I Was 11 and I Thought No One Would Miss Me (GUEST CHAT)

A raw conversation about suicidal thoughts, Lifeline, and what it feels like at a granular level to not be okay. 

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In this episode I have a chat with Julia Ridout. (Find out more about Julia here: https://www.instagram.com/chiefencouragementofficeau) 

She’s worked at Deloitte, led major projects, and volunteered as a Lifeline counsellor. She now runs her own business as a Chief Encouragement Officer, helping people and organisations understand themselves and work better together.

But this episode isn’t about titles.
It’s about what it’s like to not be okay.

We talk about calling Lifeline, suicidal thoughts, and why you don’t have to be at breaking point to ask for help. We talk about rumination, coping, and the difference between living in your life and numbing it out.

This episode includes discussion of suicide and self-harm.
We are speaking from lived experience only. This is not medical advice.

When you need support consider contacting the organisations below (if you are not in Oz, Google 'how to get help for suicidal ideation right now near me', people want to help you, there is a plan for how to safely get you to the next moment)

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BOOKS MENTIONED 

'Life Is in the Transitions ~ Mastering Change at Any Age' by  Bruce Feiler

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SUPPORT (Australia)

• Lifeline Australia
 24/7 phone, text, and chat
 https://www.lifeline.org.au/

• Beyond Blue
 Online and phone support
 https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

• MindSpot
 Practical mental health support
 https://www.mindspot.org.au/

MORE 

If you want somewhere to land after this, I’ve written more on Substack.
 
I will never gatekeep support. If you need help, or you’re looking for resources, that will always be available for free.

https://substack.com/@catharineredden

Content Note
This podcast gets into bodies, panic attacks, trauma, sexism, mental health, and the occasional emotional sinkhole. Please look after yourself only listen when you feel safe to engage with potentially triggering material. 
Also, I swear.

Support
These aren’t here as a formality. I’ve used some of these myself.

Lifeline 13 11 14 (24/7)
Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25)
1800RESPECT 1800 737 732
Emergency 000

Outside Australia, local crisis services are available.

The Socials (I'd love a follow) 
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/catharine.redden/

LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/catharine-redden/

Support The Pod
Substack (where I write stuff)
https://catharineredden.substack.com

Buy Me a Coffee (where you can financially support the pod, and me!)
https://buymeacoffee.com/CatharineRedden

Credits
Recorded on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri peoples.
Sovereignty never ceded.

Recorded & edited at Ridley Farm Studio by Luke Ridley
https://ridleyfarmstudio.com.au...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today I'm talking to the amazing Julia Ridout. Julia has spent more than 25 years in senior leadership roles, including running the IT Project Management Office at Deloitte and leading large-scale mergers and acquisitions work. But she's also been a lifeline counselor, sitting with people in some of the hardest moments of their lives. She now runs her own business, chief encouragement officer, helping people and organizations understand themselves better and more can work in more human ways, which I really love, by the way. We're all human. She's trained in vulnerability work and psychological safety, but today isn't about credentials. It's just two women talking about what it's like to actually not be okay sometimes. We're speaking for ourselves, not for anyone else. This episode is going to include really heavy topics and at times graphic descriptions of self-harm. There's a couple of things associated with that, and often these content warnings kind of get glossed over a bit, but I don't want to gloss over it. So the first thing is I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a counselor, I'm not here to give advice. I'm gonna tell you what has happened to me and how I've felt about it. So that that's really important. And you should seek robust medical advice if you find yourself with depression and anxiety and you don't know what to do with that. And now I would like to welcome Julia to the mic.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Thank you, Catherine. Thank you for inviting me. It's a huge honour to be your first guest. Thank you for that. I think what you said at the start about what we're not is really important. So I'm not a counsellor. Yes, I volunteered with Lifeline many years ago. Um, but I think that we can help people identify themselves in some of your stories and maybe some of my stories, and give people the opportunity to connect to that information, but more importantly, connect to some external resources. So that's what I'm hoping for for people today.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Julia, tell me what you want to get out of this episode.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

I think I'd like to feel that people understand that there is a plan, no matter where they're at. One of the things that you talked about in your introduction was about the social media influence, what people's expectations are in regards to mental health or mental wellness. And I think people fit in lots of different ways, and I'd like for people to feel that they fit no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

