything feels like
Speaker 2: you're wearing wet wool. And I just I went to
Speaker 2: see her, and I said, I'm pissed off for a start,
Speaker 2: because I'm doing all the things and I'm diligent. And secondly,
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit frightened because does this mean that
Speaker 2: my medication is not going to work for me anymore?
Speaker 2: I've been through a few different ones and some stopped abruptly,
Speaker 2: and it was terrifying when it stopped. Does this mean
Speaker 2: I'm on this spiral back downhill? What does it mean?
Speaker 1: What does it mean?
Speaker 2: I'm cranky and I'm scared and why do I feel
Speaker 2: this way? And what she said to me was, sometimes
Speaker 2: it's appropriate to feel depression. Sometimes it's appropriate to feel sadness.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's appropriate to be stress. And if you look
Speaker 2: at what you're about to head out in the world
Speaker 2: and do, that's appropriate for you right now. But what
Speaker 2: we need to do is view it as a hotel.
Speaker 2: She said, You've checked into this hotel, but you know
Speaker 2: that you're going to check out and come back home.
Speaker 2: You don't have to live in the hotel. So now,
Speaker 2: if I'm having a day like that, it's just like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm just checking into the sad hotel and I'll eat
Speaker 2: the shitty food and I'll sleep on the shitty bed,
Speaker 2: and I'll have the shell with not enough hot water
Speaker 2: or water pressure. And then I'll check out and I'll
Speaker 2: go home, and I'll go home to love, and I'll
Speaker 2: go home to creativity, and I'll go home to joy
Speaker 2: and to my granddaughter and to my dogs who I love.
Speaker 2: And that has been so helpful to me.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love this woman and I love.
Speaker 2: This And that's language we can all use. If someone
Speaker 2: says that you okay, instead of feeling like you're always
Speaker 2: in the doldrooms or you've got a lie, you can
Speaker 2: say I've checked into the sad hotel today, but check
Speaker 2: with me again tomorrow because I might be home.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love that. I say poopool the pool. I'm
Speaker 1: sitting in the poop pool today. Sometimes I slap the
Speaker 1: shit all over me. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes I just get
Speaker 1: down a little bit and get out of it again.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love the sad hotel. That will work
Speaker 1: really well. Thank you for that, And thank your therapist.
Speaker 1: She sounds amazing.
Speaker 2: She is amazing. She's walking through some stuff.
Speaker 1: Yes, God is so good at what they do when
Speaker 1: they're good, they're so good.
Speaker 2: Where'd you grow up in Nomins? So Northwest Sydney.
Speaker 1: Nice. They've got lovely parks out there for dogs.
Speaker 2: There you go every only thing you need to know.
Speaker 1: Everything for me doesn't have a good dog park. And
Speaker 1: you live on the Central Coast, which is where I'm from,
Speaker 1: where my produce is from.
Speaker 2: Yes, she went to school with my son.
Speaker 1: Is that right? You never told me that.
Speaker 2: It's such a small world.
Speaker 1: It's such a small world. She went to school with
Speaker 1: John Farnham's niece as well. Well, there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: such a small world.
Speaker 2: I mean I would have lead with that if I was.
Speaker 1: She only told me recently, and I'm like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: could have told me that two years ago, because I'm
Speaker 1: a job fun Oh Stan, who isn't Yeah, who isn't?
Speaker 1: So writing the book? I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about writing the book. How hard was that because it's
Speaker 1: an emotional book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was brutal. Yeah, it was brutal.
Speaker 1: And now you're doing a book tour bringing it up again,
Speaker 1: so obviously it was harder to write. And did you
Speaker 1: have moments where you just threw hands in there so
Speaker 1: I can't do this?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely. The whole process sort of went in cycles.
Speaker 2: So because it's hard, some of it's hard. Some of
Speaker 2: it's fun and funny and lighthearted and all of that
Speaker 2: stuff too, But for the hard bits, I had to
Speaker 2: bunker down. I couldn't just knock out half an hour
Speaker 2: before I cooked dinner or anything like that. I had
Speaker 2: to sort of bunk it down for days at a
Speaker 2: time and then stop for weeks and just let all
Speaker 2: of that process over there and get back to my
Speaker 2: life and not think about it, and then I could
Speaker 2: go back to it again. And there were a lot
Speaker 2: of hard conversations that I had to have with people
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, can how does that go? How do you
Speaker 1: broach someone that you say, I'm about to write about you?
