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Broken Brains: Nobody Prepares You for This Financial Emergency · She's On The Money

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: My name is Satasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yor
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: the Order Kerni Whaltbury and a waddery woman. And before
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: and the storytelling of you to make a difference for
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: that helps you feel good about money even when life
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: is falling apart a little bit or a lot. I'm
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: Victoria Devine, and today we are talking about something that
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: doesn't come with a budget, tenplate or a five step
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: financial plan. We're talking about what it really costs to
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: survive when your brain, your body, and your entire world
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: stop co operating. Because sometimes the hardest thing isn't managing
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: your money, it's managing to stay afloat at all. And
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: yet rent is still due groceries still cost money. Life
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: doesn't pause just because you are struggling. And that's the
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: reality for my two guests today who know this a
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: lot better than most. Jamilla Risby is a best selling
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: author and advocate who, at thirty one, was diagnosed with
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: a rare and aggressive brain tumor. Rosy Waterland is a
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: writer and comedian whose childhood was shaped by poverty, addiction,
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: and survival, and whose adult life has been shaped by
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: complex trauma. Together they've written Broken Brains, a raw, funny
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: and painfully honest look at what happens when your health,
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: your finances, and your sense of self all come under pressure.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: Jamilla and Rosie, we are genuinely so excited to have
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: you on the show. Welcome.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: It's very excited to bless that.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: I am very excited. You have just published your book,
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: Broken Brains, and it is all about your personal experiences,
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: your illnesses and shame, and the system that then made
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: it even harder for you guys to thrive. Talk to
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: me about what your broken Brain journey has looked like
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: in real life.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Well, why don't I go first and then Rosie can
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: tell you a bit about her.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because you guys are so different, but then when
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: you come together in the book, it just makes sense
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: the same. It was amazing. I was kind of like
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: before obviously having a look at it, being like okay,
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: all right, read it, and I'm like, this makes so
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: much sense.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: So I was diagnosed with a brain tumor called a
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: cranioferngioma when I was thirty one, quite an unusual kind
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: of brain tumor. So it affects every one in one
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: million to one and a half million people, so I'm
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: very special. I love being rare, but not like that. Yeah, no,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: it's not kind of rare.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: You want to be.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Actually, when you're sick, you want to be as pedestrian
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: as possible.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Way to go kind of illness.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: So when I was diagnosed, it was obviously massive shock,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: and what followed that was a series of brain surgeries
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: as the tumor kept growing back when they would remove it,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: and then ultimately radiation treatment. I had thirty six rounds
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: of radiation thirty six Yeah, so six days a week
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: for six weeks, which by the end of that I
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: felt like they'd burned out that my insides. It was
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: pretty hectic, and then probably took about two years for
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: the full extent of the brain injuries that I'd acquired
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: to kind of make themselves known. And I still live
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: with those, now, live with the whole bunch of medications
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: and treatments that continue. But I'm five years no tumor growth.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: I love that. That makes me so happy. You literally
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: burnt it out. It's gone. Yeah, it's gone. And Rosie
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: tell me your journey.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, So mine seems a little differend on the surface,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Like you said, so, I had a pretty difficult childhood.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Both my parents were alcoholics, drug addicts, they were mentally ill.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: My sisters and I were in and out of the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: foster system. There was a lot of neglect and abuse.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And I guess the best way I would describe it
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: is people often think that trauma is the event, but
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: trauma is what I deal with now. So if you
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: look at my childhood as the car crash, the trauma
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I live with as an adult is the brain injury
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: caused by that car crash. So I started showing really
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: significant symptoms when I was about seventeen, so about twenty
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: years ago, and I've been in treatment on and off
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: when I could afford it ever since. I do take
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of medications as well. I have symptoms that
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I'll be dealing with for the rest of my life. Yeah,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And I think it was not long after Jamila's first
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: surgery that she was looking for someone, anyone to talk
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: to who she felt like might understand what it's like
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to feel sort of out of control of your to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: not have control of your body and brain. And she
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: came to me and we, like you said, didn't think
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: we would have a lot in common, but realize very
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: quickly we have a lot in common.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: Actually, Yeah, absolutely, Your book is really about surviving the
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: things that aren't is obvious or that people never see, right,
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: so like illness, trauma, shame, and the system that genuinely
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: makes it so much harder. What made you both go,
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: all right, we want to write a book. We want
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: to tell this story because it's one thing to you know,
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: find each other and have that level of support. Why
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: did you want to take it to that next level
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: and share it with us?
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I had sought some support from Rosie, as she said,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: And I went to Rosie and asked her for some
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: help with dealing with the mental health side of what
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I was going through. You know, when you're experiencing the
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: stress and the trauma of being told you're really seriously ill,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: and the fallout of surgery and treatment.