And I think I might just dive straight in because I was I have a friend who listens to every podcast, and he I would consider him a really educated, smart man. But he said to me that last year he had a friend who went through something that at work that many had to have time off work and he was depressed, and he didn't understand the effect that depression can have. And one thing he said to me is he didn't understand what happens when you call lifeline. So maybe we could just go through that from I might go through it from what happened when I call lifeline, and then maybe from your end. So I it was in the mid-90s, I was living at a university college, I'd had suicidal thoughts on and off since I was about 11, and I had had two previous attempts, and I had a breakup with a man that I'd known not for very long, and I wasn't doing well at uni. Um, and I just thought, I don't know what's next for me. You know, like my dreams of finding a partner and finding a career were really not, I didn't think were there anymore. So I I called Lifeline. I don't really I don't remember waiting for very long. I think I got straight through the person I spoke to was kind. I mean, clearly I didn't end up following through with any kind of plan. Um, it was a pretty neutral experience for me. Perhaps, Julie, you could tell us what what actually happens from when. So you dial the number and then what happens?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So, I mean, it's amazing that you you got through and didn't have to wait very long. Some people wait for a really long time to get through, and they sometimes those calls can go unanswered, which is one of the challenges that Lifeline has in relation to having enough people, enough volunteers on staff. So, as we said at the beginning of the call, you know, we're not here to give um advice in regards to this program. And I'm talking about a time when I was a counsellor almost 20 years ago now. So the principles behind Lifeline don't seem to have changed. I've had a look through their website and it's very much still that crisis call center. But when you're when you're offered to become a lifeline counsellor and a volunteer, you're given extensive training for many, many weeks where you go through and you're training with certified individuals in psychotherapy. And the aim is to not make you a psychotherapist or a formal trained counsellor. The aim is to make you a person that can sit in the moment in someone else's darkest moment. So you're training in regards to being empathetic, understanding, holding space for that person. So when the calls come through, it's routed in lots of different ways to different volunteers. And whoever picks up that call, they will start to listen to your story.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

And what were the reasons? What were some of the reasons that people called? I mean, I know we we can't identify people, but perhaps we can talk about reasons.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, so there's lots of different reasons. So um I think there's a misunderstanding out there that lifeline is a suicide helpline. It is, but it's much more than that. There's so many reasons where people might phone in crisis. So what's a crisis for me may be different for a crisis for somebody else. And I may be in crisis through a different set of circumstances that particular week and not in crisis for the majority of my life. So we would have people phone up who couldn't sleep, we would have people who phone up in particularly risk-averse jobs or difficult jobs who weren't coping. Um, we would have people who would feel um that they couldn't communicate to their bosses in regards to what their needs were, or they couldn't return something to a shop. Yeah. All sorts of different reasons. And I think that you know, we want to make sure that the right people get through from a crisis point of view. It's important that everyone think we don't want to take up the line. There's multiple different mental health services out there. Um, and we want to make sure that the people that need to can get through the lifeline.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

A thought's just come to me. Sometimes when somebody um unalives themselves, or often we hear, I didn't know it was coming. You know, that's a common thing. Um, my godmother I don't like saying committed suicide because it sounds like a crime when you say that. My godmother unalived herself um when I was 11 or 12. And I remember at the funeral people were shocked, so shocked. Like that was the biggest thing. And so perhaps people calling because they don't know how to return a shirt to David Jones or they're stressed about it, like that may seem to a lot of listeners as a minor thing, but for so I'm telling you, for some people out there, that's one step away. And I'm sorry to be so graphic, but that's one step away from swallowing a bottle of pills. And and it really can, as someone who lives with depression and anxiety, it really can feel that way sometimes. And sometimes it just comes, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

No, I agree with you. I think absolutely. I think I can and I can hear in people's voices, you know, that for them that is the most um critical moment that they're facing in that time. And they may have ruminated on that point or that scenario to the point of thinking that somehow life is better without them in it. Which, you know, for when you're being, you know, observing something from the outside and you don't have that level of understanding of that person's situation, that sometimes does feel strange and people don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, no, I didn't before I before I met you, I didn't realize that you could call lifeline for those reasons. And I think it's great to know that you can call before you get to that point where you've got a plan. So when you've got a plan to take take your own life, I I really love that there's are they still 24-7? They are, aren't they? Yeah. There's a line, there's a you can pick up and call someone before it gets to that point, you know, and I think it's great that if you know that, you know, what if if it's your car breaking down or having yet another fight with your partner, if you're starting to have those thoughts of, well, it would be so much easier if I wasn't here, then you can call someone and you don't have to make an appointment with your GP, which can be excruciating when you've got mental health. And that's actually not me having to go at doctors, it's the whole you've got 11 minutes to discuss your problem. It's very hard to explain to somebody in 11 minutes what's going on in your big, beautiful brain that's been evolving for 200,000 years to this point, and it was not built for 2026.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