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's particularly my parents, So there was stuff they
Speaker 2: didn't know that I had to break to them. And
Speaker 2: also I had to sort of gently say to them,
Speaker 2: these things weren't very well dealt with. The stuff that
Speaker 2: they did know, these things weren't very well dealt with.
Speaker 2: And it's generational, it's family. And with all the love
Speaker 2: in my heart, I said to them, I don't hold
Speaker 2: any blame because you were the product of.
Speaker 1: Your upbringing doing the best you could.
Speaker 2: And my name was the product of her upbringing, and
Speaker 2: she lived through the war and the depression, and then
Speaker 2: she raised these kids and so all that that stoic
Speaker 2: We don't talk about feeling bad. You know, you get
Speaker 2: up and your soldier on and there's always someone worse
Speaker 2: off than you, you know, which is.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 2: Of course it's true. And you've got to be grateful.
Speaker 2: You've got to be grateful, and you've got to count
Speaker 2: your blessings and put things in perspective, obviously, but you
Speaker 2: also have to be able to say all that aside, I'm.
Speaker 1: Hurting, I'm not doing well.
Speaker 2: Yes, I need a hand. I was just saying.
Speaker 1: Too in one of my solo epps that my mum,
Speaker 1: God bless her. She was. She did the best she could.
Speaker 1: But when it got really bad she would say, sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe we should go to the cancer ward
Speaker 1: and let you see, you know, kids who really got
Speaker 1: She thought she was doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the kids starving in Africa. You don't finish
Speaker 2: your dinner, you know, and it just.
Speaker 1: It wasn't no. And just to have my parents say,
Speaker 1: I remember having the really hard conversation with my dad,
Speaker 1: who was a really bad dad, really violent and awful,
Speaker 1: abuse her and have having that adult conversation with him.
Speaker 1: All I asked him to do was to keep his
Speaker 1: distance and to let me speak. That was all the
Speaker 1: like the caveats that I have for And that conversation
Speaker 1: went for three and a half hours of me just
Speaker 1: talking because I couldn't get my words. I couldn't stop,
Speaker 1: you know, all of that thing. But the one thing
Speaker 1: I said to him, all I really wish that you
Speaker 1: had done. And I'm saying this to you but also
Speaker 1: to my listeners because this is the best parenting advice.
Speaker 1: I'm not a parent, but I'm a child. Yes to
Speaker 1: a parent. Best advice I can give, and I gave
Speaker 1: it to my dad was sometimes I just wanted to
Speaker 1: sit on your lap and you say, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do, but I love you, and that's all
Speaker 1: I wanted, not to be told, well, you know what
Speaker 1: you've done wrong? Yeah, yeah, you know what. They always
Speaker 1: play their advocates, and knowing where fathers and mothers come
Speaker 1: from a very you know, he's also intergenerational. It's also
Speaker 1: you know, gendered that whole men have got to give
Speaker 1: you a solution, whereas mothers are more in tune to
Speaker 1: that more nurturing. Let's have a hug, do you want
Speaker 1: to make you some food? You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do. Should we go to the cancer warter?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I laugh too hard at that, didn't
Speaker 2: I that?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 2: The solutions they have. But you know what I've got
Speaker 2: to say is that my parents and my mum's eighty
Speaker 2: next year, right, So they were so beautiful about it.
Speaker 2: I was stunned, and I thought, gosh, I think I've
Speaker 2: been underestimating you. I was so frightened to have this
Speaker 2: conversation because you know, we don't air our dirty laundry.
Speaker 2: We don't talk about these deeply personal things, these ugly things.
Speaker 2: You know, we're grateful, we pick ourselves up. So for
Speaker 2: me to go to them and say this, I need
Speaker 2: to put this stuff in this book. I need to
Speaker 2: write about it because otherwise it's not a truthful book
Speaker 2: and there's no point writing it at all. And they
Speaker 2: just said, you do whatever you need to do and
Speaker 2: we'll support you.
Speaker 1: Isn't that wonderful?
Speaker 2: And they and they said sorry to me many times,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I actually don't need that from you,
Speaker 2: because you did what you could with what you had.
Speaker 2: And they said, we should have dealt with it. Better.
