Posts

The ebb & flow of missing loved ones!

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Today is Father’s Day in Australia and I miss my dad more than I can explain. Grief is strange like that. Some days it’s sharp and suffocating, other days it softens and lets me breathe.  Sometimes I see a dad and daughter out together and it makes me smile, sometimes it makes me cry. Sometimes it does both at once and it’s fucking confusing. I think a lot of people don’t know how to hold space for grief.  They’ll say things like, “Your dad wouldn’t want you to be sad. He’d want you to move on.” & sure, I’ve moved forward.  I haven’t stopped living my life.  I’ve just changed the way I live it.  But moving forward doesn’t mean the sadness vanishes.  It doesn’t mean I don’t miss his voice, his hugs, the way he always took life on the chin no matter what he was facing. What people don’t always get is that grief is not a one direction only street.  It’s messy, it’s unpredictable and it’s full of contradictions.  You can feel joy and ache in the...

5 Things about Mental Health we don’t talk about enough!

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‘Mental health’ is a phrase we hear all the time, but what we rarely see is the messy, unphotogenic side of it.  The part that doesn’t get all dressed up, looking pretty for Instagram.  It’s not always therapy rooms, tidy diagnoses, or inspirational quotes on pastel coloured backdrops.  It can be that though and for some people it has to be, but for so many of us, it’s the invisible stuff.  Sometimes it’s staring at your toothbrush like it’s a weapon of mass destruction.  Sometimes it’s crying in the shower because washing your hair feels like the hardest thing in the world.  Sometimes it’s cancelling plans, switching off socials, or avoiding texts because the thought of one more interaction makes your skin crawl. The last month & a bit for me has been heavy.  Maybe it’s the leftover grief from July. It’s like the whole month is a weight I carry in my chest.  This year, August felt like the hangover from that, or maybe the grief just seeped fu...