Before I wrote a word of One Year Out, I made a list of what I didn’t want the book to be. There were four things that scared me the most.

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1. Misrepresenting anyone.

Every character in the book is a real person. Even the ones I’ve composited or renamed. They all have their own version of the year I’m describing. I didn’t want to misrepresent the experience of another person. If a line had the potential to hurt anyone, I cut it.

2. Speaking for others.

There are people in the book who never asked to be written about. Even an accurate portrait is still my portrait. So I stayed in my own experience, described what I saw, and when I had to guess at what someone was thinking, I said I was guessing.

3. Glorifying addiction and creativity.

Addiction and art get talked about like they belong together. Addiction did not make me a better writer. It produced a handful of wacko poems no one will ever see. Everything I’ve written that’s any good, I’ve written sober.

4. Sounding self-absorbed.

Every memoirist worries about this and a full internal monologue of my thoughts and feelings would not have made for good reading. I saw the function of my point-of-view to be the observer, not to be the constant focus

In my original proposal to Folly, I wrote:

The intention behind this project is to provide a real look into the world of addiction and recovery. I hope to show how the struggles faced by people suffering with addiction aren’t so different from people who do not. I don’t want to glamourise my experience or get stuck describing the horrors of the illness. My focus is on recovery, relationships and resilience.

I think we stayed true to the intention as Emily and I edited the manuscript. It absolutely did not want the book to be an Anthony Kiedis-style tell-all, sleazy sex and war stories, on page one.

I wanted something a reader could pick up whether or not they’d ever been near a rehab, and think, oh, I understand a little better or I can relate to this.

Whether I pulled it off, we’ll find out on the 1st of August.

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It feels surreal to write that sentence.

This book started off as a master’s project that I was writing in Bali. I’d work on it in the early mornings before work, on pool loungers, in cafés, and in whatever scraps of time I could find.

At the time, I had no idea it would become an actual book.

A few years on, after editing and tinkering and adding and reshuffling, it’s finally coming to life in physical form. One Year Out will be published on 1 August 2026.

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The book itself is a collection of essays that traces one year through addiction, public rehabilitation, mental illness, recovery, and an unexpected move to Bali.

It begins with entering rehab just before my thirty-first birthday and follows: recovery meetings, psychiatric wards, friendships, rejection, grief, bad decisions and small kindnesses.

Part of the story unfolds in Bali, where recovery collides with wellness culture. Surrounded by coaches, influencers, retreats, and people searching for more, I found myself questioning what recovery actually looks like, and whether a formula for healing even exists.

The book has been described by Airini Beautrais as “Deeply sad in places but also deeply funny, One Year Out is a refreshingly honest, insightful and self-reflexive memoir in essays.”

The cover artwork is by New Zealand artist Sophie Greig. The piece is called Bitch Nose, and I loved it immediately. To me, it speaks to one of the central tensions in the book: the way people and things don’t always present as they are. The themes of vanity and appearance. The ugliness addiction can bring, even when everything looks fine from the outside.

Pre-order here

Writing this book has taken years. Publishing it feels both exciting and terrifying.

Thank you to everyone who has read drafts, listened to me talk about it, encouraged me to keep going, or supported my writing along the way.

I’m looking forward to finally sharing it with you.

Charlotte

One Year Out launches on 1 August 2026 and is available for pre-order now.

I’m sitting at my desk with very little to do. I’ve written a couple of blogs this morning and I’m waiting for feedback so I can pass them onto the next phase. I’ve checked my Instagram, all of my inboxes, I’ve looked at some old photos and made a new Pinterest board but nothing is easing the irritating feeling of boredom.

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I remember being bored a lot as a child, waiting for the school bell to ring, waiting for my parents to come out of the supermarket, waiting to be picked up from sports practice. I did all of this without a phone or tablet or headphones and I wonder what effect that had on my brain. What did I do to ease the frustration of boredom when I wasn’t watching something, listening to something, or taking in information. I remember counting the tiles on the mall floor, making things out of leaves and sticks, shaping melted candle wax and looking under rocks for worms and bugs. I looked out the window a lot and my brother and I made up silly games where we reenacted movie scenes or made up our own. We spent afternoons in the garage looking through boxes and my Dad’s tool collection. He would ride his bike up and down the footpath while he pulled me along behind him on rollerblades, holding a skipping rope.

I wonder if these moments where all we had to fill the time were ourselves and our imaginations have contributed to me being a creative adult.

There is a study by Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman (2014) that found that boring tasks could increase performance on divergent thinking tasks (which are tests of generating multiple possible ideas rather than one correct answer). Boredom seems to be useful when it pushes the mind toward curiosity and problem-solving. The broader research on boredom suggests it can:

1. Restore attention. Constant stimulation keeps the brain reacting. Boredom gives attention a break from novelty, notifications, and input. That can make deeper focus easier afterwards.

2. Encourage mind-wandering. Mind-wandering lets the brain recombine memories, images, feelings, and unfinished problems. That is often where creative connections start.

3. Increase the desire to make something happen. Boredom is uncomfortable. That discomfort can become a signal: this is not enough. The brain starts looking for novelty, challenge, or meaning. For a writer, that might become a sentence. For an artist, a painting. For a problem-solver, a new solution.

4. Support incubation. Sometimes you cannot solve a creative problem by staring directly at it. Boredom allows the problem to keep working in the background. You step away, and later the solution arrives.

5. Help you hear your own thoughts. If every empty moment is filled with scrolling, podcasts, messages, or noise, there isn’t enough time to notice your own thoughts. Boredom lets buried memories and material surface.

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I wonder what would have happened to my imagination if I’d been given a tablet or phone every time I was bored as a child. Would I have made up as many games, written as many stories, stared out the window long enough to think about ghosts and magic? Would I have read as many adventure novels or song lyrics from the back of the CD case? Would I have learned to sit with restlessness? I don’t know if I’d have the same level of creativity as an adult, because so much of it seemed to come from having nothing to do and being forced to invent a world for myself.

I work in an office and I find it overstimulating and painfully boring at the same time. I’ll never understand how people can work for eight hours straight, just plodding along consistently. I work hard and fast for an hour then I need to step back. But I can’t get out and go for a run or have a chat with my friends every second hour in the working day, so I find myself sitting around. A lot. But because of that boredom I’ve spent 30 minutes writing this Substack which means I got to practice my writing skills, think about happy memories, and create a new piece of work that I’m sharing with you. I probably wouldn’t have done it if I was allowed to watch movies all day.

I’m going to challenge myself the next time I feel bored and not try to chase the feeling away. I want to remember the things I did to entertain myself as a child which made me into the creative adult that I am today.

Note: This is in no way a criticism of parents or screen time. I don’t have children, but I imagine if I did, I’d be passing that screen over to stop my child from screaming at me in a waiting room or supermarket.

A few years ago, I stopped saying I’d never do that, I’d never do that to you, I’d never go back, I’d never pay for that, I’m never going to be that person. Every time I said it, I seemed to prove myself wrong and then feel disappointed, so I stopped.

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Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about my ins and outs for 2026. I said things like I’d never buy a house or use weight loss treatment without fully understanding why, or how I might feel if my circumstances changed. I also remember thinking I would never pay for Botox. But then I had disposable income, and some things started to bother me: pigmentation, sun damage, the fact that treatments existed and were suddenly affordable to me. So there I was, in the injectable seat, not feeling bad about it.

I’ve realised that a lot of the things I wrote off like that were things that felt out of reach. Only four months into the year, my opinions have already changed, and I feel silly for doing the ins and outs list in the first place.

Social media can make you feel as though you need a niche, a fixed self, a legible identity. You see influencers built around marathon running, intense fitness, being a mum, tradwife culture, or being child-free. I think it has made me feel that if I have an opinion on something, or want a certain kind of life, it has to become part of who I am. I’ll be 34 this year, and I’m starting to realise identity is more complicated than that.

I was vegan for a year, for example, and I really thought that would be me for the rest of my life. Then one day I got tempted by a bag of salami and realised I was craving it. Something was missing in my diet, so I slowly started eating meat again. Before that, I had been so staunch about it, so determined to prove it was not a phase, especially after my older uncle dismissed it as one at Christmas dinner. In the end, I was only making myself miserable to prove a point, to no one except myself.

I think it’s common for our whole identity to revolve around the kind of exercise we do, the way we eat, how we do our make-up, or the type of work we do. I guess that’s natural if we invest a lot of time in those things, or spend most of our time with people living in similar ways.

The risk comes when we fix ourselves into roles, when in reality life is far more fluid than that. Often the only thing stopping us from changing tack is the judgement we place on ourselves.

Nothing good comes from making decisions purely to save face.

Another thing I said I’d never do was work in an office or do a standard forty-hour week. Then I accepted a job that takes me about an hour to drive to each morning and an hour to drive home in the afternoon. I really love the stability, routine, and reliable income, but I hate spending two hours a day in the car so I can sit in an office environment that does not work for me. It makes me feel as though I’m back at high school, which is close to my worst nightmare.