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: It takes a real toll on your mental well being.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: And I wanted advice, I suppose because I knew Rosie
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: had been there before, and I think I almost wanted
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: to say, how do I stop this? How do I
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: stop my brain being so scared? And when I went
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: to visit Rosie, she was actually in psychiatric care at
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: the time, and we went and had a lunch across
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the road, and when we were chatting, one of the
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: things that came out really quickly was that we actually
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: have the same our conditions have the same mortality rate,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: so we actually had the same chance of not being
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: alive in five years or ten years.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: And yet, yeah, the world doesn't respond to Rosie with
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: the same sort of urgency it does to me. You know,
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: when my friends and my family learned that I had
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: this brain tumor that had to be cut out of
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: my head, I was incredibly lucky. I had this overwhelming
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: outpouring of support, And I joked to Rosie at the
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: time that I had eleven Lasagnas in my freezer.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: I was about to say, because you had so many lasagnas,
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: and have any lasagnas?
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, oh, I've never got one,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: but I don't have had lasagnas delivered exactly.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and think because we're both storytellers, it was genuinely
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: at that moment that we were like, there's a book
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: in this, we should write about this.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that very conversation. By the end we decided to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: write a book.
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Rosie, your story is deeply rooted in instability. How
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: did that shape the way that you've come to think
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: about money and then your place in the world. How
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: do you even begin to unlearn a lot of this
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: as an adult? It's very difficult, you know.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I did not get to a what I felt like
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: was a secure place financially until very very recently, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I'm thirty eight years old. I mean so exciting. It
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: feels stable, well more stable than I've ever felt. I mean,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I'm still getting there, you know what I mean. But
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I yeah, I grew up, like you said, with there
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: was a lot of poverty. The interesting thing about my parents, though,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: was I say that they were both like black sheep
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: of each of their respective families. So my mom came
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: from quite a wealthy family. She went to private school
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: on the North Shore in Sydney, which is a very
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: snooty area. My dad came from like a pretty well
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: off family too, but they sort of then went their
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: own rogue directions and found each other. So I grew
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: up with predominantly my mom because my dad died when
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I was quite young, with not a lot. I mean,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you know, there were years when we would need the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Smith family to deliver like a Christmas hamper to us
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: because we wouldn't have food at Christmas, that kind of thing.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: There was often homelessness in the sense of you know,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think homelessness means living
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: on the street, but I mean, like there were oftentimes
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: we didn't have anywhere to live. We'd be couch shopping
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: with our mum, living different places. But then we also would,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you know, say on like Easter or someone's birthday, go
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: to my grandparents' house or my uncle's house, my mum's brother,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: and they were all very wealthy, so it was a
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: very odd experience knowing that there was something else. I
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: grew up in a lot of poverty and instability, but
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I also had this sort of link to aut a
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: window at a window you something very different, like what possibility,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I guess, and that was a really odd thing to
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: deal with. I remember I tell this story. I think
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it's funny, but a lot of people find it very
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: sad that my dad used to play us this VHS
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: tape of his brother had kids who were about ten
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: years older than us, and they had gone to Disneyland
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: and they had filmed like all this stuff while they're
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: at Disneyland. And my dad used to play this VHS
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: tape of his brother's kids at Disneyland to us, and
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: it was like our favorite movie, to watch the kids
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: at Disneyland. To us, that was as close as we
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: were going to get. And so it was. There was
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a window there, which seemed sad, but I think to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: me it provided like a sense of I know there's
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: something better than what I have here, Like I know
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: there is stability somewhere, Like we may move all the time,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Like I lived over in over one hundred houses as
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: a kid, I went to like at least twenty schools.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: We moved a lot, We had instability, but I saw
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that it was possible to feel secure and safe and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: live in one place through people in my extended family.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: So there was a jealousy, but there was also a
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: hope and a motivation. I guess. Yeah.
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: I was about to ask, you know, when you're young,
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: you don't actually comprehend a lot of the times why
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: those things are happening, Like you don't understand what financial
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: security means, or you know whether your parents are working
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: really hard or not. You can just see that one
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: kid has something that you don't. Were you quite envious
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: of that? Because I can imagine myself, I feel like
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: I would be quite envious see and the kids at Disneyland.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was more the Disneyland thing was
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: more like I was envious of them having a lovely
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: family experience. I will say that with my mom, she
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: struggled being traditionally maternal. She left when I was about
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: three weeks old, and I didn't start living permanently with
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: her until I was almost four, and then on and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: off after that until I got taken away. Permanently became
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: a water of state, and her way of showing love
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: was buying things, so we didn't often. I'll talk to
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: people who grew up much wealthier than me, I'd say
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I would talk to Jam about all the toys and
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: cool stuff I had as a kid, and I probably
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: had a lot more cool stuff than you Di didd
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: probably because that's how my mom knew how to show love.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I remember being very very little, and she worked as
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a sex worker when I was little to sort of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: pay her way, and so on the visits we would
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: have with her, the exciting thing was that she would
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: bring you something, bring you like a polypocket or you know,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a doll or you know a Barbie or something like.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: She showed that through gifts and spending, and I think
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: that definitely gave me some warped ideas about what money
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: is and how to manage it because she was never
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: great with it. There was never a sense in our
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: existence with her that it was something that you were
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: responsible with. If you had it, you spent it.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, Jam. Before your diagnosis, I feel like your
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: life was picture perfect. Like you had this young family,
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: You were financially stable, you had a bang in Korea.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: Like you. I would look at you and be like,
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: I want to be Jam when I grow.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Up, my grown up friend, my most accomplished grown up friend.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: Right Like, I know she's laughing, but I literally was
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: like when I grow up.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: One day, I'm going to be just like MILLERI oh,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: she's three months old me and I say the same.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly when I grow up. When I grow up.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: So from the outside outside, it seemed like you had
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: your stuff together, like your goals babe. But what did
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: that look like? Because you got your diagnosis and then
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: everything shifts. Your priority is shift, your financial stability shifts,
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: and I imagine you go from being Okay, I've built
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: my life and while you know you're not agreeing with
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: us that you know, oh it's picture perfect, like you
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: would have felt financially stable. Yeah, we have a great artner.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: I'm so excited. I have you know, this great kid.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: What happens when you get sent into a spin?
