I Almost Didn't Publish This

Hello and welcome to episode 22 of She's Honestly Mental. I have just finished this most beautiful grounded breathwork session, something that my podcast coach Chris has said to me. He's like, before he does any podcasting recording, he really grounds himself and centers himself. And that's the kind of energy that I want to come from when I'm recording the podcast. So yeah, it was hard and there was definitely portions through it where I wanted to fail, but I am trying to lean more into the things that make me uncomfortable because I know that that's where the growth is for me. And it's really hard. It is really, really hard trying to push yourself beyond those points of where you are most comfortable. I feel so chill. I feel so chill and relaxed, and it's very odd because This last week, I tell you what, has been a mission. I recorded the new format of the podcast for the first time last Friday. Today is also Friday. It's Good Friday here, uh, in Esperance. Well, in Australia. See, I'm so zen. It's Good Friday here, and I recorded the podcast last week. and I was so pumped. I was so nervous. It took me an hour to kind of set up the studio. Once I had it set up, I did my breathwork session. I sat down and started recording it, and the recording didn't work. So I was really bummed. And then I went and did a couple of things. I changed some settings on the cameras, came back, re-recorded it, and it was perfect. And when I went to— I thought, right, cool, I'll smash out a second episode because I was feeling so lit up. And I got a phone call from a friend and I answered it and it was her husband. And my friend has been in this situation lately where she's been really, really struggling with her mental health to the point that she's in that mental health crisis kind of situation. And of course it was Hey, we're at this place. Can you please come? They've got a little girl who's a similar age to my son, and I've been helping out with the kids a fair bit lately. And I said, absolutely, I'll be there. Just give me a minute. And I just made sure that everything was backed up, got in the car and left. And I was definitely a little bit bummed that I didn't get to record the second episode, but also I was just so grateful that I could go and sit with her and her family and help her through these moments. Because being so far away from the city, being rural, it is so hard to get any kind of mental health support, particularly when you're at that crisis point. And this is what really fucks me off with mental health, with the system, is that there is still such shame around anything to do with mental health. And I still get it. I still get it. I'm trying to step away from a certain situation at the moment, one of the volunteer commitments that I've been a part of for a really long time. For most of my life, I've been involved in this club, and It's actually breaking my heart because I know I'm really good at what I do. I know that I bring so much to the table, but there's people within the club, and this happens everywhere. I know that it's not just not my club, but I'm speaking for those that have been in these same situations. There's people within the club that are so dead set on what they want. They're not prepared to listen. They go behind people's backs, and it's just not a everyone come together, everyone bring to the table what your skill is, everyone's got an equal say, everyone's this. It's really, really, really fucking me off. But I've tried to step away over the last couple of months, and it's been really hard. And this week I like cut the line. And it hurts. It hurts on a deep cellular level. But in saying that, I'm at this point in my life where I'm so determined and so excited to be sharing more about She's Honestly Mental and bringing this message to the world so that when people are in these situations, when I found when I've been trying to email or participate in the WhatsApp group of this particular club, I get so passionate that I feel like my passion comes across as someone who's actually a bit crazy, but I am so crazily passionate about this. And so I have this judgment, this story about myself of the more I'm passionate about it, the more I'm so dead set on what I'm trying to do, the more it comes across that I'm crazy. And I'm telling myself that. And as someone that is so self-aware, I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? So for me, there is still those stories that come up for me sometimes of being like, oh yeah, yep, whatever I say I'll do. If I say that I'm trying to I need to take a break because my mental health is really struggling, I feel like there's still that friction of she's actually crazy. So I just wanted to normalize that and be— even though I'm someone who still sits on this platform and still shares my stories around mental health, I still feel like there are moments where I'm crazy. But I think I need to change the language around that of I'm just super fucking passionate, but I'm also brutally honest. And until the world changes the perception of how we see mental health, I don't really know the answer. So sitting with my friend and she's saying to me, I just don't feel like myself. I don't know who this is. