Speaker 1: Welcome to the Rise and Conquer Podcasts. This podcast is
Speaker 1: for women who want to take ownership of their lives,
Speaker 1: live unapologetically, and are ready to turn their biggest dreams
Speaker 1: into their reality. If you're ready to be armed with
Speaker 1: the tools that will inspire to take bold action, feel
Speaker 1: confident within yourself, and conquer your goals, then you've come
Speaker 1: to the right place. I'm your host, Georgie Stevenson. I'm
Speaker 1: a lawyer turned entrepreneur, co founder of Naked Harvest Supplements,
Speaker 1: and social media personality with a community of over three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand. I grew up believing I had to pursue
Speaker 1: the safe option and fit into a mold others had
Speaker 1: created for me. But then I entered my corporate law
Speaker 1: job and I realized that settling for a reality that
Speaker 1: didn't set my soul on fire was something I.
Speaker 2: Was not prepared to do.
Speaker 1: I wanted more, and I have a feeling you do too.
Speaker 1: Join me and special guest weekly as we get down
Speaker 1: to the nitty gritty on all things health, mastering your mindset,
Speaker 1: creating lasting habits, thriving in your career and relationships, plus
Speaker 1: so much more, and together we'll gain the knowledge and
Speaker 1: perspective to pursue our wildest dreams and kick fear to
Speaker 1: the curb. Well, what are you waiting for? Let's rise
Speaker 1: and conquer, Hey guys, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Rise and Conquer podcast. Today's guest is author and
Speaker 1: journalist Georgie Dent. At age twenty four, Georgie Dent the
Speaker 1: world at her feet also it seemed.
Speaker 2: She graduated university with.
Speaker 1: Flying colors, landed a job at a corporate law firm,
Speaker 1: and moved in with her boyfriend. Everything looked picture perfect
Speaker 1: and she had no reason to break, but she did.
Speaker 1: Within a year, Georgie was unemployed, back living with her parents,
Speaker 1: and suffering such crippling anxiety that she ended up in
Speaker 1: a psychiatric hospital. Fast forward to today and Georgie has
Speaker 1: three beautiful girls. That boyfriend is now her husband, and
Speaker 1: now she is a journalist and author. Georgie wrote her
Speaker 1: breakdown in slow motion and how she rebuilt her life
Speaker 1: in her book Breaking Badly. Her story provides an inspiring
Speaker 1: and raw recount that proves that not oni is recovery
Speaker 1: from a mental health disorder possible, but so is rebuilding
Speaker 1: a beautiful life with a fulfilling career. And loving family.
Speaker 1: Georgie is warm and so clever beyond words. I was
Speaker 1: so grateful she invited us into her home to record
Speaker 1: this episode, and I am so grateful to listen to
Speaker 1: her story and now share it with you. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show, Georgie, Thank you so much for having us
Speaker 1: in your house.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: It is our.
Speaker 1: Rainy here in Sydney, so sorry if you guys can
Speaker 1: hear the rain, but it's actually quite nice. But Georgie,
Speaker 1: the first question I ask everyone is what current season
Speaker 1: are you in? And so the reason why I ask
Speaker 1: this is we are all going through something and I'm
Speaker 1: very much about being grateful for what we're going through
Speaker 1: and realizing that it's just that a season.
Speaker 2: So tell us about yours.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I am in a season, I would say,
Speaker 3: or the season that I'm hoping to enjoy for the
Speaker 3: first half of this year is actually a little bit
Speaker 3: slower paced. Twenty nineteen was very very busy for me
Speaker 3: on a few fronts, personally and professionally with the family,
Speaker 3: with work, with my husband's work, and I got to
Speaker 3: the end of last year feeling really close to burnout,
Speaker 3: and so I have been really conscious of the fact
Speaker 3: that this year, I actually do want to do a
Speaker 3: little bit less work and I want to spend less
Speaker 3: time chasing my tail. I've set things up this year
Speaker 3: so that hopefully it is going to be like that,
Speaker 3: and I mean it's only early days, but I definitely
Speaker 3: feel like I am going to be structuring my weeks
Speaker 3: and days so that I have got a bit more
Speaker 3: time to enjoy what I'm doing, whether whether it's when
Speaker 3: I'm at work or whether it's when I'm home with
Speaker 3: the kids. I just want to be doing one thing
Speaker 3: at a time, so almost.
Speaker 1: Like being more intentional with your time.
Speaker 3: Yes, and being really conscious about I mean, I've always
Speaker 3: one of the things about working and having kids is
Speaker 3: you know, and it's so cliched, but it is a juggle.
Speaker 3: And so I am constantly looking at my diary and
Speaker 3: seeing what needs to happen and how it's going to happen.
Speaker 3: And so because of that, I have had to be
Speaker 3: strategic about my time. But this year, my plan is
Speaker 3: to just skew slightly more towards doing less than doing more,
Speaker 3: so that I can enjoy the things that I have
Speaker 3: and the things that I do.
Speaker 1: I love that and I can resonate a lot with that.
Speaker 1: Last year it kind of felt like I was like
Speaker 1: a headless chook and I was running on and I
Speaker 1: was doing so much and nothing was getting done.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot was getting done.
Speaker 1: But definitely this year is a lot about being more
Speaker 1: intentional and conscious that when I'm working, I'm working, and
Speaker 1: then when I'm doing other stuff, I'm present there too.
Speaker 2: Yep, amazing.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little snapshot about yourself? So also,
Speaker 1: I've done a little intro, but yeah, give us a
Speaker 1: little snapshot in your own words.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, so I am thirty seven, I've got I
Speaker 3: live in Sydney with my husband, and we've got three
Speaker 3: daughters who are nine, seven and about to turn four.
Speaker 3: I work as a journalist and I work across a
Speaker 3: number of different platforms. So there's a website that I
Speaker 3: edit a couple of days a week called Women's Agenda.
Speaker 3: I contribute articles, and I have worked as part of
Speaker 3: the features team at My Claire. I have a column
Speaker 3: with Fairfax Papers, and then I do I wrote a
Speaker 3: book last year, and I do quite a bit of
Speaker 3: speaking around both gender equality and women at work and
Speaker 3: mental health and anxiety and perfectionism. So I wear a
Speaker 3: few different hats. Every week is a little bit different,
Speaker 3: and I yeah, but it's predominantly writing, speaking at events,
Speaker 3: and then I do a bit of media as well,
Speaker 3: so a lot on it is fairly busy.
Speaker 1: Yes, And so do you actually do you like that
Speaker 1: I use someone who prefers more of a routine, or
Speaker 1: do you like that every week is quite different?
Speaker 3: I do like having a pattern, That's what I do
Speaker 3: quite like. And my weeks do have a rhythm to them,
Speaker 3: so even though not every week is identical, there are
Speaker 3: a couple of things that are sort of anchored and
Speaker 3: the same. And I guess that's one of the things
Speaker 3: with having three children tour at school. The school term
Speaker 3: and their school activities does give you a sort of
Speaker 3: structure and routine, so I sort of know what everyone's
Speaker 3: got on each afternoon or each morning before school, and
Speaker 3: then that helps to plan my week. So I definitely
Speaker 3: do like having some structure, but I also quite enjoy
Speaker 3: that not every single day is the same.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: And so you did just before, say, you wrote a
Speaker 1: book and it is breaking badly.
Speaker 2: I have read it, guys. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: I personally am someone who has struggled with anxiety myself.
