Episode 4 — Brooke

EPISODE FOUR: “BROOKE — WALKING ALONG THE PIXELS”

NARRATION

Hey there. Just a serious warning that this episode contains stories of emotional and sexual abuse, pedophilia, suicidal ideation, and a broader discussion about trauma and the MeToo movement. We think this is a really important story to tell, but maybe skip to the next one if you think it could bring up some stuff for you. We’ve also changed one of the names in this story to protect the others involved.

BROOKE

(reading) “My first sexual encounter was at 13. It wasn't physical in that sense. I wasn't touched by another person. They weren't there in the room with me and couldn't hold me down to force me into an act. Yet I was forced in a sense. I was too young, too low in self-esteem. I was being consistently told by friends and schoolmates around me how fragile I looked; how embarrassing it must be to have a flat chest; how much of a child I looked; at an age where wanting to be recognised and considered attractive to those who you were attracted to becomes a major focus.”

music: low drone, heavy weight

NARRATION

That’s Brooke. She’s 28, studying media and communications at Swinburne, and what you just heard is part of a letter that she wrote to herself a couple of years ago in order to help her process some of her experiences.

But we want to begin her story back at the start. Over fifteen years ago…

BROOKE

Growing up, I felt pretty anxious about myself. Like, I was pretty skinny and small, and I sort of felt like something wasn't right with me. And then people would bring it up all the time and like mention, you know, like, “oh, you're so small”. And like even one of my friends toward the end of junior school, she would bring up that, like, I don't have any boobs. And like, you know what guys would like me and that kind of thing. Yeah, sort of, like started seeing myself in a way that was like, I'm not good enough. And guys aren't gonna like me, and everyone's gonna see me as someone who’s weak and fragile.

NARRATION

So let me try to set the scene for you: it’s 2004. We were listening to Evanescence, The Black Eyed Peas and non-ironically, Shannon Noll. Mean Girls came out, Port Adelaide won the grand final and tiny handbags were a vibe, the first time round. And although Facebook was invented that year, it wasn’t a thing. There was no real social media like in the way we have it today. There were no smart phones, so the only way to access the internet, was to be sitting in front of a computer, maybe in your family living room.

music: computer tech, synth pop

SFX: keyboard tapping, mouse clicking

This era was the wild west of the internet. There were chat rooms and forums. Kind of like Reddit, but with a less specific, more general chat vibe. And it was on one of these forums that 13-year-old Brooke spent a lot of her time.

BROOKE

Yeah, and I was on there for a few months, and then somehow just ended up getting into this group. And sort of started making friends on there like posting a lot.

I made friends from, like Canada and America. Some guys were in Japan. There was a girl who was from Queensland. Like there was so many, like, different young people just connecting all in this one place.

NARRATION

Another one of these young people was 19-year-old Eli. And just to note, Eli is not his real name. He’s been given a pseudonym for legal reasons, and to protect Brooke.

BROOKE 

And yeah, he was just like, funny. And over time, me and the girl from Queensland and then another guy from the US and another young girl as well – she was about 15 – we all got into sort of an MSN chat together and became sort of like a friendship group.

NARRATION

All right, so anyone between the ages of about 25 and 40 will probably remember MSN Chat. It’s all we had before Facebook Messenger, What’sApp, and iMessage. The main difference was that you had to be logged-in to receive a message.

SFX: MSN message tone; keyboard tapping

BROOKE  

That was sort of part of the draw of being on there all the time, was the fact that you weren't getting left messages – you had to be there to receive them.

HANNAH  

I mean, I remember being on MSN and if someone I had a crush on came online, I would sign back out and sign back in.

BROOKE

Yeah, that was a common thing.

HANNAH

The classic tactic.

NARRATION

So Brooke and her new friends are all chatting on MSN. But then, pretty soon…

music: upbeat, schmaltzy, 80s vibe

BROOKE 

I don't really remember how it began, but he and I started chatting on our own in a separate chat. And then, after a few weeks or maybe a couple of months of that, it started being more like a personal connection kind of thing. Like a little bit more than friendship because I was sort of getting the impression that he liked me. And I remember not really being sure how I felt but I was excited that someone was interested in me because, you know, I hadn't expected that to happen.

It was… it sort of made me feel a little bit better about myself.

NARRATION

Then they decided to have their first faceto-face meeting, over a super-pixelated webcam.