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: You know what?
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Money was not on my mind, like when you get
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: given a diagnosis like that, money is the last thing
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: you think about, and it should be the last thing
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: you think about. But the reality is that it's going
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: to start playing a role pretty quickly.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: So for us, we were renting at the time, we
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: were house hunting. We were looking to buy our first home.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: We've been looking at lots of houses and trying to
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: find the right thing I remember one of the conversations
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: we had was Okay, well, that's just we're not doing
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: that anytime soon because we can't deal with that. We've
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: we've got too much other stress. And then I had
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: private health insurance, which was fortunate, and it meant that
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: that gave me the ability to choose my surgeon, which
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: you know, if I'd been in the public system, I
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: might have ended up with the same surgeon anyway, It's possible.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: He worked in the public and the private system, but
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: I got to choose him. And I remember him saying
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: to me, the other advantage was that he then got
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: to choose his team. Yeah, because it was the private system,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: he could then say I want that nurse, and I
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: want that assistant surgeon. I want that person, and there's
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: huge benefit to that. I remember saying, is there any
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: other benefit? Like what else do I kind of get for.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: My money paying this extraordinary amount health agents?
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: He said to me, well, there are rumors that the
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: food is better, don't you were like, I don't think
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: it is.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: I don't think it is.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: A Look, if it was better, it wasn't much better.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: And I had these sort of quite naive assumptions. I
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: think I thought Medicare took care of you when you
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: were sick, and so you didn't have to pay anything.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: And I thought if you had private health insurance, then
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: anything extra you won't pay much at all, which I'll
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: look back on that. And I had no idea, right,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: I had no idea.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: Well, you don't know, and you just don't expect these things,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: not at all to you, especially when you're young, not
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: when you're thirty one, Like the idea that this happened
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: to you when you're thirty one, and I'm sitting here
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: at thirty three, I just go, what like this to me?
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: It's so foreign, and I'm so grateful it's foreign. But
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: I also just go, life is so fragile, and it
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: can happen fast.
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: It happens really fast.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: And the other bit I think you don't think about
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: so much is that you can't work right.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: After you have insurance. I have to ask the financial aurance.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: I absolutely did not have insurance that I don't think
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: I'd even crossed my mind at that age. And so
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: you know, I had eight weeks off work for recovery,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: and even then I wasn't totally way more than that
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: ready to go back to work after brain surgery. After
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: eight works, I went back to work a bit, but
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: I certainly wasn't on my game and I would have
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: struggled to work full time. And then for me, the
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: TIMA grew back within a few months after that, and
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: then I needed sixteen weeks off for that recovery. And
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: once you get to that point and your partner's also
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: taking heaps of time off to look after you, and
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: then you've also got to think about childcare and all
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: the other bits and pieces, suddenly life starts to look
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: By that second surgery, we were a bit like, oh wow, okay,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: this is not.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: That house deposit. It doesn't look like house deposit.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: And we used the emergency like we were people who
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: had an emergency bank account, right, But we used it
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: all up and then we had to go again.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: So because you probably just thought and like most people do,
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: and I don't want to scare people when it comes
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: to the finances, but the reality is, when we create
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: our emergency funds, we're thinking, okay, like, what's like three
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: months of our expenses? What does that look like. We're
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: not talking about the car parking at hospital, We're not
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: talking about the late night uber eats and all of
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: the takeaway food that we need because we're staying at hospital.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Like it goes so quickly, and like this is my
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: reminder to everybody out there that if you haven't thought
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: about getting your personal insurances together, please do, please do asap.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: Like that is one thing that I am wildly passionate
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: about because sadly, as an ex financial advisor, I've seen
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: it too many times, and it's always the people that say,
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: I never thought this would happen to me.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: And also once you're on the other side, like me,
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: you can't get it.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Oh no, your one's ensuring me now, right, yeap, No,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: you're band, so my husband's very well insured, but you
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: know that's not an option for me.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: No. No. Both of you described these quite dramatic moments
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: where your health completely collapsed, But it wasn't ever just physical.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: I think people just assume when you say my health collapsed,
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: you just assume it's some dramatic flop to the floor.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: But what did it cost to keep functioning professionally and
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: financially when your world's are literally falling apart?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know it has at times cost me
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: almost everything. Really, I was never really great with money
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: because I wasn't you know, wasn't raised. You were taught
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: how to be yet how to be.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: I remember when we used to work together.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Oh my years again, know what you're.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: I remember explaining to Rosie how banks work, Yeah, because
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: she didn't understand need friend, you need that person.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It blew my mind when Jamila explained to me that
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: there is not a physical dollar for every dollar that
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: there is, like I.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: Thought you could it was all there, we can all
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: you thought the bank had a shoe box with your money?