Speaker 1: So I just found it. I know Grace has read
Speaker 1: it too. I just found it. Yeah, like you were
Speaker 1: able to read it, and especially because you were talking
Speaker 1: about Brisbane and Australia that sort of thing, and I
Speaker 1: just really resonated with it because you really went through
Speaker 1: each stage and yeah, it was great.
Speaker 2: So let's get into that.
Speaker 1: So it's your experience with anxiety, perfectionism, and your career burnout.
Speaker 1: So I love that you can share your experience with
Speaker 1: mental illness and be so vulnerable and honest about it
Speaker 1: because I know there's a lot of people who suffering
Speaker 1: sons like you did when you were talking about it
Speaker 1: at the start of the book two, and it's really
Speaker 1: it's hard to come out and talk about it. So
Speaker 1: what compelled you to write a book like this? And
Speaker 1: was it hard to share your message on mental illness?
Speaker 3: Okay, very good question. I was compelled to write this book.
Speaker 3: I suppose it happened gradually. So when I had the
Speaker 3: book covers the fact that I had a nervous breakdown
Speaker 3: when I was twenty five and it was sort of
Speaker 3: four pretty hellish months where I was unable to do
Speaker 3: very much at all, and I was quite debilitated by
Speaker 3: illness and dizziness, and I ended up sort of living
Speaker 3: back with my parents for a period of time, and
Speaker 3: then I ended up in a psychiatric hospital. So all
Speaker 3: of that was pretty terrible. The good part was that
Speaker 3: once I went to a psychiatric hospital, I was put
Speaker 3: on medication and I started doing a whole lot of
Speaker 3: therapy and that I'd never done before, and I very
Speaker 3: quickly became a lot healthier, and I was able to
Speaker 3: sort of function in a manner that was so much
Speaker 3: more constructive and healthy than I'd ever been. So pretty
Speaker 3: quickly after what I went through, I did tell people
Speaker 3: what had happened. And it was about two years after
Speaker 3: it happened that I actually wrote about it for the
Speaker 3: first time, and I sent it off to Mia Friedman,
Speaker 3: who at the time her website was still just a
Speaker 3: blog mum of me, but it had quite a big readership,
Speaker 3: and I sent it off to her and just said,
Speaker 3: if you want to publish this anonymously, I'd be really
Speaker 3: happy to share my story. And it felt quite scary
Speaker 3: even without my name being attached to it. I was
Speaker 3: really brutally honest about what had happened in that really yeah,
Speaker 3: and it really struck a chord. So it sort of
Speaker 3: had one hundred comments very quickly. And this is a
Speaker 3: long time ago. We're talking twelve years ago, when you know,
Speaker 3: there weren't comments galare on websites. And so that was
Speaker 3: my first experience of writing about what had happened. And
Speaker 3: then I did write more about it, and I spoke
Speaker 3: about it more at different events and things like that,
Speaker 3: and whenever I spoke about it or wrote about it,
Speaker 3: I was always druck by the number of people who
Speaker 3: connected with it. So fast forward a few years ago,
Speaker 3: a publisher approached me and just said that she loved
Speaker 3: the way I write and that she thinks she would
Speaker 3: have really liked to work on a book with me.
Speaker 3: And she said, what would you like to write a
Speaker 3: book on? And I think she was actually probably expecting
Speaker 3: me to say something around women, but I said to her, look,
Speaker 3: I think if I'm going to write a book, I've
Speaker 3: got to write about what happened to me. And so
Speaker 3: that was how it came about, and so I ended
Speaker 3: up writing the book. I started it just over ten
Speaker 3: years after I'd had the breakdown, and so I had
Speaker 3: the benefit of dis and hindsight, and I had written.
Speaker 3: I had written quite a lot about what had happened
Speaker 3: at the time, but I also had you know, my
Speaker 3: mum had all these emails from between her and I,
Speaker 3: so I had material I could look back on. But
Speaker 3: I didn't find it difficult to write. I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: the process of writing it. But yeah, that was how
Speaker 3: it came about.
Speaker 1: And so let's go back to the start a bit.
Speaker 1: Let us explore that a bit. So tell us about
Speaker 1: when you were nineteen and you were facing these health issues.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your first of all, like the health
Speaker 1: issues and your experience with the doctors you were facing.
Speaker 3: So when I was in year twelve at school, So
Speaker 3: I went to school in Brisbane, so I was seventeen.
Speaker 3: In my final year of school, I started to have
Speaker 3: my tummy was quite upset a lot of the time.
Speaker 3: I started having cramps a lot. It was not particularly
Speaker 3: pleasant and I sort of ignored it for a period
Speaker 3: of time. I did go to the doctor at one
Speaker 3: point and he sort of said, oh, look, it's probably
Speaker 3: it's not uncommon. In year twelve. There's a lot of stress,
Speaker 3: you know, it's your body's reaction to that. But then
Speaker 3: after I at the end of my first year of UNI,
Speaker 3: I sort of was having another set of physiological symptoms
Speaker 3: but also that were abdomen related, but it was more
Speaker 3: like intense, crazy period pain, but not necessarily when I
Speaker 3: had my period, and my tummy would often of a
Speaker 3: night completely blow up to look like I was almost
Speaker 3: five months pregnant, and then I would just have the
Speaker 3: most horrific cramping in it. Anyway, I realized I needed
Speaker 3: to see someone, and I spoke to the GP and
Speaker 3: she sort of said, look, I think you probably need
Speaker 3: to go and see a gynocologist. And I was nineteen
Speaker 3: and I hadn't ever seen a gynocologist. And I went
Speaker 3: for the first appointment and the man was perfectly pleasant,
Speaker 3: age but perfectly pleasant, and when I explained to him
Speaker 3: my symptoms, he said, look, to me, it sounds like
Speaker 3: you've probably got endometriosis. Will do an internal ultrasound and see,
Speaker 3: but if that's what you have, which I think you do,
Speaker 3: we'll then have to do some operations to cut the
Speaker 3: tissue away. Now again, this was we're now talking. That
Speaker 3: was almost twenty years ago, and endometriosis was not a
Speaker 3: word I'd ever heard. I didn't know what that meant.
Speaker 3: I didn't like the idea of having surgery to cut
Speaker 3: anything away. But I went through the motions and he
Speaker 3: did an internal ultrasound, which was, you know, vile as
Speaker 3: these things are. And also I was young, so I
Speaker 3: wasn't sort of yet. I mean, I've had to three
Speaker 3: children now, so I know what it's like to lose
Speaker 3: your dignity completely in a medical setting, but back then
Speaker 3: it was all quite new, so I was quite afraid.
Speaker 3: But he did the ultrasound and he sort of was
Speaker 3: pointing out on the screen all these bitsiness pieces that
Speaker 3: I had no idea what it meant. But he basically said, look,
Speaker 3: you do have andrometriosis. It's everywhere, so we'll do some
Speaker 3: surgery to cut it all away. Yeah, and those He
Speaker 3: ended up doing three operations over five weeks. It was
Speaker 3: really quite intense. My body horrific, you know, three general anesthetics.
Speaker 3: It really knocked me around, and I was still young.
