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Things worth knowing before you call anyone

Plain writing about grief, change, belonging and how counselling actually works in Australia. No listicles, no five steps to inner peace. Just the things people ask me, answered properly.

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Counsellor, psychologist or psychiatrist: who does what in Australia

Three job titles, endlessly confused, and the difference actually matters when you are deciding who to call. The plain version, including the parts that send some people away from me.

5 March 2026 · 6 minute read

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Three cards side by side in different colours, one for each profession

Everything I have written

Roughly one a fortnight. The dashed cards are still being written. If there is something you wish someone had written, tell me and I will probably write it.

Flat bands of muted colour with one narrow line of warm light across them

Understanding it

How do I know if I am depressed?

What depression looks like from the inside, the principle most of the recovery rests on, and the techniques that actually shift it.

7 min read Stepping stones that wander up and back rather than climbing in a line

Grief and change

The five stages of grief, and what actually happens instead

Where they came from, why they were never about bereaved people, and a model that fits what grief really does.

6 min read Concentric rings around a point of light, each ring with a gap in it

Change

I feel stuck in life and I do not know how to get out of it

Stuck is rarely a motivation problem. It is usually one of four things underneath, each with a different way out.

6 min read A night sky with one lit window and a single looping line

Anxiety

How to stop overthinking at night

Why your mind picks two in the morning, and the techniques that actually interrupt the loop.

6 min read Two speech shapes in different colours, overlapping where they meet

Belonging

Counselling in your first language: why it changes what you can say

There is a version of yourself that only exists in the language you were a child in, and it can go quiet for years.

6 min read Dusk over still water, an empty chair and one light still on across the bay

Grief and change

Grief has no timeline: when everyone else has moved on and you have not

On the second weight people carry, which is usually the belief that they should be further through it by now.

6 min read

Grief and change

When a relationship ends: the questions underneath the practical ones

The paperwork is one thing. Working out who you are now, if you are not that, is the part nobody schedules time for.

Planned

Belonging

Still feeling like a visitor: belonging after you have moved countries

You have built a whole life here. Why does part of you still feel like it is waiting to go home?

Planned

Teenagers and family

When your teenager stops talking to you

What is usually going on, what tends to make it worse, and when it is worth bringing someone else in.

Planned