At the same time, I feel trapped by the fact that it is a good opportunity and that I should be grateful. Plenty of people are unemployed, or stuck in roles that do not pay enough, and would gladly swap places with me. Because of that, I have felt hesitant, and honestly a bit embarrassed, to tell the people I was so excited to tell when I first got the job that I’m not sure about it any more.

Forcing ourselves to stay somewhere just to prove we can stick it out feels like a dated way of thinking. Gen Z probably has a better grip on this than millennials do. A lot of us still seem to have a kind of boomer hangover about not having too many jobs on your CV, not taking sick days, or hoarding annual leave so you look like a hard worker.

I’m over making the mistake of merging my choices and opinions with my identity. I’ve done it with work and I’ve done it with lifestyle. The vegan, the yoga teacher, the writer. I’ve finally learnt to notice when a season of my life has run its course. I no longer want to stay in something to the detriment of my mental or physical health just to prove a point.

There comes a moment when I start to feel agitated and off, and I know it is time to move on. At that point, I can either stay where I am, keep repeating a routine that is no longer working, and call it success because it looks consistent from the outside, or I can tolerate the discomfort of changing my mind and see what opens up.

I would rather feel silly for five minutes, and let a few people judge me for being flaky, than stay stuck in something I know is not good for me.

Today’s post is a poem I wrote at university.

I wrote this poem about Nina Simone, but really it is about craving representation. I wrote it with bipolar disorder in mind, and the shifts in form are deliberate, moving between manic intensity and flatter, heavier stretches.

Nina was a figure through which I could write about the need to see your own mind reflected somewhere outside yourself.

Paid subscribers can read the full poem below.

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Until I was diagnosed with endometriosis, I didn’t really understand what it was, I knew it had something to do with periods and pain but not much else.

I was diagnosed in March 2025 after months of severe abdominal pain, bowel issues, and a level of physical misery that kept landing me in hospital. Before that diagnosis, I had already been admitted to hospital three times within 3 months. The concern was my bowel and the hospital took that very seriously. Eventually, they did keyhole surgery to see what was causing the pain. During that surgery, they found endometriosis. A gynaecologist came in to confirm it, but instead of removing it, they closed me up. They did not remove it. They did not treat it. They found it, confirmed it, closed the incisions, and sent me back to the ward.

I was in agony. I couldn’t walk, I was passing out, my bladder stopped working. At one point there were not enough staff to help me stand up and get to the bathroom. The next morning the surgeon came to see me and told me there was nothing wrong with my bowel. I “just” had endometriosis. I would be discharged and would need to go back to my GP.

All the symptoms that had been treated as urgent when they thought the problem might be my bowel suddenly weren’t their problem and I was sent to the back of the queue. I was referred into public gynaecology and rejected as my symptoms were not severe enough.

Looking back, the signs had been there for years. Every month, I would get sick, but it wasn’t what I imagined endometriosis looked like. My periods themselves were often fairly normal but ,my face and lips would go grey, people assumed I was anaemic. I would spend days in bed, freezing cold and in so much pain. We used to call in the ‘bone fire’ and it felt like every nerve in my body was exposed.

Eventually I started having bowel obstructions for no obvious reason. I had never had bowel surgery before, there was no scar tissue, my colonoscopies came back normal, and yet I kept ending up in hospital in debilitating pain, trying to explain what was happening and being sent home with laxatives.

What makes me angry now is that this continued even after the diagnosis. Even once endometriosis was found, there still seemed to be no urgency, no link that this disease could explain the scale of what was happening in my body.

I cannot explain the relief I felt when I met Dr Janene Brown. She had read my file before I walked in. She looked at the history and told me, plainly, that I had been seriously let down and she booked me in for surgery two weeks later.

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This time, the endometriosis was removed. She took images and showed me what it looked like inside me: little dark freckles scattered across my organs. Mine was stage two so my ovaries were clear. For the first time in months, I felt like I was dealing with something real rather than trying to prove I was unwell enough to deserve help.

Even after that first surgery in March, I still did not fully understand what endometriosis was. I did not realise how broad the symptom picture could be, or how much of what I was experiencing might be tied to inflammation and the body’s wider response. I kept thinking in fragments: bowel pain, exhaustion, flare-ups, nerve pain, days where I felt like my whole system was shutting down.

It made me think about the many people who are living with endo, PCOS, Adenomyosis and all of the other understudied diseases of the uterus and ovaries. While being told, in one way or another, that what they are experiencing is normal, manageable, or not serious enough.

So I started reading, reaching out to other people with endo. I started following accounts where people spoke openly about endometriosis and women’s health, and it absolutely terrified me because the outcomes were so poor. This is where I discovered that a peer-reviewed study was done that measured the attractiveness of women with endometriosis. I feel like that speaks for itself…

I learned just how poorly served this disease has been by the medical system and by research. Years of dismissal, delayed diagnosis, people being told it is a bad period, stress, anxiety, IBS, low pain tolerance, or something they should simply push through. The health system does not value women’s pain in the way it should. It does not fund it properly, research it properly, or treat it with enough seriousness. If your symptoms fall outside the neatest, most recognisable version of illness, you can spend years trying to convince people that what is happening to you is real.

And if you cannot afford private care, or do not have insurance, you wait while your work, energy, sex life, mental health, and sense of self are eroded by something no one seems in a hurry to treat. I only had my endometriosis removed because I had private surgical insurance that my parents had kept in place since I was young. I am incredibly grateful for that, and also very aware of what it means. Without it, I do not know how long I would have been left in that state.

I am deeply grateful to the women who reached out to me and shared their own stories of diagnosis, dismissal, pain management, and navigating the system. I would have been much more lost without them. I am also deeply grateful to my surgeon. When I met her, I honestly could have cried. I remember telling her I wanted to hug her. She was nonchalant about the whole thing, she seemed slightly baffled and said “why? It’s my job.”

Competent, compassionate care should not depend on luck, family money, private insurance, or finally finding the one doctor willing to connect the dots.

What endometriosis taught me, is that there is not enough expertise and funding. Too many people are left waiting years for diagnosis or treatment. Too many are rejected outright. Too many are made to feel that what they are enduring is simply part of having a uterus.

This month, I’ll be thinking of everyone still stuck in that loop: going back to the GP, back to the emergency department, back home, back to bed, in pain.

Endometriosis Awareness Month should be more than symbolic acknowledgement. It should force a harder conversation about what kind of care is actually available, who gets access to it, and why so many people with endometriosis are still being failed by the system that is supposed to treat them.

When I’m writing a lot, I don’t read novels. I work in digital media now, so I spend my days editing and writing for commercial cleaners, wineries, plumbing, drain-laying. It’s not the type of writing you’d expect I’d enjoy, but I do. I like taking my time with a sentence, reorganising it in a way that tells a person’s story better, that might influence the person reading it, or even contribute to someone’s business.

But all of this leaves me a bit wiped out at the end of the day. I get a headache from sitting under overhead lights, flicking my eyes across three screens. When I get home, I take all my clothes off. My shoes. My socks. My bra. I soak a cotton pad with micellar water and wipe the Korean BB cream off my face. I dread making dinner and the consequent dishes, so I arrange something that can be contained to one dish or tray. I lie down on the floor with my cat after feeding him a sachet of meat.

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All of this sounds depressing. It’s not. It’s actually quite lovely: coming home, having used my brain (and been paid for it), with a sweet green-eyed tabby waiting for me.

Once I’m down on the floor, I begin a mindful scroll. I follow a lot of authors, writers, and book reviewers, so I’m constantly exposed to lists of literary recommendations that I know I’ll likely never read, at least not in this chapter of my life. This makes me feel like a phony because I prefer watching (or listening to, with my eyes closed) documentaries during the precious free hours I have as a full-time worker.

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I fall asleep to podcasts about con artists and scams and unusual mysteries. Sometimes, to break it up, I’ll listen to an audiobook like The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse or The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak. They all follow the same story arc: Crime → Hunt → Twist → Reveal → Resolution. The predictability is comforting and familiar, guaranteed to lull me to sleep within the 45-minute sleep timer.

My reading preferences have changed a lot in the past few years. I now have an aversion to narrative or character that resembles my own life and character. Back when there was a lot I needed to say but didn’t have the words for, books gave me a private trial run. I read The Vegetarian by Han Kang; Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh; Lisa Taddeo; Sylvia Plath; Arundhati Roy. I dabbled in Man’s Search for Meaning, The Body Keeps the Score, and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts until I started breaking out in hives.

Both genres represented something different to me, like two paths I could take: go mad, or get better. I chose both, and now all I can read is Agatha Christie and detective novels with bad twists and overblown characters. I’ve listened to all 34 audiobooks in the Alex Cross series which I still quote. I’m a Stephen King fan and I’m getting deep into Japanese mystery novels.

I read for entertainment because life got very serious. At the same time, I enjoy writing about my life as a way of making sense of why things happen the way they do, seeing patterns or relating to things bigger than myself, but I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t enjoyable.

When I see recommendations for books written in a style closer to my own, I think: I really should… It would help me as a writer… I’d be more credible if I… And so I buy the latest renowned title, read fifteen pages, and never pick it up again.

This is probably just a phase. I’m sure when I start writing something new, my preferences will shift again. So I’ll save the beautiful lists of acclaimed titles for another day and, for now, stick to what piques and holds my interest.