No, no, but I think the beautiful thing that you're saying, or I'm hearing you say, Catherine, is it's about not getting in the rumination. We're not talking about somebody's car breaking down and they can deal with that and they move forward. We're not talking about a person who can return their shirt to David Jones and they're fine. We're talking about the fact that that might be the tipping point for some individual where they've ruminated on that to the point where it's going to tip them over the edge. So that's, I think it's important to make that distinction.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah. Can you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah. So I'm what I'm what I'm interested in is that it's possible that some people listening to the podcast could think and be dismissive of the people who are needing to go to a store to return something, their car breaks down. Well, that's people are dealing with that every day of the week, right? That's that's not a reason to phone Lifeline. It's the it's the method of how we deal with a problem that could be a one that we ruminate on that we need to phone somewhere like Lifeline, or other mental health um providers. So there's far more now than there used to be. There's individual university ones that have telehealth appointments, is not just your GP, and you're absolutely spot on that that time is being reduced and reduced for people to get mental health support. Um, and it could even be your friends. It could, you know, that might be some people's first line of support is to get support from their friends. And if you are being validated and seen by your friends, then you may not need to take the next step. But I feel that there should be multiple levels of mental health support for everyone in every stage of life.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, and I think look, and this might be out there because I am guilty of not seeking help. Like I am really, I don't know if guilty is the right word, but I have a long history of not seeking, and I don't think I'm alone in that. I I don't think I'm alone as looking like someone who's doing okay, but it's really not most of the time. And so I think it would be really helpful to have, and I I guess that's what I want to do this episode about is to sort of I didn't so the first time I tried to take my own life, I was very young, I was 10 or 11, and I had no um reference point for what was going on, and I think back to and I I I think it might be helpful for me to explain what went through my mind on that day, even though I was 11, because I do hear about young people taking their own life still.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Do you think that would be helpful to talk about it?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

As long as you as long as you need to keep yourself safe in this process. I appreciate that you are being in service to the people who are going to be listening to this, but it's really important for you to feel safe in sharing your story as you see fit. So you share what you think is important.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

I guess I just want people to know that I I don't know the statistics around suicide. I haven't, I probably Luke asked me a general question about the data this morning. I haven't even looked it up. I just know that it's high, but perhaps that's something I'll look up and put in the show notes. I guess I just want people to know I think it's common, more common than we think. Yeah, and I it seems to be clearly it's something we don't talk about. And so I I I guess I want to talk about what what I recall from that 10 or 11 year old girl. Um and let's just see what happens. And I'm I'm for I'm thanks for caring. I'm okay with it psychologically because I've come through it, you know, and I'm here and I don't wish my life was any different than it is. Um I suppose I'm trying to de-stigmatize it as well. Like I say to myself and on my podcast, you know, that I'm not mentally unstable just because I have suicidal thoughts. In fact, I think to call anyone mentally unstable is a really weird thing because what does that mean? You know, who what what are we saying? And so I I don't consider myself mentally unstable for having suicidal thoughts. It's just like for me, it's quite similar, I think, to having a recurring chronic illness. And I know as soon as I compare it to anything else, I'm gonna get DMs. But let's let's compare it to someone who's got relapsing remitting MS, right? It comes and goes. Sometimes it's really bad and sometimes it's not. You never know when it's going to flare up. Sometimes the medic actually I quite like this metaphor. Sometimes the medication works and sometimes it doesn't. Well, that's what my thoughts of suicide and self-harm are. Is it's I don't sometimes I don't know where they come from, and sometimes I can connect those dots. So on this particular occasion when I was 10 or 11, my parents had gone away for the weekend um and I was staying with a family friend. Um and I didn't go to school that day, which was really unusual for me. I was a child who always went to school. In fact, my mum used to say, um, if you're breathing and not bleeding, you can still go, you know. And she was, yeah, and I I don't remember why I wasn't at school. Actually, that's interesting. And I just remember thinking that I wasn't good at anything and that nobody would miss me. Mum and dad were going through a rough time on the farm. Um it was in the 80s when you know farm interest, the bank interest rate was 22% and commodity rates were at an all-time low, which means crap if you're a farmer. But and I knew money was tight, really tight. Um I knew I wasn't in my family, it's a really sporting family, and I wasn't good at that. And I was an asthmatic, which became a clearly the thing that wasn't perfect in a world full of these sporting champions. And I just remember thinking it would just be easier for everyone if I wasn't around, and that nobody would care anyway. And so uh I used to take pills for my asthma, and so I just swallowed a whole bottle. And then I and then and that was okay for a little while, actually. I thought, oh good, good, but then it became not okay, and I thought, oh no, this is going to be a big drama, I don't want to do this. So I went and told the woman who the family friend who was looking, who like whose place I was staying at. She drove me half an hour to the hospital. I had my stomach pumped. But like I think about what happened after. So mum and dad came home and it was very dramatic. Um, my dad thought it was because I'd been reading too many dolly magazines. Mum took me back to the doctor, and I just remember the doctor saying, asking me if I had a boyfriend. And even at 10 or 11, I remember thinking, you people have got no idea about what's going on in my brain. Yeah, and I I guess that's when I learned it was much better to not talk about my thoughts of unaliving myself because nobody understood. I could not explain what was going on in my head. That's pretty much, and I don't really. I mean, I I do have a psychologist now and I do take medication, and I don't have suicidal thoughts all the time, but I still have them. I still have them.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