BROOKE 

I feel bad about it, because he was a bit overweight and had like, shoulder-length hair. And I guess for someone who'd been surrounded by you know, you've got like Jeremy Sumpter – what a flashback – and Backstreet Boys, like all of those things. You have these sort of ideas of what you would like. And I kept thinking about that and being like, “no, no, like, it's not about how people look. You're just being superficial. And you're getting to know this guy and he's interested in you and you should give this a chance.”

NARRATION

They started awkwardly talking about their feelings for each other, and then made the decision to be a couple. They made an announcement to the rest of the online forum group.

BROOKE

Sort of felt like celebrities.

HANNAH 

Totally. Like the prom king and queen of early 2000s internet.

BROOKE  

Just like walking along the pixels together hand in hand.

NARRATION

Brooke was excited to tell her school friends about her new relationship, but no one seemed to care that much about the age difference.

BROOKE

You know, you just don't really think of 19-year-olds as adults when you're 13. You're like, “oh, you know, they, yeah, they can go out and do stuff and they're legal” or whatever. But I don't know, like, even talking to him at the time, he was a bit immature, and I just sort of would forget that he was older.

HANNAH  

Did you tell your parents?

BROOKE 

I did not tell my parents. Because I knew like my mum was quite conservative. She was always sort of openly uncomfortable about the internet and how dangerous it is. And you know, everyone's an axe murderer. And I didn't think that she would like it.

NARRATION

And although Eli didn’t turn out to be an axe murderer, pretty soon, Brooke’s mum’s fears would prove correct.

I’m Hannah McElhinney, and this is The Things I’ve Thought.

music: theme (medium tempo hip hop beats with piano)

SFX: keyboard tapping, MSN notifications

BROOKE  

We had certain times that I would sort of say that I'd be home and I’d come home and be there to chat with him. And sort of chat until I got tired, or I got forced off to go to bed.

NARRATION

It was young love. Despite their distance, Brooke’s feelings for Eli were just the same as any young teenager in a new relationship.

BROOKE 

He'd sort of talk about like, what he would do if he was there in a nice way. Just like you know, “I'd really love to give you a hug and go for a walk with you” and, you know, just things that, sort of, were really comforting.

NARRATION

Eli would tell Brooke that she was funny, and cute, and beautiful, and make her feel wanted and accepted.

music: ominous drones

But when the honeymoon period was over, things took on a different shade.

BROOKE 

The general rule was, as soon as I get home from school, was when I had to get straight on and talk to him. And there'd be one of like checking in, in the middle of the day. If I didn't do that he would get really stressed and anxious about it.

Because there were a couple of times where I hadn't got back in time. Or let's say that I said that I would be on at six, and it was quarter past and he'd be like, “where the hell were you? You said, you'd be here at six chatting to me. What were you doing? Who were you with?” Like asking me all of these questions and it felt like I wasn't doing what I should be doing. So that was sort of like a running theme.

NARRATION

Like so many artefacts from 2000s internet, all of Brooke’s MSN chats have been erased from the servers. Except one. Spoiler alert, Brooke and Eli aren’t together anymore. And shortly after she broke up with him they had an exchange which Brooke copied, pasted, and sent to a friend. This one chat thread is all that remains of their interactions, but in it are many examples of Eli’s abusive behaviour. I asked Brooke to read some of them out.

SFX: MSN message notification #1

BROOKE

“You just get home? Don't ignore me. Did you just get home?”

SFX: MSN message notification #2

“What? I didn't ignore you. You just spoke. I had to get milk.”

SFX: MSN message notification #1

“So did you just get home?”

SFX: MSN message notification #2

“From getting milk? Yes?”

SFX: MSN message notification #1

“I didn't expect you to be out till so late.”

SFX: MSN message notification #2

“Well, you said go on at seven.”

SFX: MSN message notification #1

“Well, I didn't expect you home this late is all. Normally you’re home well before.”

music: repetitive, spinning drones

One night in particular, my friends and I, like I was staying at this friend's house and we ended up sleeping upstairs and there were a few mattresses.

NARRATION

Brooke ended up sharing a mattress with one of her friends: a boy.

BROOKE

And, you know, you're like 13 and you have some hormones going and we like, didn’t do anything. You know, we spooned, and there was like, hands over the top of clothes and then that was it. And I felt bad and stopped, and just went to sleep. And I felt guilty about it.