Speaker 2: But back then there wasn't better. There weren't resources, we
Speaker 2: weren't talking like this.
Speaker 1: You know, how wonderful that they gave you sympathy. You know,
Speaker 1: they didn't need to, but they had it to give
Speaker 1: and it's never too late to give it, and you
Speaker 1: got it. And they really wish that things had been different.
Speaker 1: That's for your heartbreaks for them.
Speaker 2: Doesn't totally because what my mum and dad fall into
Speaker 2: the category of what I call when you know better,
Speaker 2: you do better. You know, there are some people who
Speaker 2: will stand by some of the shitty things they did
Speaker 2: or thought or said back in the day, double down, well,
Speaker 2: you know, never hurt me good clip upside the Oh
Speaker 2: you know I didn't it didn't it really? But then
Speaker 2: there's those who when you know better, you do better.
Speaker 2: And that's across all of life, about our attitudes to
Speaker 2: certain kinds of people and all of that stuff. When
Speaker 2: you know better, you do better. Smart people do that,
Speaker 2: Compassionate people do that. You know, I think small minded,
Speaker 2: dim people don't fear for people, people people, People who
Speaker 2: live narrow from black. Yes, they don't do better because
Speaker 2: they just double down on their crappy opinions and their
Speaker 2: crappy behaviors and never and they stand by their pride,
Speaker 2: their ego, if you will, like they don't remove that
Speaker 2: ego to swallow their pride and say maybe I was wrong.
Speaker 1: And that's my father had a lot of that, like
Speaker 1: a lot of that problem. I've never had kids for
Speaker 1: an array of reasons, but one of them was because
Speaker 1: I was really frightened i'd have my father's temper that
Speaker 1: he had with us, and I was so frightened to
Speaker 1: do that to children. But my brother did, and I
Speaker 1: remember him saying, I changed it, like I changed it.
Speaker 1: The kids didn't get hit because when you know better,
Speaker 1: you do better. That's right, And it's there's two ways
Speaker 1: that can go, is exactly to follow the steps or
Speaker 1: you turn it right on its head. And it's funny
Speaker 1: the ones who double down, they see themselves as the
Speaker 1: victims still like, well, I don't know any better. I
Speaker 1: didn't know any better, and you know, you should have
Speaker 1: seen the ship that happened to me. Okay, it was like, well,
Speaker 1: clearly you're not.
Speaker 2: You could know better now if you would.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm so glad we have things in
Speaker 1: place for kids with parents, because you know, the things
Speaker 1: that parents could get away with.
Speaker 2: Back in the day and it was all perfectly normal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not just your parents, your mate's parents could
Speaker 1: hit you as well. My parents could, your teachers could
Speaker 1: hit you everyone.
Speaker 2: Fair game.
Speaker 1: I am watching how mad I just could hit you
Speaker 1: with a with a cane daily. Remember when mad Men
Speaker 1: first came out, I remember there was I only watched
Speaker 1: the first season and then I was just like, no,
Speaker 1: this isn't for me. But it was such a great
Speaker 1: show anyway. But because it's said in the fifties of marketing,
Speaker 1: so lots but there was lots of you know, you'd
Speaker 1: go to they There was one scene where they all
Speaker 1: went to someone's house for a party. So all the
Speaker 1: kids are everywhere. Kids are like the boys are dressed
Speaker 1: up as cowboys and they're all running around bang bang bang.
Speaker 1: And one all the men are drinking scotch and the
Speaker 1: kids run through the circle of men and one guy
Speaker 1: just slaps this kid upside the head and the other
Speaker 1: man goes, I'm so sorry you had to hit my
Speaker 1: son like that, Like Jesus, Jimmy, what are you doing it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: It triggered me. I was like cool, memory unlocked the
Speaker 1: amount of people that were allowed to hit us and
Speaker 1: discipline us as children. Is quite astounding what they could
Speaker 1: get away.
Speaker 2: With, saying, goodness, that's not the way anymore, thank.
Speaker 1: God, it's not. I want to ask you about going
Speaker 1: into a mental health facility, do you mind talking about No.
Speaker 2: Of course not, of course not. It's all part of
Speaker 2: the part of the big picture.
Speaker 1: Because I've been in one as well, twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: But I know things really change in time, especially in
Speaker 1: two decades mine over two decades ago. But you spoke
Speaker 1: on the project about how there was a lovely couple
Speaker 1: of strangers. Yes, that helped you in a really pivotal moment.