And I think you've you've I mean, I think it's really brave to share your story, first of all, and I think that um it demonstrates your handling of a situation now as an adult, looking back on that scenario and be able to convey that. And I'm hearing conveying that in a in a way to be in service to people who may be listening and who have may have gone through similar experiences, and I think that's really brave to do that. But equally, you've got a psychologist supporting you professionally who will give you the framework or support, and that's one aspect. And I think if it was possible for people, we'd have a psychologist or psychotherapist or a clinical psychologist if people needed that, if they needed to have prescribed medication, a mental health supervisor or plan. Um, and also the even the employee assistant programs that you hear from corporate scenarios. I think there should be multiple ways that people feel that they can access these different services, and it could be their GP, it could be lifeline, there's all sorts of things out there, but we don't attend to our mental health in the same way we do our physical health. And I think that's what you were alluding to before. And the the classic one that I've heard recently is if you break your leg, everybody will come to your aid and support you. If you say that you're feeling sad or you're feeling unworthy or unloved, you have less support. It's very difficult for people to support you in that because they don't know how to respond to it.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

And I do, it took me a long time to get out of the mentality of why aren't people helping me to being my own advocate. And I I think that's really just come with age. Yeah, I think, and I I think that's just come with age of knowing that I I learnt this in meditation. I love this phrase. It's welcome to the party of my direct existence, you know. If I'm having this day where recently the alternator broke in my car, I didn't even know it had an alternator. Let me tell you, those fuckers are expensive. But it's like I could feel myself spiraling and I'm like, no, no, Catherine, welcome to the party of my direct existence, you know, and that that's something that helps me. And um I actually don't I talk about my mental health now more than I ever have because I'm more confident now to say, well, I'm you can think what you like about me, but it is hard for me to leave the house. It is hard. I didn't ever return anything to a shop physically. It's only since the internet you can buy things online and never returned anything. I couldn't do that.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

For sure. And I think you know, you're demonstrating to me what I'm seeing you demonstrate is your vulnerability in relation to all these different circumstances that have happened and how you have risen through those different processes and you've learned for yourself what works for you. And I think that's the core message. There is so much out there. Let's work out what works for us as individuals. And you may have worked that out through your meditation work. But one of the big things with meditation is have the thoughts, just notice them and learn how to deal with them. And sometimes for me, you know, that's a you know different process. It might be having a conversation with somebody, it may be having a reheated cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Who knows what that might be. You can go at me about that.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

It doesn't taste as good as when somebody else is making it, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

But it's like, you know, there's so many different things. If it works, you reheat that thing. You get it in the microwave.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