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, And then I had this like existential crisis where
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, so money is just a concept? What?
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Like I couldn't. It blew my mind. So that is
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: literally where I was coming from, not even understanding that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: But you know how many people don't. Yeah, Like I
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: don't want you to go oh, I didn't even get that.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: What do you mean?
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: Who was going to.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Teach you that? Rosie?
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I had no Yeah, jam did I
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: mean when I got my first book advance, which was
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: like quite a decent chunk of money, I ended up
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: getting into a huge amount of tax problems because I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: didn't realize I had to pay tax on that. I
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: just was like, hooray, I have money, and I didn't
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: anything extravagant. I just remember feeling like it's nice to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: not have to worry. I remember my fridge broke and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I felt so amazing. It was like quite a profound
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: day in my life when my fridge broke and I
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: could just buy a fridge and I didn't have to
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: think about it. It was I wasn't buying anything crazy,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: but I just yeah, I didn't understand tax and I
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: so I for like the first decade of working as
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a professional writer had a lot of financial issues, and
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: it was probably twenty twenty two where I did have it,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: like quite a bit of money saved, Like I was
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: doing okay work wise, but mentally I had a really
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: bad relapse and I worked a little on and off,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: but I mostly didn't work. From i'd say, for about
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: eighteen months over twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I completely ran out of money, like I got to
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: like ground zero. I had to move apartments once in
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that time, and Jamila lent me money to pay my
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: bond for my apartment because I just I literally had
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: nothing saved and I got really unwell and I couldn't work.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: It was a really scary time because when you are
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: struggling with your health and then the money stuff is
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: added to it, like it really does make you feel like,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: you know what, if I wasn't already getting swallowed up,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: this is going to be the.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Thing kicks down? Yeah exactly, I mean you can kick
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: them to do how do I do this?
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Like? I the one thing I've always made sure I
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: pay and sometimes over my rent. I have paid for
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: my private health insurance because in my early twenties I
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: needed to be hospitalized for my PTSD and I didn't
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: have insurance. I went to a public hospital and unfortunately
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: in patient care in public psychiatric care is pretty grim.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And I after that started paying a very high premium
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: health insurance because health insurance that covers inpatient private psychiatric as.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: You need you need actually on bronze.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have paid for that ever since. That's been
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: my one negotiable thing that I pay for because I
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: never wanted to have to go to a public place again.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: And I have used it, like there's been about four
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: times that I've needed private psychiatric care since I started
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: paying for that. But yeah, across twenty twenty two twenty
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: three when I wasn't working and literally ran out of money.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: The one thing I sort of made sure I paid
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: for was my private health insurance, and everything else was
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: day by day.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: And you know what, I totally get that, Yeah, because
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: that is in line with your values and what you're like.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: I can't go back there because I'm assuming that would
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: have impacted you even more than going to impatient care privately.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: I just can't imagine. All right, let's go to a
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: really quick break, because on the flip side, I want
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: to talk more about the lasagnas that we mentioned. I
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: also want to talk about inequality and why Australia support
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: systems so often all the people who need it the most.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Plus how do you actually prepare for the kind of
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: life crisis no one sees coming. That's all after the break,
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: all right, we are back, and I wanted to talk
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: about something that actually stuck with me out of the book,
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: and you guys have already mentioned it, and that's lasagna.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: I just feel like that's a big thing. It's a
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: big thing, do you know what. I love a good lasagna,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: And with so many in your freezer, you could have
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: done a whole taste testing Josh my husband.
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: My husband had like Tali's ranking.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: Rank them like, oh yep, Sue's one. That's pretty good.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: You've got scores for like cheesiness and you know, death
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: of Tomato and the sauce.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: Yeh see. I think that's important. But Jam, at the
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: end of the day, for those of you who haven't
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: read the book, you had a plethora of lasagners, and
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: Rosie you wrote about never having one lasagna in your fridge.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: What do you think that says about visible versus invisible illnesses?