So the next day I told him and then he just went off at me and said that I was cheating. And then it just became this recurring theme that I was a cheater and I was a whore and a bitch and like all of these different things that’d just come up every time he was angry after that. That like, if something made me feel bad, he would be like “well, you're not the one that got cheated on. And you're not the one who had to feel like this.” It was like none of what I said mattered after that.

SFX: MSN message notification #1

“You’re naive, shut up. You don't know what he's really like. He hides it around you.”

SFX: MSN message notification #2

“He doesn't hide anything.”

SFX: MSN message notification #1

“I can see him for what he really is. It’s all an act. You're blind to that because he's so nice to you. You love him?”

SFX: MSN message notification #2

“Yes.”

SFX: MSN message notification #1

“What? You said you didn’t! You liar! What the fuck?”

SFX: MSN message notification #2

“I didn't lie. I didn't think it was love before.”

SFX: MSN message notification #1

“You whore! Fuck you! How dare you!”

music: repetitive, spinning drones

And there were just sort of be times where he would pick at little things that I said and say that I was an idiot. And that I was naive. And that I didn't know what I was talking about,

NARRATION

Sometimes Brooke would get fed up and want to end the relationship. But Eli would threaten self-harm and even suicide if she did. Brooke was too scared not to take him seriously, so she would stay with him.

And hearing this from Brooke, really made me sit up. Having a partner threaten self-harm or suicide is something I’ve heard from others, and I get the feeling that it could be used as a manipulative technique.

I really want to address it, so I sought out someone to talk to me about it and give me some professional context.

TIFFANY

Sometimes people will threaten suicide or self-injury, to control or manipulate, because they feel like they're not getting their needs met.

NARRATION

This is Tiffany Valente. She’s a clinical psychologist at the Mind Room in Collingwood and she’s got some great practical advice on the matter. Brooke was barely a teenager, so no one could expect a person this young to know how to handle something as distressing as a boyfriend threatening suicide. But maybe you’ve found yourself in a similar situation, or maybe you will in the future, so I’m going to play you what Tiffany has to say as it’s really solid advice.

TIFFANY

We really need to step outside of that and say, “hey, like, I can see that you're in a lot of pain, but I'm not, I can't help you with that.”

Like you have to treat it seriously. You can call the police to do a welfare check to make sure that they're okay. Or you can call the ambulance to come to help you in that manner then and there. That's going to have two effects. The first one is if the person is using that as a means to manipulate and control, it doesn't work. So instead of getting you to stay in that relationship, all of a sudden they've got mental health professionals there, they've got police there, they've got to answer a lot of questions.

The second thing is that if they are in need of mental health assistance, now they’re in contact with people who actually can help them. So they're going to be talking to psychologists and maybe psychiatrists, and engage with mental health professionals, who can help them understand what's going on for them, why they’re feeling that they can't tolerate the distress and teach them some skills to tolerate that without using it as a means to manipulate or control somebody else to keep them there.

NARRATION

We’ll hear from Tiffany again later, but now back to Brooke.

So things are starting to get pretty awful and abusive in her relationship. But things are going to become even more severe. And I know I said it at the start of this episode, but I do need to warn you that the next bit contains some discussion of sexual coercion of a minor.

BROOKE 

As relationships go, you know, it starts off being cute and flirty and sort of like sweet in the beginning and kind of innocent. And then over time you want to be more intimate.

Like that was something that I'd never done before. Like I'd never kissed a boy and no one had ever, you know, expressed any interest in me. And yeah, I think it just gradually started coming through in the chat where he kind of asked me about whether I'd masturbated before. And I hadn't and so then he would say things like, “oh, you should try it out, like you should, you know, go see what it's like.”

NARRATION

Pretty soon, Eli was encouraging Brooke to use her webcam to take graphic pictures and videos.

BROOKE 

By this time, I was probably about 14. And I mean, I'm 28 now and I'm still quite youthful looking. And so, yeah, seeing photos of myself then, was like, “holy shit”. Like, “you are a child.” Yeah. It's pretty fucked.

NARRATION

The real insidious nature of abuse is that it’s often covert, gradual, and manipulative. I think that maybe sometimes people have an image of abuse as always being a domineering aggressor and a cowering victim. But often, as in Brooke’s experience, abuse occurs because the survivor is convinced it is something they want, that they enter into willingly.