And and you, I think, and that's great if that's what's for you. And you're doing these things as a momentary piece to get you through some kinds of situation, what becomes problematic or can be problematic for some people is if they're using it as a point of numbing. So if that's all they're doing, it's like alcohol, drugs, all the rest of it. If you are having alcohol and you're having a glass of wine because that's how you end your day and that's how you control it, that's up to you. But if you are walking around life in a drunken stupor because you can't deal with something, then that's not that's not coping. That's addiction and that's a numbing of your true feelings. So there's loads of examples like that throughout our whole lives.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

And I think just on the alcohol, and I think it's like this with suicidal thoughts, is because I re gave up alcohol um January 5th, 2025. I became sober. And I was not a fall-down drunk. I was not. Yeah. And I can say that because I come from a long line of fall-down drunks on both sides of my family. Sorry, mum and dad. But um it's really hard in Australia. You you come from the UK where I understand it's a similar culture, but it's really hard in Australia to be like to recognise you've got a problem before you're at that point where it's becoming like if it's become illegal, if you've been had your license suspended from drink driving, alcohol is a problem in your life, even if you don't get drunk every day. Yes. And I feel like that's a bit of a gap that's missing. It's like, it's not until it's extreme that we think, oh, maybe you can get help for this problem. And I'm actually I know I keep ha going back to this, but I'm so in awe of those people that call lifeline about not being able to return clothes to a shop. Those people are looking after their mental health a lot more than others. And I know, I know that it's it's different and and all of that, but you know, I do think that the the alcohol thing, and like for me, caffeine was another coping mechanism that I've given up, you know, because I felt like I didn't have any energy and I needed to be awake, but it's but and giving a I would call that a buffer. What you called it something much better. What did you call it?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

I don't have to call it. We'll have to have to listen back. Um, I think I think, yeah, I think all of these things are then they everything can become problematic if you let it like it's being it's the awareness. So what we're talking about is creating the self-awareness to know that this is what we're doing and to be aware of that what's happening to us so that we can keep an eye on it. You don't have to police everything that you do in your life in order to, you know, be anxious-free. Because some of the sometimes anxiety is is a useful tool as well. But that's a topic for another day, I was gonna say. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

So, Julia, I know that I've just shared like a really I mean it seems a bit flippant, but like a really intense experience that happened to me when I was a child. And, you know, on the other side of that, you've been a lifeline counsellor, and and I know that you also have other experiences of mental health. You know, because you and I have also talked about how this is not a how many people can we help podcast, right? What did you say? What's that Elizabeth Gilbert quote? Stop helping people. Yeah. So she wrote Eat Pray Love, amazing book, and has recently shaved her head. Um, so why did she say that? Can you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_01 26:07

That that particular quote came from a response to somebody who was asking her how they could help people. They wanted to help people, and a lot of people are in their life want to help others. It's a very natural human connection to do that. And what Elizabeth, I understood to be saying in that moment was stop helping people, do what you are good at, and let people help themselves. And that's what I think LaCorre is that if you give out enough of your love and your connection and your ability to see things, people will see themselves in you or what you are saying, and they will be able to get out there and get some help.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I actually just want you to say that again because that makes sense. I probably can't. No, I'll or I'll I'll I we don't video this, but at the moment Julia is laughing and falling off her chair. Um so, but I actually want to revisit what I heard in that because it is so important. Because my natural, I I think it's a natural human thing to want to help people. Absolutely, it's natural to want to help people. And I when I was first talking to Julia about this episode, I'm like, oh, I I want to help people, and she dropped this mic drop about Elizabeth Gilbert, and that really resonated because it's a it is a lot like that when you're on the jet and the I know I don't know what to call them. I was gonna say stewardess, but that's not the name anymore. Cabin crew. Thank you, feminist Catherine. When the cabin crew say, you know, fit your own mask before you fit the small human next to you or your husband. Um that's a joke, by the way. You know, I need to help myself more before I can hurt help other people. Because at the moment, where I am in my life, is I still as much as I come and I laugh and I present really well, I have regular self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah. And I think you don't necessarily have to have regular self-harm and suicidal thoughts to be able to need or to require self-awareness. And that's what I'm hearing. Thanks for saying that. And that's what I'll take from that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, no, that that's a really important so many messages. I think I do want to say that I feel a little bit like this episode's gone off track a bit because I want to get so much out there and I want to and I want to to be helpful, but but it really is stop helping people, help yourself be kind because I have found since I started being kinder to myself, I can be kinder to other people.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

