May 20, 2025 • 46 mins
You’ve planned your budget, built your emergency fund, and followed all the financial advice... but what happens when life throws something so big, so chaotic, that none of it is enough? In this ep we're joined by special guests, and the writers of new book Broken Brains, Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland. Two women whose lives were turned upside down by illness, trauma, and the brutal reality of trying to keep your head above water when your brain and body won’t cooperate, and the bills keep coming anyway. We talk about the invisible costs of being unwell, the gap between public support and real-life needs, and the quiet shame that follows financial instability and even lasagna inequality (yes, really). It’s raw, it’s funny, it’s deeply human, and it might be exactly what you need to hear right now.
Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of serious mental illness, trauma, childhood abuse, psychiatric care, and financial distress. Please listen with care, and know that support is available. If you or someone you know is struggling, contact Lifeline at 13 11 14 or visit Beyond Blue.
Broken Brains by Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland – Grab your copy here!
Follow Rosie Waterland on Instagram and follow Jamila Rizvi on Instagram
Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements.
The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708, AFSL - 451289.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
My name is Satasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yor
the Order Kerni Whaltbury and a waddery woman. And before
we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
(00:22):
through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
that helps you feel good about money even when life
is falling apart a little bit or a lot. I'm
Victoria Devine, and today we are talking about something that
doesn't come with a budget, tenplate or a five step
financial plan. We're talking about what it really costs to
survive when your brain, your body, and your entire world
(01:17):
stop co operating. Because sometimes the hardest thing isn't managing
your money, it's managing to stay afloat at all. And
yet rent is still due groceries still cost money. Life
doesn't pause just because you are struggling. And that's the
reality for my two guests today who know this a
lot better than most. Jamilla Risby is a best selling
(01:39):
author and advocate who, at thirty one, was diagnosed with
a rare and aggressive brain tumor. Rosy Waterland is a
writer and comedian whose childhood was shaped by poverty, addiction,
and survival, and whose adult life has been shaped by
complex trauma. Together they've written Broken Brains, a raw, funny
and painfully honest look at what happens when your health,
(02:01):
your finances, and your sense of self all come under pressure.
Jamilla and Rosie, we are genuinely so excited to have
you on the show. Welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
It's very excited to bless that.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I am very excited. You have just published your book,
Broken Brains, and it is all about your personal experiences,
your illnesses and shame, and the system that then made
it even harder for you guys to thrive. Talk to
me about what your broken Brain journey has looked like
in real life.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Well, why don't I go first and then Rosie can
tell you a bit about her.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, because you guys are so different, but then when
you come together in the book, it just makes sense
the same. It was amazing. I was kind of like
before obviously having a look at it, being like okay,
all right, read it, and I'm like, this makes so
much sense.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
So I was diagnosed with a brain tumor called a
cranioferngioma when I was thirty one, quite an unusual kind
of brain tumor. So it affects every one in one
million to one and a half million people, so I'm
very special. I love being rare, but not like that. Yeah, no,
it's not kind of rare.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
You want to be.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Actually, when you're sick, you want to be as pedestrian
as possible.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Way to go kind of illness.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So when I was diagnosed, it was obviously massive shock,
and what followed that was a series of brain surgeries
as the tumor kept growing back when they would remove it,
and then ultimately radiation treatment. I had thirty six rounds
of radiation thirty six Yeah, so six days a week
for six weeks, which by the end of that I
felt like they'd burned out that my insides. It was
(03:34):
pretty hectic, and then probably took about two years for
the full extent of the brain injuries that I'd acquired
to kind of make themselves known. And I still live
with those, now, live with the whole bunch of medications
and treatments that continue. But I'm five years no tumor growth.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I love that. That makes me so happy. You literally
burnt it out. It's gone. Yeah, it's gone. And Rosie
tell me your journey.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yes, So mine seems a little differend on the surface,
Like you said, so, I had a pretty difficult childhood.
Both my parents were alcoholics, drug addicts, they were mentally ill.
My sisters and I were in and out of the
foster system. There was a lot of neglect and abuse.
And I guess the best way I would describe it
is people often think that trauma is the event, but
(04:20):
trauma is what I deal with now. So if you
look at my childhood as the car crash, the trauma
I live with as an adult is the brain injury
caused by that car crash. So I started showing really
significant symptoms when I was about seventeen, so about twenty
years ago, and I've been in treatment on and off
(04:40):
when I could afford it ever since. I do take
a lot of medications as well. I have symptoms that
I'll be dealing with for the rest of my life. Yeah,
And I think it was not long after Jamila's first
surgery that she was looking for someone, anyone to talk
(05:02):
to who she felt like might understand what it's like
to feel sort of out of control of your to
not have control of your body and brain. And she
came to me and we, like you said, didn't think
we would have a lot in common, but realize very
quickly we have a lot in common.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Actually, Yeah, absolutely, Your book is really about surviving the
things that aren't is obvious or that people never see, right,
so like illness, trauma, shame, and the system that genuinely
makes it so much harder. What made you both go,
all right, we want to write a book. We want
to tell this story because it's one thing to you know,
find each other and have that level of support. Why
(05:40):
did you want to take it to that next level
and share it with us?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Well, I had sought some support from Rosie, as she said,
And I went to Rosie and asked her for some
help with dealing with the mental health side of what
I was going through. You know, when you're experiencing the
stress and the trauma of being told you're really seriously ill,
and the fallout of surgery and treatment.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
It takes a real toll on your mental well being.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
And I wanted advice, I suppose because I knew Rosie
had been there before, and I think I almost wanted
to say, how do I stop this? How do I
stop my brain being so scared? And when I went
to visit Rosie, she was actually in psychiatric care at
the time, and we went and had a lunch across
the road, and when we were chatting, one of the
things that came out really quickly was that we actually
(06:26):
have the same our conditions have the same mortality rate,
so we actually had the same chance of not being
alive in five years or ten years.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And yet, yeah, the world doesn't respond to Rosie with
the same sort of urgency it does to me. You know,
when my friends and my family learned that I had
this brain tumor that had to be cut out of
my head, I was incredibly lucky. I had this overwhelming
outpouring of support, And I joked to Rosie at the
time that I had eleven Lasagnas in my freezer.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
I was about to say, because you had so many lasagnas,
and have any lasagnas?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
And I was like, yeah, oh, I've never got one,
but I don't have had lasagnas delivered exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, and think because we're both storytellers, it was genuinely
at that moment that we were like, there's a book
in this, we should write about this.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, that very conversation. By the end we decided to
write a book.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, Rosie, your story is deeply rooted in instability. How
did that shape the way that you've come to think
about money and then your place in the world. How
do you even begin to unlearn a lot of this
as an adult? It's very difficult, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I did not get to a what I felt like
was a secure place financially until very very recently, and
I'm thirty eight years old. I mean so exciting. It
feels stable, well more stable than I've ever felt. I mean,
I'm still getting there, you know what I mean. But
I yeah, I grew up, like you said, with there
(07:53):
was a lot of poverty. The interesting thing about my parents, though,
was I say that they were both like black sheep
of each of their respective families. So my mom came
from quite a wealthy family. She went to private school
on the North Shore in Sydney, which is a very
snooty area. My dad came from like a pretty well
off family too, but they sort of then went their
(08:15):
own rogue directions and found each other. So I grew
up with predominantly my mom because my dad died when
I was quite young, with not a lot. I mean,
you know, there were years when we would need the
Smith family to deliver like a Christmas hamper to us
because we wouldn't have food at Christmas, that kind of thing.
There was often homelessness in the sense of you know,
(08:36):
I think a lot of people think homelessness means living
on the street, but I mean, like there were oftentimes
we didn't have anywhere to live. We'd be couch shopping
with our mum, living different places. But then we also would,
you know, say on like Easter or someone's birthday, go
to my grandparents' house or my uncle's house, my mum's brother,
and they were all very wealthy, so it was a
(08:58):
very odd experience knowing that there was something else. I
grew up in a lot of poverty and instability, but
I also had this sort of link to aut a
window at a window you something very different, like what possibility,
I guess, and that was a really odd thing to
(09:19):
deal with. I remember I tell this story. I think
it's funny, but a lot of people find it very
sad that my dad used to play us this VHS
tape of his brother had kids who were about ten
years older than us, and they had gone to Disneyland
and they had filmed like all this stuff while they're
at Disneyland. And my dad used to play this VHS
(09:43):
tape of his brother's kids at Disneyland to us, and
it was like our favorite movie, to watch the kids
at Disneyland. To us, that was as close as we
were going to get. And so it was. There was
a window there, which seemed sad, but I think to
me it provided like a sense of I know there's
something better than what I have here, Like I know
(10:05):
there is stability somewhere, Like we may move all the time,
Like I lived over in over one hundred houses as
a kid, I went to like at least twenty schools.
We moved a lot, We had instability, but I saw
that it was possible to feel secure and safe and
live in one place through people in my extended family.
So there was a jealousy, but there was also a
(10:28):
hope and a motivation. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
I was about to ask, you know, when you're young,
you don't actually comprehend a lot of the times why
those things are happening, Like you don't understand what financial
security means, or you know whether your parents are working
really hard or not. You can just see that one
kid has something that you don't. Were you quite envious
of that? Because I can imagine myself, I feel like
(10:50):
I would be quite envious see and the kids at Disneyland.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, I mean it was more the Disneyland thing was
more like I was envious of them having a lovely
family experience. I will say that with my mom, she
struggled being traditionally maternal. She left when I was about
three weeks old, and I didn't start living permanently with
(11:16):
her until I was almost four, and then on and
off after that until I got taken away. Permanently became
a water of state, and her way of showing love
was buying things, so we didn't often. I'll talk to
people who grew up much wealthier than me, I'd say
I would talk to Jam about all the toys and
cool stuff I had as a kid, and I probably
(11:38):
had a lot more cool stuff than you Di didd
probably because that's how my mom knew how to show love.