BROOKE

It was not things that I would instigate. I mean, initially, it was exciting and I felt empowered. You know, “this is what adults do.” And you know, “someone wants me to do these things because they find me attractive.” And then as time went on, there would be more things that I just was not getting comfortable with. Like, things that made me feel shameful, and uncomfortable, and I didn't want to do them, but I didn't want to be disappointing.

He wouldn't say it outright that, you know, you have to do these things. But it would just come across slowly. And if I said, “oh, I don't know if I want to do that.” He would just sort of slowly chip away at it until I said, “okay.”

music: synth strings; drones

NARRATION

By the time Brooke decided to end the relationship, she had been with Eli for 18 months. Once it had started, the abuse never abated.

BROOKE 

It seems like it should be so easy to leave, because you can just sever this connection. You can just delete them. They can't get to you. But you've invested so much emotion, and so much time, and there's this other person on the end. And it felt like making someone be ignored and cutting someone out was just as abusive.

And then, after trying to sort of break things off, over a week, I finally just said, like, “I don't want to do this anymore, like, you scare me and I don't want to be part of this.” And he didn't take it very well.

SFX: MSN notification #1

“You can't do this Brooke. I'll even make copies of all the pictures and movies.”

SFX: MSN notification #2

“You said you didn't have them anymore.”

SFX: MSN notification #1

 “When did I say that? I don't like having to threaten you. But know this: I'll only do it if you go further with this.”

 NARRATION

It turned out to be an empty threat. And so, Brooke was able to get clear of the relationship. She felt free, she felt relieved, she felt like she could do anything without guilt or fear.

 music: cautiously hopeful; like an 80s love song

 Being young, Brooke was soon dating another boy. This one, her own age. And although things started out nicely – again – the relationship soon soured with mind games and a need to make Brooke responsible for his feelings. And then the next relationship after that followed a similar pattern: Brooke was made to feel like her views and ideas were stupid and worthless and second to his. And then the next relationship after that, and the one after that.

BROOKE  

I've thought about it heaps of times about why that would continually be something that would turn up in my relationships. And I guess the only thing that I can think of is that like, it was familiar. Maybe there's just something in the way that they act in the beginning that then I would just encourage or… Yeah, I don't know. It's confusing.

But when I finally did have a relationship with someone that was actually really good. Like, he was supportive and communicative and really lovely. That went on for a while, but somehow by the end of it, he was frustrating to me and it was almost boring in comparison to everything else. Like, I’d been through so many dramatic relationships and suddenly you have someone who just wants to be there for you and just wants to support you and you don't really know how to do that, because it's not normal.

music: dark industrial drones

For many years after that, I would just feel low all the time. Like, I felt I wasn't worth anything. The more that snowballed, the worse I got. And so then after, maybe like 10 years later, I was having breakdowns, like nervous breakdowns at work. And I couldn't explain why.

And there would be days and days where I’d just spend most of it in bed. And, you know, I would not really go see friends. I would just sort of not look after myself, like hygiene and everything. And like I was, yeah, having suicidal thoughts that I just couldn't stop. Like, I would be trying to tell myself that I didn't feel like that and I didn't want to. But, you know, I’d be standing on a train platform and sort of think, “oh, I wonder what would happen if I did that.” And that just seemed so scary. Because I didn't want to, but it just kept coming into my head.

NARRATION

Brooke started seeing a psychologist and was diagnosed with depression. She was put on medication and found talking useful. Things, ever so gradually, were getting better. But the way that trauma works is that you can be coasting along, everything fine, and then something happens that pushes you completely off course.

Remember clinical psych Tiffany Valente from earlier? She works with trauma a lot and has this analogy, where all of our memories are stored like balls in buckets. In one bucket are white balls – our regular memories. Good memories and others that aren’t necessarily emotionally charged. And in another bucket are red balls – our traumatic memories. And they don’t mix with the white balls.

TIFFANY 

So anytime that you're triggered, anything that reminds you of the traumatic event, that red ball is going to be activated.

NARRATION

For Brooke, that activation came in 2017 as she was scrolling through social media and read about Harvey Weinstein, and the birth of the MeToo movement.

BROOKE

Gradually, they were just sort of things coming up on my Instagram feed. People sort of putting the hashtag out there, expressing themselves. And then more and more articles came up. And so I started following the stories a bit more, until I read this sort of reaction, opinion piece that this girl had written. And suddenly I was reading about myself.