Speaker 2: That's what sort of started me down that path. And
Speaker 2: I have experienced a few different admissions over the past
Speaker 2: couple of years. And I have experienced a public system
Speaker 2: that was one of my questions as well, and the
Speaker 2: private system. And I know which one will heal.
Speaker 1: You and that which one needs a lot of help.
Speaker 2: And which one. I can't understand how anyone is expected
Speaker 2: to get better in a place like that. But yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I got right to the very the very bottom of
Speaker 2: the well, and and I couldn't see any way out
Speaker 2: other than to leave. And yeah, I was about to
Speaker 2: execute a plan, and this beautiful young couple and their
Speaker 2: dog just knew that they needed to sit with me
Speaker 2: for a bit, and they did. They sat with me
Speaker 2: for a couple of hours and just chatted, not about
Speaker 2: anything heavy, just about life and about their dog. Asked
Speaker 2: me if I had dogs. I had told them about
Speaker 2: my three and told them about my kids. They told
Speaker 2: me about theirs, and once or twice in that two
Speaker 2: hour period, I laughed, and it shocked me because it's
Speaker 2: like I didn't know there was even a laugh left
Speaker 2: in there. I didn't know. And so by the end
Speaker 2: of that time, I was ready to go home instead
Speaker 2: of doing what I had gone there to do. And
Speaker 2: that was when I entered the mental health system. So
Speaker 2: my husband, when I told him where I'd been, he
Speaker 2: just said, I'm not equipped to deal with this, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to take your to hospital now.
Speaker 1: So before you went on that walk, was it just like,
Speaker 1: were you at home alone or was the family home.
Speaker 2: I was on my way to a football match, so
Speaker 2: we're mad Mariners fans in our household, and I was
Speaker 2: on my way to that match and I was standing
Speaker 2: with Mick outside the stadium and he was going to
Speaker 2: go meet clients over the other side of the stadium,
Speaker 2: and I was going to meet friends over this side.
Speaker 2: And he it was I've been on a downward spiral
Speaker 2: for a while and it was a horrible time, like
Speaker 2: everything was on fire, you know. It was oh yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a really horrible time and everything was awful,
Speaker 2: and and he was just real quiet, and I said,
Speaker 2: are you all right? And he said, I'm worried about you.
Speaker 2: And that's that's all he said that. He wasn't no recriminations, no,
Speaker 2: no solutions thrown at me, just I'm worried about you.
Speaker 2: And so he went off to sit with the clients
Speaker 2: and I just texted my friends and said, I don't
Speaker 2: feel very well. I'm not coming. And that was the solution,
Speaker 2: and I just started walking. It was yep. It just
Speaker 2: became really clear to me, they'll be better that I
Speaker 2: ruin everything. I worry everyone. This is sickness talking. It
Speaker 2: was my absolute belief in that moment, and I wasn't
Speaker 2: happy about it. I was devastated by the realization that
Speaker 2: all the people that I loved would be so much
Speaker 2: better off if I just wasn't around to ruin their
Speaker 2: lives and that's what I arrived at.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you're still here. Yeah, but they
Speaker 1: are as well.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, we're all very grateful to those people.
Speaker 1: Those and do you still know those people?
Speaker 2: I do. I've been in touch with them a couple
Speaker 2: of times. Just tap them.
Speaker 1: Angels on Earth?
Speaker 2: Are they When I became a grandmother, I sent them
Speaker 2: a picture of my granddaughter and yeah, just thank you.
Speaker 1: Wow. Do you know the show? You can't ask that?
Speaker 1: On the ABC there was an episode. It's one of
Speaker 1: the hardest episodes I've ever seen people who have tried
Speaker 1: to take their own lives and not succeeded, and he
Speaker 1: pretty much every single one of them said, I wish
Speaker 1: I hadn't you know, I wish I just people knew
Speaker 1: before I thought that was the ultimate decision to make,
Speaker 1: And it's almost like, I wish we could give people
Speaker 1: that opportunity.
Speaker 2: This is what I'm trying to do with this book,
Speaker 2: you know, because I do detail all the things that
Speaker 2: led to that day, and what I'd love. What my
Speaker 2: purpose is in writing it is that somebody might look
Speaker 2: at it and go, you know what, I have unprocessed
Speaker 2: trauma from my childhood, or I am so overworked and
Speaker 2: exhausted that I'm not finding joy in my day anymore.
