June 29, 2025 • 36 mins
Rosie Waterland's "Just The Gist" podcast had over 10 million downloads, and her memoir "The Anti-Cool Girl" was a best-selling award winner.
I recorded this chat with Rosie at Words on the Waves, where she was promoting her new book Broken Brains, co-written with Jamila Rizvi. We got into what it means to live with trauma, the invisibility of mental illness, and how she’s learned to stop chasing a cure and start living her life - WITH the trauma.
It's a beautiful, honest, and often hilarious chat!
Hope you enjoy it!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
With Rabbit. Hey, I'm Rabbit.
I record this podcast inside a cute little retro caravan from
1967 that I've tore around all over the place.
My fan podcast with Rabbit. I actually have a big intro that
I've written for you. Oh, OK.
Which I don't normally do. Oh yeah.
Do you want or do you wanna readit now while I'm here, or do you
want me to? I'd like to like look at you in
(00:25):
the eye while. I said OK.
Like like do really? Let's go, I've got.
Some music I'd like to play. OK, I don't know if it's too
much. Let's do this.
I can't actually look at you. No 'cause it's a written.
Yeah. You gotta read it anyway.
Yeah, OK. No, I'll, no, I might do it.
OK, I'll do it after. I'll do it after.
I need to do it so that. I mean, plenty of people know
who you are anyway, but my God, the things you've done.
(00:48):
The things you've done so far. Yeah, so, Oh yeah.
Thanks so fast. Couple of bits and pieces.
A couple of bits, all right, so I'll mention a few of them.
The multi award-winning Anti Cool Girl in 2015, detailing her
tumultuous upbringing. Yes, yeah, that's a, That's a
but gentle way of putting it. Really is.
(01:09):
The PR version, yeah. Yeah, Every lie I've ever told
in 2017, broken brains. That was.
That's just this year. That's this year.
That's. Why I'm here at Words on the Way
of promoting Yes, Broken Brains that I wrote with my co-authored
with my friend Jamila Risby. She's not here.
She's not here. No.
OK. So you can only talk about half
the book. Kind of.
Well, see, The thing is, she's I'm just the comedian writer.
(01:32):
She is the, like, proper journalist, researcher, policy
person. So.
And we do. We each tell our own stories in
the book. Plus we've interviewed a lot of
other people, and there's a lot about policy and politics and
all. I probably couldn't answer any
of those. Maybe don't.
Yeah. That's when those questions get
asked. I turn and look at her, and
that's the signal between us. I don't know how to answer that.
(01:54):
And then when someone goes, I had a really tumultuous
upbringing, you're like. I'm on.
Let's go. Here we go.
Yeah. And then, oh man, so mum says my
memoir is a lie. Uh huh.
I mean, great name for a podcast, Name for everything.
Yeah, so funny. She did, So that's what we
called it. Yeah.
Wack, wack. Call something else.
(02:15):
Just the gist, which what an absolute powerhouse.
Now that's the podcast that was absolutely huge.
It's not around anymore and we've just spent about 20
minutes talking all about it before hitting recording this.
Uh huh. Well, I am across everything.
It's coming back, it's coming back.
Yeah, that's all. Have you just made like a
statement there or? Oh.
Yeah, I'm not meant to tell you what.
(02:36):
Well, I, I'm not, I'm not meant to tell anyone, but I just keep
telling everyone because I'm so excited.
Sorry about sort of getting it together that it will hopefully
like we're looking, yeah, in thenext few months.
We're we've already started recording.
You have the world's worst yet most successful Instagram.
What do you mean? There's one post on there.
Oh. The just the gist 1.
(02:57):
Yeah, like 20,000 followers. Well, it was the just the gist
Instagram for ages. And because we're now moving on,
I like wiped the slate clean of all that content, I thought.
There's a lot of people following for absolutely nothing
except. Oh, no, no, that's been around
for a while. That's.
One photo that just went up justrecently, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just because I think
(03:21):
like in terms of how the licensing goes or whatever, a
lot of the content was branded with the company I'd been with
and I'm not allowed to use that anymore.
So I just it was easier to just wipe all the posts off that
Instagram. And how was that?
We're starting fresh. I mean as a that moment where
you go through deleting old posts.
Yeah, it's been, you know, I've been wrangling with trying to
(03:46):
get just the gist back up for a couple of years and it's finally
landed somewhere. Like I love I can see the cogs
turning and say like. What how can I say this in a way
that I'm legally allowed to and also there has been a resolution
and I am now allowed to, you know, just the gist is now
(04:07):
finally coming back, but not where it had not with the
company I've been with. So that's why.
With the same name. Yeah, you can still do that,
yeah. 'Cause I own the IPI own all the
IP. That was my idea, my creation.
So I can, you know, take it anywhere.
I just didn't own my master recordings.
Like I've I've been joking to myfriends that I'm the Taylor
(04:30):
Swift of Australian podcast justabout the.
Side you need to do Rosie's. Version do do I is is that that
that's a good idea I definitely haven't thought of yeah.
Brilliant. Now I'm wait, I'm trying to
figure out what that comes out like.
So that's that's you guys actingout previous episodes as as
(04:54):
cartoon characters. Maybe, you know, there's I've
that all that past content that back catalog we add, however,
200 episodes, you'll hear them again in some way, shape or
form. Actually Rosie's version.
Oh wait, are we allowed to say that?
I don't know. I will chop that bit out.
I. Don't even know if I'm allowed
to say that. I don't know what I'm allowed to
say. I know exactly how I'm gonna
(05:15):
edit that. It's gonna go.
Wait. Are we allowed to say that?
I don't know. Don't worry.
I chopped it out. Yeah, I mean, look, it's just
this stuff when it comes to artistic and creative
intellectual property and ownership and master recordings
and the legal side of stuff, I had no idea about any of it.
I've learned a lot more about itthe last two years.
It's it's. Messy and.
Murky and it's it's, you know, like I said, there's finally
(05:38):
resolution and it's coming back.It'll be different 2.0 but it's
finally able to come back. What was the launch date like?
We're on track looking at August.
OK, Yeah. Me just getting scoops.
Am I getting scoops I. Don't, I guess it's a scoop, I
mean. But like my boyfriend James has
said, like on this book tour forBroken Brains, every single
(05:59):
person who's come up to me at the book signing saying I love
just the gist, I've been like, it's coming back in August.
Like I'm just telling everyone. So I.
No, that's officially not a scoopy.
No, no, don't come in here telling me I've got some sort of
exclusive and then tell me you're telling randoms at book
signings. You've you've talked a lot about
your mental health through all all those.
Where are you at at the moment? And I say this as some of myself
(06:22):
as well. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, aren't we all? Yeah, I mean, I'm doing well.
The the book is called Broken Brains because my friend Jamila,
who I wrote it with, had a braintumor, A craniopharyngioma.
And I had like, I, because of that tumultuous childhood you
mentioned. I, I dealt with a lot of issues
(06:44):
with PTSD symptoms, started kicking him when I was about 17.
And I've dealt with a lot of trauma symptoms over the course
of my adulthood. It was my birthday yesterday
turned 39. So it's been happy birthday.
Thank you. Nine.
Yeah, do not look it. Oh.
Thanks, I think I say I have nature's filler which is being
chubby so that like keeps me looking youthful but.
(07:06):
How do you sell it? Though I know how do you sell
it? Just people.
Packets. But they do say for to women,
when you get to a certain age, you pick either your body or
your face like you're either youlook, you're skinny, but you
look old or you're chubby and you look young.
The whole OK. And so I'm the latter, I guess,
but I have the same psychiatristthat I've had since I was 17.
I started seeing him when I started getting PTSD symptoms.
(07:29):
He's a child psychiatrist because I was, I guess, a child
at the time. And I think I'm now his oldest
patient by a long time. There's toys.
There's like Fisher Price toys in his office and stuff me every
couple of weeks. You're gonna be playing with
Play DoH. What's really interesting, I
have a psychologist who comes onthe show quite often, and she's
amazing. Yeah.
(07:50):
She just reached out to me this week and said, hey, can I jump
in again? I want to do an episode.