Speaker 3: Mum came up to Brisbane to look after me, and
Speaker 3: I had heaps of family support. All my friends were amazing,
Speaker 3: but it was pretty brutal. And you know the other
Speaker 3: thing was that I didn't particularly like having these symptoms
Speaker 3: it certainly wasn't something I really wanted to talk about
Speaker 3: with people, So I think that all made it quite
Speaker 3: a lonely experience, even though I had lots of people
Speaker 3: around me. But I really did feel like I was
Speaker 3: sort of on my own, fighting this battle with my
Speaker 3: body that I didn't really want to be fighting. And
Speaker 3: then after I'd had all of those procedures, it was
Speaker 3: about a month later that I was still having really
Speaker 3: horrific stomach symptoms, and so then when we saw the GP,
Speaker 3: she said, look, you have to go and see a
Speaker 3: gastroentrologist now. And then fairly soon after that, I was
Speaker 3: diagnosed with Crohn's disease, which again i'd never heard of
Speaker 3: until I was being told that I had it. And
Speaker 3: it's a inflammatory bowel disease. It's an autoimmune condition. It's
Speaker 3: every bit as vile as it sounds, and it affects
Speaker 3: people differently. You can have it in sort of varying
Speaker 3: degrees of severity. There are people who end up having
Speaker 3: to have their huge sections of their bow surgically removed
Speaker 3: because of it. I was a pretty much case in
Speaker 3: the middle. I was not I didn't ever have to
Speaker 3: have surgery to have any of my bow removed, but
Speaker 3: I did. It was pretty debilitating at different points, and
Speaker 3: I was put on iminosuppressant drugs that in itself created
Speaker 3: a whole raft of side effects. And I was sort
Speaker 3: of having to have blood tests every There were periods
Speaker 3: of time where I had to have a blood test
Speaker 3: every week for three months or so. I felt a
Speaker 3: little bit trapped in this medical black hole. But I
Speaker 3: was studying. I was at Union at the time. I
Speaker 3: was doing business and law, and I was really eager
Speaker 3: to sort of keep up maintaining my normal existence. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and sort of hiding a little bit gnaoring it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's funny because I did, because you were I always
Speaker 3: went to my appointments, I always saw the doctors, I
Speaker 3: took the medication, I did whatever I needed to do.
Speaker 3: But I really did try to divide my life into
Speaker 3: two parts, and that my medical health issues were in
Speaker 3: one part that was ring fenced and that was just
Speaker 3: my personal private battle that no one really needed to
Speaker 3: know about, and then there was the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you separated it in a way. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: tell us about you went to university, you graded, graduated university,
Speaker 1: and then you started working in a commercial law firm
Speaker 1: tell us about kind of because of these health issues,
Speaker 1: what a day in you know, the workplace looked like.
Speaker 3: So I moved to Sydney for my first full time
Speaker 3: job when I graduated from UNI, and it was with
Speaker 3: a big corporate law firm. I was doing their graduate program.
Speaker 3: And I suppose that when I've been at UNI, I'd
Speaker 3: always been able to. At UNI, you have got enough
Speaker 3: autonomy that you can, I mean, aside from exams, and
Speaker 3: you know, if you had a presentation, if you needed
Speaker 3: to race out of a lecture theater, or you were
Speaker 3: running late, no one really knew you could hide. When
Speaker 3: I moved down to Sydney and started full time work,
Speaker 3: I found it really difficult because my health issues I
Speaker 3: couldn't hide them in the day, and I was working
Speaker 3: really very long hours. And I was also I'd started
Speaker 3: in an environment where you all know that these jobs
Speaker 3: are very competitive, that they're hard to get, you know
Speaker 3: that the standard expected of you is very high, and
Speaker 3: I think I absorbed a lot of pressure and stress
Speaker 3: that ended up sort of exacerbating the fact that I
Speaker 3: already had fairly average health.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 3: Probably after about six months, my days at work looked
Speaker 3: I was just forever needing to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: If I was walking to work, it would take three
Speaker 3: or four stops along the way before I could get
Speaker 3: to work. And then I'd get to work and be
Speaker 3: mortified by the three bathroom stops and would then sit
Speaker 3: down at my desk and try to pretend that I
Speaker 3: was perfectly fine. And you know, it sort of ended
Speaker 3: up being a little bit of a very vicious cycle,
Speaker 3: and I ended up my tummy became much more difficult
Speaker 3: to manage. There were instances where I was in and
Speaker 3: out of hospital, even if it was just for a
Speaker 3: day or two days, or you know, they had to
Speaker 3: do investigations. So I certainly wasn't thriving from a health perspective,
Speaker 3: and I was just sort of doing the best I could.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even imagine, because, like I was saying before
Speaker 1: the interview, I've been in a law firm in.
Speaker 2: The graduate position.
Speaker 1: It's already such a press and stress in the day
Speaker 1: to day task. You're expected to be and earlier, you're
Speaker 1: expected to stay late, you're expected to say yes to
Speaker 1: anything they want, And so I couldn't imagine, and I
Speaker 1: definitely felt a lot of stress in that position, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine as well having those health issues on top.
Speaker 2: So I, yeah, I could.
Speaker 1: Imagine that being such a stressful and like you said,
Speaker 1: like lonely part of your life. And so I want
Speaker 1: to talk about perfectionism because you do talk about this
Speaker 1: in the book and it's something I resonated with. And
Speaker 1: you were saying, for example, at work, you never cut
Speaker 1: yourself a break, like even if you took a sick day,
Speaker 1: which was very necessary, it's not like you were taking
Speaker 1: a you know, a fake sick day. You saw that
Speaker 1: as a failure or an inability to cope. And I
Speaker 1: even remember reading the book, like even the language that
Speaker 1: you would use to kind of talk to yourself like
Speaker 1: it was, it was very negative and you were very
Speaker 1: hard on yourself. How do you think perfectionism contributed to
Speaker 1: your underwing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it contributed pretty significantly. And I didn't
Speaker 3: really until I had my breakdown and then had cause
Speaker 3: to sort of learn about all of these different things.
Speaker 3: I had no idea that I thought, like a lot
Speaker 3: of people, that perfectionism was just sort of the ultimate
Speaker 3: humble brag. But you really, you just have got amazing
Speaker 3: standards and you're like doing a great job, like.
Speaker 1: You say in the interview, when you're like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: my weakness, yeah, perfectionist.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I've Yeah. Well, we all say that and we
Speaker 3: all get the jobs because it's a known thing. But
Speaker 3: what I came to learn was that perfectionism is actually
Speaker 3: a very toxic condition, and where it becomes dangerous and
Speaker 3: or where it is toxic, is that you reduce the
Speaker 3: world into black and white and either everything is absolutely
Speaker 3: perfect or everything you were an absolute total failure. So
Speaker 3: for me, illness was probably the most damaging. I think
Speaker 3: I did probably the most damage to myself at applying
Speaker 3: perfectionism to a chronic illness, because in my head, right
Speaker 3: up until the point that I fell apart, I really
Speaker 3: did think that any day that I didn't feel well,
Speaker 3: let alone a day where I needed to be in
Speaker 3: hospital and have a procedure, I internalized that as being
Speaker 3: total failure, because in my head, I was either basically
Speaker 3: a robot who could just go to work and have
Speaker 3: absolutely no problems, or if I was a human being
Speaker 3: with some sort of vulnerability to a medical condition, I
Speaker 3: was a total failure. And I can see now in hindsight,
Speaker 3: I learned that that's actually perfectionism, and it's quite a
Speaker 3: toxic thinking pattern. But I didn't know there was any
Speaker 3: other option at that point. And because I was having
Speaker 3: a chronic illness, it wasn't like I sort of had,
Speaker 3: you know, three weeks where I had this terrible appendicitis
Speaker 3: and then they removed it and then I recovered and
Speaker 3: I was fine. I was in a condition. I was
Speaker 3: in a situation where I had illness every.
Speaker 2: Day, it was ongoing.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, and so I think the compounding that over
Speaker 3: time was awful for me.
Speaker 1: I definitely, again keep saying resonate, but I resonate with
Speaker 1: the feeling of the all or nothing and not really.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like you're in this.