I think we should read what we want. Smut, graphic novels, anime, romantasy, horror, crime, literary fiction - whatever holds our attention. Reading in our own time doesn’t have to prove anything about our intelligence or taste. It can be about pleasure, escape, comfort. And it doesn’t need to be chosen to impress anyone following you on Goodreads.

Here’s what’s on my list to read, and the accounts I follow for great recommendations.

What I’m actually planning to read (for now)

• The Retreat (Detective Elin Warner, #2) — Sarah Pearse

• The Name of the Rose — Umberto Eco

• Water — John Boyne

• Holly — Stephen King

• Strange Pictures — Uketsu (trans. Jim Rion)

Accounts I follow for genuinely good recommendations

• @booketybookbooks

• @thelitlist__

• @remysolomon1

• @trayreadthat

Happy reading, or listening, or watching this year.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want more of in 2026, and what I can’t be bothered with anymore. Something that kept coming up was a craving for less-polished work and imperfect people sharing their imperfect work.

AI saved me a lot of time in 2025. It helped me work out my weekly financial budget, format documents that would have taken hours, it helped me to understand how different things work, but in terms of creativity and the arts it will never cut it. No to AI actors, no to 800 word ChatGPT Linkedin posts and no to AI popstars. My predictions for the new year are based around humanity, imperfection and doing the kind thing.

Very eager to hear your in and outs so plz tell me your ins and outs in the comments!

Ins

★ Chrome and metal tones
★ Intergenerational friendships
★ Pop music
★ Spelling and grammar mistakes
★ Restoring Te Tiriti o Waitangi to its proper place in the curriculum.
★ ’Popping in’’ on friends and family like our grandparents used to
★ Loose activewear
★ Having a crack (career, etc)
★ Extra-short nails
★ Forward thinking (making decisions for your future self and the world)
★ Looking after nurses and teachers
★ Not having anything to lose
★ Big love
★ Long-term investment
★ Rapid research in women’s health
★ Kindness and acceptance
★ Bisexuality
★ Celebrating people who are putting themselves out there
★ Renting
★ Being an aunty
★ Silver > gold
★ Verifying sources
★ Doing whatever you want on social media
★ Being reliable
★ Natural fibres
★ Keeping in touch
★ Self promotion (overcoming the cringe)
★ Rescue animals

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Outs

★ Vaping
★ Self-righteousness
★ Weight-loss injections
★ Posing your baby with alcohol and writing captions like “starting young”
★ Making sweeping changes to education curriculum without consulting teachers
★ Giving yourself a pet name, like “online bestie”, but your content is just ads for retinol and HelloFresh
★ Destiny Church (surely)
★ Profiting at the expense of people, places and nature (with higher prices, lower wages, poorer quality and worse products)
★ High waist + non-stretch pants
★ ChatGPT captions and scripts
★ Our current government
★ The kiss-and-wink scrunch-face pose
★ Bigots
★ That Face Tune app that enhances your face
★ Lowballing creatives and freelancers
★ Smart watches w/ formal dress
★ Bloating
★ The bad boy
★ Foodstuffs & Woolworths

Thanks for reading, I’m very excited to share my 2026 plans for Trainwrecks with you soon!

The theme that ties all of these newsletters together is starting over. Whether that’s after a relationship ending, through recovery from illness, or moving into a new career.

I’ve always been envious of people who knew what they wanted to be. My younger brother is a very skilled builder. He knew from a young age that that’s what he wanted to do, so he went about making it happen during his high school years. One of my best friends is an extremely talented architect. She, like my brother, left school and made a plan, studied, got a job.

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That was not my experience. I liked biology and history in high school, so I thought I should probably study environmental law. Instead, I ended up doing a degree in microbiology and geography. I worked for the council, then started a lunch delivery business that turned into a catering company. After that, I worked as a chef, a yoga teacher, at an insurance brokerage, as a marketing manager. I took a full year off work, then went into retail for three months, before the move to Bali to work as a travel writer.

I suppose it depends on the school or household you grew up in, but the message I received loud and clear was that you were supposed to see things through. Even when it didn’t feel right. You were meant to stick with it. Not take sick days. Accrue all your annual leave. Collect your weekly salary and hope you’d be looked after.

My first proper job was at Christchurch City Council, after the earthquakes. I worked (outrageously) as a building control officer and stayed for two years. During that time the council went through a major restructure, and people who had been loyal for over twenty years lost their jobs.

It was there I did a ‘personalities at work’ training, based on the Enneagram test. It was the first time I properly realised that people valued things differently to me. People genuinely valued stability, security, and tradition. That was a turning point. I understood my parents better, and why teachers and managers had always seemed uneasy about my decisions. At the end of the course, I had a meeting with my manager and the facilitator to talk about my professional development. The facilitator told me I should probably look for a different job.

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That was also around the time the first wave of travel vloggers started blowing up on YouTube, and the QUIT YOUR 9–5 messaging got very loud. I was 21, so I did.

More than half of New Zealand workers are considering a career change in the next year, according to a 2024 Robert Half study. People are looking for higher pay, better work–life balance, and a chance to learn new skills. Millennials are leading the charge, but career restlessness spans every generation. Still, most people aren’t going through with it. A 2025 SEEK survey found that while 41% are open to making a change, only 6% are actively pursuing one. They’re held back by financial pressure, a lack of qualifications, or the belief that it’s too late. Meanwhile, 54% of workers already regret the path they’ve taken, usually because of low pay, shifting interests, or a sense that their work feels empty.

Flexibility has become a major priority, especially for people dealing with health issues, caregiving responsibilities, or burnout. Remote roles and adaptable schedules offer more than convenience. They offer sustainability.

I’ve always chased the ‘cool’ jobs. Mostly because I have a chronic illness, so the flexibility appeals. And also because these are the things I’m good at. But those jobs tend to have a few things in common:

• There’s an unspoken rule that you’re underpaid, because it’s a privilege to even have the job

• You’re easily replaced

• You’ll be paid in exposure

So after a year of being in and out of hospital and working from bed, I’m changing things up again. I’m going back to 9–5 as senior writing lead at a digital agency, and it feels so right. I’m ready for a regular salary and hours. Even after saying I’d NEVER work in an office again, this role is collaborative, creative, and it’s going to be a challenge, which is what I need after six months of off-and-on hospital stays and irregular hours.

This has reminded me of all the seasons in a lifetime. It’s a mix of sadness and relief to come to the natural end and not overstay my welcome. It’s exciting to acknowledge the end of one and the beginning of something very new.

I’ve always been interested in how the mentally ill are represented in film and literature. My ears prick up when a main character has bipolar disorder. Which is almost always followed by disappointment as the character is portrayed as either a sexed-up teen with green hair who lives under a bridge or a difficult and violent inpatient. I’ve thought that if I was to do a PhD it would be on this topic, specifically how representation impacts the rate of diagnosis or presentation of a particular diagnosis after a film has been released or is having a moment in pop culture.

The other day I was watching a video on Instagram made by Australian creators I’ve followed for years. They’re usually funny, but I thought I was missing a reference in this particular reel so I went to the comments to figure it out. The video was of an attractive couple walking through the park past a person hovering around a bin making animalistic noises. The man in the couple then says, “don’t make eye contact.” His girlfriend does, and the bin person follows them around all day making screeching noises. I think they were making fun of homeless people? Or people who are mentally ill? I wasn’t sure.

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These creators have an audience of 2.3 million followers on Instagram. This post had 190,000 likes and 3,000 comments. The comments were going off — for every one person pointing out that the video had “missed the mark” there were HUNDREDS of people saying things like this:

When we were being taught how to write satire in my Master’s, the rule is you only ever punch up. It made me think: would these creators have made this video if they understood what they were depicting — someone experiencing psychosis. Would it still be funny if they had an understanding of the day-to-day hell of a psychotic episode?

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There’s quite a big difference between being sober-curious and having the disease of addiction. But people do often ask me for advice around reducing their alcohol intake or tips for going out sober. I actually don’t know how to cut back on substances. I can’t relate to being able to sip on a glass of wine for a couple of hours and not lose my fucking mind. I’ve tried, many times — it’s just not the way I’m wired. I watch people who do this with mostly awe but also bafflement. So I can’t help with moderation, sorry.

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But I do have tips on going out, not on anything! The experience of going out sober, regardless of the reason behind it, can be really challenging for everyone, mostly because other people LOVE to bring it up. I think boomers are the absolute worst at this. I’ve been to a wedding where an older woman asked me in front of a group of strangers if I was pregnant because I declined a champagne. I’ve been told I’m boring for not getting wasted anymore, I’ve had people take my sobriety very personally as though it’s an insult to them. I’ve been dumped and ghosted when I’ve been brave enough to be open about being in recovery, which hurts in the moment, but ultimately is a kindness. I’ve been called a ‘god botherer’ by family members — and I’m like yeah, sort of? But not the God you’re referring to. The hardest positions I’ve been in are work drinks where a higher-up has called me out in front of people, or being offered a gin at extended family events by people who should know better.