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I think it's no secret that there is
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of prejudice in society when it comes to
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: how we viewed mental health versus physical health. I think
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I even have, even people with mental health issues hold
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: those prejudices. I mean, there have been times that I've
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: even said to myself, like come on, Rosie again, like
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: pull yourself out of this this time, just get it together,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: which I don't think Jamila would ever have said to
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: her brain show, like come on, jam just just shrink that,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: just get you know, get rid of that, take care
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of jam. So even I have it, I understand, but
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: we tend to not take this stuff as seriously. And
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, the bottom
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: line is it's because a lot of people think it
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: is a choice. Maybe not on the surface, maybe they
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: don't say that out loud, but deep down, I think
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of people do think that mental health stuff
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: is a choice because if it's to do with you know,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: your emotions, your mental health, the way you think, all
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of that kind of thing, if it's not something physical,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: then surely you should just be able to fix it.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I think that's why. I mean, really, it's kind of
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I've been asked this question a few times and I've
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: been thinking, oh, should I be giving a more complex
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: answer than that, But no, I just I think that's it.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's the answer.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: I have seen that time and time again. Like my
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: background is in psychology, so like I fully comprehend this,
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: but even I who have been through you know, diagnosis,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: I just look at it and I go. The one
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: thing that helped me really understand it was like it
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: was chemical. I was like, okay, like yours might be physical,
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: but mine was chemical. And it's not an emotional thing
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: you can just get over. Like I literally don't have
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: enough of a chemical and I can't xyz and so
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: I feel like for me that helped, and there's nothing
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: that's going to help everybody. But it just it frustrates
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: me beyond belief that people don't take mental health seriously,
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: Like it impacts everything. It impacts your financial wellbeing, your
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: emotional wellbeing, it impacts your relationships, It impacts your ability
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: to create the career you want to create, whether you
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: have children or not. Like it is one of the
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: most tactful things that you can go through, but people
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: still don't put a liz on you in your freezer.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: What's that about?
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I mean all those things that you just said. I
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: put off having kids my whole like adult life because
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I remembered what it was like growing up with my mother.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I remember what it was like growing up with someone
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: who had kids before she was able to or should
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: have mentally, financially, in all those ways. My older sister,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: yann and then had her first kid when she was seventeen,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and I saw how much that affected her life. So
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I always said, like, I won't. I remember saying as
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: a little kid, like I'm not going to have kids
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: until I'm at least thirty five. Like for me, that
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: was this age in my brain that it's.
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: Grown up age.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you're paying proper taxes thirty fever right, like.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I thought I would be, but like probably wasn't working
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: that much then. But like I yeah, there was a
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: lot of things that I put off because I knew
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I ninety five ninety six percent, ninety seven percent of
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: my energy is going to just trying to keep this
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: mental health stuff and check. I didn't have the time,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the resources, the energy to do a lot of the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: things I wanted to do. I mean, essentially, you live
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: a life of surviving and not thriving. Yeah, that's where
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: you land.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Jam, you've experienced both sides of this, first in
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: being an advocate but then also navigating the Australian healthcare
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: system as a patient. When it comes to Australia as
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: a country, Why do you think we are still getting
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: it so wrong?
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So Australia has I think, unquestionably one of the
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: best healthcare systems in the world in terms of our
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: commitment to universal health care. The fact that if you
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: show up at a hospital, as you know, Prime Minister
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: is always telling us you show them your Medicare card
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: before anyone asks for your credit card.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: And I don't want to take away from that.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: That is remarkable one hundred percent.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: But Australia built a healthcare system and a hospital system
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: to treat people with physical ill health, and then when
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: we kind of figured out mental illness was a thing,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: we just sort of shoved it in the back cor Now, yeah,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: we sort of tacked this thing on, but we built
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: it in the same model as the first one, and
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: we sort of tacked it on the side. But we're
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: dealing with a completely different set of challenges, a completely
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: different set of treatments, and so it doesn't.
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: Work that way.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: You can't treat schizophrenia the way you treat cancer, right,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: you're dealing with things in.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: A complete motto Medicare card.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: No, it doesn't make sense. And so what we've done
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: is we've sort of built two systems at the same
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: time and they're very much unequal. And don't get me wrong,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: there are inequalities that exist within the sort of physical
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: healthcare system as well, but the way they work is
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: very unequal. And so what we do is we tend
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: to interact with people who have mental health challenges at
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: two levels. The first is and it's great that this exists,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: that you can get the medicare rebate for a series
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: of consultations with a psychologists. Once you've seen your GP
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: and been approved for a mental health plan, that's great
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: if you're someone who needs more than that, and that's
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of people.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: So often in our community, we're like, great, it's ten
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: right now, Well now now what right?
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: What happens if you need fifty? What happens if you
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: need more than fifty?
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: And then at the other end of the spectrum, we're
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: talking about people who reach the point of showing up
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: an emergency at a public hospital because their mental ill
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: health has become so serious and they are in crisis,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: and we will intervene there, usually for a very brief period,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: you know, twenty four hours, forty eight hours, often where
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: it's like, right, have we got you to a point
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: where we think you're not a danger to yourself?
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: Okay, thank you very much, you can go home.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: So there are sort of two points of intervention in
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: the public system, and that there's just so much space
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: in between, not to mention the fact that at that
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: acute crisis end, that's not sufficient.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: No, And that's what's heartbreaking when it comes to I
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: guess the financial side of that people in crisis can't
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: think about finances at the same time as trying to
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: manage their crisis. How do we better support people going
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: through these things financially, you.
