JULIE GOODWIN
TV’s MasterChef mum Julie Goodwin built a career doing what she loves best but, she tells Michael Sheather, the drive that helped make her a success also pushed her to the edge.
How hitting rock bottom taught me to be kind to myself
Sometimes we need to see ourselves as others see us before we can finally see the truth. For Julie Goodwin, the woman who cooked her way into our hearts as the very first winner of TV’s MasterChef, that moment of clarity came through the eyes of her loving husband, Mick, one evening in January this year.
“We were in the car, on the way home,” recalls Julie, a 49-year-old mother of three. “I’d been at the kitchen where I run my business and cooking classes and it had been a long day. I was due to begin back as a morning radio host in just a few days and I could feel the stress and anxiety building in me. I got into the car and I was telling Mick how I couldn’t see how I could keep going, how I could keep doing what I was doing. It was too much, too much.”
Julie’s intense distress was all too obvious. Tears were streaming down her face. She was holding her face in her hands, sobbing as she detailed all the things that she needed to do.
Though she didn’t know it, Julie had finally reached her emotional and physical tipping point. She thought she was fine. She thought she just needed a few minutes to get herself together. But Mick, Julie’s partner since they were teenagers, knew that time was the one ingredient his wife no longer possessed, and that she was teetering on the precipice of a psychological catastrophe.
“Mick pulled the car over to the side of the road,” says Julie. “He looked over at me and said softly, ‘I need to take you to the hospital’. I was stunned and said: ‘I don’t want to go to the hospital. I want to go home’. He said, in the softest voice he could, ‘I am not equipped to deal with the things that you are saying to me right now. You need to see someone who can help you but right now, that isn’t me.
“So, Mick drove me to the hospital. I kept saying I didn’t want to go, that it was an overreaction and that I would be all right. But thankfully Mick didn’t listen. He took me to the emergency room at Gosford Hospital on the
NSW Central Coast, where we live. They took me into an examination room and sent a psychiatrist in to see me. And then I fell apart.”
Julie Goodwin is a rarity in the Australian media landscape. She owns and runs her own cookery school, Julie’s Place, on the Central Coast north of Sydney. She is an author, a celebrity and appears regularly in magazines (including, of course, our very own The Australian Women’s Weekly) across the country. Until earlier this year, she was the host of a morning radio show. And she’s a devoted wife and mum to three grown sons. For years, Julie’s family and friends have looked at everything she has achieved and wondered how she found the energy and the determination to do it all with such grace and style.
But the unfortunate truth is she didn’t have boundless reserves of energy. Underneath that smiling facade, Julie Goodwin was barely keeping it together. She was, and remains, one of millions of Australians who struggle with acute depression and anxiety, much of it brought on by an inbalance in brain chemistry and a combination of self-doubt, over commitment, peer pressure and an inability to say no.
It’s a malady affecting three million Australians – one in eight of us. And, as Julie knows, it’s an illness that strikes with such suddenness and savagery that it can change your life in an instant.
The day after Mick drove her to hospital, Julie admitted herself to a psychiatric ward for examination and recovery. Again, she didn’t want to go. In fact, she tried to argue that she didn’t have time to go because she had so much to do. But in the end, the doctor insisted that she needed supervision and effective medication to swing her life around. Doctors expected Julie to stay in the ward for two to three weeks. She remained there for six weeks.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” Julie says. “It was so surreal. I was sitting in a hospital bed saying to myself, how on earth did I end up here? How did I go from being a business owner and a radio host, contributing member of my community, to being an inpatient at a psychiatric unit? I just couldn’t get my head around it.”
Yet the signs were there. Julie says that she experienced several bouts of anxiety during her life, but she has always pushed against it.
“I have experienced it before,” she says. “It hasn’t been a constant companion, but I have been through it at certain stages when I was younger. But I was really reluctant to get it diagnosed. I suppose I didn’t want that to be my story. I didn’t want that to define me. I didn’t want to give it that energy. I just wanted to carry on – my life was always up, up and away we go.”
It was an attitude that was ingrained in her as a child. She was brought up by parents who had lived through the Great Depression. Stoicism was a valued attribute, not a failing.