I’ve come to see that people who are critical of your choice to go out sober generally don’t feel great about their own consumption. So instead of being offended I’ll do a big metaphorical eye-roll and feel earnest pity for them. This doesn’t happen very often because, generally, people don’t even notice that I’m not on anything (it’s been a very long time since I openly drank alcohol in front of other people).

What I have noticed over the past few years is that men get a really hard time for daring to venture out without a box. I’ve had lots of men approach me and ask for tips around fending off insults and digs about going out sober, which makes me really sad. I usually say fuck those guys. But I have built up a few hot takes and solid responses that will shut that conversation down.

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Self-assurance
You’ve made the call to head out sober, maybe to a BBQ, maybe a gig, maybe an afternoon in the sun — so commit to that decision and embody it. Walk in with your head held high, take a seat, you do not need to explain yourself, you don’t owe anyone anything. Be at ease with your call.

Curiosity
Find out what you’re into. Who you like being around, who has shit chat, who’s weird on the piss, who is actually gay (bless). Do you prefer chatting one-on-one or being an entertainer? What music are you into? Where do you like going? Make it into a game or an experiment.

Bring a buddy
Let someone you trust know. These friends are excellent at swooping in at the right moment to save you from shit chat, making sure you have a raspberry lemonade or a 0% in your hand at all times, and reading you when you’re uncomfortable. You’ll also have someone you can gossip with about all the weird shit you’re seeing (once I watched a guy smear peanut butter on his balls and chase a dog around trying to get it to lick it off).

Have an Exit Strategy
Bring your own car, have a prepared excuse to leave or just clock the exits and when you’ve had enough slip out.

Responding to a loser

• If someone asks you if you’re not drinking, say “No.” and leave it at that. It’s such a strong move, I love it. There’s always a silence as they wait for you to explain yourself, but you get to relish in their awkwardness and say absolutely nothing.

• If they push the point, you can say “I’ve been sick, so can’t tonight.” This is good for those work situations where you want to be polite to your managers etc.

• If they push it even further and ask what kind of sick, just gesture toward your gut and say “bowel stuff.” That should do it.

• If someone is actively hassling you (I’ve seen guys do this to guys a lot), all you can do is put your hands up and step away. Go back to your buddy, let them self-destruct on their own (they’re usually two bottles of chard and half a bag deep so it’s inevitable).

Sometimes, people are genuinely curious because they’re thinking about going out sober themselves, and that’s cool. But more often, it’s a drunk person cornering you to say, “I WISH I WAS THAT CONFIDENT.” You don’t need to carry that conversation. Side-step. Say you need the bathroom. Actually go, if you want to take a breath.

I just want to say that I’m not anti-drugs or anti-alcohol. I just know how shit it feels when you’re trying something new—maybe out of curiosity, maybe for your mental health—and someone tries to embarrass or pressure you in social situations. So I hope this helps.

Summer’s coming (weddings, Christmas, New Year’s etc etc) which used to make me run for the hills. But now, everyone I love is beyond supportive of me not drinking. There are always interesting non-alcoholic drinks that someone has brought along, especially for me. Last Christmas, a family friend brought a pre-prepared mocktail with pomegranate, and it meant the world to me.

So if your friend is dabbling with going out sober, be supportive, be kind and don’t be so weird about it.

Thanks for reading Trainwrecks!! If this resonates with you, share it round <3

She pulls into the Midway Motel carpark off the main road of a small town known for its retiree population and stonemasonry. She’s driven 258 kilometres south to meet a man for the first time. He’s driving north, cutting inland from a dairy farm to the motorway that runs up the coast.

She’s early. She wants to air out the room before he arrives. She wants to take a scalding hot shower, re-shave everything, moisturise her elbows and kneecaps, the cracked skin between her fingers. She’s going to take her time to blow out each section of her shoulder-length hair, just as she’s practised.

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She takes the key from reception and carries her things up to Room 208. It has an outdoor table with an ashtray and two plastic seats next to the door. She puts her bag down and sits on the baked chair in the last of the morning sun. The daylight will get harsher, less flattering closer to noon. She hopes he arrives later, after 3:30 p.m. when the winter sky starts to soften again. She runs her thumb up her phone screen over and over, pausing briefly to smirk at the messages that convinced her to take two days off work, put the dog in the kennel, and cancel reformer Pilates within the eight-hour window where she would be charged.

The walls of the motel room are concrete blocks painted white, giving the impression of a Christian camp bunk-room. The queen bed has a brown comforter folded at the foot, and in the corner sits a child’s single with matching bedding.

At the time, she’d liked that he’d taken the initiative in booking the room. She’d made the decision not to look up any reviews—just put the address into Maps and go. She’d told two people what she was doing and sent them photos of him, just in case, but at thirty-nine, she didn’t need to justify her impulsion.

She’d never really cared, now that she thought about it. She remembered being twenty-three, arriving at the Christmas party held by the director of the insurance brokerage where she worked. She arrived late, alongside forty-six-year-old Shane. He was pale and doughy. He looked dull, but if you studied him closely, the silver chain peeking from his check shirt collar, occasionally spilling over his dark purple ties, represented something else. Shane liked younger women. Shane liked women in relationships. Shane liked her.

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I have always been interested in how people start over after going through something big, that’s really what Trainwrecks is about. I’m not calling you a Trainwreck (unless you like it), I’m using the wreckage as a sort of anchor to tell stories around what leads up to or contributes to crisis and what we do next. That could be related to illness, grief, the end of a relationship, a terrible situation that's completely beyond your control, or just bad decision-making.

Another thing I’m kind of obsessed with is finding the origin story of an idea, movement, company, or leader. In my twenties I was 100% guilty of buying into something, sharing ideas around it, and then months later finding out “ok, the founder of this method was actually a paedophilic con-man who did not give a shit about health. He just wanted access to child sexual abuse material and a Rolls Royce.”

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Both of these themes tie in nicely to what I want to share today. I want to talk about how I immigrated to a different country for a fresh start, how language can be used so casually to gloss over dissonance in our own biases, and how f*cking stupid we look when we don’t interrogate the origin of an idea or movement before taking a stance.

A massive turning point in my recovery was when I moved to Indonesia for work last year. When people asked me what I was doing in Bali, did I live there, etc., I always said “yes, I’m a remote worker.” I never once thought to say “yes, I am an immigrant.” White people who live and work in Asian countries get called “expats,” “digital nomads,” or “remote workers,” which carries a very different connotation.

This week I’ve seen footage of anti-immigration protestors in the UK singing to Freddy Mercury (a queer, brown, refugee), while terrorising asylum seekers inside refugee housing. There’s footage of Australian anti-immigration protestors draped in Australian flags enjoying yum cha after the rally (what the actual fuck). I thought back to earlier this year, when Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church staged a “protest.” Destiny Church supporters burned flags representing Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and Palestine while performing a haka, positioning non-Christian immigration as a threat to “Kiwi identity.”

If you’re not from Aotearoa, here’s some context on who Brian Tamaki is (a proper scumbag):

My immigration to Bali was seen as this romanticised, inspirational thing. Like “wow, good for you, going after your dreams, seeking a better life that supports your health.” My job was with a Singapore-based company, working with Indonesian clients. It took me to villas and resorts, all the places tourists (or bule pronounced "boo-ley"), usually picture when they think of Bali. But my daily life was really different. I actually didn’t earn very much while I was there. I was working as a travel writer in an industry where employers frame the work as a privilege to justify a low salary.

I lived in a guest house run by a Balinese family. I ate mostly at warungs. The first friends I made were Balinese, people who noticed me sitting alone at a cafe and decided to talk to me in English to accomodate me. I didn’t have to prove my value to the economy to be included, I was welcomed. It showed me how much belonging depends not on the person arriving but on the community they arrive into. Australians settling in Bali rarely see themselves as immigrants, while people moving to Australia are asked to justify their place. My own life flourished thrived because people offered me a place, not because I earned one.

I really like what Maggie Zhou said on her Instagram about people’s worth absolutely not being defined by what value they provide you:

Over the weekend in Australia, anti-immigration rallies claimed migration was at “record highs” and fuelling the housing crisis. In reality, net migration has fallen sharply since 2022–23, but the protests show how quickly perception hardens into anger, and how easily “foreigners” become the scapegoat when people feel squeezed.

The irony is that more than a million Australians visit Bali every year, and tens of thousands have settled long-term. In Bali, tourists and expats are effectively doing the very thing anti-immigration groups say they fear at home: living and working in a place, using services, sometimes even running businesses, while contributing little or nothing to the tax base.

For the average Balinese person working in tourism, income tax is deducted automatically and compliance is strict. By contrast, many foreigners glide through on visas that don’t require tax or simply ignore obligations altogether. If the roles were reversed, if migrants moved to Australia or New Zealand and skipped tax while competing for rentals and jobs, can you imagine the outrage?

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While foreigners book luxury villas and plan beach holidays, life in Indonesia moves to a very different rhythm. In Bali, entire strips of Bingin Beach are being demolished — nearly fifty warungs, villas, and restaurants pulled down due to “regulation.” For tourists, it’s a minor shift in scenery. For the people who built their lives around those businesses, it’s sudden unemployment, decades of work erased in a week.