Speaker 2: Or I have to arrange my face muscles into a
Speaker 2: smile in order to leave the house. Or I have
Speaker 2: waken up far too many mornings and not been able
Speaker 2: to put my feet on the floor. Any one of
Speaker 2: those things. Or I need wine before I can sleep,
Speaker 2: you know, any one of those things. If that is
Speaker 2: you just take it out, shine a bit of light
Speaker 2: on it and examine it, and you might go, okay, well,
Speaker 2: there's a simple solution to that. I will just drop
Speaker 2: a bit of my work hours or whatever. But it
Speaker 2: could also be the start of a very rocky path.
Speaker 2: So if you can catch yourself at any point on
Speaker 2: that path, because there comes a point on that path
Speaker 2: where nothing's logical anymore, and illness takes over and your
Speaker 2: beliefs which are wrong, yes, that there's only one solution.
Speaker 2: So I don't think anyone's immune from that kind of
Speaker 2: downward spiral. I don't think they are.
Speaker 1: Saying I could not agree with you more. Everyone is
Speaker 1: susceptible to it. It can happen to any of us
Speaker 1: if we let it get out of control. And it's
Speaker 1: not even letting it because it's not something you have
Speaker 1: control out over.
Speaker 2: No, but you can turn things around if you catch
Speaker 2: it early enough so that these little warning signs, you know,
Speaker 2: before you consume by mental illness, you can spot the
Speaker 2: warning signs and start to do the things, pull out
Speaker 2: the tools out of the toolbox while you can, because
Speaker 2: there comes a point where you know, I describe it
Speaker 2: as being at the bottom of the well. I can
Speaker 2: see the tiny speck of light at the top, and
Speaker 2: I know what I have to do to get to it.
Speaker 2: I know what I have to do. I just can't
Speaker 2: do it. Yes, I can't move my arms, I can't
Speaker 2: move my legs. I can barely breathe. So there's no
Speaker 2: way I can get up and go for a walk
Speaker 2: and you know, do a bit of meditating. And I
Speaker 2: can't do that at that point. It's too bloody late,
Speaker 2: and I really need to be hauled out there by
Speaker 2: heavy machinery. Yeah, and that's what the mental hospital, all
Speaker 2: the therapy and all of that, that was the heavy
Speaker 2: machinery that I needed by then.
Speaker 1: So mental health facility. It really breaks my heart that
Speaker 1: it seems only people with money can get good help.
Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you, and this is something that
Speaker 2: I learned and something that I've written in my book,
Speaker 2: and something that I think is really important to know
Speaker 2: if you've got basic private cover, which I know not
Speaker 2: everyone can afford, and it breaks my heart. So normally,
Speaker 2: if you say you need a knee surgery or your
Speaker 2: eyes go to hell, and that's not part of your cover,
Speaker 2: you've got to wait, right, there's a waiting period before
Speaker 2: you can bolt that on. For mental health conditions, you
Speaker 2: do not. So I wasn't covered to go to that
Speaker 2: mental health facility. But we found out that it's the
Speaker 2: law that if it's a mental health condition that the
Speaker 2: insurance company has to allow you that immediately. So we
Speaker 2: straight away, it got straight on the phone. He said,
Speaker 2: I need to change our coverage to cover private hospital
Speaker 2: and all the things that I was going to need.
Speaker 2: And they can't say no to you because it's a
Speaker 2: mental health condition.
Speaker 1: So great to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that. I mean, you've still got
Speaker 2: to pay that premium, but you've still got to pay
Speaker 2: for the extra. But they cannot say you've got to
Speaker 2: wait a year. They cannot say that's a pre existing
Speaker 2: condition either.
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, and because public can't make you way
Speaker 1: like and those kind of things. They're emergency. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they'd be liable if they even tried to make you wait.
Speaker 2: And I can tell you we couldn't have afforded the
Speaker 2: stays that I had in these private clinics because it's
Speaker 2: very very.