And I didn't realise that I felt like that and just suddenly, I was taken back to being 13, not understanding what I was doing. And suddenly, I had more context for my relationship. That it was based on power, that someone who is older than me, who should have known better than me, and should not have been taking advantage of a young girl, was just, it was normal and it was seen as fine, just because that was sort of the feeling at the time. But it wasn't. And I'd never come to terms with that.

NARRATION

For all the benefit that’s come from the MeToo movement, it’s important to remember that Brooke’s experience of it is not unique. Not in the slightest. Tiffany Valente, again.

TIFFANY  

I think there was that move that the Metoo movement was this really empowering thing for women. That were coming out and talking about their stories. And a lot of women felt that, well they felt moved that they should be part of that discussion. The fact that it was there in their eye line all the time, reading about it, and hearing about it.

I guess if we understand the way that the brain works, that's going to be really traumatising, really triggering. So it’s going to bring up a lot of their own stuff.

NARRATION

I think it might be important to take a step back here and get a bit neurological with what Brooke is experiencing. Remember those red balls? Well when she read that article and was exposed to all those MeToo posts, Brooke’s brain started accessing those red balls. And because they’re stored separately from those white balls, it was like Brooke was experiencing those traumatic memories not as events in the past, but as something happening right here, right now.

But it goes further than that. Tiffany says that our brains receive information through two pathways: one is really quick, and the other takes a bit longer. That quick way – that’s the reactive pathway. It’s important because it alerts our brain quickly about any kind of danger. It’s like a smoke alarm.

TIFFANY 

So the best way to explain this is if you're at home and maybe your sibling is playing a joke on you, and they like sort of jump out and scare you. Without even consciously being aware of what's happened, your body will go into fight or flight mode: your heart will increase, you'll jump back, you might scream.

NARRATION

And then what happens is that same information – your sibling scaring you in Tiffany’s example – finishes making its way along the longer pathway. The scenic route. This is the conscious part of our brain: the part that thinks things through before reacting.

TIFFANY

So that kind of regulates the emotion and is able to step in and go “well, hang on a moment. Is this, you know, an intruder attacking me or is this my brother, you know, playing a practical joke on me?”

NARRATION

When something traumatic happens, and those red balls are accessed, the quick pathway goes into overdrive, and the slower pathway shuts down. So the brain gets stuck in a loop thinking that we’re in immediate danger, and our rational thought goes out the window.

TIFFANY  

Instead of going through life in a responsive way where we first react and then we respond, we calm down, and we go on through life as usual, we're stuck in this reactive state. And that's bringing back thoughts, images, memories of that traumatic experience, and it feels like we're living that experience now.

NARRATION

In Brooke’s case, she was completely thrown by the sudden realisation of her experience.

BROOKE

I quit uni two days later. I stayed in my bed. I didn't know what to do. And I finally contacted my friends who had been with me like during the relationship at the time – they were still my friends, and still are now. And I sat them down, and I tried to talk to them about it. Because I suddenly realised that I hadn't addressed it. They didn't know what had been happening. And suddenly I sort of realised why I'd felt so awful for so long.

music: solemn solo piano

NARRATION

In an effort to try and deal with what had happened, Brooke decided to use a common technique to help process trauma: writing letters. She wrote a letter to herself, and also one to Eli. Brooke had no plans to send them, but as she sat down to write, it became an outpouring of her experiences and her feelings that ultimately helped her take stock of everything that had happened.

SFX: keyboard tapping

BROOKE

(reading) “There’s little things that permeate your life. Small acceptances of behaviour that gradually pile up and grow. More and more you allow these things to pass and they become acceptable, passible standards. It wasn't really their fault. I should have had more of a backbone. I should have said something. I should have stopped myself. I wasn't clear enough. Nobody else was around so I didn't know what to do.

“I still don't think it was that serious.

“Unfortunately, I don't feel proud of myself. I still feel guilty, frail and weak for something that I could neither control, nor understand. I want to reconstruct my entire being. My experience is hand-in-hand with the depression that plagued me ever since, in small ways that couldn't be overtly recognised by anyone, including myself.”

music: pensive, self-reflective piano

HANNAH  

What would your advice be to 13-year-old you?

BROOKE 

I would say that “you don't have to take care of everyone. And before everything else, you need to pay attention to how you're feeling and listen to that. Because it's valid. So if someone's treating you in a way, that isn't, that doesn't seem right or that makes you feel uncomfortable, or whether it seems out of place, that you step back and think about that, and whether it's worth it.”