100%. And that's really important. That self-awareness piece is massive. And I think if you can if you can build your own self-awareness, and that's something that I have been very lucky to do over the last sort of 15 or so years, is build my own self-awareness of situations that I'm in, the emotions that I feel, the struggles that I might face, and then I'm much quicker to resolve those scenarios and move forward with a plan. So the time just gets shorter, but that time, that pause is very difficult for people in today's world in 2026. The rushing, the hustle, the busyness, we don't often get that time to pause. So if you can pause to have that self-awareness and that sense of self, you will be in a much better place.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

I've got a book on my, and I'll put this in the show notes as well. And as Luke knows, I love to say, check the show notes. There's a book that I'm reading that's all about that. I don't know the title, but it's all about transitions. You know, you get home from work instead of rushing into the house, it's like I'm gonna take 60 seconds in the car to acknowledge the day that I've had and to now be present with for me, it would be the dog or the cat or the bloody bonsai that I'm meant to be looking after. So bonsai, I will never hit house hit bonsai. I could do a whole podcast series on bonsai. They are the worst things, they are terrible plants, disgusting. Um transitions are really important. It's yeah, it's those moments you really can change what happens next.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Uh Julia, can you tell me a little bit about your work?

SPEAKER_01 30:36

So I am a dare to lead facilitator, which is Brene Brown's work. So that really focuses on vulnerability and our sense of self. And I also do psychological safety, which is from Amy Edmondson, who's also based out of the US. And that's mainly around psychological safety at work for teams. So a lot of these things are based on us as human beings, us about our self-awareness and how we communicate the emotions we have, etc. But it is a great grounding for a lot of work. I've learned a lot about myself over the last sort of 15 years, certainly for how I show up at work. Very much I was a manager, and now I've definitely moved more into that leadership space of being more empathetic to the people that I work with. Um, it's been a great grounding for me to learn that as a facilitator. Question without notice.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

What's the most surprising thing you learnt about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 31:36

I would say that it's the way that people communicate to me that I'm very thoughtful. So I had never really considered myself to be a thoughtful individual because in my work I was very work-oriented, very focused on tasks, very focused on the outcomes, which is very symptomatic of being a project manager. Um, and those people who worked with me would tell you as a very strong project manager in regards to my expectations of others. But I'm actually a very thoughtful individual. And lifeline training was was part of that journey. So back in 2000, when I first trained with them, that was part of my learning about empathy and about sitting in spaces with other people and taking care of other people. And I think that's where I've really grown from.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

And what led you to be a lifeline counsellor?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Community. So I was new to the community of the area I was living in at the time in the northern beaches of Sydney, and I wanted to extend my community. And I found out about Lifeline, I found out about the extensive training they do for mental health, and I wanted to be a part of that. And at that time, it was 17 weeks of weekends to go and train with them. And I would guess it's probably similar now, but it was a it was a big investment of time.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

I just think it's incredible that there are volunteers, people who give up their time and also I would imagine have to do a lot of deep reflection because in those 17, I'm just going to project a bit, but I imagine in those 17 weeks, you have to do a lot of think about a lot of things and sit with feelings you never realized you had before. Yeah, I wanted to say to everyone who not just volunteers at Lifeline, but there's a whole bunch of services out there. We live it it is often easy to listen to the news, to scroll on your phone and think, oh my god, people are fucking dreadful. But that's actually not the case. People are kind, there are people out there who volunteer for all sorts of things. Look, and they are trying to be helpful, thank God. Yeah, um, they are trying to be helpful, and I'm just you know, you can rely on the kindness of strangers if you need to, and that that's something that I'm learning to do. So I wanted to just say thank you for becoming a lifeline counsellor in your past, Julia. Um, it is an an amazing thing. Thank you for having me and thank you for listening. Julia, you've been an amazing guest to have on the show. Um it's not easy to talk about these things, but I understand well, I think I understand that it's probably also really difficult to hold space for people in in this space that I'm in. So I just wanted to thank you for sharing your insight um and being with us today. Thank you, Catherine. Great to be here. Check the show notes for everything important that I've forgotten to say. Thanks so much for listening to the C word with Catherine Redden. And we'll be back next week with another amazing episode. Bye.