I remember being very very little, and she worked as
a sex worker when I was little to sort of
pay her way, and so on the visits we would
have with her, the exciting thing was that she would
bring you something, bring you like a polypocket or you know,
(11:59):
a doll or you know a Barbie or something like.
She showed that through gifts and spending, and I think
that definitely gave me some warped ideas about what money
is and how to manage it because she was never
great with it. There was never a sense in our
(12:20):
existence with her that it was something that you were
responsible with. If you had it, you spent it.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Yeah. Absolutely, Jam. Before your diagnosis, I feel like your
life was picture perfect. Like you had this young family,
You were financially stable, you had a bang in Korea.
Like you. I would look at you and be like,
I want to be Jam when I grow.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Up, my grown up friend, my most accomplished grown up friend.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Right Like, I know she's laughing, but I literally was
like when I grow up.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
One day, I'm going to be just like MILLERI oh,
she's three months old me and I say the same.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Yeah, exactly when I grow up. When I grow up.
So from the outside outside, it seemed like you had
your stuff together, like your goals babe. But what did
that look like? Because you got your diagnosis and then
everything shifts. Your priority is shift, your financial stability shifts,
(13:13):
and I imagine you go from being Okay, I've built
my life and while you know you're not agreeing with
us that you know, oh it's picture perfect, like you
would have felt financially stable. Yeah, we have a great artner.
I'm so excited. I have you know, this great kid.
What happens when you get sent into a spin?
Speaker 5 (13:29):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Money was not on my mind, like when you get
given a diagnosis like that, money is the last thing
you think about, and it should be the last thing
you think about. But the reality is that it's going
to start playing a role pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
So for us, we were renting at the time, we
were house hunting. We were looking to buy our first home.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
We've been looking at lots of houses and trying to
find the right thing I remember one of the conversations
we had was Okay, well, that's just we're not doing
that anytime soon because we can't deal with that. We've
we've got too much other stress. And then I had
private health insurance, which was fortunate, and it meant that
that gave me the ability to choose my surgeon, which
(14:10):
you know, if I'd been in the public system, I
might have ended up with the same surgeon anyway, It's possible.
He worked in the public and the private system, but
I got to choose him. And I remember him saying
to me, the other advantage was that he then got
to choose his team. Yeah, because it was the private system,
he could then say I want that nurse, and I
want that assistant surgeon. I want that person, and there's
huge benefit to that. I remember saying, is there any
(14:31):
other benefit? Like what else do I kind of get for.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
My money paying this extraordinary amount health agents?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He said to me, well, there are rumors that the
food is better, don't you were like, I don't think
it is.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
I don't think it is.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
A Look, if it was better, it wasn't much better.
And I had these sort of quite naive assumptions. I
think I thought Medicare took care of you when you
were sick, and so you didn't have to pay anything.
And I thought if you had private health insurance, then
anything extra you won't pay much at all, which I'll
look back on that. And I had no idea, right,
I had no idea.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Well, you don't know, and you just don't expect these things,
not at all to you, especially when you're young, not
when you're thirty one, Like the idea that this happened
to you when you're thirty one, and I'm sitting here
at thirty three, I just go, what like this to me?
It's so foreign, and I'm so grateful it's foreign. But
I also just go, life is so fragile, and it
can happen fast.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
It happens really fast.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
And the other bit I think you don't think about
so much is that you can't work right.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
After you have insurance. I have to ask the financial aurance.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I absolutely did not have insurance that I don't think
I'd even crossed my mind at that age. And so
you know, I had eight weeks off work for recovery,
and even then I wasn't totally way more than that
ready to go back to work after brain surgery. After
eight works, I went back to work a bit, but
I certainly wasn't on my game and I would have
struggled to work full time. And then for me, the
(15:55):
TIMA grew back within a few months after that, and
then I needed sixteen weeks off for that recovery. And
once you get to that point and your partner's also
taking heaps of time off to look after you, and
then you've also got to think about childcare and all
the other bits and pieces, suddenly life starts to look
By that second surgery, we were a bit like, oh wow, okay,
this is not.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
That house deposit. It doesn't look like house deposit.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
And we used the emergency like we were people who
had an emergency bank account, right, But we used it
all up and then we had to go again.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
So because you probably just thought and like most people do,
and I don't want to scare people when it comes
to the finances, but the reality is, when we create
our emergency funds, we're thinking, okay, like, what's like three
months of our expenses? What does that look like. We're
not talking about the car parking at hospital, We're not
talking about the late night uber eats and all of
(16:43):
the takeaway food that we need because we're staying at hospital.
Like it goes so quickly, and like this is my
reminder to everybody out there that if you haven't thought
about getting your personal insurances together, please do, please do asap.
Like that is one thing that I am wildly passionate
about because sadly, as an ex financial advisor, I've seen
it too many times, and it's always the people that say,
(17:06):
I never thought this would happen to me.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
And also once you're on the other side, like me,
you can't get it.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Oh no, your one's ensuring me now, right, yeap, No,
you're band, so my husband's very well insured, but you
know that's not an option for me.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
No. No. Both of you described these quite dramatic moments
where your health completely collapsed, But it wasn't ever just physical.
I think people just assume when you say my health collapsed,
you just assume it's some dramatic flop to the floor.
But what did it cost to keep functioning professionally and
financially when your world's are literally falling apart?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I mean, I know it has at times cost me
almost everything. Really, I was never really great with money
because I wasn't you know, wasn't raised. You were taught
how to be yet how to be.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
I remember when we used to work together.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Oh my years again, know what you're.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
I remember explaining to Rosie how banks work, Yeah, because
she didn't understand need friend, you need that person.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
It blew my mind when Jamila explained to me that
there is not a physical dollar for every dollar that
there is, like I.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Thought you could it was all there, we can all
you thought the bank had a shoe box with your money?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yes, And then I had this like existential crisis where
I was like, so money is just a concept? What?
Like I couldn't. It blew my mind. So that is
literally where I was coming from, not even understanding that.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
But you know how many people don't. Yeah, Like I
don't want you to go oh, I didn't even get that.
What do you mean?
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Who was going to.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Teach you that? Rosie?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Oh my gosh, I had no Yeah, jam did I
mean when I got my first book advance, which was
like quite a decent chunk of money, I ended up
getting into a huge amount of tax problems because I
didn't realize I had to pay tax on that. I
just was like, hooray, I have money, and I didn't
anything extravagant. I just remember feeling like it's nice to
(19:04):
not have to worry. I remember my fridge broke and
I felt so amazing. It was like quite a profound
day in my life when my fridge broke and I
could just buy a fridge and I didn't have to
think about it. It was I wasn't buying anything crazy,
but I just yeah, I didn't understand tax and I
so I for like the first decade of working as
(19:25):
a professional writer had a lot of financial issues, and
it was probably twenty twenty two where I did have it,
like quite a bit of money saved, Like I was
doing okay work wise, but mentally I had a really
bad relapse and I worked a little on and off,
but I mostly didn't work. From i'd say, for about
(19:46):
eighteen months over twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
I completely ran out of money, like I got to
like ground zero. I had to move apartments once in
that time, and Jamila lent me money to pay my
bond for my apartment because I just I literally had
nothing saved and I got really unwell and I couldn't work.
(20:07):
It was a really scary time because when you are
struggling with your health and then the money stuff is
added to it, like it really does make you feel like,
you know what, if I wasn't already getting swallowed up,
this is going to be the.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Thing kicks down? Yeah exactly, I mean you can kick
them to do how do I do this?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Like? I the one thing I've always made sure I
pay and sometimes over my rent. I have paid for
my private health insurance because in my early twenties I
needed to be hospitalized for my PTSD and I didn't
have insurance. I went to a public hospital and unfortunately
in patient care in public psychiatric care is pretty grim.
(20:50):
And I after that started paying a very high premium
health insurance because health insurance that covers inpatient private psychiatric as.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
You need you need actually on bronze.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, I have paid for that ever since. That's been
my one negotiable thing that I pay for because I
never wanted to have to go to a public place again.
And I have used it, like there's been about four
times that I've needed private psychiatric care since I started
paying for that. But yeah, across twenty twenty two twenty
three when I wasn't working and literally ran out of money.
(21:27):
The one thing I sort of made sure I paid
for was my private health insurance, and everything else was
day by day.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
And you know what, I totally get that, Yeah, because
that is in line with your values and what you're like.
I can't go back there because I'm assuming that would
have impacted you even more than going to impatient care privately.
I just can't imagine. All right, let's go to a
really quick break, because on the flip side, I want
to talk more about the lasagnas that we mentioned. I
(21:55):
also want to talk about inequality and why Australia support
systems so often all the people who need it the most.
Plus how do you actually prepare for the kind of
life crisis no one sees coming. That's all after the break,
all right, we are back, and I wanted to talk
about something that actually stuck with me out of the book,
(22:17):
and you guys have already mentioned it, and that's lasagna.
I just feel like that's a big thing. It's a
big thing, do you know what. I love a good lasagna,
And with so many in your freezer, you could have
done a whole taste testing Josh my husband.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
My husband had like Tali's ranking.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Rank them like, oh yep, Sue's one. That's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
You've got scores for like cheesiness and you know, death
of Tomato and the sauce.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeh see. I think that's important. But Jam, at the
end of the day, for those of you who haven't
read the book, you had a plethora of lasagners, and
Rosie you wrote about never having one lasagna in your fridge.