NARRATION

It’s two years since Brooke accessed those red balls, and she’s doing a lot better. Reliving the trauma opened some flood gates that has allowed her to deal with her experiences in positive ways. She’s been seeing a psychologist, she’s on medication, is in a supportive relationship, and has found Swinburne has really helped her manage her challenges and stay on track to achieving her goals.

BROOKE

And then the massive one was when I was in a pretty bad place with depression earlier this year, I went to see…ah, what's his name? He does sort of like the unit like study counselling kind of thing.

NARRATION

The guy Brooke’s trying to remember is John Schwartz,who is one of the Academic Development Coordinators.

BROOKE

This really great guy in the AS building on the fourth floor, helped me out with… I was unsure what I was doing. I felt like I was failing my subjects and having trouble with mental health and like I couldn't concentrate on study and everything.

And then he gave me this sheet, it’s called like Pomodoro Technique. And that actually really helped. Like I emailed him being like, “oh, I think I want to drop out of uni.” And I left there being like, “oh, no, I can definitely continue on and finish my course.” So that was really cool.

NARRATION

So the Pomodoro Technique is a time management strategy where you sit down to work or study and set the timer for 30 minutes.

BROOKE

And when the time is up, you get up, you go outside, you do a couple of minutes of exercise, have a drink of water and you've got like 10 minutes of a break. As long as you get up and get away from your study area and move and let… sort of like reinvigorate yourself. And then come back and do a 30 minute chunk of study again.

NARRATION

Brooke has also been really proactive in taking responsibility and implementing lifestyle hacks and strategies for better mental health.

BROOKE 

I still have days where I get sad and thinking about this brings up some old emotions. It's been difficult. But for the most part, I'm moving forward, and my mental health is better than it's ever been. And it's amazing. I've never felt like a proper person before and I'm finally feeling like a person.

When I'm on good days, I try and make sure that the fridge is stocked and that I have foods that are really easy to make or prepare or access that are still really healthy and empowering for my health. Because as soon as I get into those low periods, I'm not going to want to do anything.

I contact friends. And, like, let someone know when I'm feeling pretty shitty. And it can be as simple as distracting me with movies or getting me out of the house, and getting me to do the things that I need to be doing.

And the more of that that happens, the better I can be. And it's looking like a really positive change.

music: theme

NARRATION

The biggest possible thanks to Brooke for sharing her story. I’m in awe of her strength. Thanks also to Tiffany Valente at the Mind Room in Collingwood.

If you or someone else you know has experienced a traumatic event, help is close by.

If you’re in urgent need of assistance, contact Triple 0, Lifeline on 131 114, or the Suicide Help Line on 1300 651 251.

At Swinburne, students can access a GP, and a team of mental health clinicians, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists. Call 9214 8483 to learn more and book a free appointment.

There’s also an after-hours crisis phone service that Swinburne run that is available every day of the year, even weekends and public holidays, 5pm to 9am. Call 1300 854 144 or SMS 0488 884 145.

We’ll chuck all this info into the show notes

You may also like to go and do something nice for yourself, like read a book, get a Slurpee or go swimming.

If you or someone you know is in need of help, please reach out. There are no stronger people out there than those that can put up their hand and say they need help.

Okay, that’s it. Stay safe and know you’re supported.

The Things I’ve Thought is a Swinburne University of Technology initiative, produced by Sam Loy and me, Hannah McElhinney, with sound design and mixing by Tiffany Dimmack, and executive produced by Clare Monte, May Ling Yong, Douglas Pope, and Kate Montague.

Special thanks to Jonathan Lang in the Swinburne media department, and Jess O’Callaghan.

NEXT EPISODE PROMO:

NARRATION

On the final episode of The Things I’ve Thought…

music: hip hop

CHRISTINE

So the triage workers are mental health nurses, and their job is to have a talk about what are the kind of things that are troubling you. And then to make a bit of a plan of action.

NARRATION

Sometimes the things I’ve thought mean I need some help.

CHRISTINE

Lots of students worry they’re going to cry when they come in and often when I say “how can I help you?” they do burst into tears. That’s why we have the tissue box here. And I say to them, “that’s why we have the tissue box here.”

music: theme fades in

NARRATION

From Swinburne University of Technology, a story about the free help and support available to students on campus.

The Things I’ve Thought, exploring how our minds sometimes try to sabotage us, why it happens, and what to do if yours does. Available wherever you get your podcasts.