Speaker 1: Good to know. Yes, they're so expensive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so basic cover and you can bolt that stuff
Speaker 2: on whenever you need it. If it's mental health.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's so good to know, because they are getting
Speaker 1: better with the you know, the six bult build kind
Speaker 1: of things, but sometimes there's a scaling or whatever with that,
Speaker 1: like sometimes it's not enough, Yes, it's sometimes that's not enough.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can't get into the good therapists, and sometimes
Speaker 1: a therapist once a week or twice a week is nothing.
Speaker 1: It's drop in the ocean compared to what you need,
Speaker 1: like that twenty four hour core. Oh that's so good
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's certainly a long way to go that
Speaker 2: there needs to be far more accessibility to mental health
Speaker 2: care because it impacts I believe the is one in
Speaker 2: two of us, which means it impacts everybody. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: everybody knows somebody yep, So every life is impacted by
Speaker 2: people's mental health.
Speaker 1: And so why not put so much more money? Imagine
Speaker 1: if we I mean, I've always said this about you know,
Speaker 1: Nordic countries that you know, put all their taxes towards education, medical,
Speaker 1: and daycare children, and they just they thrive so much
Speaker 1: better because they take care of each other and themselves.
Speaker 1: It just makes so much more sense to take care
Speaker 1: of our mental health. Is throw all the money at
Speaker 1: that and just you know, put so much and then
Speaker 1: you've got so many other aspects of people's lives that
Speaker 1: you don't have to spend money on. Correct Because you know,
Speaker 1: we're going through an endemic at the moment, what they're
Speaker 1: calling it an epidemic of femicide. Women at the moment,
Speaker 1: dying one every four days at the hands of an
Speaker 1: intimate partner. I've been reading so much about it because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just so interested in this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and I've started to go to the other side of
Speaker 1: men who've been in that situation why they're like that,
Speaker 1: And a lot of them are saying the the help
Speaker 1: is not there for us. And I at first as
Speaker 1: roll mars like I don't want to you know, you're
Speaker 1: doing awful things. But imagine if they were being treated
Speaker 1: better in that sense of being taught how to use tools,
Speaker 1: how to treat women, how to express their everything. Even
Speaker 1: if we don't get them young, it's there for when
Speaker 1: they're old, because we've got to start somewhere. So say
Speaker 1: we start starting with the adult males, well.
Speaker 2: Helped them to process the childhood traumas. That taught them
Speaker 2: to where they are exactly. You know, everyone who's violent,
Speaker 2: everyone who's addicted, everyone, we're all walking traumas, you know,
Speaker 2: and we all deal with it different ways. And yeah,
Speaker 2: absolutely to address those issues is going to have a
Speaker 2: massive impact on society as a whole as a whole,
Speaker 2: and you know, and we also need to understand that
Speaker 2: the physical and the mental are so closely connected too.
Speaker 2: So when people have chronic pain and all that, that
Speaker 2: leads that leads into that mental health side of things
Speaker 2: as well. So it's all interconnected. And you know, for me,
Speaker 2: the mental health became very physical. I got very physically
Speaker 2: sick as well, and so your body does, well, my
Speaker 2: brain seemed to go. If you're not going to listen
Speaker 2: to the warning signs I'm giving you up here, I'm
Speaker 2: going to send them out to all how the parts
Speaker 2: of your body. That's right, and that's what happened.
Speaker 1: Exactly what it's physiological. Thank you for just talking so
Speaker 1: vulnerably and writing a book. I can't wait to read it.
Speaker 1: You are very first Master Shift and I, even though
Speaker 1: we've met, it was like it was a business business,
Speaker 1: it was a work thing, so we never have really
Speaker 1: ever had a chance to have a chat. So and
Speaker 1: you're someone that I've always wanted to meet, like always
Speaker 1: wanted to meet because you were the I can still
Speaker 1: just remember master Chef. You know what TV is laying.
Speaker 1: Channel ten and Channel nine are the worst for saturating
Speaker 1: us with promo, and you were the promo. So you
Speaker 1: were the shaking mom who didn't even think that you
Speaker 1: were going to get through the first round, like no,
Speaker 1: And that's just made everyone fall in love with wanting
Speaker 1: to watch the show, and then watching the show and
Speaker 1: seeing you win. It was if the nation's pride, like
Speaker 1: you were all of us.
Speaker 2: That's lovely.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a wild ride.
Speaker 2: I do write a lot about it, about it and
Speaker 2: all the stories and all the behind the scenes. It
Speaker 2: was so interesting and it was so hard, you know,
Speaker 2: but my god, it's I don't regret doing it for
Speaker 2: one second.
