JENNY
If you know me. If you’ve met me. You know how I feel about dogs. It’s like any phobia – illogical. I look at dogs on Instagram and they’re cute and loving and pumped full of personality.
Category: RECOVERY
WELL, WELL NOW!
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.
THE MOMENT IS NOW
On 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?
NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP
Today 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.
COMPASSION FATIGUE
Compassion 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.
WHERE HAS ALL THE EMPATHY GONE?
There 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.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Since 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.
HAPPINESS
Who 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.
MY PINK IDENTITY
So 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.
RESOLUTIONS
Just 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.
WOBBLES & SPIRALS
Eating disorder recovery is not a perfect art, but I am a long way into the process now. I have four years of what feels like solid progress to me. I still wobble from time to time, but I do not spiral. So let me tell you what that means.
WHAT DOES RECOVERY EVEN MEAN?
Depending on which of the nine different eating disorders is the primary issue, we may have to eat more or less food, more or less frequently, or different food altogether. But as food is an essential survival tool, at the end of the day, we have to eat.
AN UNFORGETTABLE DAY
January 28 will forever be a memorable day in my life. It is the day my mother was born. And it is the day my father died.
BYPASSED
So folks . . . I did a thing. On Tuesday 30 May 2023, I had a gastric bypass done. A mini […]
WHERE’S MY MOTIVATION?
For much of my life, I was driven and busy and energetic and doing shit all the time. I didn’t sleep. I ate a lot. All my spare time filled up with mothering or wifeing or friending or working or volunteering. It was a fairly typical life for someone in their thirties and forties. Then I imploded and everything changed.