She doesn't even need to ask. She could just tell me to be
somewhere and I'll pull up because it's incredible stuff
that we get out of it. She goes, I want to do an
episode called How Your Childhood Trauma Affects Your
Adulthood Trauma. Yeah, well, I mean, it's, I
explained it in the book and I've been explaining it on this
(08:10):
tour. The trauma isn't the event, like
people often say childhood trauma or I had a traumatic
childhood, like it's referring to the event.
But I explain it and a lot of people now explain it, like
people like Gabble Marte or Bessel van der Cole here at The
Body Keeps the Score. All that stuff around trauma
that people have become really interested in the last decade, I
think. And I've been like, I was there
(08:32):
first been there dealing with itfor 20 years.
But they say that the trauma is the injury.
So like if my childhood in which, you know, when I was my
parents were drug addicts and Alcoholics, my sisters and I
were now foster system. My childhood was the car crash.
The trauma I deal with now in myadulthood is the traumatic brain
(08:52):
injury caused by that car crash.So that's that seems to help
people explain it better, understand it better.
Sorry, but, you know, I think Jamila and I were really quite
flawed when she came to me to talk about what she was going
through after her diagnosis. And she had a very intense brain
(09:13):
surgery. Like she had to have a
craniotomy where they cut your head open and all that stuff.
And she came to visit me. I was actually in psychiatric
hospital at the time, not doing well with my trauma stuff.
And she just said to me, you know, the week after I got
diagnosed, like there was 11 lasagnas in my family's freezer
because just everyone rallied around me.
(09:34):
And I said I've I've never gotten a lasagna and I don't
expect I'll get one when I leavehere.
And then she just gave me goosebumps.
Yeah. And then she started mentioning
a lot of the symptoms that went along with her tumor.
And I was like, oh wow, that's alot of what I also deal with.
And then she mentioned the mortality rate of her tumour.
(09:56):
And it was the same as the mortality rate for people with
PTSD, particularly childhood trauma when you account for
suicide and self harm. And we were quite, we were like,
our stuff has the same mortalityrate, but you have 11 lasagnas
and I don't have any like why? Why do we?
Where are my lasagnas? Essentially, what it came down,
(10:20):
people really rallied around herand there was no questioning
that what she was dealing with was an incredibly serious,
difficult, legitimate thing. And I have always felt like I've
had to convince people of my condition.
And we're both writers and we just immediately that that very
(10:41):
conversation, we were like, there's a book in this because
we both have broken brains, but we're treated very differently.
There's a book and a title readyto roll.
Yeah, ready to roll? We've talked about this Heather
Irvine in podcast as well about that exact same thing and the
thing of like the connection between the brain and the body
and, and how it's all just one as well.
And we treat them so separately.And Heather talks about how
(11:01):
like, if you broke your leg, youwouldn't force yourself to get
well, I gotta go out and run today.
I can't because I've got this injury.
So when someone's lying in bed with a broken brain, depressed,
they have massive anxiety, the thought of going to work, all
those sort of things, yet they will force themselves to do it,
as opposed to accepting that no,no, something's broken and it
(11:26):
needs fixing, Yeah, give it the same respect.
Yeah. That you would to the and a
physical injury. I mean, I've, you know, cuz I've
a lot of my work over the years since I've been writing
professionally has been telling stories about myself like I'm a
comedian. So I tour one woman shows where
I tell a lot of stories and I have based a lot of it in my
(11:47):
mental health stuff and my childhood stuff.
I mean, I wrote two memoirs before I turned 30, like
insufferable. But dealing with the childhood
stuff and talking about, you know, how it's all affected my
life. And I've had people say to me
like quite mean messages on social media, like let it go.
Like your childhood is like, you've got to leave it in the
past. Like you, you need to move on.
(12:08):
Like I, I, there's a quote I putin the book, actually, a woman
messaged me saying, you know, I think she thought she was being
helpful, but she was saying it was 30 years ago.
Like put it in the past and it will set you free.
Like you're like, your obsessionwith your childhood is the
reason you're not able to get well mentally.
And I felt like saying to her, Iif someone was in a horrific
(12:33):
accident as a kid and lost theirleg, and then 30 years later
they were talking about how difficult it was for them to
live life with one leg. You wouldn't say to them, get
over the accident. It was 30.
You're not talking about the accident.
Like I in Broken Brains. I don't really talk about my
(12:53):
childhood much at all because it's a book about the brain
injury I deal with now and I wrote about, like I said, I
wrote two men when I talked about it enough, like.
But when you say brain injury, yeah, that's the thing, right?
So you'd you didn't actually copa a whack to the head or
something? No, but The thing is, it's
considered a traumatic brain injury.
(13:13):
It's funny, I say in the start of the book, one of the first
things I say is sometimes I wishI had a brain tumor like
Jamila's, because then I'd have something to point to on a scan.
And that was one of the first things I wrote.
And over the next five years, because we got a bit past
deadline, I came to realize through the research we were
doing for the book that I actually do physically have a
(13:34):
different brain. Like when the first five years
of development in a child's life, particularly when the
brain is developing and growing.Like the neural pathways that
need to grow are all. All the wiring there.
Are all the wiring happening? Everything's going on.
My mum left me when I was 3 weeks old with my father who was
(13:56):
very mentally unwell. He was an untreated
schizophrenic and had, you know,big drug and alcohol problems.
So I was left in a place of neglect from the get go.
So my brain actually does physically look different on a
scan. The neural pathways have
developed very differently to people who didn't go through
that kind of neglect and abuse. Like there are parts of my brain
(14:17):
that are overdeveloped, parts that are underdeveloped.
It is actually very different. It's.
Incredible when you look at it, isn't it because Heather took me
through this stuff as well. Those first 4-5 years will
actually shed and that's a lot to put on parents, I think when
you. Yeah, I think parents could feel
guilty about the things that happened when their kids were
(14:38):
really little and that's why they ended up like they.
Did I mean it's, you know, I would say I was at the extreme
end of the scale. Obviously, when people ask me
about advice, I say, look, just just kids just need to feel like
they're in a safe, stable and consistent environment.
And that's another thing I mentioned in the book that those
(14:58):
neural pathways, the brain is neuro, it's elastic.
Like it's neuroplasticity, it's elastic.
They can be rewired, corrected. And the best way to do that for
someone who's had, who's got thetrauma issues I do because of
the kind of childhood I had is through having very stable,
safe, consistent interpersonal relationships that actually
(15:20):
helps rewire that stuff. So it's really at its simple in
its simplest form about stable human connection.
Yeah, it's really interesting when you find out about the the
neural pathways and how that thethe actual wires that are like
physically being connected in your brain at that point if
you're someone. And This is why he wants to do
(15:40):
that episode, I think, is that if you are someone who as an
adult has real massive trust issues or whatever it is, that's
your thing. Yeah, it might come from those
first few years. And you probably does.
Yeah, Yeah. I think it's.
Incredible when you start looking at those things and then
and that yes, in scans of brainsthey look different.
Yeah, and it's tricky to and it's tricky to even define what
(16:06):
trauma is. Like Jamila came to me with her
initial chapter for the book because we each we write, we top
and tail each chapter and then there's interviews in the
middle. And so for the 1st chapter,
she's a very methodical person. So she started with the day she
found out she got diagnosed and what happened from there.
And she goes, it's OK, now you do the day you got you found out
you got diagnosed. And I was like, I don't shit
(16:31):
like I didn't know I. Feel like I have many of those
days I. Didn't know how I was going to
answer that because I don't eventechnically have an official
diagnosis because trauma like just the word general trauma in
the isn't in the DSM. There's like certain other like
PTSD is. There's other things called
complex PTSD but that doesn't entirely fit me either.
(16:53):
I also have a lot of symptoms that could qualify me for ADHD
but that's not entirely what I have.
I have ASD autism spectrum disorder symptoms.
I have cognitive dysfunction that would be because of a
physical traumatic brain injury like I'm.
Trying to collect the whole set.Yeah, I could.
(17:13):
You know, it's a lot of my psychiatrist has always said to
me, you know, we have to give you a label so we can, you know,
put these sessions through Medicare and so I can prescribe
medication to you. But if you were to ask me, I
would say you just have a seriesof symptoms that were caused by
prolonged exposure to toxic stress in your childhood.
(17:35):
Like, I mean, it's even I take alow level ADHD medication
because I have such cognitive issues.
But I wouldn't say I have ADHD, but that helps.