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know what's going on. I don't know. I don't understand. Why am I like this? Why am I crying all the time? What is wrong with me? Why can't I clean my house? Why can't I do my dishes? Why can't I look after my children? Why am I having to call my husband while he's at work? Like, why this? Why that? Blah, blah, blah. And I keep saying to her, your brain is not okay right now. You have been on the rev limiter for so long. You have been driving that car, doing all of the things, and your brain is literally like, just flat out, and the gasket has blown. I don't even know if that's the right terminology when it comes to engines, but you've got to this point where your brain and your body is just so disjointed and fried that it's just bringing up all of these emotions and I have to keep reminding her that it is okay, that we will get through this, that this is just temporary. And that's all I can do right now for her, is just sit with her and hold space, which is what I so desperately wanted, was someone that had understanding when I was going through my mental health crisis. Over the last few months, I have been withdrawing off of some of my medication, and it is not something that I do lightly. I know I've spoken about this in previous episodes. I have been on just about every kind of mental health med that you could be on, and that's been one of the beauties of being under the care of a psychiatrist and being an inpatient. There is the resources in facilities, particularly when you are so far away from help or people that are experts in the area. Being an inpatient is such a blessing because they're able to sit with you and talk to you and get you the help that you need thick and fast. And I decided with my psychiatrist a few months ago that I would like to trial coming off of some of my medications, and one of them has been a mood stabilizer. About 2 years ago, I went back on a mood stabilizer, and it was at a point in my life where I was hitting another crisis point. There was some things going on that are not fun, you know, having a business with your husband, working with him 24/7, trying to hold everything together. And at that time we had a 1-year-old who'd had some medically, like, complex issues. And so we were both so fried and we were not in good headspaces. And we— I knew that the way that my body was and the way that I was behaving was not ideal. And I knew then that I needed to get some help really quickly. And I think this is the difference when You're in a situation where you've got really good private health, where you actually have funds to be able to support you to get the help, because these appointments are not freaking cheap. Like, this drives me crazy. And again, I have an understanding of what needs to be done to get me that help, makes it easy. But if you don't know and you don't have those processes in place, or you haven't experienced before, It is no wonder that people really end up in psychosis with suicide, suicidal ideation. It is horrible. And so I went back on my mood stabilizer because I wasn't great, and I knew that I'd been on it before when I was in crisis and it really helped. And when I spoke to my doctor about 6 months ago, I said, look, I feel like I'm in a really good place. I would like to trial coming off of it. And I'd been sick on and off for a few weeks, and I hadn't really been taking my medication properly. And I said to him, let's halve it. And he said, yep, absolutely, let's give that a go. So I tried it, and I officially came off of it about 2 and a half weeks ago, and I was fine. I was totally okay. And then about 4 or 5 days after I'd finished my last dose, the withdrawals hit so hard. I'm talking full-blown migraine, dizziness, brain fog, lethargy— lethargy, lethargic, like tired, just exhausted, and I spoke to my husband and a really, really good friend of mine who's a chiropractor, and I said to both of them, I feel mentally stable, like I feel mentally okay, but physically my body is kicking my ass right now. And they both said to me, Corrina, you've made the right decision. You are okay. You are doing really well. Persist through these withdrawals. And let's get you to the other side. And for some reason, I thought I might just try and make a GP appointment just to make sure that I'm okay. And I went and saw the locum GP, and it was the worst fucking idea. I knew the moment that I walked in there and I sat down with this woman that going there and doing a check-in was the worst thing. She says to me, Well, there's no problem with just going back on the medication. Why don't you try that? And I just, I thought to myself, why have I, why have I wasted $130 on coming and talking to someone who has no idea about my background? But I just wanted some reassurance. She said, Corrina, give yourself permission to go back on the medication. It is fine. I have no, no issues at all with being on medication, but for a purpose. I think being on medication for a purpose