What do you think that says about visible versus invisible illnesses?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know, I think it's no secret that there is
a lot of prejudice in society when it comes to
how we viewed mental health versus physical health. I think
I even have, even people with mental health issues hold
those prejudices. I mean, there have been times that I've
even said to myself, like come on, Rosie again, like
pull yourself out of this this time, just get it together,
(23:20):
which I don't think Jamila would ever have said to
her brain show, like come on, jam just just shrink that,
just get you know, get rid of that, take care
of jam. So even I have it, I understand, but
we tend to not take this stuff as seriously. And
I think at the end of the day, the bottom
line is it's because a lot of people think it
is a choice. Maybe not on the surface, maybe they
(23:43):
don't say that out loud, but deep down, I think
a lot of people do think that mental health stuff
is a choice because if it's to do with you know,
your emotions, your mental health, the way you think, all
of that kind of thing, if it's not something physical,
then surely you should just be able to fix it.
I think that's why. I mean, really, it's kind of
(24:04):
I've been asked this question a few times and I've
been thinking, oh, should I be giving a more complex
answer than that, But no, I just I think that's it.
I think that's the answer.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
I have seen that time and time again. Like my
background is in psychology, so like I fully comprehend this,
but even I who have been through you know, diagnosis,
I just look at it and I go. The one
thing that helped me really understand it was like it
was chemical. I was like, okay, like yours might be physical,
but mine was chemical. And it's not an emotional thing
you can just get over. Like I literally don't have
(24:34):
enough of a chemical and I can't xyz and so
I feel like for me that helped, and there's nothing
that's going to help everybody. But it just it frustrates
me beyond belief that people don't take mental health seriously,
Like it impacts everything. It impacts your financial wellbeing, your
emotional wellbeing, it impacts your relationships, It impacts your ability
to create the career you want to create, whether you
(24:55):
have children or not. Like it is one of the
most tactful things that you can go through, but people
still don't put a liz on you in your freezer.
What's that about?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I mean all those things that you just said. I
put off having kids my whole like adult life because
I remembered what it was like growing up with my mother.
I remember what it was like growing up with someone
who had kids before she was able to or should
have mentally, financially, in all those ways. My older sister,
yann and then had her first kid when she was seventeen,
(25:26):
and I saw how much that affected her life. So
I always said, like, I won't. I remember saying as
a little kid, like I'm not going to have kids
until I'm at least thirty five. Like for me, that
was this age in my brain that it's.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Grown up age.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah, yeah, you're paying proper taxes thirty fever right, like.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I thought I would be, but like probably wasn't working
that much then. But like I yeah, there was a
lot of things that I put off because I knew
I ninety five ninety six percent, ninety seven percent of
my energy is going to just trying to keep this
mental health stuff and check. I didn't have the time,
the resources, the energy to do a lot of the
(26:06):
things I wanted to do. I mean, essentially, you live
a life of surviving and not thriving. Yeah, that's where
you land.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, Jam, you've experienced both sides of this, first in
being an advocate but then also navigating the Australian healthcare
system as a patient. When it comes to Australia as
a country, Why do you think we are still getting
it so wrong?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah, So Australia has I think, unquestionably one of the
best healthcare systems in the world in terms of our
commitment to universal health care. The fact that if you
show up at a hospital, as you know, Prime Minister
is always telling us you show them your Medicare card
before anyone asks for your credit card.
Speaker 5 (26:45):
And I don't want to take away from that.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
That is remarkable one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
But Australia built a healthcare system and a hospital system
to treat people with physical ill health, and then when
we kind of figured out mental illness was a thing,
we just sort of shoved it in the back cor Now, yeah,
we sort of tacked this thing on, but we built
it in the same model as the first one, and
we sort of tacked it on the side. But we're
dealing with a completely different set of challenges, a completely
(27:10):
different set of treatments, and so it doesn't.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
Work that way.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
You can't treat schizophrenia the way you treat cancer, right,
you're dealing with things in.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
A complete motto Medicare card.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
No, it doesn't make sense. And so what we've done
is we've sort of built two systems at the same
time and they're very much unequal. And don't get me wrong,
there are inequalities that exist within the sort of physical
healthcare system as well, but the way they work is
very unequal. And so what we do is we tend
to interact with people who have mental health challenges at
two levels. The first is and it's great that this exists,
(27:39):
that you can get the medicare rebate for a series
of consultations with a psychologists. Once you've seen your GP
and been approved for a mental health plan, that's great
if you're someone who needs more than that, and that's
a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
So often in our community, we're like, great, it's ten
right now, Well now now what right?
Speaker 5 (27:57):
What happens if you need fifty? What happens if you
need more than fifty?
Speaker 3 (28:00):
And then at the other end of the spectrum, we're
talking about people who reach the point of showing up
an emergency at a public hospital because their mental ill
health has become so serious and they are in crisis,
and we will intervene there, usually for a very brief period,
you know, twenty four hours, forty eight hours, often where
it's like, right, have we got you to a point
(28:21):
where we think you're not a danger to yourself?
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Okay, thank you very much, you can go home.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
So there are sort of two points of intervention in
the public system, and that there's just so much space
in between, not to mention the fact that at that
acute crisis end, that's not sufficient.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
No, And that's what's heartbreaking when it comes to I
guess the financial side of that people in crisis can't
think about finances at the same time as trying to
manage their crisis. How do we better support people going
through these things financially, you.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Know, as part of Broken Brains.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
We both shared our stories, but we also talked to
heaps of different experts and other people with lived expertise,
and we spoke to Professor Kate Drummond, who is the
head of neurosurgery at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Bizarrely spoke to
her many years ago and she's now my neurosurgeon, which
is just weird, but at the time I'd never met
her before and she said so many things that stuck
(29:16):
with me about how our health system operates. But I
asked her if she had a magic wand what's the
one thing she'd change. She said, she would pick up
all the money that we spend on interventions in the
final couple of weeks of someone's life to prolong life
at the very very end, and she would pick that
up and she'd give it to people in their late
teens and twenties to intervene on mental ill health. Because
(29:38):
she said, if your aim is to have people live longer,
healthier lives, you would have so much more impact than
you would prolonging the life of someone who's in their
nineties by another month, probably prolonging that life in a
way that wouldn't be very comfortable or enjoyable. Now, that
is really confronting, right, Like I can think about that
at as hard at a policy level, and I feel
(29:59):
o with it. But then you say, okay, well what
about your grandma? And I'd be like, we'll hold on
a second part.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
We're not talking about her, we're talking about policy. Jam.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah, And so that's hard to wrap our heads around,
I think. But our purpose should not be an l
system for people to live forever. That's not going to work.
We have not yet pulled that up right. So it
should be to support people to have a wonderful life.
And we're possible to extend that life. But that does
become a point where it's like, what are we doing
and what are we spending and what are we putting
(30:27):
someone through for one more week or two more weeks
when we could put that money as a country into
making sure that we get quality of life and quantity
of life for people who are in their twenties and thirties.
That mean that they get to be that eighty or
ninety year old.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Absolutely. Now I'm obviously so excited for my community to
pick up this episode and learn more about broken brains.
But I'm also just so excited that the possibility that
people who are currently ill and struggling financially see this
episode and go, oh my goodness, Like I didn't know
something like this was happening. I didn't realize conversations were,
(31:02):
you know, happening in this space. And I'm hoping that
you know, if you haven't met us before, welcome, But
what would your one piece of advice to people who
are currently going through illness and also struggling financially, what
would your one piece of advice from both of you be?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
I'm happy to go first on that one.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I if you are like me and you're going through
a physical health challenge, your mental health is as non
negotiable as Rosy's is. You know, when Rosie was going
through some of the toughest times in her life, she
still put the money into mental health care. It took
me two years before one of my doctors said to me,
are you getting any support now? I was because my
(31:39):
husband muched me off to a psychologist the morning after
I was diagnosed, so I was getting great support.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
But the impact on your.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Health and your wellbeing and your ability to go back
to work and become someone who can earn money again,
it will be the mental as much.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
As the physical that pushes you.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
The second thing I would say is that go into
the system knowing that even within the physical health system
we treat diseases. There is a hierarchy of how we
support different conditions and diseases, and a lot of that
actually has to do with the charitable sector as well,
because some always had to talk about this one. Some
diseases are more attractive than others.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
We have raised more money in this country to support
people who are going through breast cancer treatment and to
ensure that treatment is not only quality, and we have
reduced mortality rates and we have improved how we support
people psychologically through that process.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
And I do not begrudge a center of that.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
It is extraordinary what this country has done, and a
lot of that is because of the McGrath Foundation and others.
But it's really interesting. The McGrath Foundation just this year
announced that they are now moving their targets to support
people with other kinds of cancers too, because there are
the sexy cancers and the ones that we get excited about,
and the ones that we feel good about and we
want to talk about. We don't talk about prostate cancer,
(32:51):
we don't talk about anal cancer.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
We don't talk about stuff that makes people go, oh god,
I don't know about that one. Right, No pooh colored ribbons.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
There's no poo colored ribbons, is what one of the
mark as we speak to in our book says. And
she was a woman who had colorectal cancer. She's like,
there's no poor colored ribbon. Right, That's not something we
go and party about. So going in with your eyes
wide open around what support is available to you or not.
I'm someone who lives with rare diseases. Where it will
hit is when you get to the medicine part. Because
our medicines aren't on the PBS, or if they exist
(33:20):
and we can use someone else's medicines, we don't get
it on the PBS because we're not using it for
the set purpose. Right, So you do have to prepare
and you do have to save accordingly. I think I'm
sorry I'm giving so much advice I'm supposed to give to one.
My other one is one that I am struggling to
take myself, but I'm really trying to. Which is that
my partner said really early on, spending money on your
(33:43):
health is non negotiable. And that meant not just the
drugs that keep me alive, but the drugs that keep
me well. And I have medicines that there have been
times they're off the PBS that are costing us three
four thousand dollars a month, right, Like there's big money.