Speaker 1: Like tunnel vision and you kind of lose sight of everything.
Speaker 1: And I love in the book, you have a quote
Speaker 1: from Brene Brown, and I'll read out the quote for
Speaker 1: you guys, because it's really good and it sums it up,
Speaker 1: and it says perfectionism is a belief that if we
Speaker 1: live perfect and act perfect, we can minimize the pain
Speaker 1: of blame, judgment, and shame. It's a twenty ton shield
Speaker 1: that we lug around thinking it will protect us, when
Speaker 1: in fact it's a thing that is preventing us from flight.
Speaker 1: So going off that, I love that you included that quote.
Speaker 1: I actually hadn't heard it before. What advice would you
Speaker 1: give someone who is maybe in that mindset of perfectionism?
Speaker 3: I would say look for the nuance Because for me,
Speaker 3: perfectionism in whichever realm I was talking about or thinking
Speaker 3: about it was either I was absolutely perfect or total failure.
Speaker 3: And what I had to come to grips with and
Speaker 3: what I still do is recognizing when I'm being really
Speaker 3: hard on myself or when there's is looking for the
Speaker 3: nuance in that, like, so, am I a total failure?
Speaker 3: Or am I just a human being who has got
Speaker 3: an illness on this particular day? You know? Am I?
Speaker 3: If you think about it in terms of you know,
Speaker 3: exercise or eating or your friendships, like if you have
Speaker 3: a fight with one person or you have you know,
Speaker 3: an issue at work on one particular day, if you're
Speaker 3: inclined to think that that is catastrophic, you know, or
Speaker 3: if you skip exercise for a day and you're sort
Speaker 3: of in that mindset of thinking, oh my just I'm
Speaker 3: a total failure because I didn't do that, look at
Speaker 3: it and say right, Am I a total failure or
Speaker 3: did I just miss exercise for one day? Because I
Speaker 3: think there is so much more gray than there is
Speaker 3: black and white. But it's really easy to sort of
Speaker 3: unconsciously fall into the habit of thinking it's it's either
Speaker 3: everything or it's nothing.
Speaker 1: For me, it was like almost a bit of an
Speaker 1: obsessive mindset, like it was very obsessive that I had
Speaker 1: to do things perfectly. And I think also something that
Speaker 1: helped me is like doing something you know sixty or
Speaker 1: eighty percent getting it done. This is more of a
Speaker 1: practical sense of what you're doing work, handing it in
Speaker 1: and then realizing sometimes it's better to just get it in,
Speaker 1: get it done, and get onto the next thing.
Speaker 2: If that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean one of the things that I have
Speaker 3: said and a lot of people when they've wanted to
Speaker 3: sign a copy of my book, one of the things
Speaker 3: I've often written is, you know, to remember that good
Speaker 3: is better than perfect, because it is because even if
Speaker 3: you can achieve perfectionist standards for a short period of time,
Speaker 3: ultimately it's never going to be the endgame. You cannot,
Speaker 3: in anything, always be perfect. You won't. Good is so
Speaker 3: much better and being really you know, there was part
Speaker 3: of me that felt like saying that was some sort
Speaker 3: of catastrophic condition, like if I don't do everything perfectly,
Speaker 3: the world will fall apart. But as soon as you
Speaker 3: actually start doing it, you say, do you know what,
Speaker 3: I don't need to be an Olympic athlete level of
Speaker 3: intensity for every single thing I do, I can you know,
Speaker 3: good is perfectly okay.
Speaker 1: It's so true, and especially in the regards like, for example,
Speaker 1: this podcast. I personally have like a bit of a
Speaker 1: speech impediment, so I never thought i'd start a podcast.
Speaker 1: And I remember my first episode. I like re recorded
Speaker 1: it quite a few times because I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be perfect, and then it kind of just got to
Speaker 1: the point where I was like I just need to
Speaker 1: put it out there.
Speaker 2: I just need to start.
Speaker 1: And now we're on, you know, over fifty episodes, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like practice makes perfect, like not perfect,
Speaker 1: but you've just got to keep going, keep moving forward.
Speaker 1: And it is like, it's funny because a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that I learned after my breakdown. I used
Speaker 1: to think that there was things in life that you
Speaker 1: couldn't change, you know, I didn't know there was any
Speaker 1: other way to think than the way I had and
Speaker 1: practice it those sorts of things. So practicing changing your
Speaker 1: perfectionist mindset is actually achievable. So the more you do it,
Speaker 1: and you can start small, but just sort of scan
Speaker 1: your mind for the things that you might be inclined
Speaker 1: to punish yourself for and look for the nuance in it.
Speaker 1: So if you're saying that you've done something wrong or bad,
Speaker 1: or you've failed, take a minute to just be forensic
Speaker 1: about that and say, is this the whole story? Is
Speaker 1: there evidence to suggest that I might be overreacting here
Speaker 1: or that i'm And those sorts of exercises, the more
Speaker 1: you do them, the more you can change your habits,
Speaker 1: and then you become more not beating yourself up for
Speaker 1: everything that's not right.
Speaker 2: You start forming the new habits, the new thoughts. Love that.
Speaker 2: Let's now talk about a burnout, so.
Speaker 1: Especially career burnout, So the listeners who may not have
Speaker 1: heard of it or know what it is, what is
Speaker 1: your experience with burnout and how did it feel?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way I would describe burnout is that you
Speaker 3: imagine what it's like if there's just bone on bone
Speaker 3: rubbing together. There's absolutely no cushioning of tendons or muscles
Speaker 3: or flesh left there's nothing there, and or you know,
Speaker 3: burnout actually thinking about a match that has burnt out,
Speaker 3: or a candlewick that has totally burnt out. There's just
Speaker 3: nothing there. And I think that I mean, as I've
Speaker 3: sort of explained, my first foray into full time work
Speaker 3: was pretty difficult because of my physical condition and what
Speaker 3: I then in hindsight learned was also my mental condition
Speaker 3: on top of that, but it was also just the
Speaker 3: fact that I was working in a job where the
Speaker 3: hours and demands were really really huge and I could
Speaker 3: put one foot in front of the other for a
Speaker 3: period of time. And I did the same thing at UNI.
Speaker 3: You know, it wasn't I never took I didn't ever
Speaker 3: miss an assessment. I didn't ever apply for special consideration,
Speaker 3: even though when I was at UNI I had my
Speaker 3: health was pretty bad, and I think that compounded over time.
Speaker 3: I couldn't go one hundred and fifty percent the whole time.
Speaker 3: So I did burn out, and I did get to
Speaker 3: a point where before I got really sick, I just
Speaker 3: had absolutely no engine, like I had no energy. It
Speaker 3: was as if no fuel nothing, and every morning when
Speaker 3: I got up. It was sort of a miracle that
Speaker 3: I could even get out of bed and have a
Speaker 3: shower and get my clothes and I get to work.