is really good, but when it's no longer serving the purpose, or when you're no longer needing it, then why? And some medical professionals just don't get it because they're not trained in it. It's like having— going to a daycare and the, the women looking after your children don't have kids. And I'm just saying this is a generalized comment, or even going to the hospital and you've got a nurse that's never had a baby before and they just don't understand. I think on like a, a cellular level, like on this like inner knowing, when you've had a kid or when you've been through a certain experience it helps you understand what it's like for someone else. Like, you can connect with them on a particular level. And I think that's been one of my biggest skills of— I've been through the mental health crisis, I've really struggled, I've been through the processes, and now I'm here and I'm able to talk about it with others. Someone said to me the other day 'But how are you going supporting a friend through this?' And I said, 'I'm actually fine. I'm actually okay.' There was a night where I did lose a little bit of sleep over it, but on the whole, I know that I can only give what I've got. And if I don't really have anything to give, then I can push myself a little bit, but I'm so brutally honest with how I'm supporting them. But I also then have my own support network around me to make sure that I'm okay. And my people that I can check in with. And I think that's a really big point, is when you're wanting to go and find support, or you're wanting to go and talk to someone about it, if for instance, like when I went and saw that particular doctor and they really were like, oh, you're fine, just go back on the medication, I knew that that wasn't the right person for me. But I do know I have got certain people within my network within my support crew that can sit with me through those moments and hold me. For instance, my husband and my beautiful friend. So if you're talking to someone and you're like, oh no, oh no, this is not for me, this is not the people for me, know that it's okay to find someone else. My inbox is always open, and I say that lightly. Like, I'm more than happy for people to message me, and I'm more than happy for people to reach out. And I would rather you do that and me be able to help give you some guidance on where you can get support than for you to be sitting at home struggling on your own. There is no shame in falling apart. There is no shame in crying. There is there is nothing. We are humans. Humans have these emotions. When I was in hospital, probably the first time, in the group therapy sessions, it was— there was a psychiatrist that came in and he was running the session, and he showed us this amazing chart. This chart of, you know, when you go through depression, it is actually your body screaming for deep rest. Depression, depress, deep rest. It flows, right? And deep rest is usually what is really needed when your body has been peaking for so long. And if you have been constantly pushing yourself, that is what your body is going to be screaming for. So I find if I go through a lot of really anxious moments and the anxiety piles and piles and piles and piles and it just never ends, then that is generally when my depression kicks in. And once you've gone through the anxiety and the depression and then the deep rest, you come out the other side. I think of it when I, when I talk about that, I picture, you know, like a bear going into hibernation. And that's what your body needs sometimes. Sometimes you've driven your car so hard that the engine needs a rebuild. The oil needs changing, the filters need changing. And we forget, again, we forget that we're human. We are not robots. Our body needs rest, our body needs regulation, and there is only so long that you can continue to push it for. So I'm one of those cool kids and I wear this little Whoop band and I've got it recommended. I don't know, Stephen Bartlett, Diary of a CEO, wears one and I love it because it gives me a lot of amazing data around my body. This week I knew that this week was going to be fucking tough, but I didn't just realize how badly it would really affect me on a physical level. So when I, I knew, like, normally my week goes like Mondays is a day for spotties where I do marketing, Tuesdays is my finance day, so I would sit in the office and do finance, Wednesday is my home day, and Thursday and Friday are my Shoes Honestly Mental days. Except this week. It's been the last week of school term. It's Easter, so Good Friday is public holiday. Yesterday— sorry, so Monday I ended up doing— I don't even remember what I did on Monday. Oh, I do. Monday I went to Spotties, and I actually spent so much time doing the shit that I wasn't meant to do. And then Tuesday I had a nail appointment, and my nail appointments, I normally do them in the evenings, but for whatever reason I had to do it on the Tuesday morning, and that was really hard. So that cut me out of my finance, and I normally spend Tuesday mornings doing like a co-working call with Vicki, and she'll be working on her stuff, I'll be