We then had a psychologist read through the book to do a sort of
sensitivity read to make sure we'd written everything
correctly. And she came back to me and
said, you refer to your mental illness a lot.
But there are some people for whom, like, it's become a
(17:58):
particular way of talking about this stuff the last decade
especially, they don't consider trauma or mental illness.
They find that quite offensive because they think symptoms of
trauma are a perfectly reasonable response to something
like a terrible thing that happened, or they don't call it
an illness. But then there are other people
who get offended if you don't call it an illness because they
(18:19):
think it sort of takes away the severity of what they have.
And so I even in the 1st chapterof Broken Brains, I was like, I
have a thing that lots of peoplecall lots of different stuff and
I have a lot of symptoms from a lot of different things and I
don't know how. And Jamila just comes in and
goes craniopharyngioma and everyone's like, Oh no.
And I mine's a little more complicated to explain.
(18:42):
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(19:03):
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They do delicious meals upstairsin the four Shore Bistro and
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(19:46):
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(20:07):
Yeah. And I still can't figure out
what PTSD is. And the ambo actually said,
well, that's the thing. There's so many things that fall
under it. There's anxiety, there's
depression, There's all sorts ofthings that come under it.
So yeah, you're. Different for everyone, like
I've absolutely my symptoms whenI was 17, it really started
kicking in with quite traditional like panic attacks,
(20:29):
flashbacks like that whole, you know, the whole war veteran
hearing a car backfiring, like that's the scenario most people
think of. And then it makes it takes them
back that I had more traditionalstuff like that.
When I was 17 I started having alot of flashbacks, a lot of
panic attacks. It's a lot to do with your
nervous system where it either gets hyper aroused because
you're in constant fight or flight, or then you're in fight
(20:51):
or flight for too long that yourbody can't handle it.
And it goes into what's called like disassociation, where it
just shuts down. That presents as depression.
And so I've had yes. That exact 1 you.
Talking like dissociation is probably one of the main ones
I've dealt with over the course of my adulthood where you don't
entirely realise what it is. You, I mean, you've, you've got
(21:12):
plenty of people to talk to about all this stuff, but
Heather, the way like she in an episode was talking about that
thing when you operating at A8910 all the time.
Your body can't take. It then at some point you pretty
much just get thrown down to the0 which is the disassociation
dissociation. Yeah, dissociation.
I I mean, regular listeners will, will know this stuff
(21:35):
that's happened with me lately. It's been a lot going on lately.
But so I was medicated for anxiety for seven years.
You were. Trying to come off wait.
Yeah, I am now. Yeah.
Yeah, I. Read that.
And gluten free for the last 10 years as well.
Yeah, I now, and that's just getback to the start of this year.
If you told me this stuff was coming, I'll be like, no way.
(21:55):
So I'm now completely off the anxiety meds and I eat all the
gluten and love it when people ask me about it.
I kind of put it down to, and it's from Heather and the things
that she said. And you talk about that
operating in at 8889 all the time.
Yeah, I was in breakfast radio at an 8 and a night all the
time. I.
Loved it. Yeah, So I would go in some
(22:16):
mornings. I could be lying on the floor in
the studio, like just I could fall asleep.
And it happened all the time. I would go on a forensic search
of dinner last night. Like what?
What? I'm so careful with my food, but
there must have been some crumbs.
They must. It's easier to blame it on it's
gluten. I think that's that thing of I
was just operating at that levelall the time.
And when I say operating at thatlevel, I just mean like he's
(22:37):
just on he just on all the time.And I but I loved it.
And if someone had told me, I think it's that I think you're
just you. You're.
Your nervous system's never getting.
On all the time yeah. That's what's actually happening
and if they'd said you know, youneed to leave radio or find
another job I wouldn't have doneit because I.
That's the thing it's a weird thing I wouldn't have I wouldn't
have called it stress at all butit was my job.
(23:00):
I think that was doing it to me yeah.
As as much as I did love it so it was when I was having a chat
on New Year's Day this year someone told me about a guy who
was walking from Townsville downto Melbourne.
Yeah. With his dog, he's a veteran and
he had a dog. So I was like, I'll go and meet
him somewhere. And he jumped in and it was when
he was sitting here and he was describing his anxiety.
(23:23):
And the weird thing is had anxiety for ages.
And I know that. But everything he was
describing, my brain started going, well, it's me when I have
gluten, like when I've been hit by gluten, when I've been
glutened. And it was that day that I went.
What if it's not? What if it's not the?
It's? Not that.
So then one day a couple of weeks after that, I just went
and I filmed it, put the camera on this album and went, I just
(23:43):
have an idea. And I just grabbed a sandwich
and numb. No, I'm down to sandwiches of
white bread, Nothing. And, and ever since then,
nothing. It just hasn't affected the food
has not affected me at all. I think, you know, it's
interesting to hear you describethat because you asked how how
I'm doing at the start of this conversation.
(24:04):
And I'm probably doing better now than I have my entire
adulthood, which has been very difficult dealing with this
trauma stuff. Like it's had a pretty
significant impact on my life ina lot of different ways.
But the last couple of years I've really turned a corner in
my treatment and in my in sort of my quest to live healthier.
(24:27):
I think it's because I suddenly realized that a lot of what I
was doing to deal with my traumasymptoms was about avoiding them
rather than meeting them head on.
And you know, I've done things with disordered eating not
dissimilar to the gluten thing where I'm like, no, this isn't
(24:47):
this is an issue with the food. But really, that was me avoiding
what the issue actually was, which is there's something going
on physically, mentally in you that is too uncomfortable for
you to sit with and deal with. So it's much easier to just say
it's a gluten intolerance or it's whatever it is.
I spent the majority of my adulthood doing whatever I could
(25:11):
to avoid the scary physical and mental feelings that came with
my trauma. It was so uncomfortable and so
scary to be in that state that Ijust would do what I could to
avoid it. That meant taking myself out of
life a lot. It meant having a much smaller
life. It meant, you know, probably
(25:32):
forgoing a lot of relationships and, and, and friendships and
work things because I just thought if something was risky,
I didn't want to do it. What I've come to realize the
last couple of years is the onlyway to get well, which is what
I've always thought. I've thought when I'm well,
that's when my life will start. Like, yeah, like when I'm this
(25:54):
for all of my adulthood, I've been saying when I'm well, like
when I've, when I've finished this, when I stopped seeing my
psychiatrist, finally, when I stopped this treatment, when
when my symptoms are gone, I thought getting well was not
having any symptoms anymore. Like then life will be much
easier because I won't be scaredall the time of panic attacks or
suicidal ideation or or my nervous system going crazy or
(26:16):
whatever. I when that's all gone, then I
can live life and that will be easy.
And what I've come to realize the last few years is.
That's not going. To happen no.
And I it's learning. To live with it, it's learning
to live with. It it's, it's knowing that I
will probably have a lot of these symptoms for the rest of
my life and I need to start figuring out how to live life
(26:42):
now with it and accepting that. And I had to go through a big
grieving process accepting that because it means, you know, I
always had really big dreams about what I wanted to do
creatively. I went to drama school.
I've always been the girl who's like, I'll win an Oscar one day.
I'll, you know, And I had to sort of realize, but it was
always when I'm, well, I'll get to that Oscar.
And now I'm like, I'm 39 years old, man.
(27:03):
Like I need to start accepting that maybe my capacity is
different and I need to adjust my expectations and that's fine.
I think you are without. Even knowing it though, because
these shows that you go and do the book that you've written,
you are doing stuff, Yeah, I think.
That's that's what I've come to realise.
You know, it's it's you're not waiting until.
(27:25):
You're better to write this book.
Well write the book because of it took us a long.
Time because I think I, I like I've had a few pretty
significant mental health relapses in the last decade.
And I think it's because like the end of my memoir, the anti
cool girl, I was like, and now I'm successful and I was riding
these like bachelor recaps and Igot this book deal and I was
(27:48):
doing well and I was like, so I'm the phoenix who rose from
the ashes and everything's fine because I legitimately thought
that, but I think I needed to believe that.
And a few years later, I had a friend, my best friend and
partner died, and I just had a total relapse.
And then, you know, the last fewyears I've been dealing with
(28:09):
some stuff where I had another significant relapse where I
basically, you know, was packed for a couple of years across
2020 and 2022. I could barely work.
