Life is a rollercoaster. It chugs up to the top, and it whizzes down to the ground. Sometimes it crashes out, and sometimes it fills with the breeze rushing through your hair and a cheeky grin plastered from ear to ear. I have been in all those places – the big crashes and the heady highs. But these days, mostly I just potter along on the straight and narrow in my little rollercoaster car. Thank you, drugs.
Read MorePeople think that depression is all in the head. People are idiots. Depression seeps through every pore of your body and leeches into every aspect of your life. It is an insidious, gut wrenching experience.
Read MoreI was once told (by an esteemed psychiatrist) that I have an engine ticking away inside me. My little red engine that chugs away continuously and unlike other people, it never turns off. It’s part of my Bipolar II diagnosis – I have no off switch. Instead, I have hyperarousal 24/7. But that’s a story for another day. Trust me when I say, I have an engine. I also have a battery.
Read MoreI used to be a creative soul. It was something I treasured. Something that made me inherently who I am. I had […]
Read MoreOn Friday 08 August 2025, I lost one of my oldest and closest friends. I am still in shock. How can this be true? In the space of a heartbeat, she simply ceased to exist. How is this possible?
Read MoreToday we lost a gentle soul. Coco may have seemed like just a cat to many, but he was a gentle someone and he was someone important in my life. A gentleone to the core. For 19.5 years he was my everyday.
Read MoreWell folks, I’ve been a little absent. Life the past month has taken a very interesting turn and I got wobbly while […]
Read MoreCompassion is one of the most beautiful of human traits. It reaches out to people when they are struggling. Whether it is just a whisper or a tsunami of pain, we all need to feel the warm embrace of someone’s compassionate heart at different times in our lives. And hopefully, when someone is in need, we are able to return that warmth whenever it is needed. But eventually, compassion can also be exhausting.
Read MoreI live with my ex-husband. It’s been seven months now and it’s going great. We’re best friends. But that’s a whole story for another day. Despite being separated under one roof and very good friends, I think I still drive him mad. And nothing drives him more mad than me listening to songs on repeat. And by on repeat, I mean the exact same song for a month at a time. I can listen to the same song a thousand times.
Read MoreWhen I was a wee young thing, I was taught that beauty is a currency. And I had none of it. So, from that perspective, I was very poor.
Read MoreThere are few things more comforting in this world than feeling understood and accepted. I am not sure if the world has more or less empathy than it used to. But I find that as I get older, it seems like there is less around. Now, that could be because of the personal journey I have walked, or simply because I’m ageing and I look around in search of it more than I used to. But whatever the reason, empathy is something that is becoming as rare as rocking horse shit. Perhaps it always was and I never noticed before.
Read MoreSince last I wrote, I have aged a whole year. Quite literally. I had a birthday. I am now 59 years old. Where that fits on the spectrum of “old” completely depends on where you’re currently standing. To my two-year-old granddaughter, I’m just a few short steps away from the grave. To my elderly patients at work, I’m just a youngster who is full of life and verve. From where I sit, it looks awfully close to 60. And I do not like the sound of that at all. Not one little bit.
Read MoreWho doesn’t love a touch of happiness here and there? It is such a soul-quenching joyous thing. I used to think the pursuit of happiness was the point of my life. But I have learned differently. It is a beautiful thing to have in the moment, but a life spent searching for happiness is a life spent living elsewhere and not in the moment. Happiness is found in moments – and they are fucking beautiful moments to cherish and hold onto. But everything passes in life. The heart-warmingly good, the bad and the very, very ugly. Life is a conveyor belt of emotions. It never stops and you really can never tell what’s going to be on offer on any given day.
Read MoreSo folks, I had a new experience on the weekend. I went to the Pride Parade. Dressed in pink. Well, kind of dressed in pink. I was actually dressed in a black jumpsuit with a warm pink jacket because it’s now the only pink thing that fits me but it was a hot Hobart day so it was a little bit sweaty marching down the streets. But it was worth it. It was my first ever outing as somebody who no longer entirely identifies as straight. But I don’t identify as anything else either. Maybe my identity is pink.
Read MoreJust kidding folks. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I have learned better. But I do want to wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope 2025 brings much peace and joy and laughter to all of you. Including me.
Read MoreIt is a curious thing that I feel the need to justify my decision to go to church. I have never a written a post called, Why I go to the supermarket. And yet spiritual things are often vilified – be it Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or even Atheism. Everyone seems to be on a side, pointing fingers at the other team.
But simultaneous to all this positivity, I have been triggered. (I am learning to hate that word.) You would think after all this time that I would be used to managing difficult emotions and situations, but a small incident has flipped me on my head and my eating disorder is struggling. Well, let’s be honest here – today it is winning.
I’m on holiday 🙂 This holiday has been in the pipeline for months and then all of a sudden covid was back on attack in Australia and every state started to lockdown and close their borders. We weren’t sure if we were going to get here and once we got here, will we get back?!
One of the first, and most prolific, things I do when my restless legs are restless, is to stretch. I find stretching offers wonderful – albeit very short-lived – relief and is something I can do anywhere, anytime.
There’s a thing called red car syndrome. Who knew?! It’s the phenomenon where you don’t notice how many red cars there are out there until you decide you want to buy one – and then all of a sudden they’re everywhere.
I’ve gained weight. I would hazard a guess that most people don’t want to gain weight, but when you’re recovering from an eating disorder it’s especially hard. The eating disorder wasn’t entirely about weight, but it was a big part of it. For me at least. I have an intense fear of gaining weight and being overweight and now both have happened.
I’ve been absent. Absent from so many things in my life. One of the key components of my recovery has been writing. Since 2016 I’ve been writing up a storm. I couldn’t even hazard a guess at the number of words that have dribbled out of these fingers in the past five years. But let’s just say it includes 390 blog posts, 40 insomnia articles, an awful lot of journal entries and one whole book. Amongst other things.
Writing a book was a mighty endeavour – one I never really dreamed of but slowly as I wrote more and more, and was encouraged more and more, I started to think it was an achievable reality. And while I’m not yet holding a book in my hot little hands, I know I will be by the end of the year.
As an insomniac, I know I often use the words “never” or “none at all.” “I’ve been awake all night.” “For days on end.” But most of the time, an exhausting sleep still involves some sleep.
I found the most fabulous manuscript assessor for my book – the inimitable Julie Gray. She recently asked me to contribute a guest post on […]
Once upon a time, I was a whole egg. My runny, gooey insides were safely cocooned in a solid, outer shell. I felt whole. Then I fell off my perch and the shell cracked. The soggy, fragile contents spilled out and there was nothing holding me together. I was a mess.
I found the most fabulous manuscript assessor for my book – the inimitable Julie Gray. She recently asked me to contribute a […]
I think when most people think of chronic illness they think of diseases like cancer, arthritis or multiple sclerosis. Or conditions such as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. I feel like it’s important to point out that mental illness is also a chronic illness – it occurs again and again for a long time.
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I’m not sure who “they” are, but sometimes I feel that absence means the heart grew sicker. Writing is my cathartic outlet so when I stop writing I know something is going on.
Having restless legs syndrome (RLS) is not fun. It is, in fact, a right royal pain in the proverbial. I have it, so I know. The creepy crawly, wriggly jiggly, itchy painful sensations can be there all day and all night long, causing significant disruption to quality of life.
