Tales from a Bruised Mind

Some of my posts on this website might be viewed as pretty depressing, I get it. It’s kind of ironic, because that’s not my intention at all. It’s really the opposite.

To help add some positivity and light, let’s dive back a few years, to when a kid with a dream was told he’d never succeed as a journalist.

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It was roughly 2014 and my girlfriend at the time told me, straight out, that she couldn’t work out why I wanted to be a journalist, and then told me I’d never succeed in that particularly field. When I was also so anxious that I felt like vomiting all the time, she told me to just “get over it”.

That whole ordeal really affected me and left a lasting (and nasty) impression. If anything, by her saying that, I instead felt like I needed to prove her wrong.

So I did.

In the years afterwards, I still held that passion for cars close by, no matter what. I didn’t let anyone get in between me and the big dream.

When my life was turned upside down in 2019 and I was forced to ultimately start again, the dream was still as real as ever. I had to have a lot of time off work, I went onto Centrelink and basically did nothing for six months.

And just when I was starting to get good again, I relapsed and found myself back in hospital. I couldn’t believe it.

Amazingly, no matter the fact that my brain was in tatters, I still wanted to write about and drive cars for a living. Just like on TopGear.

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Four hospital admissions later, I am back on my feet and working as an automotive journalist in Sydney.

I could have given up, it would have been easier. I did think about going back to university and getting ‘a real job’, but my passion kept me driving right on past all of that.

Right here and now, I look back and realise that my life has been so up and down, but I really have no regrets and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here’s some takeaways and reflections from me about my life so far:

• If I didn’t get told ‘good luck with that’, I wouldn’t have got my first internship.
• If I didn’t have a mental episode, I wouldn’t have had time to think about what I really wanted to do
• If I didn’t move to Sydney, I would have worked at Aldi (true)
• If I didn’t go in and out of hospital, I wouldn’t have had a calling to help others
• If I didn’t help others, I wouldn’t have written my book
• If I didn’t write my book, I wouldn’t have spoken out, and therefore not become a mental health ambassador

So, it’s not all bad. There is hope. Just go out and seek it, or look back and find those moments in your memory bank.

Trust me, they are there.

Love,

Zak