I don't think that would have happened if I'd not been living
in a place where no, no, one daywhen I'm well, one day I'll get
better. Because that meant I wasn't
learning how to live with my symptoms.
(28:30):
Now, I kept having these mental health setbacks because I wasn't
learning how to live my life with my trauma.
I was only dreaming of a life when I wouldn't have it.
Yeah. And I mean, last year was
probably one of the hardest years of my life.
It literally started. My mom took her own life at the
start of last year. And just before the end of last
(28:51):
year, I needed emergency anal surgery.
And And so those those bookends,right?
So we had things. Right.
You didn't see coming. Probably you didn't.
I didn't. If I did, yeah.
I. Didn't and so, but also I had a
hip replacement surgery because of a congenital issue.
I found out that my fertility isreally bad, so I probably won't
have children. I was dealing with a lot of very
(29:13):
difficult work stuff to do with the podcast.
It was a tough, tough year last year and last year was actually
one of the best years of my lifeand I managed it very well, OK,
And I. Remember what professionally you
mean No just. Mental health wise, I had a
really good year even with. All this stuff going.
On. And I was.
(29:33):
Sitting in my psychiatrist's office one day and I playing
with play DoH and I, yeah, playing with the Fisher Price
toys. And I said to him, you know, I
all this stuff has happened thisyear, man.
Like, this is objectively on paper, probably the worst year
I've ever had. It's taken far less to
completely knock me down in the past, but I'm doing OK.
(29:57):
And he said, well, why do you think that is?
And I said, well, I think it's because the last couple of years
I've adjusted how I look at my mental health, and I've
understood that it's something Ineed to work with.
So this year, rather than pushing back against how awful
this all felt, I just knew this feels pretty shit and I have to
(30:20):
just sit in the discomfort of how shit this all feels like
sometimes to just get. I knew the year was going to
end. I knew eventually things were
going to feel better. I knew that I was feeling
terrible because of stuff that was happening.
Five years earlier. I would have ended up in mental
health hospital absolutely. But last year I was OK.
And he said, well, you know, you've been putting in the work
(30:41):
for almost 20 years to be able to be strong enough to handle
when things don't go well. I mean, being well isn't about a
life when nothing ever goes wrong or you never feel bad.
Being well is knowing you have the strength and the skills to
handle it when you do feel bad. And I looked at him and I said,
(31:02):
do you mean everything we've been doing for the last 20 years
has it's working, it's working, and this is working, this is
working. And he was like, he's kicked in,
he's working. Rosie working all along but it
leading to that point and it alland we'll continue doing it as
well. You know, Yeah, good friend of
mine has to deal with some really heavy stuff all the time.
And there are the things that you have to keep doing and every
(31:26):
day. And when you don't do them, the
wheels fall off. You gotta keep doing the things
and and it'll get you through. Have you read Julia Baird's book
Phosphorus? Phosphoreference.
Phosphoref, I can never say the title of that book.
I have read that one, but I've not read the new one.
The new one, Yeah. Bright shining.
Oh, my God, yeah. It's really good.
And it's, you know, when you said about all the stuff that
(31:47):
gets written online and things like that, I think you'll you'll
love it. A big part of it's all about
grace. And it's all about just the
biggest part of it is you don't know what anyone's going
through. You really don't know what other
people are going through. And I think even from the other
side, like when someone's writing something mean like that
about you online or whatever, about, you know, get over to
where you don't know what they're going through.
No. Yeah, You know, So that's the
(32:07):
thing. No one knows.
Everyone's going through stuff. Mm Hmm.
Some people don't even know thatthey're going through stuff.
Yeah. And it's because of whatever.
So who knows what? Yeah, I think, yeah, that's why
I love. Her book and and just it does
yeah kind of open your eyes to it does can't even.
Run some slacks. We're all going through stuff
and you are going off to go and see a author talk.
This has been a really. Good talk.
(32:28):
Yeah, it's. Interesting.
I wish we could talk. For so much longer and I I'm
gonna go back and listen to did you say her name was Heather
Heather Heather Irvine. Randall.
Yeah. She's got a clinic here on the
coast. Her episodes are so good.
Yeah, explains it. My psychiatrist.
Is I feel very lucky to be in treatment with him.
And there there are people who say like, jeez, if you've been
(32:49):
going for 20 years, like is he that good kind of thing?
Like, and I'm like, well, it's not about like, I just, it's not
about a cure. It's about maintenance and, and
management. And there were times from across
my adulthood where I couldn't afford to pay him and he would
bulk bill me, which is very lucky.
And I think it's because he understood a huge part of what
would help me heal was a stable,consistent.
(33:09):
Connection with an. Adult which is, you know, this
stuff takes time. Like I dedicate the book to him
and I say for Steven, thank you for making me feel safe enough
to ask if I could go to the toilet because I was so damaged
when I started saying it took me4 years before I felt brave
enough to ask if I could use thebathroom in his office.
(33:32):
So this stuff takes time. People who are child
psychologists and and psychiatrists, it's often a
lifelong commitment to be there for people like that.
So yeah, I'm psyched to listen to those episodes.
Oh cool. Oh, well, thank you.
I really enjoyed the chat. Me too.
It's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting.
I just think, yeah, finding out again, like I said, I've always
felt that way. No, maybe not always, but in the
(33:52):
recent, in the last few years, Ithink, and probably through
talking to people through this, I get changed to them and then
they tell me other things that Iwas not there to talk to them
about. And I go, yeah, I really don't
know what anyone's going through.
Someone's rude. It's actually an example in
Julia's book. You know, a guy at the shop is
rude, cuts in front of your son.His kid could have just been
diagnosed with a horrible. And that's when he's had to go
(34:12):
down to the shops to get this thing where you just don't know.
And when you can actually cut people some slack, actually
takes the weight off your shoulders as well.
It does, I mean. My co-author, Jamila, she's
dealt with, you know, she looks incredibly healthy now, but
there is a piece of her brain tumor that they could not
remove. And so it's going to be in there
always, and it might grow. And she lives with a lot of
(34:34):
disabilities because of it. But people don't realize it's
kind of an invisible illness forher.
And we interview a lot of peoplein the book, just with all
different kinds of chronic ill health conditions.
And one of the biggest things that came up was almost like, I
wish I could wear a sign. I wish people knew.
Like, I just wish people knew. And it's given them empathy.
Often people with chronic healthconditions learn to have that
(34:56):
empathy because they know. You just don't know there.
There's a cafe. We're in Umina.
It's here. The Umina Bake House.
I think it is. I'm gonna go there.
There's a lady that works and she has a sign up on the wall
behind her. Yeah.
That I've. I've been told about.
And it says I have autism. If I don't look you in the eye,
I'll suddenly walk away. Please just know that I'm not
(35:18):
being rude. Yeah, it's something like that.
And I'm like when you say about good, if we could wear just
signs like a Magna. Doodle that you can erase each
day and just update it. Yeah, like, you know.
My mum just passed away. Written on the thing.
How much? If you knew that about a person,
how differently would you treat them knowing that someone coming
to walking towards you, you'd almost want to give them a hug
(35:40):
or something. Yeah, someone cuts in front of
you or whatever, but you know that thing, you go, it's
alright, don't worry about it. Yeah.
Yeah, isn't that funny, I. Know No, I'm gonna come out with
a range of T-shirts where you can like write on them or
something. Yeah, your different thing.
Each day, yeah, 'cause I'd like to.
With everything, I want to find a way to make money out of it,
obviously. Yeah, of course.
Yeah, my career has been like monetizing my trauma.
(36:03):
Come on, that's what I do for a living.
Maybe the next book. My trauma you.
Know good bookstores now get something out of.
It please please. Thank you so much for jumping in
Broken Brains. It's out now and find you on.
It's very easy to find you online.
Just rosy. Water in all the places, yeah.
(36:23):
Tonight for Justin, just as well.
With Rabbit. Hey, I'm Rabbit.
I record this podcast inside a cute little retro caravan from
1967 that I've tore around all over the place.
My fan podcast with Rabbit. I actually have a big intro that
I've written for you. Oh, OK.
Which I don't normally do. Oh yeah.
Do you want or do you wanna readit now while I'm here, or do you
want me to? I'd like to like look at you in
(00:25):
the eye while. I said OK.