Speaker 3: At the time, I didn't know that, but in hindsight,
Speaker 3: I just learned that I was operating on nothing.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if you agree, but kind of when
Speaker 1: you're in that state, is it almost hard to realize
Speaker 1: you're in that state because you're just trying to Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, put one foot in front of each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. And I think it's the classic frog in
Speaker 3: boiling water scenario. So if you put a frog straight
Speaker 3: into a pot of boiling water, they're going to jump
Speaker 3: out feel a crazy amount of shock. But if the
Speaker 3: frog is in the water to start with and then
Speaker 3: you turn the water up, it just gradually gets hotter
Speaker 3: and hotter, and then when it's boiling, they don't even
Speaker 3: notice the extra shock. And I think that's what it's like,
Speaker 3: because if I woke up one day and I was
Speaker 3: perfectly healthy and had a huge amount of energy, and
Speaker 3: then the next day I woke up and felt like
Speaker 3: I'd been over by a truck, I would be thinking, Oh,
Speaker 3: what's happened? This doesn't feel right, But it happens gradually,
Speaker 3: so you don't have that jolt where you realize things
Speaker 3: about It's just you were climatized to a new standard,
Speaker 3: and the longer it goes on, harder it becomes to
Speaker 3: even recognize that this is not It felt like your
Speaker 3: normal sustainable it did. It felt completely like my normal.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I would say to people
Speaker 3: who might be experiencing burnout is if you're waking up
Speaker 3: every day and life is feeling really difficult, probably something
Speaker 3: needs to change. I was stuck in a place where
Speaker 3: I thought, I did know that life felt really difficult,
Speaker 3: but I sort of also thought maybe that was because
Speaker 3: I wasn't I was being My expectations of what a
Speaker 3: career might be were too high. You know that maybe
Speaker 3: I was being indulgent to think that there could be more.
Speaker 3: But the truth is, my instinct was right. Something wasn't
Speaker 3: working for me. It was really difficult, And I think
Speaker 3: that if anyone is in that place, it is always
Speaker 3: worth looking around and considering what you might be able
Speaker 3: to do to change that up. And it doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be as dramatic as falling up and ending up
Speaker 3: in the psychiatric like I did. I mean, that's a
Speaker 3: pretty effective way of jolting the system. But I just
Speaker 3: would want people to know they have permission to say
Speaker 3: if things are difficult, you don't have to stay there,
Speaker 3: as in, you don't have to stay in that difficult
Speaker 3: spot forget.
Speaker 1: I love what you said about giving yourself permission because
Speaker 1: I remember when I worked corporate, and it's funny because
Speaker 1: I was quite stressed, I was quite intense, and again,
Speaker 1: it kind of just felt like my new normal because
Speaker 1: I had done my law degree, gone straight into it.
Speaker 2: It kind of same as you.
Speaker 1: And then me and my husband moved to the Gold
Speaker 1: Coast and I started working from home.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because people who knew.
Speaker 1: Me when I worked corporate and lived near the city
Speaker 1: and stuff, they then met me again and so saw
Speaker 1: me again. We're like, you're actually really chill, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is actually me normal, and it just that person
Speaker 1: felt like my normal. But again, like you said, every
Speaker 1: single day it did feel like a struggle. But I
Speaker 1: thought it was almost like, oh, this is what you do,
Speaker 1: this is what life is like.
Speaker 2: And I had almost I think to be honest too,
Speaker 2: I almost like leaned into it. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, like I'm a law Brad, this is yeah.
Speaker 2: You almost go like, this is what you do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, really, it's a right.
Speaker 1: And then I remember one day one hundred percent what
Speaker 1: you said about the permission thing, and I just remember thinking.
Speaker 2: Does it have to be this way? Does life have
Speaker 2: to feel like this? Because I feel like I'm drowning.
Speaker 1: And then I kind of just gave myself permission that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did this six year law degree, but I don't
Speaker 1: have to use it right now. If I don't want to,
Speaker 1: I can, you know, go off and follow this other
Speaker 1: thing that's shining over here. So I definitely love what
Speaker 1: you said about that, definitely about giving yourself permission. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about your visit to the psychiatric hospital.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about what that felt like, first
Speaker 1: goal in and then kind of your experience there and
Speaker 1: the most valuable thing you learned during your time you
Speaker 1: had that?
Speaker 2: I think you're in there for two weeks? Is that great?
Speaker 3: So basically I ended up being admitted to a psychiatric
Speaker 3: hospital after I had spent four months at my parents' house.
Speaker 3: I was on leave without pay from the law firm.
Speaker 3: Obviously I'd been sick, my crones had got worse. And worse.
Speaker 3: I'd done eighteen months and then one night I fell
Speaker 3: over in my office with this vertigo attack, lost my balance,
Speaker 3: and that was sort of the beginning of the end
Speaker 3: for me. That I ended up spending four months at
Speaker 3: home because I was seeing every doctor, every health professional,
Speaker 3: alternative medicine, anything to try and figure out what an
Speaker 3: earth was going wrong with me. But I felt horrendous
Speaker 3: and the crones I'd always been able to push through,
Speaker 3: but this dizziness and nausea I couldn't push through. And
Speaker 3: so that's why I did end up at home with
Speaker 3: Mum and Dad, unable to do anything, and I got
Speaker 3: into a pretty bad state. And it was after four
Speaker 3: months of that that a physician who was in his
Speaker 3: seventies basically said to me, look, what's happening to you
Speaker 3: is real. These physical symptoms are real, but it's been
Speaker 3: caused by stress. Because I'd had MRIs, I'd had every
Speaker 3: scan non to man, every blood test, I had done,
Speaker 3: all these neurological assessments, there was nothing physically that could
Speaker 3: explain why I had this horrendous vertigo. And when the
Speaker 3: physician said that, he said, I think we need to
Speaker 3: talk about anxiety and I think you probably need to
Speaker 3: spend some time in a psychiatric hospital. And when he
Speaker 3: said that, I felt relief. And that was quite a
Speaker 3: strange thing in itself, because four months earlier, if someone
Speaker 3: had suggested I even need to see a psychiatrist, I
Speaker 3: would have been pretty horrified. But I had got myself
Speaker 3: to a point where I knew something was so wrong,
Speaker 3: And when he said this, something finally made sense, and
Speaker 3: I thought, maybe this is stress and anxiety and my
Speaker 3: body can't cope. So I tell you that because I
Speaker 3: think it's relevant to how my experience felt at the
Speaker 3: psychiatr hospital. I think that if I'd gone to a
Speaker 3: psychiatry hospital the day after that very first vertigo attack,
Speaker 3: I don't think I would have had the results I
Speaker 3: had after spending four months desperately looking for an answer,
Speaker 3: because I was in the mindset where I really knew
Speaker 3: something had to change fundamentally. Even with that, though, even
Speaker 3: with this sort of sense of relief and hope that
Speaker 3: maybe this was the right place to go, arriving at
Speaker 3: the hospital was really confronting. I went to a clinic
Speaker 3: near Kurumban on the Gold Coast, and my parents live
Speaker 3: in northern New South Wales, so they drove me there.
Speaker 3: It's about an hour and a half. I kept having
Speaker 3: to get Dad to pull over on the car right
Speaker 3: up there because I just felt like I was going
Speaker 3: to be sick. The whole time. I was really scared.
Speaker 3: And when we arrived, I mean, it's just it's just
Speaker 3: not on anyone's buck at least. I don't think to
Speaker 3: be driven to a psychiat to hospital by your parents
Speaker 3: to be admitted. It's just certainly wasn't on mind, not
Speaker 3: when I was you know, I was twenty five at
Speaker 3: the time. It wasn't where I'd expected to be. And
Speaker 3: then when I first went inside the waiting room, it's,
Speaker 3: you know, it's all pretty sad. Everyone there is pretty
Speaker 3: much having the worst day of their life, even if
Speaker 3: whether they were the person like me being admitted or
Speaker 3: whether they were admitting someone they loved. And the facility
Speaker 3: that I was at, it's a private hospital, but it's
Speaker 3: not glamorous. It is like no frills, very sad looking building,
Speaker 3: nothing luxurious about it. And I only say that because
Speaker 3: sometimes I think you say private hospital, people might think
Speaker 3: it's like some sort of glamorous retreat. This was not so.