Across the country, thousands have been protesting against the government after news broke of lawmakers paying themselves housing allowances worth ten times the minimum wage of the average Indonesian person. This resulted in the death of a young driver who was killed by a police vehicle during a rally. Six more people died in the unrest that followed.

At the same time, corruption scandals keep surfacing, and the anti-corruption commission that once gave people hope has been stripped of its independence. Young Indonesians are leaving under the banner of Kabur Aja Dulu — “let’s just leave for now” — convinced there’s no future for them here. In Papua and other remote regions, people are being displaced by mining and militarisation. Even Jakarta, the capital, is sinking into the sea faster than it can build its way out.

All of this was happening while I lived there. It shaped the lives of the people around me, but it barely touched mine. My biggest concerns (when I really think about it), were whether I could get good Wi-Fi for work or find a café to write in.

Taxes in Bali are different depending on who you are. For Balinese working in tourism (hotel staff, tour guides, restaurant workers) income tax is deducted automatically. It’s modest, starting at about five percent. Even those who don’t meet the income threshold still pay through other channels: eleven percent VAT on goods and services, local tourism fees, parking charges, and contributions expected by their banjar (village council) and temple community. Those obligations, financial and social, are significant.

My friends working in hospitality earned around 3.5 million IDR per month (around $360 NZD). They worked six days a week for around ten hours each day and often travelled long distances because they have been priced out of housing near tourist areas.

For context, I stayed in a locally owned guest house in Pererenan. I had my own room and bathroom, it was cleaned a couple of times a week, and it cost me around $1000 NZD per month. A room in a private villa would have been about double that. I loved Nova Guest House; it had a pool and is rated three stars on Google. Not super flash, but perfect for me, and I could just afford it on my salary.

Foreigners like me lived under different rules. If you’re working remotely for an overseas company, it’s easy to live in Bali for years without paying Indonesian income tax. You rent a villa, eat out, buy data packages — so technically you’re paying consumption tax. But you’re not funding schools, hospitals, or the police in the same way locals are. You’re using the system without really contributing.

In New Zealand, one of the loudest complaints about immigration is that people will come in, take jobs, go on benefits, use public services, and not “pay their way.” The fear is always about freeloading. Yet in Bali, that’s exactly what many Westerners do and we frame it as a lifestyle. We call it freedom, remote work, or adventure.

Imagine if the roles were reversed. If thousands of Indonesians moved to New Zealand, lived there on legitimate visas, worked remotely for companies back home, and didn’t pay income tax — people would be furious. Imagine the headlines: jobs stolen, hospitals overrun, the system abused. That’s the mirror I kept seeing: what we resent at home is what we accept, even romanticise, when it’s us living abroad.

I’m focusing on Indonesia because it’s a place I consider home. I love it there and I love how I feel when I am there because I was always welcomed. There is some crazy shit going on in the country. There’s a city being built by a Russian billionaire it is huge and spooky. You arrive at a big concrete slab in the middle of rice paddies, park your scooters, and wait for the shuttle to take you into the city. It’s supposed to be a futuristic creatives paradise for crypto bros and digital nomads. When I visited it in its early stages of development, I really felt sick being there and I left within 20 minutes, there is something so off about it, about what it represents, and you can feel it.

God, there is so much to say. I don’t even know how to condense it into one post, so I’m sorry if it seems a little scattered. And I am 100% open to feedback. If there’s anything you’ve noticed isn’t accurate or could be framed better, please let me know. I truly would love to talk more.

I guess the main message I’m trying to get across is: I wish people would take a long, hard look before buying into an idea and finding themselves onboarded into white nationalist campaigns, whether they realise it or not. Search for the origin story, check your sources, look into who the leaders are, and examine your own double standards. Stop othering people who have a different lived experience in this world, because our lives are so much richer with range. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that I have a background in microbiology and environmental science, but one of the core principles I learned is that diversity within populations of all organisms is essential for evolutionary survival. It increases resilience to disease, environmental change, and other pressures. It is fundamental to all life.

Hii, I’m writing to you today from bed. I’m waiting (trying) patiently for surgery —2/2 for the year (fingers crossed). Luckily I’m pet-sitting and the view is beautiful and the animals are sweeties.

I have four drafts on the go for Trainwrecks that I haven’t finished and don’t want to, today, so I’m sending you a collection of things. Some music, my icons and a poem I’ve been working on. I have a feeling there are going to be spelling/grammar mistakes in here (sorry).

I was thinking about representation this morning. I remembered a moment from almost a decade ago, when a friend slid Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir An Unquiet Mind, onto my bedside table. Quite an unconventional way of telling me they thought I was mentally unwell, but I read it in a day and it changed the course of my life. So I’ve put together a list of people with links to their work who I admire and go to when I’m feeling average. I wanted to clarify that I’m not saying that you have to go through intense suffering to be talented. I am trying to point out that important art can and does emerge from people who work at a different pace because of health realities.

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Kay Redfield Jamison — Psychologist, Writer

Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind broke ground as one of the first insider accounts of living with bipolar disorder by a clinical psychologist. She’s spent her career writing about mood disorders, suicide, and the links between creativity and madness. She folds her lived experience into science in a way that changed the course of my life.

An Unquiet Mind

Stephen Fry — Actor, Writer, Comedian

Stephen Fry has been open about living with bipolar disorder, exploring it in the documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. His career spans comedy, acting, and memoir, marked by wit and vulnerability. Heuses humour and openness to make mental illness less frightening and more human.

BBC documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive.

Lucia Berlin — Short Story Writer

Lucia Berlin’s A Manual for Cleaning Women brought her cult status posthumously. Her stories mine working-class life, addiction, motherhood, and the grit of survival. Berlin’s fiction is never far from her biography with alcoholism, poverty, single parenting.
Guardian Review of A Manual for Cleaning Women.

Nick Cave — Musician, Songwriter

Nick Cave’s career with The Bad Seeds is steeped in themes of loss, death, love, and redemption. He’s been candid about heroin addiction, depression, and the shattering grief of losing his son.

The Red Hand Files, his ongoing letters on grief, creativity, and survival.

Yayoi Kusama — Artist

Kusama is one of the most recognised contemporary artists, famous for her polka dots, infinity rooms, and hallucinatory installations. She has lived voluntarily in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo since the 1970s. Kusama has said her art is both expression and therapy where her hallucinations become immersive worlds that invite others into her obsessions.

Yayoi Kusama Official Website

Megan O’Rourke — Memoirist, Chronic Illness Journalist

Megan O’Rourke’s The Invisible Kingdom chronicles her years as a patient—bedbound, misdiagnosed, chasing answers through autoimmune labyrinths. She excavates not just her own story, but the systemic failure that traps millions of “invisible” patients. Her illness is the form through which she interrogates medicine, memoir, and social justice.

The Invisible Kingdom.

Frida Kahlo — Painter

Frida Kahlo’s paintings are iconic self-portraits of suffering, sexuality, and defiance. After polio and a near-fatal bus accident, she lived with lifelong pain and disability. Kahlo painted her body as it was (broken, stitched, bleeding etc) and in doing so made illness and disability central to 20th-century art.

Frida Kahlo Foundation.

Audre Lorde — Poet, Essayist

Audre Lorde’s work—poetry, essays, speeches—explored race, gender, sexuality, and survival. She wrote The Cancer Journals after her breast cancer diagnosis insisting that bodies marked by sickness, race, gender, and queerness are not to be silenced or reduced.

The Cancer Journals

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My Top 3 Songs for the Week

New Poem

My friend and I have a note pinned to the top of our messenger chat that says:

It’s quite an intense thing to see daily but also… true. I think about facing reality and living in denial a lot. I’ve started this poem about how random and devastating reality can be, but its a million times better than being stuck in denial. So here it is, I’d loove your feedback, I think it’s better read out loud but we’ll see.

What if I told you /

It’s a long hard look in the mirror

It’s asking ChatGPT to take your virginity.

It’s making the front page next to Jarod Fogel
and a ten-cent Subway coupon.

It’s landing the lead in a biopic on your own murder.

It’s testing positive for Munchausen
and knowing all you needed was love, love, love

It’s the 1% doing the 40-hour famine.
It’s having joseph smith jr and the entire mormon church in your downline

It’s sipping vape juice through a straw on a Zumba cruise.
It’s marrying up and inheriting a Ponzi scheme.
It’s sticking a knife in a toaster and expecting an orgasm.

It’s breath-play with a goose-down maternity pillow.
It’s being so mad with yourself you fuck a man.

It’s being voted prom queen on the psych ward,
in a tiara made of plastic forks.

It’s a runaway bride in a six-car pile-up
on the motorway, leading to a life beyond your wildest dreams.

It’s pink bath-water and undiagnosed chlamydia,
it’s shrinking and a king-hit sucker-punch
to the back of the knees.

It’s wet-cardboard for a spine,
jelly-skeleton,
botched-filler-job, reality TV contract.

And I’ll take it… because denial’s a cunt you can curl up in,
to be shot into a Bangkok sex show, without your passport,
And only your bare naked ass.

And the memories, of all the time, you spent

thinking about… what she thought… about you.

