So here’s a run down…
About me
My name is Martine and I’m passionate about mental health and raising awareness about different types and experiences that people can have with their own mental health and the mental health of their loved ones or out in the community.
My immediate family includes my husband, a daughter, 2 sons, and 2 rescue dogs, Frankie (pug x poodle), Kevin (Maltese x Shih Tzu), and a ‘Houdini’ Murray short-necked turtle called Ninja. I’m a huge animal lover, I love any creatures, especially dogs!
I’m a bereaved mum, my first son Finn had a life-limiting illness & died in 2006 aged 7 months and 7 days. Since then, I have been involved in some way or another helping other bereaved parents with their loss.
I am an introvert by nature. It’s how I roll! I’m working on being more outgoing but it’s a work in progress! Memes are my love language. I love any type of meme, especially ones related to mental health and animals. I hate awkward small talk. I feel like I don’t know how to answer your questions ‘correctly’, then my anxiety kicks in so I end up concentrating so hard on my answers that I forget what the question was.
My aim for MWCo. is two pronged. Firstly it is to run programs for people like myself who fall through the cracks in the system in regards to not being eligible for funding from the government or NDIS therefore not being able to access programs to help with their mental (and perhaps their physical health as well), it is also aimed at people who are interested in learning more about their their mental health by running events in different areas by professionals in their area of expertise.
What else…
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My working background is I’m a former primary school teacher and registered nurse, both jobs that require a lot of mental load, and for me, the combination of my own mental health, what was happening in my life, and my family’s life plus my full on teaching job lead to both a physical and emotional breakdown in 2016 and again in 2018.
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I’ve been off work ever since 2018 and am now medically unable to work at the moment due to my mental health. I became very physically unwell in mid-2016 and I believe it was my body’s way of saying ‘If you don’t stop, then I’ll shut it down for you’ leading to an extended time off work and eventually a decline in my mental health coinciding with the 10th anniversary of our son’s death in 2016. This led to my being diagnosed with Complex PTSD from the death of our son from a life-limiting illness in 2006, major depression, generalised anxiety disorder, and OCD. It’s the driving force behind me starting up Mental Wellness Co.
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I want to raise awareness and create conversations to break down the stigma and misunderstandings around mental health.
About Mental Wellness Co.
My vision for Mental Wellness Co. is to create a space that allows people of all ages to come together and feel comfortable sharing or just listening to people’s stories, thoughts, and experiences by running events for the community around mental health and wellness.
Mental ‘Wellness’ instead of illness is the term I use because it takes away some of the stigma associated with mental illness. One of my goals with MWCo. is to ‘spread awareness, not stigma’, and by changing the language we use, it empowers people to make their mental health a priority, like they do their physical health and MWCo. is there to help educate them on how to do so.
The second arm of Mental Wellness Co. is creating workshops and programs with other like-minded people and Healthcare Professionals and delivering them at a low cost for people who (like myself), have a diagnosed mental illness but (like myself) don’t receive any funding from the government but don’t have any ‘extra’ money to spend on projects or activities to benefit them and their mental health. I’m in the process of completing my Not For Profit paperwork at the moment so I can apply for grants to make this a reality. There are no other organisations in the Geelong community and region that offer this type of program for people who don’t qualify for no government funding. We’re the people who fall through the cracks. I’m determined to make a change.
Our first Mental Wellness Co event
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My first event I’m holding is an event in October with Sally and Imogen from ‘The Good Mourning Podcast’ which a very successful podcast that that has just launched its 7th season & they are also published authors with their first book ‘Good Mourning: Honest Conversations about Grief and Loss’. The event itself is going to be a Q&A hosted by the wonderful Jo Betz, who is a local author and a previous featured guest on the podcast with Sal and Im after the death of her husband Craig to an asthma attack in their home which left her a widow with a young daughter. I’m shamelessly taking advantage of their friendship by having these ladies chat together so people can see their natural conversation flow and hear their thoughts and insights into various topics and experiences.
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Grief awareness has now come onto my radar again as I recently lost my beloved Dad 10 months ago which has opened up a whole new chapter of grief for me. I was very close to my Dad as he was unwell for several years and I helped care for him through his illnesses along with my Mum. It’s been a very difficult & a whole different experience to losing my son.
The expectation that I should just move on from the death of my Dad and people not checking in on how I was going because he was older (78) and had multiple health battles I should be ‘over it’ where in reality, I’m still deeply grieving my Dad and I miss him terribly.
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Sally Douglas and Imogen Carn are grief educators, co-hosts of the podcast Good Mourning, and authors of Good Mourning: Honest Conversations About Grief and Loss.
They’re passionate about changing how society thinks and talks about grief, Good Mourning was born from Sally and Imogen's personal experiences with loss, after both losing their mothers suddenly months apart. Having experienced the magnitude of loss firsthand and being shocked at how little society acknowledges grief, Sal and Im wondered what they could do to help make grief a topic that people talk about more openly. Hence Good Mourning was born!
We are so very lucky to get Sal and Im to come to Geelong, they’ve never come to Victoria in a professional capacity before so getting them to come to do this fundraiser for Mental Wellness Co. on behalf of Hope is a fantastic opportunity for the people of Geelong to hear their thoughts and experiences about grief and loss in a different way. the amazing work they are doing around opening up conversations about grief and loss and how they do it in a way that isn’t all doom and gloom by sharing candid conversations about grief and loss with honesty and humour
Plus they have interviewed world-leading experts, people experiencing grief, and their own experiences to talk in depth on grief, loss, trauma, and mental health, and their content is designed to educate, inspire, and support you, no matter where you are in your grief, be it 1 month or 10 years or even almost 17 years in my case.
The talk is a fundraiser for Hope Bereavement Care, a local nonprofit group in Geelong who has helped my family throughout the years after the death of our son Finn from a life-limiting illness.