Like like do really? Let's go, I've got.
Some music I'd like to play. OK, I don't know if it's too
much. Let's do this.
I can't actually look at you. No 'cause it's a written.
Yeah. You gotta read it anyway.
Yeah, OK. No, I'll, no, I might do it.
OK, I'll do it after. I'll do it after.
I need to do it so that. I mean, plenty of people know
who you are anyway, but my God, the things you've done.
(00:48):
The things you've done so far. Yeah, so, Oh yeah.
Thanks so fast. Couple of bits and pieces.
A couple of bits, all right, so I'll mention a few of them.
The multi award-winning Anti Cool Girl in 2015, detailing her
tumultuous upbringing. Yes, yeah, that's a, That's a
but gentle way of putting it. Really is.
(01:09):
The PR version, yeah. Yeah, Every lie I've ever told
in 2017, broken brains. That was.
That's just this year. That's this year.
That's. Why I'm here at Words on the Way
of promoting Yes, Broken Brains that I wrote with my co-authored
with my friend Jamila Risby. She's not here.
She's not here. No.
OK. So you can only talk about half
the book. Kind of.
Well, see, The thing is, she's I'm just the comedian writer.
(01:32):
She is the, like, proper journalist, researcher, policy
person. So.
And we do. We each tell our own stories in
the book. Plus we've interviewed a lot of
other people, and there's a lot about policy and politics and
all. I probably couldn't answer any
of those. Maybe don't.
Yeah. That's when those questions get
asked. I turn and look at her, and
that's the signal between us. I don't know how to answer that.
(01:54):
And then when someone goes, I had a really tumultuous
upbringing, you're like. I'm on.
Let's go. Here we go.
Yeah. And then, oh man, so mum says my
memoir is a lie. Uh huh.
I mean, great name for a podcast, Name for everything.
Yeah, so funny. She did, So that's what we
called it. Yeah.
Wack, wack. Call something else.
(02:15):
Just the gist, which what an absolute powerhouse.
Now that's the podcast that was absolutely huge.
It's not around anymore and we've just spent about 20
minutes talking all about it before hitting recording this.
Uh huh. Well, I am across everything.
It's coming back, it's coming back.
Yeah, that's all. Have you just made like a
statement there or? Oh.
Yeah, I'm not meant to tell you what.
(02:36):
Well, I, I'm not, I'm not meant to tell anyone, but I just keep
telling everyone because I'm so excited.
Sorry about sort of getting it together that it will hopefully
like we're looking, yeah, in thenext few months.
We're we've already started recording.
You have the world's worst yet most successful Instagram.
What do you mean? There's one post on there.
Oh. The just the gist 1.
(02:57):
Yeah, like 20,000 followers. Well, it was the just the gist
Instagram for ages. And because we're now moving on,
I like wiped the slate clean of all that content, I thought.
There's a lot of people following for absolutely nothing
except. Oh, no, no, that's been around
for a while. That's.
One photo that just went up justrecently, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just because I think
(03:21):
like in terms of how the licensing goes or whatever, a
lot of the content was branded with the company I'd been with
and I'm not allowed to use that anymore.
So I just it was easier to just wipe all the posts off that
Instagram. And how was that?
We're starting fresh. I mean as a that moment where
you go through deleting old posts.
Yeah, it's been, you know, I've been wrangling with trying to
(03:46):
get just the gist back up for a couple of years and it's finally
landed somewhere. Like I love I can see the cogs
turning and say like. What how can I say this in a way
that I'm legally allowed to and also there has been a resolution
and I am now allowed to, you know, just the gist is now
(04:07):
finally coming back, but not where it had not with the
company I've been with. So that's why.
With the same name. Yeah, you can still do that,
yeah. 'Cause I own the IPI own all the
IP. That was my idea, my creation.
So I can, you know, take it anywhere.
I just didn't own my master recordings.
Like I've I've been joking to myfriends that I'm the Taylor
(04:30):
Swift of Australian podcast justabout the.
Side you need to do Rosie's. Version do do I is is that that
that's a good idea I definitely haven't thought of yeah.
Brilliant. Now I'm wait, I'm trying to
figure out what that comes out like.
So that's that's you guys actingout previous episodes as as
(04:54):
cartoon characters. Maybe, you know, there's I've
that all that past content that back catalog we add, however,
200 episodes, you'll hear them again in some way, shape or
form. Actually Rosie's version.
Oh wait, are we allowed to say that?
I don't know. I will chop that bit out.
I. Don't even know if I'm allowed
to say that. I don't know what I'm allowed to
say. I know exactly how I'm gonna
(05:15):
edit that. It's gonna go.
Wait. Are we allowed to say that?
I don't know. Don't worry.
I chopped it out. Yeah, I mean, look, it's just
this stuff when it comes to artistic and creative
intellectual property and ownership and master recordings
and the legal side of stuff, I had no idea about any of it.
I've learned a lot more about itthe last two years.
It's it's. Messy and.
Murky and it's it's, you know, like I said, there's finally
(05:38):
resolution and it's coming back.It'll be different 2.0 but it's
finally able to come back. What was the launch date like?
We're on track looking at August.
OK, Yeah. Me just getting scoops.
Am I getting scoops I. Don't, I guess it's a scoop, I
mean. But like my boyfriend James has
said, like on this book tour forBroken Brains, every single
(05:59):
person who's come up to me at the book signing saying I love
just the gist, I've been like, it's coming back in August.
Like I'm just telling everyone. So I.
No, that's officially not a scoopy.
No, no, don't come in here telling me I've got some sort of
exclusive and then tell me you're telling randoms at book
signings. You've you've talked a lot about
your mental health through all all those.
Where are you at at the moment? And I say this as some of myself
(06:22):
as well. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, aren't we all? Yeah, I mean, I'm doing well.
The the book is called Broken Brains because my friend Jamila,
who I wrote it with, had a braintumor, A craniopharyngioma.
And I had like, I, because of that tumultuous childhood you
mentioned. I, I dealt with a lot of issues
(06:44):
with PTSD symptoms, started kicking him when I was about 17.
And I've dealt with a lot of trauma symptoms over the course
of my adulthood. It was my birthday yesterday
turned 39. So it's been happy birthday.
Thank you. Nine.
Yeah, do not look it. Oh.
Thanks, I think I say I have nature's filler which is being
chubby so that like keeps me looking youthful but.
(07:06):
How do you sell it? Though I know how do you sell
it? Just people.
Packets. But they do say for to women,
when you get to a certain age, you pick either your body or
your face like you're either youlook, you're skinny, but you
look old or you're chubby and you look young.
The whole OK. And so I'm the latter, I guess,
but I have the same psychiatristthat I've had since I was 17.
I started seeing him when I started getting PTSD symptoms.
(07:29):
He's a child psychiatrist because I was, I guess, a child
at the time. And I think I'm now his oldest
patient by a long time. There's toys.
There's like Fisher Price toys in his office and stuff me every
couple of weeks. You're gonna be playing with
Play DoH. What's really interesting, I
have a psychologist who comes onthe show quite often, and she's
amazing. Yeah.
(07:50):
She just reached out to me this week and said, hey, can I jump
in again? I want to do an episode.
She doesn't even need to ask. She could just tell me to be
somewhere and I'll pull up because it's incredible stuff
that we get out of it. She goes, I want to do an
episode called How Your Childhood Trauma Affects Your
Adulthood Trauma. Yeah, well, I mean, it's, I
explained it in the book and I've been explaining it on this
(08:10):
tour. The trauma isn't the event, like
people often say childhood trauma or I had a traumatic
childhood, like it's referring to the event.
But I explain it and a lot of people now explain it, like
people like Gabble Marte or Bessel van der Cole here at The
Body Keeps the Score. All that stuff around trauma
that people have become really interested in the last decade, I
think. And I've been like, I was there
(08:32):
first been there dealing with itfor 20 years.
But they say that the trauma is the injury.
So like if my childhood in which, you know, when I was my
parents were drug addicts and Alcoholics, my sisters and I
were now foster system. My childhood was the car crash.
The trauma I deal with now in myadulthood is the traumatic brain
(08:52):
injury caused by that car crash.So that's that seems to help
people explain it better, understand it better.