working on my stuff, and then we ask questions, and it works really, really well. Wednesday was the 4th birthday of my beautiful friend's bookshop, Dear Village. It was a lovely day, and even though I didn't need to be doing anything, I really wanted to be able to spend that day with her. So I spent Wednesday at Dear Village, and then yesterday was the last day of school. My oldest is in high school, he had his school sports carnival, and then my middle boy is in year 6 and he had the interschool sports carnival. And so I spent the whole day pretty much at the inter-school sports carnival, and he had implied to me, and I didn't read the note properly, that he was in nearly every event. Turns out he was a reserve in every event bar the very last one, which was leadable. So I spent the whole day at school waiting for him to have this event, and he was in the very last one. And of course, Monday afternoon, my eldest had his basketball lineup. At the pool. And then the, the kids, the older kids have swim club, so they had swim training Monday night. Tuesday afternoon, I don't really remember Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday afternoon was footy training and I had a school board meeting, and then I went out for dinner with my husband because he normally has his mates night. And then Thursday afternoon, my middle boy Austin had his and basketball lineup also. So it has been a really, really jam-packed week. And when I looked at my Whoop band yesterday and it's saying, uh, you're actually in the red, I thought, oh shit. And I have actually had a really— a couple of late nights trying to re-edit the podcast. Oh, that's what I was doing on Monday. I remember now. The podcast was supposed to launch on Spotify at 9:00 AM. It was on YouTube at 9:00 AM, but it didn't pop up on Spotify. And so I'm madly messaging Chris and trying to work out why this is not loading. And by about 2:00, I ended up messaging the Spotify crew saying, hey, just wondering why my podcast is not loading. And there was one error in it at 16 minutes 43 where it paused and it wouldn't unpause. But then if you did skip passed it a few seconds, it kept going. It just didn't like it. So I had to download, re-upload all of the things. So Monday night and Tuesday night, I had two really late nights because I was trying to edit the podcast and I was trying to edit the first lot of reels. And it's a lot of work, but it's fun. But it's no wonder my body is honestly fried. At the moment. So I was going to open the bookshop today because there's a few stores in town that have been opening, or that had planned to open on Good Friday. And I just, I messaged Stevie last night and I said, can I make the executive decision that we don't open tomorrow? And she said, absolutely. She's like, it goes against all of my beliefs. To open on Good Friday. Not even Bunnings opens on Good Friday. And I thought, fuck yes! But I had one thing that I needed to do today, and that is record today's episode. So Jared and the kids have headed out for the morning. They've gone to go and pick up, uh, sausages. He went and killed a cow. Sorry if you're vegan. He went and killed a cow on Wednesday. Well, they'd killed the cow a few weeks ago. He went and cut up the cow that we've had hanging me in the cool room Wednesday. So now we've got a freezer full of meat, and he's had to go and pick up the sausages, which is really lovely. So I'm excited for that. And no, we won't be eating the rep today because it's Good Friday. We'll be having fish. I don't really like fish, but we'll have it anyway. Anyway, so we'll be having fish tonight, which is okay. But yeah, my Whoop band has said, you're in the red, Corrina, you need to chill the fuck out. So once I've recorded this episode, I am going to go back to bed. I'm going to pick up a book. And just chill out for the afternoon. I don't know, I wanted to kind of put pressure on myself when it comes to podcasting and be this really profound philosophy— philosophy— I don't know, philosophy, philosophical. Philosophical. I, you know, I, I see these people podcasting and I think, Corrina, you're just waffling. But that's the point of She's Honestly Mental. It's really raw and it's me and I'm tired, but I'm here and I'm still showing up. So I have worked on some really, really cool things this week, which is the She's Honestly Mental community. And I really want to continue to talk about mental health in the way that makes people feel safe. So yeah, gonna wrap it up here today with a nice little short one and say thank you all so much for being so amazing and true to my community. Every single one of you that sends me messages. I want you to know that I appreciate you more than you will ever understand, and I am so, so grateful, and I cannot wait to continue these conversations with you. Make sure though that you subscribe. If you are watching or listening, you can actually now see these podcasts on YouTube and on Spotify Video, hopefully Apple Video coming soon. So instead of streaming your favorite show, watching Netflix or whatever, you can actually watch my beautiful face. So thank you.