And the number of times they don't technically keep me alive,
they keep me well, and they're a big part of
(34:03):
my quality of life, but I don't need I'm not
going to die tomorrow without them.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
And the number of times I've.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Gone, oh, we don't maybe just not this month, or
like we really need to be doing this. And I
look at my son and I look at my husband,
and he has been adamant, like, this is not negotiable.
If this makes you feel better, we buy it.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I felt so much guilt about that, And we're in
a very fortunate position where we're able to make that
choice rather than having no choice. And I know people
with the same tumor as me who cut tablets in
half and take them every second day and do all
sorts of stuff because they can't afford to do it properly.
But I am just learning to let go of some
of that guilt around what my family doesn't have because
(34:46):
of my disease and the impacts of my disabilities. But
I think I'm finally getting there and sort of forgiving
myself and recognizing that it's better for them to have me.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
It's better to have a wife and a mum.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
That I well wife and well.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Doing well and can be the best person you can be.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
No, I think that that's so important, and it honestly
makes me feel Like when you said and I still
carry so much, girl, I was like, oh, like that
breaks me because it's just your son has who he
needs and you were able to afford that, And like, yeah,
you might not have as much stuff, but stuff doesn't
go with you, Like that's not the stuff that matters. Yeah, Rosie,
(35:25):
what would your advice be?
Speaker 1 (35:26):
You know that question is trickier for me to answer
than I think it is for Jamila. I write in
the book about the fact that I've been seeing a
child psychiatrist who specializes in trauma since I was seventeen,
I've been seen the same one, so I'm probably his
oldest patient by this mind. But I started seeing him
because at the time, my uncle had taken custody of
(35:48):
me and he was paying for it. When my uncle
stopped paying for it, this particular psychiatrist boll builled me
without any gap, so it was essentially free for me
to see him, and he has been very generous with
me at times over the last twenty years. I pay
when I can afford it, and other times, like you know,
(36:10):
back in twenty twenty two, when I was really struggling,
he went back to bulk billing me. That is, that's
a unicorn psychiatrist. Like I understand how lucky I am
that he has been able to do that for me,
because I look at my sisters who've not had access
to that kind of trauma treatment, who have just only
when the ten sessions a year became available, which hasn't
(36:31):
been throughout since we've been unwell. They haven't had that,
and I can see how much further in my mental
health I am than them because of that. So I
know how lucky I am, and at the same time,
I think how unfair that I had to be lucky
to get treatment that I needed. So when people come
(36:54):
to me for advice about what to do when you're unwell,
particularly financially in the mental health sphere, I don't quite
know what to say. I say, take advantage of what
is offered to you, get the ten sessions, get more
if you can, and also try and have someone advocate
for you, because when you are mentally in that really
(37:15):
dark place, like you said, it's hard to you know,
bills all that kind of stuff. You can barely function,
Like there are type you can't make a phone call,
let alone handle life admin. There have been times since
Jamila and I've been friends for over ten years now,
and twice in that ten years, I've had a mental
health relapse that's been pretty bad, and she has stepped
(37:36):
in to advocate for me. Just as someone who makes
phone calls helps like organize, like calling around hospitals to
see if there's a place open or whatever, like, it
really helps to have someone step in and advocate for
you and look for programs because there are resources out there,
particularly for trauma. I know that I've done, you know
this essentially psychotherapy with my therapist since i've been with him,
(37:59):
But there are we now know in the last few years,
you know, the very famous book by Besill Vanderkoch, like
The Body Keeps the Score. We're understanding more and more,
particularly over the last decade, that so much of it
is to do with the body and not just the brain.
That has been something that financially, I've not really been
able to explore until the last couple of years treatment
for that kind of thing. Someone at a book event
(38:20):
for us the other night came up to me and said,
I work in the trauma space, particularly childhood trauma, and
you should be telling your readers and listeners and everything
that EMDR is now available for free for people to
access through certain programs if they're dealing with childhood trauma.
So I think it's just essentially like the snowball effect
of It's like when Jamila started interviewing people for the book,
(38:41):
and she would talk to someone who would recommend someone
who would recommend someone, and before you knew it, you'd
interviewed over two hundred people. I think it's the same
with this kind of thing, Like your psychiatrist may recommend
talking to someone who may know of a program, and
they may know of something else, and it's just taking
whatever support you can get, because financially it's really hard
(39:02):
in this country to treat mental health. You're not going
to just walk into a doctor's office or a hospital
and get what you need easily. So really take the
help from anyone who was offering it to you, and
listen to people's advice. And that's sort of the best
advice I can offer.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
It.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
It's hard on this side of things.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
I feel like the one thing that hasn't been mentioned
is just giving yourself a lot more kindness as well.
I think that a lot of the time, people in
similar situations, they'll say I'm so bad at this, or
I suck at that, or like you really just compare
yourself to other people in similar situations. You might go, oh,
but she's handling it's so much better. But you don't
(39:44):
see these things. You don't get to see under the
covers of people's financial circumstances. And like, you know, jam
was talking about her beautiful husband and the support that
she had, and knowing that he was probably working throughout
that and you had your house depositing some emergency savings.
We didn't know that until she shared that we could
have assumed that she'd come from a really wealthy family
(40:05):
or something along those lines, or we could have on
the flips, I'd been like, not aware of the astronomical
amount of debt she needed to go into. So everybody's
journey is so different. And I think that because of
this beautiful community we have in sees on the money,
people are so open with their journeys, especially when they're
unwell and when they're going through financial crisis, that you
(40:26):
just don't know what you don't know. And I think
you are so harsh on yourselves. You're like, oh, well,
I can't afford that, or I shouldn't do this, or
I shouldn't like I think you just need to wipe
all of the expectation off and just go I'm doing
the best that I can.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I'm really glad you just said that, because, yeah, that's
really important to point out. I know that I have
been filled with an enormous amount of shame getting to
this age where I'm nearly forty. Like I turned thirty
nine this year. I'm an eighty six baby. And when
I was little, like I said, I had these wealthier
family members that I would look to and I would
(41:00):
always say like I'm going to be like them, Like
I'm not going to be like my crazy parents. Like
when I grew up, I remember I used to say,
I'm going to be a doctor like my uncle because
my mum told me once he made five thousand dollars
a week, and I was like that, I'm going to
be a doctor because of that, like I would. I
really thought I would be in a very different position
by now, And I often feel an enormous amount of
(41:23):
shame and disappointment that, you know, I thought I would
be married by now. I thought I would have kids.
I thought i'd own a house. I thought I would
have built the life for myself that I always wanted
by this stage, by much earlier than this. And there
are times that really really makes me feel, just to
(41:45):
put it bluntly, pretty shit about myself. It really does.
And what has helped a lot is, like you said,
learning to have some compassion for myself over it, learning
to try and be bit gentler with myself and more
forgiving and say, like, you know, Rosie, you were barely
(42:06):
keeping your head above water. Like all I was able
to focus on was just getting through the day, saving
for a house, marriage, kids, building a stable life. It
really sucks that it's not really starting for me until
the last couple of years. But it's not my fault,
Like I did the best I could, and so I
have to be gentler with myself about it. It is hard, though,
(42:29):
it's really hard. You're filled with a lot of shame
about this kind of thing. But yeah, I'm really glad
you pointed that out because having self compassion is hugely important.
It's helped me a lot, even though it's not easy
to do.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
No, I'm glad that you resonate with that because I
just I feel like I want to scoop our community
up sometimes and be like you are doing so well,
Like look at the cards that were dealt to you,
and what could have happened the place you could have
been in, and look how hard you fought to be here.
You're on a podcast advocating for those people who can't
speak up for them else. There are people who are
(43:01):
going to listen to this and be like, holy moly,
Like that's exactly what I needed to hear at the moment,
And you're being that person that baby you needed, and
I just go, that's the ultimate outcome, right, Like I
know that your stereotypical family and your house and your
savings account didn't tick the box. But like you've become
the woman that baby you needed, and that is incredible,
(43:23):
Like that is the coolest thing in the entire world.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
So I wrote the book. I guess that's really nice.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
So unfortunately we don't have a lot of time left. Guys,
you have been so generous and so kind for sharing
this story with me, with my community. I'm just I'm
beyond grateful for this. This conversation has been really thoughtful,
really generous, really open, and I just I hope that
we can start seeing mental and physical illness on the
(43:50):
same page. I hope that there's more conversation in the
next four years about getting us on the same page.
And I just think that this has been a long
time coming and it won't be the last time we
talk about this. So, guys, if you have loved talking
to jam and to Rosie, they have a beautiful book
called Broken Brains. It is real, it is raw, it
(44:11):
is honest, is everything you need to have a conversation
around grief, around resilience and humor. Like it is funny
we keep trying.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
To tell people it's not heavy.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
I feel like I've made it sounds heavy at the stuff,
you're really funny too, Like I'll give you that, and
it's all at once and it is beautiful. And if
you're listening and you haven't grabbed a copy yet, I
definitely recommend it. But I'm going to pop all of
the information for that in the show notes so that
you can pick up a copy and pour over it
in the same way that I absolutely did. And I
guess one of the things I took from that was like,
(44:45):
I need to make a whole lot more Lasagnias, Like
I've got a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, jam has enough.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Yes, Yeah, exactly, And we're makings and my beautiful she's
on the money community. I know that sometimes life can
throw things at you that no budget or plan could
ever prepare for. And if you are in that space
right now, just know that it's okay to focus on
just getting through, not getting ahead. I want you to
take your health, your safety, and your stability first. It
(45:14):
always is going to come first, because the rest can wait,
and you are not behind for doing what you need
to do to survive. If you have loved this episode,
please share it with somebody who needs to hear it,
especially if they're going through something tough right now, and
make sure that you're following She's on the Money so
that you never miss another chat like this one. Guys,
Thanks Sharing Tak, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Did buy shared on.
Speaker 6 (45:41):
She's on the Money is general in nature and does
not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money exists
purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon
to make an investment or financial decision. If you do
choose to buy a financial product, read.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
The PDS TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards
your needs.