Speaker 3: But there were people there with there were two wings
Speaker 3: either mood disorders, which I was in, so that was
Speaker 3: people with depression or anxiety or bipolar, and then there
Speaker 3: was the other wing was for drug and alcohol addictions.
Speaker 3: So there was some mixture in the ages and sort
Speaker 3: of physical states of the people that were all being admitted,
Speaker 3: and you know, it was all quite surreal, and I
Speaker 3: think to get through that in my head, I sort
Speaker 3: of just was watching it as if it wasn't really
Speaker 3: happening to me. I kind of disassociated a little bit.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking, this is all very interesting. But
Speaker 3: then I ended up sharing a room with this lovely woman, Sue,
Speaker 3: who was in her early fifties and her two adult
Speaker 3: daughters were admitting her and she'd had breast cancer. She'd
Speaker 3: been diagnosed with breast cancer two years earlier, and after
Speaker 3: having surgery and then chemo and radiation, her physical health
Speaker 3: had just really deteriorated to a point where she couldn't
Speaker 3: really function very well. But then she also had this
Speaker 3: anxiety come in, and then it was very difficult to
Speaker 3: know where the physical stopped and the mental started. So
Speaker 3: even though Sue and I were in quite different stages,
Speaker 3: we had quite a similar story. In that we both
Speaker 3: lost our physical health and then simultaneously lost a totally
Speaker 3: lost balance of mental health. And so having Sue with
Speaker 3: me in the room was really lovely because it felt
Speaker 3: safe and it felt like she was my you know,
Speaker 3: we had each other yep. And from my understanding, there's
Speaker 3: no huge scientific process that they go through about who's
Speaker 3: in a room with each other. But I always felt
Speaker 3: I've sort of from the minute I met Sue that
Speaker 3: we were there at the same time. I just thought, yes,
Speaker 3: I can do this because I've got a person here
Speaker 3: who I felt safe with. And I also you know,
Speaker 3: the funny thing was when Sue and I first chatted
Speaker 3: about what had happened and why we were there, my
Speaker 3: first instinct was to I had so much sympathy for her.
Speaker 3: She felt so guilty to her children for putting them
Speaker 3: through this, and she felt so guilty for not being
Speaker 3: able to cope, which were the things I felt as well.
Speaker 3: You know, I felt guilty that my parents had worked
Speaker 3: so hard to give me this amazing education and opportunity
Speaker 3: to go to UNI, and I was somehow blowing it.
Speaker 3: But listening to Sue made me really reassess that and think,
Speaker 3: do you know what, I'm not doing this to make
Speaker 3: anyone's life difficult, like I'm not choosing this. But it
Speaker 3: was really it was actually kind of seeing my own
Speaker 3: experience reflected in Sue that for the first time I
Speaker 3: was able to offer myself sympathy and empathy to her. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: I'd met her for three minutes and I felt so
Speaker 3: much sympathy for her and wanted to reassure her that
Speaker 3: she had nothing to feel guilty about. And it did
Speaker 3: make me think, for the first time in my life,
Speaker 3: maybe I need to extend that sort of sympathy and
Speaker 3: emotion to myself. And so a couple of the things
Speaker 3: that were incredibly valuable about being at rehabit that was
Speaker 3: probably the biggest one was that offering myself the sort
Speaker 3: of same kindness instead of judgment and almost hate. You know,
Speaker 3: that was a huge thing for me because I realized
Speaker 3: that I had been so unkind to myself for so
Speaker 3: long and it had altered, really it had broken me.
Speaker 3: I also learned that medication, if you need medication, is
Speaker 3: very good. I was put on medication almost as soon
Speaker 3: as I got there, and I didn't sort of, you know,
Speaker 3: go to sleep on the Sunday night and wake up
Speaker 3: on the Monday feeling amazing. But within a week I
Speaker 3: did feel different. And I've stayed on the medication the
Speaker 3: whole time, and I have not had another episode of
Speaker 3: mental illness where I've needed to sort of go to
Speaker 3: hospital or anything like that. But I realized that medication
Speaker 3: is very helpful if you have anxiety like I did.
Speaker 3: And I also learned that there is there are professionals,
Speaker 3: you know. I worked with a psychologist every single day
Speaker 3: and we did, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy. We did
Speaker 3: all these practical exercises, and it just made me realize
Speaker 3: that there were things I could change. I had sort
Speaker 3: of in my head thought, how would talking about anything
Speaker 3: help how I feel? But the truth is it does
Speaker 3: because you don't just talk about nothing. You've got a
Speaker 3: professional who guides you through a process of interrogating why
Speaker 3: is this your immediate mentor response to yourself when you're sick.
Speaker 3: It's like, because what else would I say? So, well,
Speaker 3: maybe you could say, Georgie, this is unfortunate that you're
Speaker 3: feeling really sick, but that's what's happening, and you've got
Speaker 3: to just look after yourself. But those sorts of things.
Speaker 3: That was a huge, total paradigm shift for me. So
Speaker 3: I would say the sort of the power of medication,
Speaker 3: the power of professional help, and the power of kindness
Speaker 3: to yourself are probably the biggest lessons I learned.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.
Speaker 1: My Plato, And so let's talk about what it was
Speaker 1: like after rehab. So, something that I loved in the
Speaker 1: book was you said that you started working out David
Speaker 1: Jones and then you went into journalism. But something I
Speaker 1: love that you touched on is you said the whole
Speaker 1: experience for going to work at David Jones was actually
Speaker 1: one of the best things you could do. And you
Speaker 1: kind of explained that, you know, going from this corporate
Speaker 1: law degree, you could understand how people might have almost
Speaker 1: a bit of an ego going to a different French
Speaker 1: sort of job where didn't have that pressure of stress
Speaker 1: or anything like that. But tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about that and why you thought it was actually such
Speaker 1: a good step.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I think one of the critical things I
Speaker 3: learned in rehab was that you know that I had
Speaker 3: been stuck in that sort of paradigm of perfectionism and
Speaker 3: I was very reliant on external benchmarks, validation to validate myself,
Speaker 3: and basically my self worth was attached to those things.
Speaker 3: So working in a big corporate firm ticked a box
Speaker 3: that clearly meant that I was successful, because that was
Speaker 3: a good job in Comma's good job. And I really
Speaker 3: did realize that, actually, my value as a human being
Speaker 3: isn't dependent upon the job I have. It's dependent upon
Speaker 3: who I am and how I live and what I
Speaker 3: do in a day and the friend I am, or
Speaker 3: the girlfriend that I am, or the daughter. You know,
Speaker 3: it's so much more than just a job. And it
Speaker 3: was sort of coming to that realization that actually, and
Speaker 3: also that there was not a job in the world
Speaker 3: that was worth my health for So after rehab, I
Speaker 3: resigned from the law firm. I hadn't been there for
Speaker 3: a few months, but I basically just said, look, and
Speaker 3: I was really honest with them, and I said, this
Speaker 3: is what's happened. I right now can only do a
Speaker 3: job where I can look after my physical health and
Speaker 3: my mental health, and at the moment, I can't do
Speaker 3: that in corporate law. So I resigned, but I had
Speaker 3: sort of got physically a little bit back on my feet,
Speaker 3: and so I moved back to Sydney. One of my
Speaker 3: relatives owns a fashion business and it was because of
Speaker 3: that that I got a job at David Jones selling clothes.