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: Know, as part of Broken Brains.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: We both shared our stories, but we also talked to
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: heaps of different experts and other people with lived expertise,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: and we spoke to Professor Kate Drummond, who is the
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: head of neurosurgery at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Bizarrely spoke to
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: her many years ago and she's now my neurosurgeon, which
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: is just weird, but at the time I'd never met
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: her before and she said so many things that stuck
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: with me about how our health system operates. But I
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: asked her if she had a magic wand what's the
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: one thing she'd change. She said, she would pick up
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: all the money that we spend on interventions in the
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: final couple of weeks of someone's life to prolong life
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: at the very very end, and she would pick that
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: up and she'd give it to people in their late
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: teens and twenties to intervene on mental ill health. Because
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: she said, if your aim is to have people live longer,
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: healthier lives, you would have so much more impact than
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: you would prolonging the life of someone who's in their
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: nineties by another month, probably prolonging that life in a
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: way that wouldn't be very comfortable or enjoyable. Now, that
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: is really confronting, right, Like I can think about that
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: at as hard at a policy level, and I feel
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: o with it. But then you say, okay, well what
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: about your grandma? And I'd be like, we'll hold on
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: a second part.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: We're not talking about her, we're talking about policy. Jam.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so that's hard to wrap our heads around,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: I think. But our purpose should not be an l
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: system for people to live forever. That's not going to work.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: We have not yet pulled that up right. So it
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: should be to support people to have a wonderful life.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: And we're possible to extend that life. But that does
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: become a point where it's like, what are we doing
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: and what are we spending and what are we putting
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: someone through for one more week or two more weeks
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: when we could put that money as a country into
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: making sure that we get quality of life and quantity
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: of life for people who are in their twenties and thirties.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: That mean that they get to be that eighty or
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: ninety year old.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Now I'm obviously so excited for my community to
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: pick up this episode and learn more about broken brains.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: But I'm also just so excited that the possibility that
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: people who are currently ill and struggling financially see this
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: episode and go, oh my goodness, Like I didn't know
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: something like this was happening. I didn't realize conversations were,
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: you know, happening in this space. And I'm hoping that
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: you know, if you haven't met us before, welcome, But
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: what would your one piece of advice to people who
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: are currently going through illness and also struggling financially, what
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: would your one piece of advice from both of you be?
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: I'm happy to go first on that one.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: I if you are like me and you're going through
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: a physical health challenge, your mental health is as non
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: negotiable as Rosy's is. You know, when Rosie was going
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: through some of the toughest times in her life, she
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: still put the money into mental health care. It took
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: me two years before one of my doctors said to me,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: are you getting any support now? I was because my
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: husband muched me off to a psychologist the morning after
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: I was diagnosed, so I was getting great support.
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: But the impact on your.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Health and your wellbeing and your ability to go back
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: to work and become someone who can earn money again,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: it will be the mental as much.
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: As the physical that pushes you.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: The second thing I would say is that go into
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: the system knowing that even within the physical health system
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: we treat diseases. There is a hierarchy of how we
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: support different conditions and diseases, and a lot of that
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: actually has to do with the charitable sector as well,
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: because some always had to talk about this one. Some
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: diseases are more attractive than others.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: We have raised more money in this country to support
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: people who are going through breast cancer treatment and to
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: ensure that treatment is not only quality, and we have
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: reduced mortality rates and we have improved how we support
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: people psychologically through that process.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: And I do not begrudge a center of that.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: It is extraordinary what this country has done, and a
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: lot of that is because of the McGrath Foundation and others.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: But it's really interesting. The McGrath Foundation just this year
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: announced that they are now moving their targets to support
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: people with other kinds of cancers too, because there are
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: the sexy cancers and the ones that we get excited about,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: and the ones that we feel good about and we
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: want to talk about. We don't talk about prostate cancer,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: we don't talk about anal cancer.
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: We don't talk about stuff that makes people go, oh god,
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: I don't know about that one. Right, No pooh colored ribbons.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: There's no poo colored ribbons, is what one of the
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: mark as we speak to in our book says. And
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: she was a woman who had colorectal cancer. She's like,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: there's no poor colored ribbon. Right, That's not something we
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: go and party about. So going in with your eyes
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: wide open around what support is available to you or not.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: I'm someone who lives with rare diseases. Where it will
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: hit is when you get to the medicine part. Because
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: our medicines aren't on the PBS, or if they exist
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: and we can use someone else's medicines, we don't get
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: it on the PBS because we're not using it for
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: the set purpose. Right, So you do have to prepare
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: and you do have to save accordingly. I think I'm
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: sorry I'm giving so much advice I'm supposed to give to one.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: My other one is one that I am struggling to
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: take myself, but I'm really trying to. Which is that
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: my partner said really early on, spending money on your
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: health is non negotiable. And that meant not just the
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: drugs that keep me alive, but the drugs that keep
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: me well. And I have medicines that there have been
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: times they're off the PBS that are costing us three
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: four thousand dollars a month, right, Like there's big money.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: And the number of times they don't technically keep me alive,
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: they keep me well, and they're a big part of
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: my quality of life, but I don't need I'm not
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: going to die tomorrow without them.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: And the number of times I've.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: Gone, oh, we don't maybe just not this month, or
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: like we really need to be doing this. And I
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: look at my son and I look at my husband,
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: and he has been adamant, like, this is not negotiable.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: If this makes you feel better, we buy it.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: I felt so much guilt about that, And we're in
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: a very fortunate position where we're able to make that
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: choice rather than having no choice. And I know people
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: with the same tumor as me who cut tablets in
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: half and take them every second day and do all
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: sorts of stuff because they can't afford to do it properly.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: But I am just learning to let go of some
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: of that guilt around what my family doesn't have because
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: of my disease and the impacts of my disabilities. But
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: I think I'm finally getting there and sort of forgiving
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: myself and recognizing that it's better for them to have me.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: It's better to have a wife and a mum.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: That I well wife and well.