A few weeks ago I held a writing workshop about using writing as a practice to reflect and express thoughts and emotions. Then a week later, a friend asked for some guidance on how to use creative writing elements to go deeper in writing about emotions (beyond “I was sad…”). So I made him an ebook called Introspect. I enjoyed this process so much that I made two more writing resources:

• 30 Day Creative Challenge (free)

• Writing for Sales and Socials

I’ve always loved facilitating workshops and classes, it feels natural, and I really enjoy seeing people lean into their creative side. So it’s always been a goal to start taking in-person workshops again. But I’ve been continuously sick for almost eight months now, so it’s made planning ahead impossible.

A friend dropped me off a coffee the other day and sat on my bed with me. We’ve been friends for a very long time so she's seen me through some shitt. She suggested that maybe this is the first time my body has felt like it’s its turn to get some attention. I’ve always been quite strong and fit—even through my addiction and early recovery. Running and yoga and pilates were like anchoring points in my day that I felt really good about achieving. I’ve never not had my physical health (even in withdrawal I pushed myself physically—I think physical pain is easier to manage than emotional, so it blunted the edges of what I was going through mentally). I’ve always said I don’t know what I’d do without it. And this year I found out.

I had a small bowel obstruction in January (completely out of the blue), then two more before my doctors decided to do laparoscopy in March. I thought that would be the end of it. That they’d find something physically wrong in my abdomen and deal with it, then I could recover and move on. But they found endometriosis instead, which SHOCKED me (because I didn't actually understand what endo was or what the symptoms were—I always thought it was bad period cramps—and I didn’t really get them). It has truly been a nightmare, and the knock-on effect this has had on the rest of my body has been relentless.

My gut was badly damaged, so the medication I take for bipolar wasn’t being absorbed—leading to a bizarre mini manic episode where I flew to Auckland the same week I had surgery to stay with a guy I’d been talking to on Instagram (what. the. actual. fuck). It turned out to be fine lol, I came back unscathed. Then once my brain started to recalibrate I got fibromyalgia pain, where my nervous system was jammed on high alert—I was sleeping about 5 hours every day and couldn't even walk down the street.

Anyway, this whole thing is ongoing, with new issues cropping up every few weeks (my glands are currently so swollen I’ve lost any resemblance of a jaw on my right side lol—it goes from face to collarbone with no neck). I think the part that’s been most difficult for me is that most of this has been invisible, so every time I’ve been to the hospital I’ve had to prepare for a bit of a fight to prove there is something really wrong.

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I suppose I’m sharing this with you because… like why not? I’m sure plenty of us are dealing with chronic, invisible illness—why not talk about it? As someone who’s quietly obsessed with control, this has been the ultimate challenge in learning to get through life not on my own terms. There are things I can do to improve the quality of my days (like not eating gluten—heartbroken, my diet was 80% gluten), but ultimately this is completely out of my control. I can’t force my body to go on in the way I want it to.

Strangely (and thankfully), I’ve been quite sharp mentally. Building up Trainwrecks, submitting writing, and now developing these writing guides has kept me sane. I’m beyond grateful to have a writing practice (that’s not totally rigid, but is something I do every day). I got really excited putting these guides together and picturing what you might get from them.

Here’s what’s in the Writer’s Project library so far:

30-Day Writing Challenge (Free PDF)

A simple, flexible writing challenge to help you build a daily habit. Whether you're journalling, working on creative projects, or just want to get back into writing, these 30 prompts will help you find focus, explore everyday moments, and reconnect with your voice.

Writing for Sales and Socials

This downloadable guide is for small business owners, creatives, and anyone writing their own marketing copy. It shows you how to write in a way that’s clear, specific, and human—without sounding fake or formulaic. You’ll learn how to tell your story, explain what you offer, and connect with the right people using simple, flexible writing.

Introspect: A craft-based guide for people who want to write more clearly, concretely, and introspectively.

This 35-page PDF offers practical tools for writers who want to go deeper in their work without falling into cliché. If you enjoy creative writing but get stuck trying to express personal thoughts or emotions, this guide will help.

Inside, you'll find six core techniques—including sensory detail, narrative structure, and persona—designed to make emotional writing feel more honest and less forced. Writing prompts are included throughout to help you apply each approach in your own writing.

If you're a Trainwrecks reader and want to try any of these, you can use the code TRAINWRECKS15 for 15% off any paid writing guide. That includes Introspect and Writing for Sales and Socials. The 30-day challenge is still completely free.

Thanks for being here. AND if anyone has any Endo tips, please please get in touch!

Char x

My early Instagram posts from 2013 (when I inherited my first ever iPhone) are kind of lame?

Single images of a macaroon store, my parents’ schnauzer tucked under the duvet, a milkshake, my brother holding a duck (I don’t know how this happened?). They’ve got that blur effect where only the subject is in focus. They’re filtered with a vintage Instagram tone but unfiltered in the sense that they weren’t curated or censored. There’s a photo of my friend in a bar holding a bread knife, a group flat photo where the boys have their balls hanging out their flies, me absolutely wrecked smoking darts and sticking my tongue through the V between my index and middle finger (my signature pose in the 2010s).

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These photos were from my time in Dunedin when I studied at Otago. In my final year, I lived in a huge house on a hill with 15 people. We lived in the North Dunedin bubble where we were both blissfully unaware and extremely insensitive and naïve to anything else happening in the world (like why bringing a bread knife to a bar is not okay). We still uploaded albums of nights out to Facebook, but we’d transitioned from compact digital cameras to very average iPhone cameras and we “lived in the moment.”

I saw this post on The New Yorker Instagram the other day about how social media used to be about sharing the ordinary moments of daily life with friends, but now that’s seen as a “cringe” thing to do. So I started thinking about what makes me follow an account now:

• Seeing what my friends are doing (renovations and holidays especially, what you wore to weddings, cute photos with your partners)

• News, current affairs, thoughtful/interesting/unusual journalism and writing

• Funny people

• Accounts that make me think – educational, challenging (from writers to skincare to racism)

• High fashion advertising campaigns

• Bonus points if the account presents an issue and then shows how to take action

I went to Chris Parker’s Stop Being So Dramatic show on Saturday. He talked about being afraid of looking cringe or “too much.” It made me think about how we try to stay neutral or ironic so we don’t embarrass ourselves. I can’t remember exactly how he got from that to fascism 2.0, but it made sense at the time—and it made me think about how scared we are of sincerity.

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We’re so worried about being laughed at that we stop saying what we actually think. We pre-empt everything with jokes or disclaimers because we don’t want to look like we care too much. But when everyone’s busy trying to seem chill and self-aware, it gets harder to say anything real.

And I feel like that’s when louder, more extreme voices step in. These people who are brimming with confidence, even when they’re wrong or dangerous, aren’t afraid of looking cringe. If the rest of us are too embarrassed to push back (in case it looks uncool), then those voices dominate. And we’re too awkward to counter it.

A friend sent me a talk about how online communities are a bit of a myth—as in, you’re sitting in a room alone in an electronic echo chamber that doesn’t always translate into real-life connection. (I also want to acknowledge that online communities are lifesaving for isolated or marginalised youth.)

I don’t know where the speaker got her stats from, but she claimed that three-quarters of children in the UK spend more time indoors than prison inmates. I don’t know if that’s true, but it's not hard to believe. And if it is, maybe a return to sharing mundane details (low-quality images of lunches and group selfies under unforgiving lighting) would actually be good for young people?

I know millennials are always banging on about how we’re SO glad we didn’t grow up with social media, but honestly, I don’t know what kind of effect having influencers and fascists literally in my face first thing in the morning would have had on me. Mean kids at school and monthly magazines pushing 90s diet culture and heroin chic were more than enough to warp my relationship with myself.

I spend quite a lot of time thinking about what’s cool enough to post—then picturing different people reacting to it. It’s a bit tragic, but I do feel a little sad when I’ve written something I consider meaningful and nobody likes it.

Sometimes, when I’m f*cking tired after writing an essay, I copy it into ChatGPT and get it to summarise it so I can use it as a caption on Instagram. It always makes it so weird, with a million em dashes and Very. Dramatic. Full stops. So I end up rewriting it anyway.

I’m trying to return to a more unpolished, uncensored version of content and fill my algorithm with thoughtful, clever, ordinary people. Or if I do follow an influencer, I accept that I’m enjoying beautifully curated content that’s probably sponsored. Because sometimes, it is just nice to watch beautiful people in beautiful places.

I taught a writing workshop at a rest retreat this weekend. I wanted to show people how writing can be used as a practice. Coming into recovery, I was emotionally stunted (for real). I’d spent years blunting and pushing away things I didn’t want to feel or address, so when people (case managers, psychologists etc.) started to ask me how things made me feel, I’d turn feral. But once I’d got out of the room and felt safe on my own, I’d write about how my body responded and sort of work backwards to figure out where the fear or discomfort came from. Usually as a poem.

One thing that kept coming up at the workshop was the use of humour to defuse embarrassment or shame. Obviously there’s a time and a place (probably not in the middle of a panic attack), but maybe once the terror has settled, it can be quite healing.