Speaker 6 (46:01):
Victoria Divine and Sheese on the Money are authorized representatives
of Money sherper P t y lt D A b
N three two one six four nine two seven seven
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Zero eight afs L four five one two eight nine
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
My name is Satasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yor
the Order Kerni Whaltbury and a waddery woman. And before
we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
(00:22):
through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
that helps you feel good about money even when life
is falling apart a little bit or a lot. I'm
Victoria Devine, and today we are talking about something that
doesn't come with a budget, tenplate or a five step
financial plan. We're talking about what it really costs to
survive when your brain, your body, and your entire world
(01:17):
stop co operating. Because sometimes the hardest thing isn't managing
your money, it's managing to stay afloat at all. And
yet rent is still due groceries still cost money. Life
doesn't pause just because you are struggling. And that's the
reality for my two guests today who know this a
lot better than most. Jamilla Risby is a best selling
(01:39):
author and advocate who, at thirty one, was diagnosed with
a rare and aggressive brain tumor. Rosy Waterland is a
writer and comedian whose childhood was shaped by poverty, addiction,
and survival, and whose adult life has been shaped by
complex trauma. Together they've written Broken Brains, a raw, funny
and painfully honest look at what happens when your health,
(02:01):
your finances, and your sense of self all come under pressure.
Jamilla and Rosie, we are genuinely so excited to have
you on the show. Welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
It's very excited to bless that.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I am very excited. You have just published your book,
Broken Brains, and it is all about your personal experiences,
your illnesses and shame, and the system that then made
it even harder for you guys to thrive. Talk to
me about what your broken Brain journey has looked like
in real life.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Well, why don't I go first and then Rosie can
tell you a bit about her.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, because you guys are so different, but then when
you come together in the book, it just makes sense
the same. It was amazing. I was kind of like
before obviously having a look at it, being like okay,
all right, read it, and I'm like, this makes so
much sense.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
So I was diagnosed with a brain tumor called a
cranioferngioma when I was thirty one, quite an unusual kind
of brain tumor. So it affects every one in one
million to one and a half million people, so I'm
very special. I love being rare, but not like that. Yeah, no,
it's not kind of rare.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
You want to be.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Actually, when you're sick, you want to be as pedestrian
as possible.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Way to go kind of illness.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So when I was diagnosed, it was obviously massive shock,
and what followed that was a series of brain surgeries
as the tumor kept growing back when they would remove it,
and then ultimately radiation treatment. I had thirty six rounds
of radiation thirty six Yeah, so six days a week
for six weeks, which by the end of that I
felt like they'd burned out that my insides. It was
(03:34):
pretty hectic, and then probably took about two years for
the full extent of the brain injuries that I'd acquired
to kind of make themselves known. And I still live
with those, now, live with the whole bunch of medications
and treatments that continue. But I'm five years no tumor growth.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I love that. That makes me so happy. You literally
burnt it out. It's gone. Yeah, it's gone. And Rosie
tell me your journey.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yes, So mine seems a little differend on the surface,
Like you said, so, I had a pretty difficult childhood.
Both my parents were alcoholics, drug addicts, they were mentally ill.
My sisters and I were in and out of the
foster system. There was a lot of neglect and abuse.
And I guess the best way I would describe it
is people often think that trauma is the event, but
(04:20):
trauma is what I deal with now. So if you
look at my childhood as the car crash, the trauma
I live with as an adult is the brain injury
caused by that car crash. So I started showing really
significant symptoms when I was about seventeen, so about twenty
years ago, and I've been in treatment on and off
(04:40):
when I could afford it ever since. I do take
a lot of medications as well. I have symptoms that
I'll be dealing with for the rest of my life. Yeah,
And I think it was not long after Jamila's first
surgery that she was looking for someone, anyone to talk
(05:02):
to who she felt like might understand what it's like
to feel sort of out of control of your to
not have control of your body and brain. And she
came to me and we, like you said, didn't think
we would have a lot in common, but realize very
quickly we have a lot in common.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Actually, Yeah, absolutely, Your book is really about surviving the
things that aren't is obvious or that people never see, right,
so like illness, trauma, shame, and the system that genuinely
makes it so much harder. What made you both go,
all right, we want to write a book. We want
to tell this story because it's one thing to you know,
find each other and have that level of support. Why
(05:40):
did you want to take it to that next level
and share it with us?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Well, I had sought some support from Rosie, as she said,
And I went to Rosie and asked her for some
help with dealing with the mental health side of what
I was going through. You know, when you're experiencing the
stress and the trauma of being told you're really seriously ill,
and the fallout of surgery and treatment.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
It takes a real toll on your mental well being.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
And I wanted advice, I suppose because I knew Rosie
had been there before, and I think I almost wanted
to say, how do I stop this? How do I
stop my brain being so scared? And when I went
to visit Rosie, she was actually in psychiatric care at
the time, and we went and had a lunch across
the road, and when we were chatting, one of the
things that came out really quickly was that we actually
(06:26):
have the same our conditions have the same mortality rate,
so we actually had the same chance of not being
alive in five years or ten years.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And yet, yeah, the world doesn't respond to Rosie with
the same sort of urgency it does to me. You know,
when my friends and my family learned that I had
this brain tumor that had to be cut out of
my head, I was incredibly lucky. I had this overwhelming
outpouring of support, And I joked to Rosie at the
time that I had eleven Lasagnas in my freezer.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
I was about to say, because you had so many lasagnas,
and have any lasagnas?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
And I was like, yeah, oh, I've never got one,
but I don't have had lasagnas delivered exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, and think because we're both storytellers, it was genuinely
at that moment that we were like, there's a book
in this, we should write about this.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, that very conversation. By the end we decided to
write a book.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, Rosie, your story is deeply rooted in instability. How
did that shape the way that you've come to think
about money and then your place in the world. How
do you even begin to unlearn a lot of this
as an adult? It's very difficult, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I did not get to a what I felt like
was a secure place financially until very very recently, and
I'm thirty eight years old. I mean so exciting. It
feels stable, well more stable than I've ever felt. I mean,
I'm still getting there, you know what I mean. But
I yeah, I grew up, like you said, with there
(07:53):
was a lot of poverty. The interesting thing about my parents, though,
was I say that they were both like black sheep
of each of their respective families. So my mom came
from quite a wealthy family. She went to private school
on the North Shore in Sydney, which is a very
snooty area. My dad came from like a pretty well
off family too, but they sort of then went their
(08:15):
own rogue directions and found each other. So I grew
up with predominantly my mom because my dad died when
I was quite young, with not a lot. I mean,
you know, there were years when we would need the
Smith family to deliver like a Christmas hamper to us
because we wouldn't have food at Christmas, that kind of thing.
There was often homelessness in the sense of you know,
(08:36):
I think a lot of people think homelessness means living
on the street, but I mean, like there were oftentimes
we didn't have anywhere to live. We'd be couch shopping
with our mum, living different places. But then we also would,
you know, say on like Easter or someone's birthday, go
to my grandparents' house or my uncle's house, my mum's brother,
and they were all very wealthy, so it was a
(08:58):
very odd experience knowing that there was something else. I
grew up in a lot of poverty and instability, but
I also had this sort of link to aut a
window at a window you something very different, like what possibility,
I guess, and that was a really odd thing to
(09:19):
deal with. I remember I tell this story. I think
it's funny, but a lot of people find it very
sad that my dad used to play us this VHS
tape of his brother had kids who were about ten
years older than us, and they had gone to Disneyland
and they had filmed like all this stuff while they're
at Disneyland. And my dad used to play this VHS
(09:43):
tape of his brother's kids at Disneyland to us, and
it was like our favorite movie, to watch the kids
at Disneyland. To us, that was as close as we
were going to get. And so it was. There was
a window there, which seemed sad, but I think to
me it provided like a sense of I know there's
something better than what I have here, Like I know
(10:05):
there is stability somewhere, Like we may move all the time,
Like I lived over in over one hundred houses as
a kid, I went to like at least twenty schools.
We moved a lot, We had instability, but I saw
that it was possible to feel secure and safe and
live in one place through people in my extended family.
So there was a jealousy, but there was also a
(10:28):
hope and a motivation. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
I was about to ask, you know, when you're young,
you don't actually comprehend a lot of the times why
those things are happening, Like you don't understand what financial
security means, or you know whether your parents are working
really hard or not. You can just see that one
kid has something that you don't. Were you quite envious
of that? Because I can imagine myself, I feel like
(10:50):
I would be quite envious see and the kids at Disneyland.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, I mean it was more the Disneyland thing was
more like I was envious of them having a lovely
family experience. I will say that with my mom, she
struggled being traditionally maternal. She left when I was about
three weeks old, and I didn't start living permanently with
(11:16):
her until I was almost four, and then on and
off after that until I got taken away. Permanently became
a water of state, and her way of showing love
was buying things, so we didn't often. I'll talk to
people who grew up much wealthier than me, I'd say
I would talk to Jam about all the toys and
cool stuff I had as a kid, and I probably
(11:38):
had a lot more cool stuff than you Di didd
probably because that's how my mom knew how to show love.
I remember being very very little, and she worked as
a sex worker when I was little to sort of
pay her way, and so on the visits we would
have with her, the exciting thing was that she would
bring you something, bring you like a polypocket or you know,
(11:59):
a doll or you know a Barbie or something like.
She showed that through gifts and spending, and I think
that definitely gave me some warped ideas about what money
is and how to manage it because she was never
great with it. There was never a sense in our
(12:20):
existence with her that it was something that you were
responsible with. If you had it, you spent it.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Yeah. Absolutely, Jam. Before your diagnosis, I feel like your
life was picture perfect. Like you had this young family,
You were financially stable, you had a bang in Korea.