Sorry, but, you know, I think Jamila and I were really quite
flawed when she came to me to talk about what she was going
through after her diagnosis. And she had a very intense brain
(09:13):
surgery. Like she had to have a
craniotomy where they cut your head open and all that stuff.
And she came to visit me. I was actually in psychiatric
hospital at the time, not doing well with my trauma stuff.
And she just said to me, you know, the week after I got
diagnosed, like there was 11 lasagnas in my family's freezer
because just everyone rallied around me.
(09:34):
And I said I've I've never gotten a lasagna and I don't
expect I'll get one when I leavehere.
And then she just gave me goosebumps.
Yeah. And then she started mentioning
a lot of the symptoms that went along with her tumor.
And I was like, oh wow, that's alot of what I also deal with.
And then she mentioned the mortality rate of her tumour.
(09:56):
And it was the same as the mortality rate for people with
PTSD, particularly childhood trauma when you account for
suicide and self harm. And we were quite, we were like,
our stuff has the same mortalityrate, but you have 11 lasagnas
and I don't have any like why? Why do we?
Where are my lasagnas? Essentially, what it came down,
(10:20):
people really rallied around herand there was no questioning
that what she was dealing with was an incredibly serious,
difficult, legitimate thing. And I have always felt like I've
had to convince people of my condition.
And we're both writers and we just immediately that that very
(10:41):
conversation, we were like, there's a book in this because
we both have broken brains, but we're treated very differently.
There's a book and a title readyto roll.
Yeah, ready to roll? We've talked about this Heather
Irvine in podcast as well about that exact same thing and the
thing of like the connection between the brain and the body
and, and how it's all just one as well.
And we treat them so separately.And Heather talks about how
(11:01):
like, if you broke your leg, youwouldn't force yourself to get
well, I gotta go out and run today.
I can't because I've got this injury.
So when someone's lying in bed with a broken brain, depressed,
they have massive anxiety, the thought of going to work, all
those sort of things, yet they will force themselves to do it,
as opposed to accepting that no,no, something's broken and it
(11:26):
needs fixing, Yeah, give it the same respect.
Yeah. That you would to the and a
physical injury. I mean, I've, you know, cuz I've
a lot of my work over the years since I've been writing
professionally has been telling stories about myself like I'm a
comedian. So I tour one woman shows where
I tell a lot of stories and I have based a lot of it in my
(11:47):
mental health stuff and my childhood stuff.
I mean, I wrote two memoirs before I turned 30, like
insufferable. But dealing with the childhood
stuff and talking about, you know, how it's all affected my
life. And I've had people say to me
like quite mean messages on social media, like let it go.
Like your childhood is like, you've got to leave it in the
past. Like you, you need to move on.
(12:08):
Like I, I, there's a quote I putin the book, actually, a woman
messaged me saying, you know, I think she thought she was being
helpful, but she was saying it was 30 years ago.
Like put it in the past and it will set you free.
Like you're like, your obsessionwith your childhood is the
reason you're not able to get well mentally.
And I felt like saying to her, Iif someone was in a horrific
(12:33):
accident as a kid and lost theirleg, and then 30 years later
they were talking about how difficult it was for them to
live life with one leg. You wouldn't say to them, get
over the accident. It was 30.
You're not talking about the accident.
Like I in Broken Brains. I don't really talk about my
(12:53):
childhood much at all because it's a book about the brain
injury I deal with now and I wrote about, like I said, I
wrote two men when I talked about it enough, like.
But when you say brain injury, yeah, that's the thing, right?
So you'd you didn't actually copa a whack to the head or
something? No, but The thing is, it's
considered a traumatic brain injury.
(13:13):
It's funny, I say in the start of the book, one of the first
things I say is sometimes I wishI had a brain tumor like
Jamila's, because then I'd have something to point to on a scan.
And that was one of the first things I wrote.
And over the next five years, because we got a bit past
deadline, I came to realize through the research we were
doing for the book that I actually do physically have a
(13:34):
different brain. Like when the first five years
of development in a child's life, particularly when the
brain is developing and growing.Like the neural pathways that
need to grow are all. All the wiring there.
Are all the wiring happening? Everything's going on.
My mum left me when I was 3 weeks old with my father who was
(13:56):
very mentally unwell. He was an untreated
schizophrenic and had, you know,big drug and alcohol problems.
So I was left in a place of neglect from the get go.
So my brain actually does physically look different on a
scan. The neural pathways have
developed very differently to people who didn't go through
that kind of neglect and abuse. Like there are parts of my brain
(14:17):
that are overdeveloped, parts that are underdeveloped.
It is actually very different. It's.
Incredible when you look at it, isn't it because Heather took me
through this stuff as well. Those first 4-5 years will
actually shed and that's a lot to put on parents, I think when
you. Yeah, I think parents could feel
guilty about the things that happened when their kids were
(14:38):
really little and that's why they ended up like they.
Did I mean it's, you know, I would say I was at the extreme
end of the scale. Obviously, when people ask me
about advice, I say, look, just just kids just need to feel like
they're in a safe, stable and consistent environment.
And that's another thing I mentioned in the book that those
(14:58):
neural pathways, the brain is neuro, it's elastic.
Like it's neuroplasticity, it's elastic.
They can be rewired, corrected. And the best way to do that for
someone who's had, who's got thetrauma issues I do because of
the kind of childhood I had is through having very stable,
safe, consistent interpersonal relationships that actually
(15:20):
helps rewire that stuff. So it's really at its simple in
its simplest form about stable human connection.
Yeah, it's really interesting when you find out about the the
neural pathways and how that thethe actual wires that are like
physically being connected in your brain at that point if
you're someone. And This is why he wants to do
(15:40):
that episode, I think, is that if you are someone who as an
adult has real massive trust issues or whatever it is, that's
your thing. Yeah, it might come from those
first few years. And you probably does.
Yeah, Yeah. I think it's.
Incredible when you start looking at those things and then
and that yes, in scans of brainsthey look different.
Yeah, and it's tricky to and it's tricky to even define what
(16:06):
trauma is. Like Jamila came to me with her
initial chapter for the book because we each we write, we top
and tail each chapter and then there's interviews in the
middle. And so for the 1st chapter,
she's a very methodical person. So she started with the day she
found out she got diagnosed and what happened from there.
And she goes, it's OK, now you do the day you got you found out
you got diagnosed. And I was like, I don't shit
(16:31):
like I didn't know I. Feel like I have many of those
days I. Didn't know how I was going to
answer that because I don't eventechnically have an official
diagnosis because trauma like just the word general trauma in
the isn't in the DSM. There's like certain other like
PTSD is. There's other things called
complex PTSD but that doesn't entirely fit me either.
(16:53):
I also have a lot of symptoms that could qualify me for ADHD
but that's not entirely what I have.
I have ASD autism spectrum disorder symptoms.
I have cognitive dysfunction that would be because of a
physical traumatic brain injury like I'm.
Trying to collect the whole set.Yeah, I could.
(17:13):
You know, it's a lot of my psychiatrist has always said to
me, you know, we have to give you a label so we can, you know,
put these sessions through Medicare and so I can prescribe
medication to you. But if you were to ask me, I
would say you just have a seriesof symptoms that were caused by
prolonged exposure to toxic stress in your childhood.
(17:35):
Like, I mean, it's even I take alow level ADHD medication
because I have such cognitive issues.
But I wouldn't say I have ADHD, but that helps.
We then had a psychologist read through the book to do a sort of
sensitivity read to make sure we'd written everything
correctly. And she came back to me and
said, you refer to your mental illness a lot.
But there are some people for whom, like, it's become a
(17:58):
particular way of talking about this stuff the last decade
especially, they don't consider trauma or mental illness.
They find that quite offensive because they think symptoms of
trauma are a perfectly reasonable response to something
like a terrible thing that happened, or they don't call it
an illness. But then there are other people
who get offended if you don't call it an illness because they
(18:19):
think it sort of takes away the severity of what they have.
And so I even in the 1st chapterof Broken Brains, I was like, I
have a thing that lots of peoplecall lots of different stuff and
I have a lot of symptoms from a lot of different things and I
don't know how. And Jamila just comes in and
goes craniopharyngioma and everyone's like, Oh no.
And I mine's a little more complicated to explain.