Speaker 3: And really, ultimately what I needed was to sort of
Speaker 3: gradually re enter the world. But I wasn't yet ready
Speaker 3: to commit to full time work, and so David Jones
Speaker 3: was perfect because it was casual hours, the shifts were
Speaker 3: different every week, and I started seeing a psychologist as
Speaker 3: soon as I got back to Sydney that we'd organize
Speaker 3: through the clinic. That set me up with a woman
Speaker 3: down here who I absolutely adored, So I was seeing
Speaker 3: her every week. I was really taking care of myself,
Speaker 3: you know, actually, and I loved it. I was walking
Speaker 3: a lot, and swimming a lot, and doing yoga, and
Speaker 3: having spent four months unable to do anything, the thrill
Speaker 3: of just going for a swim was amazing and I
Speaker 3: loved it. So I did have this highly charged appreciation
Speaker 3: I think of the whole world. And the thing I
Speaker 3: loved about going to work was it felt so simple,
Speaker 3: you know. I would hop on the bus or go
Speaker 3: into the city. I would do my shift. In my break,
Speaker 3: I might go downstairs with a book or I ended
Speaker 3: up spending quite a lot of money at either the
Speaker 3: David Jones food hall or buying clothes. So it wasn't
Speaker 3: like an economically great arrangement, but it was just such
Speaker 3: a lovely experience. And I knew that all that mattered
Speaker 3: was that I was living again and that I was
Speaker 3: taking care of myself. And so I ended up doing
Speaker 3: that for about six months before I felt ready to
Speaker 3: kind of re enter full time work. But it was
Speaker 3: just such a lovely break from you know, work didn't
Speaker 3: need to be this incredibly stressful, awful, all consuming thing.
Speaker 3: It could just be a place I went to for
Speaker 3: a certain number of hours every week.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: And then you also then went on to do journalism,
Speaker 1: and like you said at the start, you do all
Speaker 1: these things, and would you say that journalism is very
Speaker 1: much a passion.
Speaker 3: Yes. The business degree that I did was a communications degree,
Speaker 3: so I didn't do journalism, but I did communications because
Speaker 3: I had actually always wanted to be a journalist. But
Speaker 3: at UNI, I did law and communications, and I was
Speaker 3: actually much better at law than I was at communications,
Speaker 3: and I found law a lot easier. And so it
Speaker 3: sort of happened that that sort of made me think
Speaker 3: in my head or maybe I should consider law because
Speaker 3: it's probably easier to get a job. And then when
Speaker 3: I did get I got clerkships in the corporate firms,
Speaker 3: and then I got a graduate offer, so it sort
Speaker 3: of seemed like an easier path. So I finished up
Speaker 3: at the law firm. I was working at David Jones,
Speaker 3: and when it was time for me to I was
Speaker 3: in a headspace that I was ready to commit to
Speaker 3: full time work again. I started looking around and journalism
Speaker 3: was definitely on my radar because it was something that
Speaker 3: I'd always wanted to do, and I actually had even
Speaker 3: thought about maybe going to UTS and doing a master's
Speaker 3: of journalism or something like that. But I ended up
Speaker 3: a friend sort of called me one afternoon and he
Speaker 3: was like, BTW magazine is advertising for researchers and they
Speaker 3: they're going to employ six people on a three month
Speaker 3: contract to help compile the Rich two hundred, so the
Speaker 3: list of the richest two hundred people in Australia. And
Speaker 3: it said, you know, you'll be working alongside journalists, you'd
Speaker 3: be in the newsroom, and I just thought, this is
Speaker 3: a perfect stepping stone for me. I'm going to apply
Speaker 3: for one of these, and they wanted people who were
Speaker 3: either current business students or recent business graduates. And I thought, well, look,
Speaker 3: I've got a business degree, and so I applied for
Speaker 3: that and I got one. And on the first day,
Speaker 3: the new editor in chief took us, the researchers out
Speaker 3: for coffee and he sort of asked us our stories,
Speaker 3: and I said to him, look, I'm a qualified lawyer.
Speaker 3: I didn't say I've just been at a psychat hospital
Speaker 3: and had a total melt down, but I did say,
Speaker 3: you know, I've been qualified as a lawyer, but I'm
Speaker 3: having a career change. I've always loved journalism, and I
Speaker 3: thought this would be a great position, and he was lovely,
Speaker 3: and I didn't really know whether he would take that
Speaker 3: seriously or not. But I spent the next few weeks
Speaker 3: sitting between two journalists and I just absolutely could not
Speaker 3: believe my luck that I was sitting there. You know,
Speaker 3: they would ring people and ask all the questions that
Speaker 3: I would want to ask people. They'd go out and
Speaker 3: have lunch with people and do all these interviews, and
Speaker 3: I just thought this was the most magical place I'd
Speaker 3: ever been in my life. And then the editor in
Speaker 3: chief came over one afternoon and he said, you know,
Speaker 3: were you serious when you said you'd consider a career
Speaker 3: in journalism? And I said, so serious. I love this place.
Speaker 3: And he sent me a few small writing tasks and
Speaker 3: then eventually I had an interview with the editor of
Speaker 3: the Financial Review and they put me on the graduate
Speaker 3: on their trainee program for and I became a legal
Speaker 3: reporter for be Able to be out after the three
Speaker 3: months was up of the research. The thing that I
Speaker 3: loved was that BLW wasn't like a no stress environment.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like I turned up and there was you know,
Speaker 3: we had weekly deadlines, so it wasn't as stressful as
Speaker 3: the newspaper, but we still there was lots of work
Speaker 3: to do. There was a lot happening, So it wasn't
Speaker 3: a stress free environment. But I absolutely loved it and
Speaker 3: I didn't find it stressful. I didn't feel sick when
Speaker 3: I was there, and I just absolutely loved it. And
Speaker 3: I realized then that you know, and this is where
Speaker 3: relativity it's so hard to know. So what I realized
Speaker 3: was that work didn't need to be really really stressful,
Speaker 3: and it didn't need to feel like every single day
Speaker 3: you were pushing struggle struggle up a hill. You know
Speaker 3: it was. I loved it, and I knew then there
Speaker 3: was this there was an alignment between my sort of
Speaker 3: interest and skill and passion, and it made work so
Speaker 3: much easier.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: And obviously that was such a journey to even find
Speaker 1: that interest, and you kind of just went for something
Speaker 1: and got a step in the door and then did that.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's really amazing too, because you
Speaker 1: know it's really you think, Okay, I've finished high school,
Speaker 1: I'll pick this career, that I'll be in it for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life, and it's just not like that.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we can be super hard on ourselves
Speaker 1: that it should be like that, whereas it's just not.
Speaker 2: So I love that.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a couple of last questions
Speaker 1: to wrap it up. So at the start, you've explained
Speaker 1: that you have three young daughters. Let's talk about you working,
Speaker 1: doing all the things, like you said, having a family.
Speaker 1: Do you struggle now with anxiety and stress and balancing,
Speaker 1: and what are your sort of tips for people that
Speaker 1: are in the same position.
Speaker 3: For me, managing anxiety and yes, is going to be
Speaker 3: a work in progress. For the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: So I am wired towards anxiety. I'm still an excellent warrior.
