Beautiful Inside · 8 July 2024
Sigourney on the Treatment Centre and Finding Purpose (Part 2)
Part two of my most personal episode. I take Georgie Abay inside my three weeks at South Pacific Private, the work that began there, and how anxiety and depression became the unlikely beginning of my purpose.
Listen to the full episode here
Welcome back. This is part two of the most soul-baring conversation I have ever had on the show, about the mental health journey that led me to a stay at South Pacific Private for anxiety and depression. If you have not heard it yet, start with part one, on career, social media and mental health struggles, where I set the scene. My lovely friend Georgie Abay, journalist and former editor of Marie Claire, did such a beautiful job interviewing me and holding the space while I talked through some very deep stuff.
Inside the treatment centre
I stayed at South Pacific Private Hospital in Curl Curl, NSW. Walking through those doors was the hardest and bravest thing I have done. I went in expecting to be fixed and came out understanding that healing is not a tidy thing. I wrote about that decision in more detail in my Marie Claire essay on checking myself into rehab for anxiety, and in this episode I let Georgie take me back there properly.
The work that began there
What surprised me most was how much of the work was not about the present at all. It was about patterns laid down long before, the stories I had been carrying without ever questioning them. I learned the language of childhood trauma and codependency, and I started to see how the two had been quietly steering my life. None of it was comfortable. All of it was necessary.
How anxiety became purpose
I did not plan for any of this to become a podcast. But the more honestly I spoke about my own struggle, the more people told me they felt the same and had never said so out loud. That is the whole reason Beautiful Inside exists. So many of us suffer in a silent vortex of emotion, convinced that asking for help makes us weak. It does not. Opening up the conversation around mental health is, I think, one of the most useful things any of us can do, and it is how I found purpose on the other side of the hardest year of my life.
If you enjoy this episode, please do not forget to rate and review it on iTunes. Your support is invaluable and helps me keep bringing you content like this.
Sigourney x
Support and resources
If you are interested in 12 step support groups for childhood trauma, you can look into Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. If you think you may be codependent and want to explore 12 step support for that, see CODA.
If this has brought anything up for you and you would like to investigate the help available, Beyond Blue and Lifeline are great places to start in Australia.
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