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: Doing well and can be the best person you can be.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: No, I think that that's so important, and it honestly
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: makes me feel Like when you said and I still
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: carry so much, girl, I was like, oh, like that
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: breaks me because it's just your son has who he
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: needs and you were able to afford that, And like, yeah,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: you might not have as much stuff, but stuff doesn't
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: go with you, Like that's not the stuff that matters. Yeah, Rosie,
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: what would your advice be?
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: You know that question is trickier for me to answer
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: than I think it is for Jamila. I write in
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the book about the fact that I've been seeing a
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: child psychiatrist who specializes in trauma since I was seventeen,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I've been seen the same one, so I'm probably his
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: oldest patient by this mind. But I started seeing him
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: because at the time, my uncle had taken custody of
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: me and he was paying for it. When my uncle
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: stopped paying for it, this particular psychiatrist boll builled me
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: without any gap, so it was essentially free for me
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: to see him, and he has been very generous with
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: me at times over the last twenty years. I pay
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: when I can afford it, and other times, like you know,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty two, when I was really struggling,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: he went back to bulk billing me. That is, that's
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: a unicorn psychiatrist. Like I understand how lucky I am
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: that he has been able to do that for me,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: because I look at my sisters who've not had access
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: to that kind of trauma treatment, who have just only
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: when the ten sessions a year became available, which hasn't
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: been throughout since we've been unwell. They haven't had that,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: and I can see how much further in my mental
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: health I am than them because of that. So I
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: know how lucky I am, and at the same time,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I think how unfair that I had to be lucky
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: to get treatment that I needed. So when people come
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: to me for advice about what to do when you're unwell,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: particularly financially in the mental health sphere, I don't quite
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: know what to say. I say, take advantage of what
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: is offered to you, get the ten sessions, get more
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: if you can, and also try and have someone advocate
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: for you, because when you are mentally in that really
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: dark place, like you said, it's hard to you know,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: bills all that kind of stuff. You can barely function,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Like there are type you can't make a phone call,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: let alone handle life admin. There have been times since
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Jamila and I've been friends for over ten years now,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and twice in that ten years, I've had a mental
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: health relapse that's been pretty bad, and she has stepped
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: in to advocate for me. Just as someone who makes
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: phone calls helps like organize, like calling around hospitals to
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: see if there's a place open or whatever, like, it
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: really helps to have someone step in and advocate for
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: you and look for programs because there are resources out there,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: particularly for trauma. I know that I've done, you know
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: this essentially psychotherapy with my therapist since i've been with him,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: But there are we now know in the last few years,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: you know, the very famous book by Besill Vanderkoch, like
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: The Body Keeps the Score. We're understanding more and more,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: particularly over the last decade, that so much of it
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: is to do with the body and not just the brain.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: That has been something that financially, I've not really been
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: able to explore until the last couple of years treatment
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: for that kind of thing. Someone at a book event
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: for us the other night came up to me and said,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I work in the trauma space, particularly childhood trauma, and
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: you should be telling your readers and listeners and everything
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that EMDR is now available for free for people to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: access through certain programs if they're dealing with childhood trauma.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: So I think it's just essentially like the snowball effect
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: of It's like when Jamila started interviewing people for the book,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: and she would talk to someone who would recommend someone
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: who would recommend someone, and before you knew it, you'd
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: interviewed over two hundred people. I think it's the same
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: with this kind of thing, Like your psychiatrist may recommend
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: talking to someone who may know of a program, and
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: they may know of something else, and it's just taking
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: whatever support you can get, because financially it's really hard
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: in this country to treat mental health. You're not going
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: to just walk into a doctor's office or a hospital
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and get what you need easily. So really take the
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: help from anyone who was offering it to you, and
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: listen to people's advice. And that's sort of the best
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: advice I can offer.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: It.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: It's hard on this side of things.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: I feel like the one thing that hasn't been mentioned
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: is just giving yourself a lot more kindness as well.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: I think that a lot of the time, people in
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: similar situations, they'll say I'm so bad at this, or
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: I suck at that, or like you really just compare
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: yourself to other people in similar situations. You might go, oh,
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: but she's handling it's so much better. But you don't
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: see these things. You don't get to see under the
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: covers of people's financial circumstances. And like, you know, jam
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: was talking about her beautiful husband and the support that
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: she had, and knowing that he was probably working throughout
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: that and you had your house depositing some emergency savings.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: We didn't know that until she shared that we could
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: have assumed that she'd come from a really wealthy family
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: or something along those lines, or we could have on
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: the flips, I'd been like, not aware of the astronomical
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: amount of debt she needed to go into. So everybody's
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: journey is so different. And I think that because of
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: this beautiful community we have in sees on the money,
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: people are so open with their journeys, especially when they're