Speaker 3: That's one of my key strengths. I can and will
Speaker 3: worry about all sorts of things. But when I had
Speaker 3: my breakdown, I guess the way I look at my
Speaker 3: recovery is that I set about building infrastructure for myself
Speaker 3: to cope, and that meant things like having really good
Speaker 3: thinking patterns where I could influence that, and staying on
Speaker 3: medication and seeking professional help when I needed it, being
Speaker 3: really conscious of my physical state. So after I came
Speaker 3: out of rehab, within a couple of months, virtually all
Speaker 3: of my Cron's symptoms disappeared, which is not uncommon for
Speaker 3: some of the medication that I was put on. The
Speaker 3: science isn't clear, but there's something to be said for
Speaker 3: calming the nervous system down and then that having a
Speaker 3: positive impact on crime's disease, and that appears to have
Speaker 3: happened for me. So I started to enjoy a better
Speaker 3: version of physical health than I sort of ever had,
Speaker 3: which then also meant maintaining my mental health was a
Speaker 3: lot easier than it had been. I will always remain
Speaker 3: vigilant about my mental health. So if I feel like
Speaker 3: things are getting I still Obviously my life now is
Speaker 3: actually a lot more stressful than it probably ever has been,
Speaker 3: just in terms of having three kids, having the commitments
Speaker 3: that I do, having a husband who's got a very
Speaker 3: very busy and demanding career. But I'm very good at
Speaker 3: checking in with myself and knowing when things are feeling.
Speaker 3: You know, is this just a stressful three days or
Speaker 3: is this something bigger than that? And I'm not coping,
Speaker 3: And whenever I feel like it's bigger than just something
Speaker 3: that's happening over two or three days, I start to
Speaker 3: look at seeking help I find that really helps me
Speaker 3: and making sure I do those the things that you know,
Speaker 3: if we do have a really stressful period of time,
Speaker 3: like last year when my book launched, we had a
Speaker 3: couple of things happen all in quick succession that we
Speaker 3: couldn't change. You know, my husband had a huge exam
Speaker 3: five days after my book was being published. There were
Speaker 3: all these things in the diary, and you know, being
Speaker 3: really conscious of the fact this is going to be
Speaker 3: a really intense period of time. I'm going to have
Speaker 3: to sleep well, I'm going to have to eat well,
Speaker 3: all those little things and also recognizing, Okay, this isn't forever.
Speaker 3: This is not going to be my physical state of
Speaker 3: stress for the next five years. It's just this is
Speaker 3: going to be a super super busy six weeks. So
Speaker 3: I guess being really mindful and conscious of how I'm
Speaker 3: feeling and why I'm feeling that way is something that
Speaker 3: I do every day that helps me maintain the intensity.
Speaker 3: I suppose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. It's kind of like the whole
Speaker 1: you know this, it's this season. Yeah yeah, making sure
Speaker 1: you get help. I personally see a psychologist and it
Speaker 1: was like the best thing I ever done.
Speaker 3: So yeah, they're amazing, you know. And I still, even
Speaker 3: as someone who has personally had the benefit from that,
Speaker 3: so many times, I still in my head think, oh
Speaker 3: should I book that appointment?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you do it.
Speaker 3: Then you look the appointment, you come out, and you think, oh,
Speaker 3: my goodness, I'm so glad I did that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing. One last
Speaker 1: question before you go. So something I ask all the guests,
Speaker 1: and I guess for you, it would be when you're
Speaker 1: writing and feeling that creativity, is there something that you do,
Speaker 1: like a ritual or something that gets you creative and
Speaker 1: gets you inspired or what do you do to find
Speaker 1: motivation to write or feel inspired?
Speaker 3: I consider myself very, very lucky because I do have
Speaker 3: a career in journalism where I get to write about
Speaker 3: the stuff that genuinely gives me like I have a
Speaker 3: fire in my belly. I want things to be different
Speaker 3: for families in Australia. I want things to be better
Speaker 3: for women in Australia, and so I find it a
Speaker 3: lot of the time it's really easy for me to
Speaker 3: tap into inspiration because the things I care about deeply
Speaker 3: without even like, you know, it's not an effort for
Speaker 3: me to try and care about these issues I get
Speaker 3: to write about. And so that means I very rarely
Speaker 3: sit down and don't feel inspired by something to write about.
Speaker 3: And I guess that's where being aligned with your purpose helps.
Speaker 3: And for me, I feel like that happened not by accident,
Speaker 3: but it's been a little bit of accident and a
Speaker 3: little bit of design that I've ended up in a
Speaker 3: place where I don't have to struggle for inspiration.
Speaker 2: No, I love that it's perfect.
Speaker 1: And so where can the listeners find you and your whack?
Speaker 3: They can find me. So my book breaking Badly is
Speaker 3: available at all good bookstores and online at book Topia
Speaker 3: if you want. I also did record the audiobook at
Speaker 3: the end of last year, so that's available too if
Speaker 3: you like.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, see, I don't do audio books.
Speaker 2: I love audio books. I're my favorite.
Speaker 1: I love listening, especially when the author reads them. It's
Speaker 1: really I find it very I don't know, yeah, very good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I've heard that from a lot of people,
Speaker 3: so I'm glad I did that. I am also pretty
Speaker 3: active on Twitter. My handle is Georgie Dent. I've got
Speaker 3: a Facebook page. I write for Women's Gender, I write
Speaker 3: for Murray Claire and I write for the Sydney Morning
Speaker 3: Herald on a Sunday.
Speaker 1: Amazing Grace will put all those details in the show notes,
Speaker 1: so make sure you check that out.
Speaker 2: But thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: This has been amazing, Georgie, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, and welcome to another episode of the Rise
Speaker 1: and Conquer Podcast. Today's guest is author and journalist Georgie Dent.
Speaker 1: At age twenty four, Georgie Dent at the world at
Speaker 1: her feet. Also, it seemed she graduated university with flying colors,
Speaker 1: landed a job at a corporate law firm and moved
Speaker 1: in with her boyfriend. Everything looked picture perfect and she
Speaker 1: had no reason to break, but she did. Within a year,
Speaker 1: Georgie was unemployed, back living with her parents, and suffering
Speaker 1: such crippling anxiety that she ended up in a psychiatric hospital.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to today, and Georgie has three beautiful girls.
Speaker 1: That boyfriend is now her husband, and now she is
Speaker 1: a journalist and author. Georgie wrote her breakdown in slow
Speaker 1: motion and how she rebuilt her life in her book
Speaker 1: Breaking Badly. Her story provides an inspiring and raw recount
Speaker 1: that proves that not only is recovery from a mental
Speaker 1: health disorder possible, but so is rebuilding a beautiful life
Speaker 1: with a fulfilling career and loving family. Georgie is warm
Speaker 1: and so clever beyond words. I was so grateful she
Speaker 1: invited us into her home to record this episode, and
Speaker 1: I am so grateful to listen to her story and
Speaker 1: now share it with you. And that's a wrap on
Speaker 1: another episode of the Rise and Conquered podcast.
Speaker 2: I hope you got.
Speaker 1: Something valuable from it, and I want to say.
Speaker 2: A big thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: I really really do appreciate it. If you're craving more
Speaker 1: than don't, I've got you sorted. We have our very
Speaker 1: own Rise and Conquer Community Facebook group where hundreds of
Speaker 1: like minded women joined to share in on stories, ask advice,
Speaker 1: and everything in between.
Speaker 2: I'd love for you to join us.
Speaker 1: Just search Rise and Conquer Podcast Community or find the
Speaker 1: link in the show notes. And if you loved listening
Speaker 1: as much as I loved recording this episode, then please
Speaker 1: subscribe and leave a review. It really helps us out.
Speaker 1: And if you think of anyone who would benefit or
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode, please share it with them. You can
Speaker 1: also find more on Instagram at risinconcor dot podcast and
Speaker 1: more from me your hosts at Georgie Stevenson. Once again, guys,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for tuning in. This is a
Speaker 1: totally independent podcast, so we really do appreciate every bit
Speaker 1: of support. Hope you guys have an amazing day or
Speaker 1: night whenever you're listening, and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: By contain by Contay shanty.
Speaker 3: Put. I'll starting off