Like you. I would look at you and be like,
I want to be Jam when I grow.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Up, my grown up friend, my most accomplished grown up friend.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Right Like, I know she's laughing, but I literally was
like when I grow up.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
One day, I'm going to be just like MILLERI oh,
she's three months old me and I say the same.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Yeah, exactly when I grow up. When I grow up.
So from the outside outside, it seemed like you had
your stuff together, like your goals babe. But what did
that look like? Because you got your diagnosis and then
everything shifts. Your priority is shift, your financial stability shifts,
(13:13):
and I imagine you go from being Okay, I've built
my life and while you know you're not agreeing with
us that you know, oh it's picture perfect, like you
would have felt financially stable. Yeah, we have a great artner.
I'm so excited. I have you know, this great kid.
What happens when you get sent into a spin?
Speaker 5 (13:29):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Money was not on my mind, like when you get
given a diagnosis like that, money is the last thing
you think about, and it should be the last thing
you think about. But the reality is that it's going
to start playing a role pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
So for us, we were renting at the time, we
were house hunting. We were looking to buy our first home.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
We've been looking at lots of houses and trying to
find the right thing I remember one of the conversations
we had was Okay, well, that's just we're not doing
that anytime soon because we can't deal with that. We've
we've got too much other stress. And then I had
private health insurance, which was fortunate, and it meant that
that gave me the ability to choose my surgeon, which
(14:10):
you know, if I'd been in the public system, I
might have ended up with the same surgeon anyway, It's possible.
He worked in the public and the private system, but
I got to choose him. And I remember him saying
to me, the other advantage was that he then got
to choose his team. Yeah, because it was the private system,
he could then say I want that nurse, and I
want that assistant surgeon. I want that person, and there's
huge benefit to that. I remember saying, is there any
(14:31):
other benefit? Like what else do I kind of get for.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
My money paying this extraordinary amount health agents?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He said to me, well, there are rumors that the
food is better, don't you were like, I don't think
it is.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
I don't think it is.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
A Look, if it was better, it wasn't much better.
And I had these sort of quite naive assumptions. I
think I thought Medicare took care of you when you
were sick, and so you didn't have to pay anything.
And I thought if you had private health insurance, then
anything extra you won't pay much at all, which I'll
look back on that. And I had no idea, right,
I had no idea.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Well, you don't know, and you just don't expect these things,
not at all to you, especially when you're young, not
when you're thirty one, Like the idea that this happened
to you when you're thirty one, and I'm sitting here
at thirty three, I just go, what like this to me?
It's so foreign, and I'm so grateful it's foreign. But
I also just go, life is so fragile, and it
can happen fast.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
It happens really fast.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
And the other bit I think you don't think about
so much is that you can't work right.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
After you have insurance. I have to ask the financial aurance.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I absolutely did not have insurance that I don't think
I'd even crossed my mind at that age. And so
you know, I had eight weeks off work for recovery,
and even then I wasn't totally way more than that
ready to go back to work after brain surgery. After
eight works, I went back to work a bit, but
I certainly wasn't on my game and I would have
struggled to work full time. And then for me, the
(15:55):
TIMA grew back within a few months after that, and
then I needed sixteen weeks off for that recovery. And
once you get to that point and your partner's also
taking heaps of time off to look after you, and
then you've also got to think about childcare and all
the other bits and pieces, suddenly life starts to look
By that second surgery, we were a bit like, oh wow, okay,
this is not.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
That house deposit. It doesn't look like house deposit.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
And we used the emergency like we were people who
had an emergency bank account, right, But we used it
all up and then we had to go again.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
So because you probably just thought and like most people do,
and I don't want to scare people when it comes
to the finances, but the reality is, when we create
our emergency funds, we're thinking, okay, like, what's like three
months of our expenses? What does that look like. We're
not talking about the car parking at hospital, We're not
talking about the late night uber eats and all of
(16:43):
the takeaway food that we need because we're staying at hospital.
Like it goes so quickly, and like this is my
reminder to everybody out there that if you haven't thought
about getting your personal insurances together, please do, please do asap.
Like that is one thing that I am wildly passionate
about because sadly, as an ex financial advisor, I've seen
it too many times, and it's always the people that say,
(17:06):
I never thought this would happen to me.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
And also once you're on the other side, like me,
you can't get it.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Oh no, your one's ensuring me now, right, yeap, No,
you're band, so my husband's very well insured, but you
know that's not an option for me.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
No. No. Both of you described these quite dramatic moments
where your health completely collapsed, But it wasn't ever just physical.
I think people just assume when you say my health collapsed,
you just assume it's some dramatic flop to the floor.
But what did it cost to keep functioning professionally and
financially when your world's are literally falling apart?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I mean, I know it has at times cost me
almost everything. Really, I was never really great with money
because I wasn't you know, wasn't raised. You were taught
how to be yet how to be.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
I remember when we used to work together.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Oh my years again, know what you're.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
I remember explaining to Rosie how banks work, Yeah, because
she didn't understand need friend, you need that person.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
It blew my mind when Jamila explained to me that
there is not a physical dollar for every dollar that
there is, like I.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Thought you could it was all there, we can all
you thought the bank had a shoe box with your money?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yes, And then I had this like existential crisis where
I was like, so money is just a concept? What?
Like I couldn't. It blew my mind. So that is
literally where I was coming from, not even understanding that.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
But you know how many people don't. Yeah, Like I
don't want you to go oh, I didn't even get that.
What do you mean?
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Who was going to.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Teach you that? Rosie?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Oh my gosh, I had no Yeah, jam did I
mean when I got my first book advance, which was
like quite a decent chunk of money, I ended up
getting into a huge amount of tax problems because I
didn't realize I had to pay tax on that. I
just was like, hooray, I have money, and I didn't
anything extravagant. I just remember feeling like it's nice to
(19:04):
not have to worry. I remember my fridge broke and
I felt so amazing. It was like quite a profound
day in my life when my fridge broke and I
could just buy a fridge and I didn't have to
think about it. It was I wasn't buying anything crazy,
but I just yeah, I didn't understand tax and I
so I for like the first decade of working as
(19:25):
a professional writer had a lot of financial issues, and
it was probably twenty twenty two where I did have it,
like quite a bit of money saved, Like I was
doing okay work wise, but mentally I had a really
bad relapse and I worked a little on and off,
but I mostly didn't work. From i'd say, for about
(19:46):
eighteen months over twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
I completely ran out of money, like I got to
like ground zero. I had to move apartments once in
that time, and Jamila lent me money to pay my
bond for my apartment because I just I literally had
nothing saved and I got really unwell and I couldn't work.
(20:07):
It was a really scary time because when you are
struggling with your health and then the money stuff is
added to it, like it really does make you feel like,
you know what, if I wasn't already getting swallowed up,
this is going to be the.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Thing kicks down? Yeah exactly, I mean you can kick
them to do how do I do this?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Like? I the one thing I've always made sure I
pay and sometimes over my rent. I have paid for
my private health insurance because in my early twenties I
needed to be hospitalized for my PTSD and I didn't
have insurance. I went to a public hospital and unfortunately
in patient care in public psychiatric care is pretty grim.
(20:50):
And I after that started paying a very high premium
health insurance because health insurance that covers inpatient private psychiatric as.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
You need you need actually on bronze.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, I have paid for that ever since. That's been
my one negotiable thing that I pay for because I
never wanted to have to go to a public place again.
And I have used it, like there's been about four
times that I've needed private psychiatric care since I started
paying for that. But yeah, across twenty twenty two twenty
three when I wasn't working and literally ran out of money.
(21:27):
The one thing I sort of made sure I paid
for was my private health insurance, and everything else was
day by day.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
And you know what, I totally get that, Yeah, because
that is in line with your values and what you're like.
I can't go back there because I'm assuming that would
have impacted you even more than going to impatient care privately.
I just can't imagine. All right, let's go to a
really quick break, because on the flip side, I want
to talk more about the lasagnas that we mentioned. I
(21:55):
also want to talk about inequality and why Australia support
systems so often all the people who need it the most.
Plus how do you actually prepare for the kind of
life crisis no one sees coming. That's all after the break,
all right, we are back, and I wanted to talk
about something that actually stuck with me out of the book,
(22:17):
and you guys have already mentioned it, and that's lasagna.
I just feel like that's a big thing. It's a
big thing, do you know what. I love a good lasagna,
And with so many in your freezer, you could have
done a whole taste testing Josh my husband.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
My husband had like Tali's ranking.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Rank them like, oh yep, Sue's one. That's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
You've got scores for like cheesiness and you know, death
of Tomato and the sauce.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeh see. I think that's important. But Jam, at the
end of the day, for those of you who haven't
read the book, you had a plethora of lasagners, and
Rosie you wrote about never having one lasagna in your fridge.
What do you think that says about visible versus invisible illnesses?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know, I think it's no secret that there is
a lot of prejudice in society when it comes to
how we viewed mental health versus physical health. I think
I even have, even people with mental health issues hold
those prejudices. I mean, there have been times that I've
even said to myself, like come on, Rosie again, like
pull yourself out of this this time, just get it together,
(23:20):
which I don't think Jamila would ever have said to
her brain show, like come on, jam just just shrink that,
just get you know, get rid of that, take care
of jam. So even I have it, I understand, but
we tend to not take this stuff as seriously. And
I think at the end of the day, the bottom
line is it's because a lot of people think it
is a choice. Maybe not on the surface, maybe they
(23:43):
don't say that out loud, but deep down, I think
a lot of people do think that mental health stuff
is a choice because if it's to do with you know,
your emotions, your mental health, the way you think, all
of that kind of thing, if it's not something physical,
then surely you should just be able to fix it.
I think that's why. I mean, really, it's kind of
(24:04):
I've been asked this question a few times and I've
been thinking, oh, should I be giving a more complex
answer than that, But no, I just I think that's it.