“A strong work ethic was valued and looked on as something to be respected,” says Julie. “So, when things in my life became difficult, I would cling to those values. To me, the harder I worked the better I was. If I could just keep that up, then everything would be fine. I would be fine.”
So, when the opportunity came to be a morning host on a local radio station four years ago, Julie jumped at the chance. It was a job she came to love, but the obscenely early starts robbed her of cherished time with her family.
“I can see now that it was the start of a long downhill slide,” says Julie.
“It was a radical change of lifestyle. It took me more than a year to get my sleep patterns right. I was getting up
“I just wanted to carry on, my life was always up, up and away we go.”
“I couldn’t keep the balls in the air any longer; something had to change.”
just after four each morning. I had to go to bed early and as such it took me out of my family life. I didn’t get to spend time with Mick or my three boys except for in the evening. I rarely saw anyone in the morning.”
On top of that, Julie was juggling her business – another full-time job. “I was running from the radio studio in the morning to the kitchen for a full day of business and by the time it was mid-afternoon, my cogs were grinding,” she says. “I found I just couldn’t get things done. I couldn’t keep up the pace, no matter how hard I tried. In the end, my business didn’t thrive in the way it should. It was okay, but I felt I couldn’t put the right energy into it.”
She was on a downward spiral. “I hated myself for not being able to enjoy things that I should have loved doing,” she says. “I would get up in the morning and go to the studio but being on air for three hours drains you in a way that you can’t imagine if you haven’t done it.
“I saw a doctor and got some medication and that worked for a couple of months. But it didn’t last. I felt like the medication just stopped working. I found that I couldn’t laugh or smile. I would laugh while I was on air but at home, I was lifeless. I found I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t physically make tears. But then it all caved in and I couldn’t stop crying.”
Her resilience was slowly being ground down by constant pressure. By the end of last year, Julie was at a pivotal point. She decided to leave radio behind. It was difficult but a decision she felt was in her own best interests.
“It was a very emotional decision,” she recalls. “I loved working with my colleagues and especially my on-air partner, but the simple truth was that I couldn’t keep all the balls up in the air any longer; something had to change.”
She tried to make the transition as easy as possible for the radio station, giving them plenty of time to find a replacement. At the end of year Christmas party, Julie announced to her audience that she was leaving the show but would continue on air in the New Year before finishing at Easter.
But, as most Australians will never forget, December was a month that was fraught with disaster and tension. The combined effects of drought and summer bushfires wrought havoc across the nation, claiming lives and destroying hundreds of properties.
“I worked at the kitchen right up until Christmas,” says Julie. “I had functions and events booked right through that period. My parents live on the south coast of NSW and they were cut off by the fires. We had planned to visit them for Christmas, but we had to cancel. Mick and I had also planned a holiday together, but we had to call that off. All these things were stacking one on top of the other in my life.
“I went from feeling constantly worried to feeling like I was physically sick. And I was physically ill. Our extended family suffered a bout of gastro. Everyone else got over it in a couple of days but for me it went on for weeks. I was shaking so much I couldn’t feed myself properly. I couldn’t bring food to my mouth, even with a fork.
“I developed ulcers inside my mouth which made eating very uncomfortable. I began to think that I had something seriously wrong with me. And, of course, there was something wrong. It was my physical body reacting to my mental state. I wasn’t sleeping. I was exhausted but I couldn’t sleep, and my body was breaking down. Obviously, my immune system had been ground down to nothing. It was as if my brain had decided that, since you’re not listening to what I am telling you, I will spread the distress through your entire body so you have to pay attention.” By this time, Julie was frightened of what was happening to her. But she was also ashamed. She hid her feelings from her family as much as she could. “I didn’t want anyone to know,” she recalls. “I was still under that spell of, if I can’t make my life work with everything that I have going for me, then I’m the one at fault. I am the problem. I felt like a failure. But I kept getting up and going to work. I was saying to Mick and other people in my life that I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing, but I couldn’t see a way to stop. It was a circular argument. I was trying to be logical and work through it all. The idea of letting people down, of saying no to charities, of saying I can’t help you, that’s just not part of who I am. But at the same time, I couldn’t keep going. And then I hit the wall and Mick took me to the hospital. And thank goodness he did.”