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: unwell and when they're going through financial crisis, that you
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: just don't know what you don't know. And I think
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: you are so harsh on yourselves. You're like, oh, well,
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: I can't afford that, or I shouldn't do this, or
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: I shouldn't like I think you just need to wipe
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: all of the expectation off and just go I'm doing
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: the best that I can.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: I'm really glad you just said that, because, yeah, that's
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: really important to point out. I know that I have
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: been filled with an enormous amount of shame getting to
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: this age where I'm nearly forty. Like I turned thirty
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: nine this year. I'm an eighty six baby. And when
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I was little, like I said, I had these wealthier
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: family members that I would look to and I would
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: always say like I'm going to be like them, Like
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be like my crazy parents. Like
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: when I grew up, I remember I used to say,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be a doctor like my uncle because
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: my mum told me once he made five thousand dollars
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: a week, and I was like that, I'm going to
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: be a doctor because of that, like I would. I
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: really thought I would be in a very different position
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: by now, And I often feel an enormous amount of
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: shame and disappointment that, you know, I thought I would
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: be married by now. I thought I would have kids.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I thought i'd own a house. I thought I would
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: have built the life for myself that I always wanted
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: by this stage, by much earlier than this. And there
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: are times that really really makes me feel, just to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: put it bluntly, pretty shit about myself. It really does.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: And what has helped a lot is, like you said,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: learning to have some compassion for myself over it, learning
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to try and be bit gentler with myself and more
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: forgiving and say, like, you know, Rosie, you were barely
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: keeping your head above water. Like all I was able
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: to focus on was just getting through the day, saving
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: for a house, marriage, kids, building a stable life. It
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: really sucks that it's not really starting for me until
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years. But it's not my fault,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Like I did the best I could, and so I
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: have to be gentler with myself about it. It is hard, though,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: it's really hard. You're filled with a lot of shame
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: about this kind of thing. But yeah, I'm really glad
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: you pointed that out because having self compassion is hugely important.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: It's helped me a lot, even though it's not easy
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: No, I'm glad that you resonate with that because I
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: just I feel like I want to scoop our community
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: up sometimes and be like you are doing so well,
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: Like look at the cards that were dealt to you,
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: and what could have happened the place you could have
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: been in, and look how hard you fought to be here.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: You're on a podcast advocating for those people who can't
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: speak up for them else. There are people who are
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: going to listen to this and be like, holy moly,
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: Like that's exactly what I needed to hear at the moment,
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: And you're being that person that baby you needed, and
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: I just go, that's the ultimate outcome, right, Like I
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: know that your stereotypical family and your house and your
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: savings account didn't tick the box. But like you've become
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: the woman that baby you needed, and that is incredible,
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Like that is the coolest thing in the entire world.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: So I wrote the book. I guess that's really nice.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: So unfortunately we don't have a lot of time left. Guys,
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: you have been so generous and so kind for sharing
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: this story with me, with my community. I'm just I'm
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: beyond grateful for this. This conversation has been really thoughtful,
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: really generous, really open, and I just I hope that
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: we can start seeing mental and physical illness on the
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: same page. I hope that there's more conversation in the
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: next four years about getting us on the same page.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: And I just think that this has been a long
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: time coming and it won't be the last time we
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: talk about this. So, guys, if you have loved talking
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: to jam and to Rosie, they have a beautiful book
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: called Broken Brains. It is real, it is raw, it
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: is honest, is everything you need to have a conversation
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: around grief, around resilience and humor. Like it is funny
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: we keep trying.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: To tell people it's not heavy.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: I feel like I've made it sounds heavy at the stuff,
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: you're really funny too, Like I'll give you that, and
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: it's all at once and it is beautiful. And if
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: you're listening and you haven't grabbed a copy yet, I
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: definitely recommend it. But I'm going to pop all of
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: the information for that in the show notes so that
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: you can pick up a copy and pour over it
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: in the same way that I absolutely did. And I
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: guess one of the things I took from that was like,
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: I need to make a whole lot more Lasagnias, Like
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: I've got a lot of it.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, jam has enough.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Yes, Yeah, exactly, And we're makings and my beautiful she's
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: on the money community. I know that sometimes life can
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: throw things at you that no budget or plan could
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: ever prepare for. And if you are in that space
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: right now, just know that it's okay to focus on
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: just getting through, not getting ahead. I want you to
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: take your health, your safety, and your stability first. It
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: always is going to come first, because the rest can wait,
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: and you are not behind for doing what you need
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: to do to survive. If you have loved this episode,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: please share it with somebody who needs to hear it,
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: especially if they're going through something tough right now, and
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: make sure that you're following She's on the Money so
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: that you never miss another chat like this one. Guys,
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: Thanks Sharing Tak, Thank you.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Did buy shared on.
• 45:41
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