I think that's the answer.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
I have seen that time and time again. Like my
background is in psychology, so like I fully comprehend this,
but even I who have been through you know, diagnosis,
I just look at it and I go. The one
thing that helped me really understand it was like it
was chemical. I was like, okay, like yours might be physical,
but mine was chemical. And it's not an emotional thing
you can just get over. Like I literally don't have
(24:34):
enough of a chemical and I can't xyz and so
I feel like for me that helped, and there's nothing
that's going to help everybody. But it just it frustrates
me beyond belief that people don't take mental health seriously,
Like it impacts everything. It impacts your financial wellbeing, your
emotional wellbeing, it impacts your relationships, It impacts your ability
to create the career you want to create, whether you
(24:55):
have children or not. Like it is one of the
most tactful things that you can go through, but people
still don't put a liz on you in your freezer.
What's that about?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I mean all those things that you just said. I
put off having kids my whole like adult life because
I remembered what it was like growing up with my mother.
I remember what it was like growing up with someone
who had kids before she was able to or should
have mentally, financially, in all those ways. My older sister,
yann and then had her first kid when she was seventeen,
(25:26):
and I saw how much that affected her life. So
I always said, like, I won't. I remember saying as
a little kid, like I'm not going to have kids
until I'm at least thirty five. Like for me, that
was this age in my brain that it's.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Grown up age.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah, yeah, you're paying proper taxes thirty fever right, like.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I thought I would be, but like probably wasn't working
that much then. But like I yeah, there was a
lot of things that I put off because I knew
I ninety five ninety six percent, ninety seven percent of
my energy is going to just trying to keep this
mental health stuff and check. I didn't have the time,
the resources, the energy to do a lot of the
(26:06):
things I wanted to do. I mean, essentially, you live
a life of surviving and not thriving. Yeah, that's where
you land.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, Jam, you've experienced both sides of this, first in
being an advocate but then also navigating the Australian healthcare
system as a patient. When it comes to Australia as
a country, Why do you think we are still getting
it so wrong?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah, So Australia has I think, unquestionably one of the
best healthcare systems in the world in terms of our
commitment to universal health care. The fact that if you
show up at a hospital, as you know, Prime Minister
is always telling us you show them your Medicare card
before anyone asks for your credit card.
Speaker 5 (26:45):
And I don't want to take away from that.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
That is remarkable one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
But Australia built a healthcare system and a hospital system
to treat people with physical ill health, and then when
we kind of figured out mental illness was a thing,
we just sort of shoved it in the back cor Now, yeah,
we sort of tacked this thing on, but we built
it in the same model as the first one, and
we sort of tacked it on the side. But we're
dealing with a completely different set of challenges, a completely
(27:10):
different set of treatments, and so it doesn't.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
Work that way.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
You can't treat schizophrenia the way you treat cancer, right,
you're dealing with things in.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
A complete motto Medicare card.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
No, it doesn't make sense. And so what we've done
is we've sort of built two systems at the same
time and they're very much unequal. And don't get me wrong,
there are inequalities that exist within the sort of physical
healthcare system as well, but the way they work is
very unequal. And so what we do is we tend
to interact with people who have mental health challenges at
two levels. The first is and it's great that this exists,
(27:39):
that you can get the medicare rebate for a series
of consultations with a psychologists. Once you've seen your GP
and been approved for a mental health plan, that's great
if you're someone who needs more than that, and that's
a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
So often in our community, we're like, great, it's ten
right now, Well now now what right?
Speaker 5 (27:57):
What happens if you need fifty? What happens if you
need more than fifty?
Speaker 3 (28:00):
And then at the other end of the spectrum, we're
talking about people who reach the point of showing up
an emergency at a public hospital because their mental ill
health has become so serious and they are in crisis,
and we will intervene there, usually for a very brief period,
you know, twenty four hours, forty eight hours, often where
it's like, right, have we got you to a point
(28:21):
where we think you're not a danger to yourself?
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Okay, thank you very much, you can go home.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
So there are sort of two points of intervention in
the public system, and that there's just so much space
in between, not to mention the fact that at that
acute crisis end, that's not sufficient.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
No, And that's what's heartbreaking when it comes to I
guess the financial side of that people in crisis can't
think about finances at the same time as trying to
manage their crisis. How do we better support people going
through these things financially, you.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Know, as part of Broken Brains.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
We both shared our stories, but we also talked to
heaps of different experts and other people with lived expertise,
and we spoke to Professor Kate Drummond, who is the
head of neurosurgery at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Bizarrely spoke to
her many years ago and she's now my neurosurgeon, which
is just weird, but at the time I'd never met
her before and she said so many things that stuck
(29:16):
with me about how our health system operates. But I
asked her if she had a magic wand what's the
one thing she'd change. She said, she would pick up
all the money that we spend on interventions in the
final couple of weeks of someone's life to prolong life
at the very very end, and she would pick that
up and she'd give it to people in their late
teens and twenties to intervene on mental ill health. Because
(29:38):
she said, if your aim is to have people live longer,
healthier lives, you would have so much more impact than
you would prolonging the life of someone who's in their
nineties by another month, probably prolonging that life in a
way that wouldn't be very comfortable or enjoyable. Now, that
is really confronting, right, Like I can think about that
at as hard at a policy level, and I feel
(29:59):
o with it. But then you say, okay, well what
about your grandma? And I'd be like, we'll hold on
a second part.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
We're not talking about her, we're talking about policy. Jam.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah, And so that's hard to wrap our heads around,
I think. But our purpose should not be an l
system for people to live forever. That's not going to work.
We have not yet pulled that up right. So it
should be to support people to have a wonderful life.
And we're possible to extend that life. But that does
become a point where it's like, what are we doing
and what are we spending and what are we putting
(30:27):
someone through for one more week or two more weeks
when we could put that money as a country into
making sure that we get quality of life and quantity
of life for people who are in their twenties and thirties.
That mean that they get to be that eighty or
ninety year old.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Absolutely. Now I'm obviously so excited for my community to
pick up this episode and learn more about broken brains.
But I'm also just so excited that the possibility that
people who are currently ill and struggling financially see this
episode and go, oh my goodness, Like I didn't know
something like this was happening. I didn't realize conversations were,
(31:02):
you know, happening in this space. And I'm hoping that
you know, if you haven't met us before, welcome, But
what would your one piece of advice to people who
are currently going through illness and also struggling financially, what
would your one piece of advice from both of you be?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
I'm happy to go first on that one.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I if you are like me and you're going through
a physical health challenge, your mental health is as non
negotiable as Rosy's is. You know, when Rosie was going
through some of the toughest times in her life, she
still put the money into mental health care. It took
me two years before one of my doctors said to me,
are you getting any support now? I was because my
(31:39):
husband muched me off to a psychologist the morning after
I was diagnosed, so I was getting great support.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
But the impact on your.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Health and your wellbeing and your ability to go back
to work and become someone who can earn money again,
it will be the mental as much.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
As the physical that pushes you.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
The second thing I would say is that go into
the system knowing that even within the physical health system
we treat diseases. There is a hierarchy of how we
support different conditions and diseases, and a lot of that
actually has to do with the charitable sector as well,
because some always had to talk about this one. Some
diseases are more attractive than others.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
We have raised more money in this country to support
people who are going through breast cancer treatment and to
ensure that treatment is not only quality, and we have
reduced mortality rates and we have improved how we support
people psychologically through that process.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
And I do not begrudge a center of that.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
It is extraordinary what this country has done, and a
lot of that is because of the McGrath Foundation and others.
But it's really interesting. The McGrath Foundation just this year
announced that they are now moving their targets to support
people with other kinds of cancers too, because there are
the sexy cancers and the ones that we get excited about,
and the ones that we feel good about and we
want to talk about. We don't talk about prostate cancer,
(32:51):
we don't talk about anal cancer.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
We don't talk about stuff that makes people go, oh god,
I don't know about that one. Right, No pooh colored ribbons.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
There's no poo colored ribbons, is what one of the
mark as we speak to in our book says. And
she was a woman who had colorectal cancer. She's like,
there's no poor colored ribbon. Right, That's not something we
go and party about. So going in with your eyes
wide open around what support is available to you or not.
I'm someone who lives with rare diseases. Where it will
hit is when you get to the medicine part. Because
our medicines aren't on the PBS, or if they exist
(33:20):
and we can use someone else's medicines, we don't get
it on the PBS because we're not using it for
the set purpose. Right, So you do have to prepare
and you do have to save accordingly. I think I'm
sorry I'm giving so much advice I'm supposed to give to one.
My other one is one that I am struggling to
take myself, but I'm really trying to. Which is that
my partner said really early on, spending money on your
(33:43):
health is non negotiable. And that meant not just the
drugs that keep me alive, but the drugs that keep
me well. And I have medicines that there have been
times they're off the PBS that are costing us three
four thousand dollars a month, right, Like there's big money.
And the number of times they don't technically keep me alive,
they keep me well, and they're a big part of
(34:03):
my quality of life, but I don't need I'm not
going to die tomorrow without them.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
And the number of times I've.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Gone, oh, we don't maybe just not this month, or
like we really need to be doing this. And I
look at my son and I look at my husband,
and he has been adamant, like, this is not negotiable.
If this makes you feel better, we buy it.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I felt so much guilt about that, And we're in
a very fortunate position where we're able to make that
choice rather than having no choice. And I know people
with the same tumor as me who cut tablets in
half and take them every second day and do all
sorts of stuff because they can't afford to do it properly.