Speaker 1: No, and my I did The Jungle. You've done the
Speaker 1: Jungle as well. And our chef film was Justine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's beautiful, beautiful, and she talked about you sold and
Speaker 1: I would say, I love her so much, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: meet her. And it's with that we've just you know,
Speaker 1: it's taken so long to meet you. And then you
Speaker 1: got into radio as well. Yes, and I'm really glad
Speaker 1: that you did that because where I grew up, you know,
Speaker 1: which is where you were doing the radio. Like I
Speaker 1: would have just loved to be on Central Coast Radio.
Speaker 1: Like it was like, oh my god, everyone I know listens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved the radio. I loved it. I just
Speaker 2: my co host, Rabbit is just he was a veteran
Speaker 2: in the business, so good at what he did and
Speaker 2: just such a funny person. So we just hit it
Speaker 2: off and we had so much fun.
Speaker 1: That's so great. Would you ever go back again?
Speaker 2: Not to Brecky, I just it was part of the
Speaker 2: whole unraveling.
Speaker 1: That's another world. It is another world. I remember doing
Speaker 1: breakfast and saying to Ash London, when does it get
Speaker 1: She just laughed, Oh, honey, it doesn't, No, it doesn't
Speaker 1: get better. Your body clock doesn't get living a different
Speaker 1: world to everyone.
Speaker 2: Else totally, because you don't just lose your morning, like
Speaker 2: you've got to get up at four. Well, I had
Speaker 2: to get up at four. Some people are earlier. So
Speaker 2: you don't just lose the morning at home with you know,
Speaker 2: your family or your partner or whatever. You lose your
Speaker 2: night as well because you've got to eat and go
Speaker 2: to early. And that's so and I kind.
Speaker 1: Of got to watch a screen or try to stay
Speaker 1: up and watch something that you've got to got to.
Speaker 2: Have content, yeah, and the next day. So so it
Speaker 2: does take you out of the mainstream world. But then
Speaker 2: I was running a cooking school as well, so I
Speaker 2: had I had essentially two full time jobs. So that's
Speaker 2: where really the wheels started to wobble on the old
Speaker 2: on the old chassis. And yeah, so I don't think
Speaker 2: going back to breakfast radio would be the best thing
Speaker 2: for my for my brain, but.
Speaker 1: Other types of yeah, yeah, and podcasting is such a
Speaker 1: big thing these days and so flexible. So we do
Speaker 1: I do without pants on sometimes, don't I marvel?
Speaker 2: I've did lots of things without pants on. We should
Speaker 2: just do a lot.
Speaker 1: Of things, well, should do more things without pants on.
Speaker 2: I might do a cooking cooking cooking without pants.
Speaker 1: No cooking segment. I like it. Okay. Lastly, so where
Speaker 1: are you at in your life now?
Speaker 2: My life now? So I had to leave the radio.
Speaker 2: I close my cooking school for my well being as well,
Speaker 2: and so now I make choices about what to do.
Speaker 2: I obviously chose to write a book, and now I'm
Speaker 2: on book tour. So this is not a particularly balanced
Speaker 2: period of time. But when I'm not in this little
Speaker 2: sort of vortex of activity, I do a lot of
Speaker 2: art now, So I've gone back to some of the
Speaker 2: things that brought me joy when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: My beautiful kitchen, cooking school. So one end it's still
Speaker 2: a kitchen where I make content and develop recipes and
Speaker 2: do all that stuff. And the other end is an
Speaker 2: art studio. So I've got canvases and easels, and I
Speaker 2: paint with pastry brushes and egg flips and all sorts
Speaker 2: of stuff. I have so much fun there. I spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time with my three year old granddaughter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how happens your granddaughter now?
Speaker 2: Three three, which is just the birstage, And so I
Speaker 2: make time for her and it's the most it's the
Speaker 2: best time in my whole week. And yeah, I just
Speaker 2: choose now whether I'm going to take an opportunity or not.
Speaker 2: And I'm not driven by fear anymore. So I was
Speaker 2: driven so much by the fear. If I don't take
Speaker 2: every opportunity that came through the door, I would lose
Speaker 2: my ability to make a living and I would lose
Speaker 2: my opportunities that I've been gifted from from mastershire fifteen
Speaker 2: years ago. And I've got it. I've got to do
Speaker 2: it all. And now I'm just like, well, no, actually,
Speaker 2: I've got choices.