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Andrew Solomon wrote an essay called Anatomy of Melancholy. It’s one of my favourite pieces of writing on depression. There’s a section where Solomon addresses the ridiculousness of depression:

“Little has been written about the fact that depression is ridiculous. I can remember lying frozen in bed, crying because I was too frightened to take a shower and at the same time knowing that showers are not scary.”

And he’s right. I was told when I first started at NA that addicts have three similar traits. We’re hypersensitive, childish, and grandiose. Omg, it could not be more true. You should see me when I don’t get my own way — I act like a toddler. Or when I get excited by an idea, I cannot shut up about it. I'll talk at you until you walk out, raving about how genius and extraordinary I am (this is 100000x worse when my mood is elevated, but I’ll save that for a later essay). And at the same time, if you have the overhead lights on, or the room is cooler than 24 degrees Celsius, or a synthetic fabric is touching my skin, my whole day will be ruined.

In the past, I’ve felt self-conscious about being this way. But laughing about these traits with an old-timer outside a meeting drained the shame away and showed me that I am not unique in my neurosis. It also showed me that humour is a wonderful way to heal and appreciate myself.

Spiritual and healing practices are often deep and heavy and very serious. Sometimes they need to be. But I need light to break up the heaviness. I spent three months in a public rehab facility — if we didn’t laugh, I think we would have been crushed by the weight of what we were addressing. My favourite memories are of sitting in the smokers’ shed sharing embarrassing poo stories (it’s a hot topic when you’re in withdrawal). Or being in the gym with four other addicts and looking around to see everyone vaping on the spin bike or in rests between sets.

Incorporating humour into our writing also makes for good reading. So I thought I’d tell you a silly little story that popped into my mind while I was writing this.

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A Russian Resort, Satisfyer Pro and Lost and Found

I worked in Bali last year. I was mainly based in Pererenan, but I’d go on little trips around the island when friends were visiting. I spent a week in this enormous, rundown resort in Uluwatu because it was cheap-cheap and in a good spot. I think it was built by a Chinese group, then left to deteriorate until recently, when it was bought by Russians who are trying to restore it to its former glory.

This place was huge and creepy af (I’ll add a gallery so you can get a sense of it). It gave The Shining/Get Out and I was obsessed. There was a glass chapel on the roof and these enormous empty ballrooms. I walked in on many bizarre events, including the most enthusiastic karaoke night I’ve ever witnessed (in Russian), a dance class on the roof, and this method acting group that started one morning while I was working on the balcony of the restaurant. (I got stuck out there with this sexy South African called Bailey for two hours while we waited for it to end.)

I think when strange things are happening in unexpected places (like the resort restaurant), it’s even creepier when it's in another language — especially Russian.

One night I came back to my room to have a shower and get ready for dinner and noticed a very strong smell of paint fumes. I closed the door and carried on because I was running late. Then I turned the shower on and discovered the ceiling above my head crumbled, and plaster dust had sprinkled over me. I looked up to find the ceiling bulging and sagging under what I assume was water weight? So I quickly got dressed and ran to reception to change rooms.

Fortunately, they were understanding and gave me a key to a room on another floor, so I raced back to pack all of my things. I was getting more panicked every time I looked in the direction of the ceiling crack, so you can kind of imagine my state.

I got to my new room, which looked exactly like the old one (enormous XXL king bed, glass walls into the bathroom, faint smell of mould and paint). I got in the shower, had a wash, rinsed my hair — and when I got out, someone was banging on my door. So I wrapped a towel around my head and another around my body to answer it.

Before me stood an Indonesian woman who worked as a cleaner at Dreamland. In her hands were my favourite T-shirt (it says “Made in Heaven”), a charger, and my SATISFYER PRO 2.

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I’d left them in the bedside table in my previous room and she was there to return them. I don’t think she knew what the Satisfyer was because she kept waving it around in the corridor. I took them from her and before I could close the door, she pulled out her phone. She needed to take a picture of me holding my things so she could send it to the staff WhatsApp group, as proof they’d been returned to me.

So I tried to position myself in a flattering pose and subtly tuck the vibrator under my T-shirt but, she asked me to hold it up so she could see it clearly. Then she took a few snaps and showed me as she sent the image to the whole staff.

I wish I’d asked for a copy, but I was too surprised — because sex toys are illegal in Indonesia. I knew this, but thought the Satisfyer could pass as one of those personal massage machines. Lolol. This was me, moments after it happened.

I spent the rest of the week paranoid that people would recognise me as the difficult bitch who wanted to change rooms and got caught out with a sex toy oops.

When I was first planning Trainwrecks, I thought about adding a section where people could send in questions or messy stories and I’d respond (publicly, but anonymously).

Then, idk, I got imposter syndrome about trying to be an agony aunt. But after my poll on Instagram, people seem pretty interested!!

So if you have a silly little story you want to share, or you want to get something off your chest, send me an email or DM me. This can literally be anything — questions about mental health or addiction, a story about you being a mess, or your biggest Trainwreck moment (I guess I’d define that as the point where you realised something had to change).

Email me at hello@charlottejbell.com or message me on Instagram @charlotte.j.bell

I write about hard things in a conversational way that’s easy to digest, because I don’t want to put off people who haven’t experienced it. I write about difficult things in the past tense, which removes me from it. It’s almost formulaic. I describe a painful incident, how it affected me, what caused it, and what the outcome or ‘lesson’ was. It’s neat and tidy and implies a discreet incident or timeline I had to move through in order to learn from it—therefore, never experience it again.

I think sometimes I write about disease as though it follows the Gregorian calendar. As if things progress neatly from one date to the next, time flowing in a single direction.

But my diseases are cyclical by nature. My moods swing in six-month cycles without lithium, totally dependent on light, sleep, and my circadian rhythm. I have a women’s disease where my abdomen fills with blood every 28 days. And addiction is a closed loop of pain, relief, and shame that never really ends, even when you put down drugs.

My body and mind aren’t built to follow linear time: 8am to 5pm, five days a week, which feels humiliating sometimes. Especially when I’m surrounded by people who can handle the relentlessness of the 40-hour work week.

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I meet my friend Ellen each month at writing events. A few weeks ago, we went to Ray Shipley’s Late Night Poetry Hour in Ōtautahi. I was transfixed for the whole event. So many poets read about disability and chronic pain, feeling excluded, feeling let down. They expressed anger freely about being mistreated. They spoke about invisible illness, discrimination, and the complexity that comes with having a uterus and ovaries.

It made me cry, in a good way. It was the first time I’d realised how contained I am in my writing on Trainwrecks. I try very hard to appear level-headed, reasonable, and relatable because the most important thing to me about this newsletter is giving others insight into a lived experience that isn’t their own. I want to come across as someone who’s out the other side.

I still believe I have to be and look a certain way, or achieve a certain amount, to be accepted by you. But there are days when I am angry, I feel upset a lot, devastated when I can’t do the things I want to do because I’m sick. And there are moments that sting so badly when I’m out in the world and people are reckless with their words.

I was at a gym class once and a woman was telling us her boyfriend had broken up with her. Then she said, “but he’s bipolar, so I dodged a bullet.” I had to go to ED last week for abdominal pain, and the doctor casually said, “wow, that’s a cocktail of psych meds you’re on.” Those moments are a gut punch. I experience shame as a burning hot flush. It sweeps across my chest and creeps up my neck. It doesn’t matter how contained I look in other ways—that red flush is my giveaway, so I usually wear turtlenecks to therapy.

That poetry night made me want to look at why I hold myself to such an impossible standard and how I can start thinking about this differently…

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This essay isn’t intended to criticise natural health practitioners. I continue to consult alternative health professionals for their knowledge and care. Instead, it addresses a broader social media trend where anyone can claim expertise and market products promising quick fixes.

Over the past few months I’ve written a lot about my life and personal things: illness, addiction, recovery, grief. I did it to lay the foundations, I wanted to give some context before writing about broader things like the health system, the wellbeing industry, institutionalisation. My thinking was that if I gave context to how these things have personally affected me and my health, the stories might be more impactful or at least feel more grounded in lived experience rather than just objectively reporting on topics. (Which is valid too. I just thought it would add more depth).

So this newsletter isn’t a departure from the personal essay. It’s more of a pivot toward broader cultural critique. There’s only so much I can say about myself before I’m bored, and you probably are too.

Now that the context is laid out, I want to talk about something bigger than me: the strange, slippery world of health and healing. The wellness world reminds me of the Mandela Effect — we hear something in passing about apple cider vinegar or coffee enemas, and somehow it lodges in our minds as fact. No one quite remembers where it started, but it feels true because it’s been repeated so many times.

I love a mystery. It’s by far my favourite genre of fiction to read. I love bad detective novels, Agatha Christie, psychological thrillers with predictable twists. I love ABC, BBC, HBO documentary series, and I only listen to podcasts made by investigative journalists, usually formatted like a mystery. It doesn’t have to be a crime (though there’s often something criminal happening).

So when I came across Robert O. Young’s story recently, I knew I wanted to write about it. His alkalinity scam was exactly the kind of thing I would have signed up for in my early twenties.

This guy is a proper crook. He essentially held dying cancer patients hostage at his decrepit ranch in California until they either became so sick they had to be quietly dropped at emergency departments, or — in at least one recorded case — their families paid large sums to have them released.