But I am just learning to let go of some
of that guilt around what my family doesn't have because
(34:46):
of my disease and the impacts of my disabilities. But
I think I'm finally getting there and sort of forgiving
myself and recognizing that it's better for them to have me.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
It's better to have a wife and a mum.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
That I well wife and well.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Doing well and can be the best person you can be.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
No, I think that that's so important, and it honestly
makes me feel Like when you said and I still
carry so much, girl, I was like, oh, like that
breaks me because it's just your son has who he
needs and you were able to afford that, And like, yeah,
you might not have as much stuff, but stuff doesn't
go with you, Like that's not the stuff that matters. Yeah, Rosie,
(35:25):
what would your advice be?
Speaker 1 (35:26):
You know that question is trickier for me to answer
than I think it is for Jamila. I write in
the book about the fact that I've been seeing a
child psychiatrist who specializes in trauma since I was seventeen,
I've been seen the same one, so I'm probably his
oldest patient by this mind. But I started seeing him
because at the time, my uncle had taken custody of
(35:48):
me and he was paying for it. When my uncle
stopped paying for it, this particular psychiatrist boll builled me
without any gap, so it was essentially free for me
to see him, and he has been very generous with
me at times over the last twenty years. I pay
when I can afford it, and other times, like you know,
(36:10):
back in twenty twenty two, when I was really struggling,
he went back to bulk billing me. That is, that's
a unicorn psychiatrist. Like I understand how lucky I am
that he has been able to do that for me,
because I look at my sisters who've not had access
to that kind of trauma treatment, who have just only
when the ten sessions a year became available, which hasn't
(36:31):
been throughout since we've been unwell. They haven't had that,
and I can see how much further in my mental
health I am than them because of that. So I
know how lucky I am, and at the same time,
I think how unfair that I had to be lucky
to get treatment that I needed. So when people come
(36:54):
to me for advice about what to do when you're unwell,
particularly financially in the mental health sphere, I don't quite
know what to say. I say, take advantage of what
is offered to you, get the ten sessions, get more
if you can, and also try and have someone advocate
for you, because when you are mentally in that really
(37:15):
dark place, like you said, it's hard to you know,
bills all that kind of stuff. You can barely function,
Like there are type you can't make a phone call,
let alone handle life admin. There have been times since
Jamila and I've been friends for over ten years now,
and twice in that ten years, I've had a mental
health relapse that's been pretty bad, and she has stepped
(37:36):
in to advocate for me. Just as someone who makes
phone calls helps like organize, like calling around hospitals to
see if there's a place open or whatever, like, it
really helps to have someone step in and advocate for
you and look for programs because there are resources out there,
particularly for trauma. I know that I've done, you know
this essentially psychotherapy with my therapist since i've been with him,
(37:59):
But there are we now know in the last few years,
you know, the very famous book by Besill Vanderkoch, like
The Body Keeps the Score. We're understanding more and more,
particularly over the last decade, that so much of it
is to do with the body and not just the brain.
That has been something that financially, I've not really been
able to explore until the last couple of years treatment
for that kind of thing. Someone at a book event
(38:20):
for us the other night came up to me and said,
I work in the trauma space, particularly childhood trauma, and
you should be telling your readers and listeners and everything
that EMDR is now available for free for people to
access through certain programs if they're dealing with childhood trauma.
So I think it's just essentially like the snowball effect
of It's like when Jamila started interviewing people for the book,
(38:41):
and she would talk to someone who would recommend someone
who would recommend someone, and before you knew it, you'd
interviewed over two hundred people. I think it's the same
with this kind of thing, Like your psychiatrist may recommend
talking to someone who may know of a program, and
they may know of something else, and it's just taking
whatever support you can get, because financially it's really hard
(39:02):
in this country to treat mental health. You're not going
to just walk into a doctor's office or a hospital
and get what you need easily. So really take the
help from anyone who was offering it to you, and
listen to people's advice. And that's sort of the best
advice I can offer.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
It.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
It's hard on this side of things.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
I feel like the one thing that hasn't been mentioned
is just giving yourself a lot more kindness as well.
I think that a lot of the time, people in
similar situations, they'll say I'm so bad at this, or
I suck at that, or like you really just compare
yourself to other people in similar situations. You might go, oh,
but she's handling it's so much better. But you don't
(39:44):
see these things. You don't get to see under the
covers of people's financial circumstances. And like, you know, jam
was talking about her beautiful husband and the support that
she had, and knowing that he was probably working throughout
that and you had your house depositing some emergency savings.
We didn't know that until she shared that we could
have assumed that she'd come from a really wealthy family
(40:05):
or something along those lines, or we could have on
the flips, I'd been like, not aware of the astronomical
amount of debt she needed to go into. So everybody's
journey is so different. And I think that because of
this beautiful community we have in sees on the money,
people are so open with their journeys, especially when they're
unwell and when they're going through financial crisis, that you
(40:26):
just don't know what you don't know. And I think
you are so harsh on yourselves. You're like, oh, well,
I can't afford that, or I shouldn't do this, or
I shouldn't like I think you just need to wipe
all of the expectation off and just go I'm doing
the best that I can.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I'm really glad you just said that, because, yeah, that's
really important to point out. I know that I have
been filled with an enormous amount of shame getting to
this age where I'm nearly forty. Like I turned thirty
nine this year. I'm an eighty six baby. And when
I was little, like I said, I had these wealthier
family members that I would look to and I would
(41:00):
always say like I'm going to be like them, Like
I'm not going to be like my crazy parents. Like
when I grew up, I remember I used to say,
I'm going to be a doctor like my uncle because
my mum told me once he made five thousand dollars
a week, and I was like that, I'm going to
be a doctor because of that, like I would. I
really thought I would be in a very different position
by now, And I often feel an enormous amount of
(41:23):
shame and disappointment that, you know, I thought I would
be married by now. I thought I would have kids.
I thought i'd own a house. I thought I would
have built the life for myself that I always wanted
by this stage, by much earlier than this. And there
are times that really really makes me feel, just to
(41:45):
put it bluntly, pretty shit about myself. It really does.
And what has helped a lot is, like you said,
learning to have some compassion for myself over it, learning
to try and be bit gentler with myself and more
forgiving and say, like, you know, Rosie, you were barely
(42:06):
keeping your head above water. Like all I was able
to focus on was just getting through the day, saving
for a house, marriage, kids, building a stable life. It
really sucks that it's not really starting for me until
the last couple of years. But it's not my fault,
Like I did the best I could, and so I
have to be gentler with myself about it. It is hard, though,
(42:29):
it's really hard. You're filled with a lot of shame
about this kind of thing. But yeah, I'm really glad
you pointed that out because having self compassion is hugely important.
It's helped me a lot, even though it's not easy
to do.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
No, I'm glad that you resonate with that because I
just I feel like I want to scoop our community
up sometimes and be like you are doing so well,
Like look at the cards that were dealt to you,
and what could have happened the place you could have
been in, and look how hard you fought to be here.
You're on a podcast advocating for those people who can't
speak up for them else. There are people who are
(43:01):
going to listen to this and be like, holy moly,
Like that's exactly what I needed to hear at the moment,
And you're being that person that baby you needed, and
I just go, that's the ultimate outcome, right, Like I
know that your stereotypical family and your house and your
savings account didn't tick the box. But like you've become
the woman that baby you needed, and that is incredible,
(43:23):
Like that is the coolest thing in the entire world.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
So I wrote the book. I guess that's really nice.
Speaker 4 (43:29):
So unfortunately we don't have a lot of time left. Guys,
you have been so generous and so kind for sharing
this story with me, with my community. I'm just I'm
beyond grateful for this. This conversation has been really thoughtful,
really generous, really open, and I just I hope that
we can start seeing mental and physical illness on the
(43:50):
same page. I hope that there's more conversation in the
next four years about getting us on the same page.
And I just think that this has been a long
time coming and it won't be the last time we
talk about this. So, guys, if you have loved talking
to jam and to Rosie, they have a beautiful book
called Broken Brains. It is real, it is raw, it
(44:11):
is honest, is everything you need to have a conversation
around grief, around resilience and humor. Like it is funny
we keep trying.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
To tell people it's not heavy.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
I feel like I've made it sounds heavy at the stuff,
you're really funny too, Like I'll give you that, and
it's all at once and it is beautiful. And if
you're listening and you haven't grabbed a copy yet, I
definitely recommend it. But I'm going to pop all of
the information for that in the show notes so that
you can pick up a copy and pour over it
in the same way that I absolutely did. And I
guess one of the things I took from that was like,
(44:45):
I need to make a whole lot more Lasagnias, Like
I've got a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, jam has enough.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Yes, Yeah, exactly, And we're makings and my beautiful she's
on the money community. I know that sometimes life can
throw things at you that no budget or plan could
ever prepare for. And if you are in that space
right now, just know that it's okay to focus on
just getting through, not getting ahead. I want you to
take your health, your safety, and your stability first. It
(45:14):
always is going to come first, because the rest can wait,
and you are not behind for doing what you need
to do to survive. If you have loved this episode,
please share it with somebody who needs to hear it,
especially if they're going through something tough right now, and
make sure that you're following She's on the Money so
that you never miss another chat like this one. Guys,
Thanks Sharing Tak, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Did buy shared on.
Speaker 6 (45:41):
She's on the Money is general in nature and does
not consider your individual circumstances. She's on the Money exists
purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon
to make an investment or financial decision. If you do
choose to buy a financial product, read.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
The PDS TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards
your needs.
Speaker 6 (46:01):
Victoria Divine and Sheese on the Money are authorized representatives
of Money sherper P t y lt D A b
N three two one six four nine two seven seven
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Zero eight afs L four five one two eight nine
Popular Podcasts
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Betrayal: Season 4
Karoline Borega married a man of honor – a respected Colorado Springs Police officer. She knew there would be sacrifices to accommodate her husband’s career. But she had no idea that he was using his badge to fool everyone. This season, we expose a man who swore two sacred oaths—one to his badge, one to his bride—and broke them both. We follow Karoline as she questions everything she thought she knew about her partner of over 20 years. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-3 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.