(18:42):
King Cup of Mitre Chan have beenbig supporters of the Pod Dan
podcast right from the start andyou get all the stuff from them
that you'd expect to You get plants, you get all the Weber
stuff, you get all the steel gear, the amazing principal
kitchens, but it's the stuff that you don't expect like that
because they come in with 46,000colour sample swatches.
She's big in colour for her kitchen cupboards.
(19:03):
I drilled the four colors for her and that took him out an
hour and a half. She got very emotional because
she was so inundated with colors.
Towards the end she was kind of pick up the colors again.
I said no stop. I've seen photos, seen videos.
Her husbands come in and gave mea big hug saying thank you so
much because you're getting veryemotional about it and she's
super happy. That's what she get and the
mighty helpful King Campbell Minor Gen.
(19:24):
Have you been to Guandalin Bowling Club?
They're right there on the shores of Lake Macquarie.
They do delicious meals upstairsin the four Shore Bistro and
Cafe which is run by the Dish Catering group.
So you know it's good stuff and you can dine out on the balcony
looking out over the lake. It is beautiful.
They got the cute little 4 shorekiosk for a coffee and snacks
(19:46):
right by the jetty. The entertainment's top notch.
They got Friday nights, seafood raffles and Sunday sessions with
live music in the beer garden. You want to find out what's
happening at the club, check outtheir Facebook page or visit
gwandalanbowlingclub.com dot AU.I've recorded 2 episodes
recently of an ex firefighter and an ex ambo, both with PTSD.
(20:07):
Yeah. And I still can't figure out
what PTSD is. And the ambo actually said,
well, that's the thing. There's so many things that fall
under it. There's anxiety, there's
depression, There's all sorts ofthings that come under it.
So yeah, you're. Different for everyone, like
I've absolutely my symptoms whenI was 17, it really started
kicking in with quite traditional like panic attacks,
(20:29):
flashbacks like that whole, you know, the whole war veteran
hearing a car backfiring, like that's the scenario most people
think of. And then it makes it takes them
back that I had more traditionalstuff like that.
When I was 17 I started having alot of flashbacks, a lot of
panic attacks. It's a lot to do with your
nervous system where it either gets hyper aroused because
you're in constant fight or flight, or then you're in fight
(20:51):
or flight for too long that yourbody can't handle it.
And it goes into what's called like disassociation, where it
just shuts down. That presents as depression.
And so I've had yes. That exact 1 you.
Talking like dissociation is probably one of the main ones
I've dealt with over the course of my adulthood where you don't
entirely realise what it is. You, I mean, you've, you've got
(21:12):
plenty of people to talk to about all this stuff, but
Heather, the way like she in an episode was talking about that
thing when you operating at A8910 all the time.
Your body can't take. It then at some point you pretty
much just get thrown down to the0 which is the disassociation
dissociation. Yeah, dissociation.
I I mean, regular listeners will, will know this stuff
(21:35):
that's happened with me lately. It's been a lot going on lately.
But so I was medicated for anxiety for seven years.
You were. Trying to come off wait.
Yeah, I am now. Yeah.
Yeah, I. Read that.
And gluten free for the last 10 years as well.
Yeah, I now, and that's just getback to the start of this year.
If you told me this stuff was coming, I'll be like, no way.
(21:55):
So I'm now completely off the anxiety meds and I eat all the
gluten and love it when people ask me about it.
I kind of put it down to, and it's from Heather and the things
that she said. And you talk about that
operating in at 8889 all the time.
Yeah, I was in breakfast radio at an 8 and a night all the
time. I.
Loved it. Yeah, So I would go in some
(22:16):
mornings. I could be lying on the floor in
the studio, like just I could fall asleep.
And it happened all the time. I would go on a forensic search
of dinner last night. Like what?
What? I'm so careful with my food, but
there must have been some crumbs.
They must. It's easier to blame it on it's
gluten. I think that's that thing of I
was just operating at that levelall the time.
And when I say operating at thatlevel, I just mean like he's
(22:37):
just on he just on all the time.And I but I loved it.
And if someone had told me, I think it's that I think you're
just you. You're.
Your nervous system's never getting.
On all the time yeah. That's what's actually happening
and if they'd said you know, youneed to leave radio or find
another job I wouldn't have doneit because I.
That's the thing it's a weird thing I wouldn't have I wouldn't
have called it stress at all butit was my job.
(23:00):
I think that was doing it to me yeah.
As as much as I did love it so it was when I was having a chat
on New Year's Day this year someone told me about a guy who
was walking from Townsville downto Melbourne.
Yeah. With his dog, he's a veteran and
he had a dog. So I was like, I'll go and meet
him somewhere. And he jumped in and it was when
he was sitting here and he was describing his anxiety.
(23:23):
And the weird thing is had anxiety for ages.
And I know that. But everything he was
describing, my brain started going, well, it's me when I have
gluten, like when I've been hit by gluten, when I've been
glutened. And it was that day that I went.
What if it's not? What if it's not the?
It's? Not that.
So then one day a couple of weeks after that, I just went
and I filmed it, put the camera on this album and went, I just
(23:43):
have an idea. And I just grabbed a sandwich
and numb. No, I'm down to sandwiches of
white bread, Nothing. And, and ever since then,
nothing. It just hasn't affected the food
has not affected me at all. I think, you know, it's
interesting to hear you describethat because you asked how how
I'm doing at the start of this conversation.
(24:04):
And I'm probably doing better now than I have my entire
adulthood, which has been very difficult dealing with this
trauma stuff. Like it's had a pretty
significant impact on my life ina lot of different ways.
But the last couple of years I've really turned a corner in
my treatment and in my in sort of my quest to live healthier.
(24:27):
I think it's because I suddenly realized that a lot of what I
was doing to deal with my traumasymptoms was about avoiding them
rather than meeting them head on.
And you know, I've done things with disordered eating not
dissimilar to the gluten thing where I'm like, no, this isn't
(24:47):
this is an issue with the food. But really, that was me avoiding
what the issue actually was, which is there's something going
on physically, mentally in you that is too uncomfortable for
you to sit with and deal with. So it's much easier to just say
it's a gluten intolerance or it's whatever it is.
I spent the majority of my adulthood doing whatever I could
(25:11):
to avoid the scary physical and mental feelings that came with
my trauma. It was so uncomfortable and so
scary to be in that state that Ijust would do what I could to
avoid it. That meant taking myself out of
life a lot. It meant having a much smaller
life. It meant, you know, probably
(25:32):
forgoing a lot of relationships and, and, and friendships and
work things because I just thought if something was risky,
I didn't want to do it. What I've come to realize the
last couple of years is the onlyway to get well, which is what
I've always thought. I've thought when I'm well,
that's when my life will start. Like, yeah, like when I'm this
(25:54):
for all of my adulthood, I've been saying when I'm well, like
when I've, when I've finished this, when I stopped seeing my
psychiatrist, finally, when I stopped this treatment, when
when my symptoms are gone, I thought getting well was not
having any symptoms anymore. Like then life will be much
easier because I won't be scaredall the time of panic attacks or
suicidal ideation or or my nervous system going crazy or
(26:16):
whatever. I when that's all gone, then I
can live life and that will be easy.
And what I've come to realize the last few years is.
That's not going. To happen no.
And I it's learning. To live with it, it's learning
to live with. It it's, it's knowing that I
will probably have a lot of these symptoms for the rest of
my life and I need to start figuring out how to live life
(26:42):
now with it and accepting that. And I had to go through a big
grieving process accepting that because it means, you know, I
always had really big dreams about what I wanted to do
creatively. I went to drama school.
I've always been the girl who's like, I'll win an Oscar one day.
I'll, you know, And I had to sort of realize, but it was
always when I'm, well, I'll get to that Oscar.
And now I'm like, I'm 39 years old, man.
(27:03):
Like I need to start accepting that maybe my capacity is
different and I need to adjust my expectations and that's fine.
I think you are without. Even knowing it though, because
these shows that you go and do the book that you've written,
you are doing stuff, Yeah, I think.
That's that's what I've come to realise.
You know, it's it's you're not waiting until.
(27:25):
You're better to write this book.
Well write the book because of it took us a long.
Time because I think I, I like I've had a few pretty
significant mental health relapses in the last decade.