Speaker 1: And how's the response being so far from like just
Speaker 1: the general public, Like when people see you in the
Speaker 1: street and now they know that you've written a book,
Speaker 1: Like because the Project interview that it made me bore
Speaker 1: my eyes out in a really good way, because I
Speaker 1: was just so grateful that people are talking about there,
Speaker 1: you know, and people who are seemingly not perfect, happy
Speaker 1: and joyful all the time to see you be so real.
Speaker 1: It also broke my heart to see that you're in
Speaker 1: any kind of pain, because you know, you're someone that
Speaker 1: I've always looked at and just made me so happy.
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking you're getting that kind of reaction from
Speaker 1: the general public when they see you talk to you.
Speaker 2: I've got people like I'm doing these book events where
Speaker 2: we chat and then people come and talk to me
Speaker 2: one on one, and people are sharing their own stories
Speaker 2: with me. And some of these people are of the
Speaker 2: generation that have never been allowed to talk about stuff
Speaker 2: like that, and it's incredible how liberating it is for
Speaker 2: them especially, you know. But yeah, everyone's relating to bits
Speaker 2: and pieces of the story or the whole story, and
Speaker 2: just feel weird, seen.
Speaker 1: That's being seen being heard. When you finished the book,
Speaker 1: did you just feel lighter?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, when I got to the last line, I
Speaker 2: typed it out and I felt like a ton of
Speaker 2: rocks came off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: People should just write, even if they'd ever published.
Speaker 2: That That experience of putting my life down chronologically actually
Speaker 2: taught me a lot of stuff. There were things that
Speaker 2: had happened that I never understood why as a teenager,
Speaker 2: and then when I wrote down the chronology of all
Speaker 2: the stuff that's happened in my life, I went, oh,
Speaker 2: this is like cliche, it's so boring text. Obviously that
Speaker 2: happened because of that, that happened because of that, and
Speaker 2: that led to this, and that led to this. If
Speaker 2: I showed this rough outline to any psychologists, they would
Speaker 2: have said, I can tell you what's going to happen here.
Speaker 2: If somebody doesn't intervene here.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, textbook, they would study that. You would be okay,
Speaker 1: study and say this is what this is. Julie did this,
Speaker 1: this and this and this and this happened to you.
Speaker 2: If it was a script variety, you go, oh, come on,
Speaker 2: this has been done to death. Come up with some
Speaker 2: there a bit more original.
Speaker 1: And that would be so many people, wouldn't it.
Speaker 2: Yep, it really is.
Speaker 1: Start writing everyone, Just start writing.
Speaker 2: Shot it down, Shot it down.
Speaker 1: I often say to people went with therapy, you have
Speaker 1: to get your hands dirty. It's going to be tough, but.
Speaker 2: Get your heart dirty.
Speaker 1: You have to.
Speaker 2: You have to really go back to some places that
Speaker 2: are hard.
Speaker 1: Very hard, not comfortable.
Speaker 2: But then you heal them. Yes, and then you come
Speaker 2: out with a loss of that the shame that you've
Speaker 2: carried and a loss of you've carried, and you're able
Speaker 2: to be a bit more compassionate to yourself and you know,
Speaker 2: bring in those parts of you that you've left out
Speaker 2: in the cold.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a garden. Like you have to start
Speaker 1: with a pretty ugly surface, but what you can do
Speaker 1: with it by getting into it, nurturing it, and you
Speaker 1: still have to tend to it, and you end up
Speaker 1: with something quite beautiful and light. And I've never really
Speaker 1: thought of it like that. But that's that's not a
Speaker 1: bad analogy, is it. Garden?
Speaker 2: I like that garden ourselves. Let's be flowers, and you have, yes,
Speaker 2: get rid of the weeds.
Speaker 1: You have to keep doing it, don't you.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh yes, mate, You've got to maintain.
Speaker 1: But how much how beautiful the rewards of a garden
Speaker 1: as well like, and it changes all the time, and
Speaker 1: especially if you're a deciduous garden, she's really run.
Speaker 2: On that note, thank you, thank you, thank you, oh thanks, Ebo.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you letting me have this conversation.
Speaker 1: You are more than welcome. Thank you for coming in.