He’s the father of the ‘alkaline diet’. He forbade his ‘patients’ from seeking medical care and instead treated them with baking soda IVs. When their tumours grew large enough to be visible under the skin, he told them it was a good sign. The cancer was working its way out of the body.

The Avocado Ranch Guru Who Made Millions Selling Alkalinity

For years, Robert O. Young lived on an avocado ranch in San Diego County, where he styled himself as “Dr. Young” and built a wellness empire around the ‘alkaline diet’. Tony Robbins became a fan, one of his clients was featured on Oprah, for a time, the brand worked.

But Robert Young wasn’t a doctor. His degrees came from the Clayton College of Natural Health, a now-defunct correspondence school with no recognised accreditation. Still, that didn’t stop him from claiming expertise in microbiology, nutrition, and live blood analysis. And it didn’t stop him from charging chronically ill people tens of thousands of dollars for unproven treatments.

At the heart of Young’s philosophy was a single, seductive idea:

“The human body is alkaline by design, and acidic by function.”

According to Young, nearly all disease stems from acidosis — an excess of acid in the body. He claimed the cure was simple: switch to an alkaline diet. In his view, bacteria and illness are caused by “acidified” cells and, bizarrely, he claimed red blood cells can morph into harmful microbes under acidic conditions.
This theory contradicts basic cell biology and germ theory, and has been comprehensively debunked in peer-reviewed research¹².

And yet: he sold it. Not just the theory, but the lifestyle — supplements, powders, pH test strips, coaching. If you bought into his worldview, you bought into his product line.

One of his most high-profile clients was Kim Tinkham, a woman with breast cancer who rejected conventional treatment after appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she and Young publicly claimed he had cured her. She sadly died of the disease not long after.

The Science (Simplified)

Your blood pH is tightly regulated between 7.35 and 7.45. You cannot meaningfully change your blood pH through diet. Some foods may influence your urine pH, but that reflects kidney function, not systemic health³⁴⁵.

Your body has several overlapping systems, respiratory rate, bicarbonate buffering, renal elimination, that automatically regulate pH². If blood pH strays even slightly outside that narrow range, you’d be in intensive care, not at Whole Foods.

The Collapse

Young’s house of cards began to fall in the 1990s, back in Utah, but it took decades for the full legal consequences to catch up.

In 1995, Robert O. Young was first charged with practising medicine without a licence after allegedly diagnosing illnesses and selling herbal remedies. He pled guilty to a reduced charge. Six years later, in 2001, he was charged again—this time accused of telling a cancer patient to stop chemotherapy and use his own products instead. That case was ultimately dropped when no witnesses were willing to testify.

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After that, Young relocated to California, citing its more “tolerant” legal climate. But tolerance only went so far. In 2014, he was arrested in San Diego on 18 felony charges, including fraud and unlicensed medical practice. Prosecutors said terminally ill patients had paid him as much as $50,000 for so-called treatments. He was convicted on multiple counts in 2016, and as part of a plea agreement, admitted he held no degrees from accredited institutions and was not a doctor, scientist, or anything else he had claimed to be.

The criminal convictions were followed by civil suits. In 2018, Young was ordered to pay over $25 million to a cancer patient who said he falsely presented himself as a doctor and persuaded her to abandon medical treatment. Then, in February 2025, a jury in North County, San Diego, found him guilty of elder abuse, theft, and once again, practising medicine without a licence. In May, he was sentenced to nearly six years in prison.

This is a very brief summary of Robert Young and his miracle ranch. There's a really great podcast I listened to called Dr Miracle by The Binge if you want to go deeper.

I think the reason these stories get to me is because when I was in my early twenties, I was really unwell and I was also into the wellness scene. I did Bikram yoga, I was vegan for a year, I watched a lot of documentaries about how the medical world was trying to make me sick. And I’m not saying all of that was wrong or harmful. But what I didn’t understand back then was that I was being sold products and programs as alternatives to psychiatric care — and those business models depended on discrediting the medical world.

I had a chronic, progressive mental illness that’s actually quite straightforward to treat with medication. But because of social media and wellness influencers, I was terrified of seeing a psychologist, and I deteriorated badly. At the time, I had no idea that being that unwell could carry a real risk of permanent brain damage.

I remember going to a naturopath who had formerly been a psychiatric nurse. She told me plainly: this needs to be treated with medication. She didn’t try to sell me anything. In fact, she saw me for free because I was so unwell. She checked whether I was eating, referred me to psych services, and let me know I could come back if I ever wanted support in her area of expertise.

That, to me, is a true healer — someone who knows their field, understands their limits, and refers out when it’s needed. Not someone who locks a desperate person into a payment plan.

The point of this essay isn’t to criticise natural health practitioners. I still see alternative health professionals for their expertise. This is about a wider trend we're seeing on social media, where almost anyone can present themselves as an ‘expert’ and launch a product line that promises a cure. And in Robert Young’s case, people lost their lives because of it.

I’m immediately suspicious of anyone who claims to have all the answers — and who positions themselves as the only source of a cure.

If you’re in the market for a healer, here’s a short list that might help you spot a grifter.

How to Spot a Wellness Grifter

• No credentials, or ones from unaccredited “schools”

• Universal claims (“this cures everything”)

• Demonises conventional medicine

• Uses fear to drive urgency

• Sells both the diagnosis and the solution

• Has a six-figure coaching programme

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I wrote a longer piece on changing careers in your thirties that’s nearly finished, but a bowel flare-up has taken me out this week, and I don’t have the energy to do it justice. So here’s something lighter: a list of things making winter more bearable. Some are indulgent, some are practical, all are in heavy rotation.

If only three could stay:
– My c*nty little neck scarf
– Rosehip oil for my face
– Flannelette sheets

A note on sourcing: a lot of these pieces were bought second-hand, often from Designer Wardrobe or found in op shops — especially merino, which turns up often if you look properly. For items no longer in stock, I’ve included the closest alternatives.

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Wool

Doll's Reversible Cardigan – Cherry ($420)
Boxy, cropped, and made from extra-fine merino. Wear buttoned at the front as a cardigan or reversed as a jumper. Subtle details (like Japanese buttons and a boat neck) keep it feeling intentional without being fussy.

Merino Ruched Long Sleeve Tee – $295
A proper base layer that doesn’t itch or stretch out. ZQ-certified merino, with soft ruching along the arms and spine. Ideal for layering, but looks fine on its own.

A Long Coat

The Clementine Coat – Friends With Frank ($829)
Oversized, double-breasted, fully lined. Warm enough for deep winter but tailored well enough to feel finished. Comes in black and a clean winter white.

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Hair and Skin

Air Styler – Kmart ($79)
A budget version of the Airwrap. This, in my opinion, is better and more powerful than the Dyson. It's great for smoothing and adding shape without high heat damage.

Bonnie Skin Trio – Golden, Glow & Glazed ($99)
The tanning trio—GLOW Face Drops, GOLDEN Tanning Lotion, and GLAZED Tan Prolonger—delivers a lasting, flawless bronze while deeply hydrating your skin with Hyaluronic Acid, Avocado Oil, Vitamins B5, C, E, Aloe Vera, Shea Butter, and Cucumber Extract.

The Ordinary Rosehip Oil ($22)
Cold-pressed, no filler. Good on flaky patches or post-heatpump skin.

bareMinerals Complexion Rescue Tint – Cedar 11 ($68)
SPF included. Skin tint that hydrates, evens tone, and blends fast. No brush needed, no cakey finish.

Scent and Candles

Hivern Candle – Tobacco & Smoked Oak ($58)
Deep and woody without being overpowering. Tobacco, oak, and a bit of sweetness — best in bedrooms or closed-in spaces.

Therapy Kitchen Candle – Lemongrass, Lime & Bergamot ($32.99)
Cuts through cooking smells. Light, zesty, with a clean citrus finish.

Abel Cyan Nori Eau de Parfum ($240)
Salt, musk, citrus. Genderless and clean. Doesn’t wear too sweet or too marine — just fresh and quiet.

Cold Weather Clothing

Miller Knee-High Boots – Bronwyn ($569)
Knee-high leather with a manageable heel. Easy to wear with jeans or midi skirts. Soft leather that doesn’t cut into the shin.

Kara Boot Mid-Rise Jeans – Neuw ($239)
Mid-rise, straight-leg. Sits well with boots and layers easily. Good structure without feeling rigid.

Daisy Scarf – Francie ($130)
Small but warm. Wraps twice or ties as a headscarf. 100% merino in deep, wearable colours.

Lugoldie Lara Sunglasses – Chestnut ($225)
Brown lenses soften the glare. Lightweight frames, strong styling. Lara is minimal; Alexe is a bit more playful.

Daily Shirt – Kowtow ($199)
Organic cotton poplin, structured without being stiff. Shell buttons and a flared body. Layers well under knits.

Bedding

Flannelette Sheets – Warm White ($129)
Heavy but breathable. Doesn’t pill or overheat. Pairs well with a lightweight cotton duvet cover for balance.

Let others know what’s been getting you through winter.

More later in the week xx