And I think it's because like the end of my memoir, the anti
cool girl, I was like, and now I'm successful and I was riding
these like bachelor recaps and Igot this book deal and I was
(27:48):
doing well and I was like, so I'm the phoenix who rose from
the ashes and everything's fine because I legitimately thought
that, but I think I needed to believe that.
And a few years later, I had a friend, my best friend and
partner died, and I just had a total relapse.
And then, you know, the last fewyears I've been dealing with
(28:09):
some stuff where I had another significant relapse where I
basically, you know, was packed for a couple of years across
2020 and 2022. I could barely work.
I don't think that would have happened if I'd not been living
in a place where no, no, one daywhen I'm well, one day I'll get
better. Because that meant I wasn't
learning how to live with my symptoms.
(28:30):
Now, I kept having these mental health setbacks because I wasn't
learning how to live my life with my trauma.
I was only dreaming of a life when I wouldn't have it.
Yeah. And I mean, last year was
probably one of the hardest years of my life.
It literally started. My mom took her own life at the
start of last year. And just before the end of last
(28:51):
year, I needed emergency anal surgery.
And And so those those bookends,right?
So we had things. Right.
You didn't see coming. Probably you didn't.
I didn't. If I did, yeah.
I. Didn't and so, but also I had a
hip replacement surgery because of a congenital issue.
I found out that my fertility isreally bad, so I probably won't
have children. I was dealing with a lot of very
(29:13):
difficult work stuff to do with the podcast.
It was a tough, tough year last year and last year was actually
one of the best years of my lifeand I managed it very well, OK,
And I. Remember what professionally you
mean No just. Mental health wise, I had a
really good year even with. All this stuff going.
On. And I was.
(29:33):
Sitting in my psychiatrist's office one day and I playing
with play DoH and I, yeah, playing with the Fisher Price
toys. And I said to him, you know, I
all this stuff has happened thisyear, man.
Like, this is objectively on paper, probably the worst year
I've ever had. It's taken far less to
completely knock me down in the past, but I'm doing OK.
(29:57):
And he said, well, why do you think that is?
And I said, well, I think it's because the last couple of years
I've adjusted how I look at my mental health, and I've
understood that it's something Ineed to work with.
So this year, rather than pushing back against how awful
this all felt, I just knew this feels pretty shit and I have to
(30:20):
just sit in the discomfort of how shit this all feels like
sometimes to just get. I knew the year was going to
end. I knew eventually things were
going to feel better. I knew that I was feeling
terrible because of stuff that was happening.
Five years earlier. I would have ended up in mental
health hospital absolutely. But last year I was OK.
And he said, well, you know, you've been putting in the work
(30:41):
for almost 20 years to be able to be strong enough to handle
when things don't go well. I mean, being well isn't about a
life when nothing ever goes wrong or you never feel bad.
Being well is knowing you have the strength and the skills to
handle it when you do feel bad. And I looked at him and I said,
(31:02):
do you mean everything we've been doing for the last 20 years
has it's working, it's working, and this is working, this is
working. And he was like, he's kicked in,
he's working. Rosie working all along but it
leading to that point and it alland we'll continue doing it as
well. You know, Yeah, good friend of
mine has to deal with some really heavy stuff all the time.
And there are the things that you have to keep doing and every
(31:26):
day. And when you don't do them, the
wheels fall off. You gotta keep doing the things
and and it'll get you through. Have you read Julia Baird's book
Phosphorus? Phosphoreference.
Phosphoref, I can never say the title of that book.
I have read that one, but I've not read the new one.
The new one, Yeah. Bright shining.
Oh, my God, yeah. It's really good.
And it's, you know, when you said about all the stuff that
(31:47):
gets written online and things like that, I think you'll you'll
love it. A big part of it's all about
grace. And it's all about just the
biggest part of it is you don't know what anyone's going
through. You really don't know what other
people are going through. And I think even from the other
side, like when someone's writing something mean like that
about you online or whatever, about, you know, get over to
where you don't know what they're going through.
No. Yeah, You know, So that's the
(32:07):
thing. No one knows.
Everyone's going through stuff. Mm Hmm.
Some people don't even know thatthey're going through stuff.
Yeah. And it's because of whatever.
So who knows what? Yeah, I think, yeah, that's why
I love. Her book and and just it does
yeah kind of open your eyes to it does can't even.
Run some slacks. We're all going through stuff
and you are going off to go and see a author talk.
This has been a really. Good talk.
(32:28):
Yeah, it's. Interesting.
I wish we could talk. For so much longer and I I'm
gonna go back and listen to did you say her name was Heather
Heather Heather Irvine. Randall.
Yeah. She's got a clinic here on the
coast. Her episodes are so good.
Yeah, explains it. My psychiatrist.
Is I feel very lucky to be in treatment with him.
And there there are people who say like, jeez, if you've been
(32:49):
going for 20 years, like is he that good kind of thing?
Like, and I'm like, well, it's not about like, I just, it's not
about a cure. It's about maintenance and, and
management. And there were times from across
my adulthood where I couldn't afford to pay him and he would
bulk bill me, which is very lucky.
And I think it's because he understood a huge part of what
would help me heal was a stable,consistent.
(33:09):
Connection with an. Adult which is, you know, this
stuff takes time. Like I dedicate the book to him
and I say for Steven, thank you for making me feel safe enough
to ask if I could go to the toilet because I was so damaged
when I started saying it took me4 years before I felt brave
enough to ask if I could use thebathroom in his office.
(33:32):
So this stuff takes time. People who are child
psychologists and and psychiatrists, it's often a
lifelong commitment to be there for people like that.
So yeah, I'm psyched to listen to those episodes.
Oh cool. Oh, well, thank you.
I really enjoyed the chat. Me too.
It's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting.
I just think, yeah, finding out again, like I said, I've always
felt that way. No, maybe not always, but in the
(33:52):
recent, in the last few years, Ithink, and probably through
talking to people through this, I get changed to them and then
they tell me other things that Iwas not there to talk to them
about. And I go, yeah, I really don't
know what anyone's going through.
Someone's rude. It's actually an example in
Julia's book. You know, a guy at the shop is
rude, cuts in front of your son.His kid could have just been
diagnosed with a horrible. And that's when he's had to go
(34:12):
down to the shops to get this thing where you just don't know.
And when you can actually cut people some slack, actually
takes the weight off your shoulders as well.
It does, I mean. My co-author, Jamila, she's
dealt with, you know, she looks incredibly healthy now, but
there is a piece of her brain tumor that they could not
remove. And so it's going to be in there
always, and it might grow. And she lives with a lot of
(34:34):
disabilities because of it. But people don't realize it's
kind of an invisible illness forher.
And we interview a lot of peoplein the book, just with all
different kinds of chronic ill health conditions.
And one of the biggest things that came up was almost like, I
wish I could wear a sign. I wish people knew.
Like, I just wish people knew. And it's given them empathy.
Often people with chronic healthconditions learn to have that
(34:56):
empathy because they know. You just don't know there.
There's a cafe. We're in Umina.
It's here. The Umina Bake House.
I think it is. I'm gonna go there.
There's a lady that works and she has a sign up on the wall
behind her. Yeah.
That I've. I've been told about.
And it says I have autism. If I don't look you in the eye,
I'll suddenly walk away. Please just know that I'm not
(35:18):
being rude. Yeah, it's something like that.
And I'm like when you say about good, if we could wear just
signs like a Magna. Doodle that you can erase each
day and just update it. Yeah, like, you know.
My mum just passed away. Written on the thing.
How much? If you knew that about a person,
how differently would you treat them knowing that someone coming
to walking towards you, you'd almost want to give them a hug
(35:40):
or something. Yeah, someone cuts in front of
you or whatever, but you know that thing, you go, it's
alright, don't worry about it. Yeah.
Yeah, isn't that funny, I. Know No, I'm gonna come out with
a range of T-shirts where you can like write on them or
something. Yeah, your different thing.
Each day, yeah, 'cause I'd like to.
With everything, I want to find a way to make money out of it,
obviously. Yeah, of course.
Yeah, my career has been like monetizing my trauma.
(36:03):
Come on, that's what I do for a living.
Maybe the next book. My trauma you.
Know good bookstores now get something out of.
It please please. Thank you so much for jumping in
Broken Brains. It's out now and find you on.
It's very easy to find you online.
Just rosy. Water in all the places, yeah.
(36:23):
Tonight for Justin, just as well.
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