Julie admits that she hasn’t allowed herself to think too much about what might have happened if Mick hadn’t been as decisive as he was that night.
“I think I was as close to a complete mental breakdown as you can get and still be alive,” she says. “I haven’t let myself contemplate that night too closely because it’s actually frightening. I never consciously thought about not being alive or not wanting to be alive. I just couldn’t figure out how to keep going. I just couldn’t see it, just couldn’t figure it out.”
Indeed, she couldn’t see anything ahead but an endless spiral downward into the abyss. Instead of excitement, she felt failure. Instead of passion, she felt exhausted. Instead of commitment, she felt lost. Yet, like someone who grabs a live wire, she couldn’t let go.
Today, Julie is a much calmer person. She is at home, her business in hiatus like most of the country because of the coronavirus pandemic.
She is grateful for the love of her family and friends, and especially for the support of her three boys: Joe, 24, Tom, 23, and Paddy, 21. “My beautiful boys,” Julie says. “I didn’t want to burden them with my worries at the time. I was never fully open with them about it, so when I went into hospital it was a terrible shock for them.
“But they couldn’t have been more beautiful and more supportive of me, telling me how proud they were of me, sending me funny jokes to brighten my day when I was in the psych ward, visiting and checking in on me. I was so proud of the way they stepped up. And I am grateful to them, too.
“It was difficult because I’m their mum. I’m not the one who’s supposed to need support. I’m the one supposed to be doing the nurturing, not needing it. If I’m telling the truth, I still feel ashamed of what happened. Logically, I know I shouldn’t, but the feeling’s still there.”
“I’ve always wanted to live my life in a way that uplifts, to give support to people who aren’t as well off as you. When you end up on the other side of that equation, it’s a shock that goes all the way to the core of your being.
“I used to have a vindictive inner monologue. If I cut myself in the kitchen or burned myself, then I’d say, ‘You idiot, look what you’ve done’. Actually, that’s mild. I’d be vicious and speak to myself in ways I wouldn’t use on my worst enemy. I’ve learned your inner voice is very powerful. I’ve also learned strategies to turn that into positive energy.”
She’s now on medication that’s effective. And she tries to exercise regularly. Before the virus shut it down, she was swimming twice a week in a local pool and going to the gym three times a week. That’s all a little difficult now. But she and Mick have set up a gym in the backyard.
“I managed to get some wonderful help from a set of very compassionate and understanding doctors who really know what they’re talking about,” says Julie. “One of the reasons I wanted to speak out about my experience is to help dispel some of that shame people feel about mental illness. I hope that people will see it’s okay to reach out and ask for help. There’s no shame in it.
“I’ve also realised I need to be my own friend. Now, I must be a mother to myself, even though I have a beautiful mother. I must speak to myself in those warm and nurturing tones.
“I meditate as I go to sleep. When the anxiety strikes, and there are times it does, I stop and concentrate. I call Mick and he talks me down. I think about something else, something positive. Then it’s passed and I can breathe again.
“I’ve always had a pride in my work ethic. I’ve always thought of myself as strong and capable. But I’m not going to take that as a point of pride anymore. That’s going to be my red flag. When you’re a busy person then you always find yourself busy, but I had it dialled so high for so long that I just burned out. I won’t let that happen again.” That said, Julie says she’s well on the road to recovery. “With the help of the medication, and with the coping strategies my doctors have armed me with, I am feeling much better.
“I was working way too much before and now, with the coronavirus situation, I’m not working at all. I’ve closed my kitchen doors for the time being. Life is always a feast or a famine, isn’t it? But that’s okay. I’ll keep myself busy at home. I’ll sharpen up my business plan. I’ll keep working on being a friend to myself and get ready for when we can all get back to work.” AWW
“I hope that people will see it’s okay to ask for help.”
If this story raises issues for you, help is available through Lifeline (13 11 14) or Beyond Blue (beyondblue.org.au)