Hugh's Story

Note: this transcript has been edited for clarity, grammar, and flow.

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Hugh: We were a family that never had conflict growing up. We just didn’t see it, ever. And then, all of a sudden, almost every night, Mum and Georgia were fighting about food, about whether she was eating. It was a massive shift.

Mum and Dad did their best, but it’s pretty hard to support someone through an eating disorder while also trying to bring up two other teenagers who are going through their own stuff. Looking back, it would have been incredible to have a group where I could talk to other siblings going through the same thing, with the guidance of an expert. It would have been completely life-changing.

Now, as a dad with three kids, I can already see how different they are in their ability to cope with challenges. I think we all come with a certain baseline for resilience, but there are things we can do to strengthen it over time.

Jo: Hugh, thanks so much for speaking to us on Strong Enough. Tell us, what was it like at home before Georgia was diagnosed? Were there actually signs that your sister was struggling?

Hugh: Well, thanks for having me, first of all. I feel so proud to be involved with EDFA. So I'm very, very happy to be asked to do this podcast.

So thank you. That’s such a good question. I would say growing up in the 90s, we weren't talking about mental illness, especially not in schools.

And so I would say that, I mean, there might've been signs. I had no idea. If there were, I was completely oblivious to them. We had a very, very happy childhood. And as far as I was concerned, even when Georgia was first diagnosed, I thought, well, we will be again very soon. This will pass very quickly.

It can't be that serious because if she has to eat food to get better, well, that's not too difficult of a remedy. Again, this is back in the 90s, just to excuse myself so I don’t sound like a completely horrible person.

Jo: Oh no, well, it was a different time, wasn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t something that people really realised was happening to the extent that it was. What about your parents? Did they sit you down and speak to you and say, this is what’s going on?

Hugh: I do have a memory of Mum and Dad sitting myself and my younger brother, Josh, down at one point and telling us that Georgia had an eating disorder. She had a mental illness, and I didn’t quite get it. As I said before, I didn’t quite know what they were talking about, and I thought it can’t be that serious.

By the time Mum and Dad had talked to us, though, I had noticed, by the time they spoke to us, it was clear that something wasn’t right. She had lost a lot of weight, and it didn’t seem to me to be overly healthy. Not that I really understood, but also there had been a lot of, well, there’s no other way of saying it, a lot of fights happening around the dinner table. A lot of fighting from a family that never, ever had conflict growing up.

And we just saw none of it. All of a sudden, Mum, particularly, and my sister were, I’d say most nights, fights broke out about the food that my sister wasn’t eating. Basically, to the point where I think we all dreaded dinner time and, not understanding. I won’t speak on behalf of anyone else, not understanding what an eating disorder was, I started to resent my sister. Because as far as I could see, she was just causing a great deal of unhappiness in the family, especially around mealtime. So by the time Mum and Dad sat us down, I guess it wasn’t a huge surprise, but it was also a surprise because I didn’t really know what anorexia was.

Jo: It obviously changed the family dynamics quite a bit then.

Hugh: Yeah, it did. In a huge way. Any parent of a child with an eating disorder will know this. I mean, I would actually broaden that to say any parent of any child who is struggling. Be it with mental ill health or anything else going on, neurodivergence that they’re not quite understanding, any parent who is trying to help their child through something like that, it kind of becomes their obsession in a way. Certainly for Mum and Dad. I know it would have been for both of them. I know for my mum, it was absolutely an obsession to get Georgia better again not really knowing how to do it.

I mean, I still have parents that come to me now asking what they should do. I still don’t really know what to say to them other than, "Have you heard about EDFA?" It became an obsession for Mum and Dad to get Georgia better.

And I have since asked Mum what she would do differently if she could go back in time. And she said she would have spent - I hope I’m not putting words in her mouth - it was something like, she would give me and Josh a lot more attention because she feels like she was very focused on Georgia for all those years.

Understanding now that it’s really up to the individual to heal and recover. I’m sure they were obsessed with getting Georgia better. But I never felt at any point that we weren’t getting the attention we needed growing up. Maybe my brother has a different story to tell. I don’t know. You’d have to ask him that. But for me, I don’t have the memory of Mum and Dad all of a sudden turning their focus to Georgia. But that’s definitely, I know, Mum and Dad’s reflection on it all.

Jo: So what was it like for you as a sibling? Because it did go on for quite a long time for your sister. How was that as you got older and you realised what was going on? What was that like for you as a sibling to watch that happen?

Hugh: Such a difficult question to answer because it depends where I was at the time, which I know sounds like a very strange answer. But we went to school together. As a teenager, you feel desperately insecure a lot of the time, and you just want to fit in and not stand out. Well, certainly that was my approach to being a teenager - to not draw attention to myself. And to have a sister who was clearly unwell at school, I remember people talking about it or asking questions about it, and I felt embarrassed to be answering those questions. Not embarrassed about my sister, but just - it was attention that I didn’t know how to handle. I didn’t really like the attention.

I think I felt really uncomfortable around school stuff. Also, because whenever she was having a hard time at school, I felt like, well, she’s not well, but people don’t know that. People don’t understand what’s going on.

At home, I think I knew that Georgia’s eating disorder was well beyond me being able to help, but I think I did resent her for a long time for what she was doing to Mum and Dad. And it wasn’t until she was admitted to hospital, when she was meant to, I think, be in Year 12, it was very early in Year 12 for her. I think it might have been the first week back in the year 2000.

She was admitted to hospital because she dropped below crisis weight. And that was the time. I remember we sat there for the whole of the first day, pretty much. And we had to leave when visiting hours finished at whatever time it was. Actually, I still have a very strong memory of a friend of mine from school who turned up to visit with flowers. His name is Harley, and whenever I see him still, I just feel the most overwhelming love for him.

Because I remember that at our family’s darkest moment, he turned up. He was there with us in a really dark moment. But it was when we left the hospital that night—we walked out of the front door of the hospital—and I cried so much for such a long time.

And because I think it had dawned on me how, I mean, I remember thinking, walking in and seeing her with tubes, you know, all through her. I don’t know if it was her nose or her mouth at the time. I can’t remember, but there were a lot of tubes everywhere. And it looked like she was on her deathbed - that’s what it looked like.

And apparently, she was. I didn’t realise at the time, but I’ve been told since that it was quite a precarious time for her. As the sibling, I was, yeah, it really hit me as far as how heartbreaking and how tragic it was to be the brother of someone when she went to hospital for the first time. And that was when it really hit me.

And that feeling was with me for a very long time. I went from resentment and embarrassment, which I don’t like using the word embarrassment. I feel like it’s probably not an accurate word, but it’s not too far removed from that feeling at school of having attention on her. When I didn’t totally understand it, I thought, "This is so ridiculous."

And then it went to a much tougher emotion, which was when I understood it. I was just incredibly sad and so down and so sad for her and our family were just heartbroken for her.

Jo: I know this had a huge impact on you and your family, and you've actually taken all of those lived experiences and created The Resilience Project, which has just been this amazing national project. But let’s start a little bit with what resilience actually is. How do you define resilience when you look back at what you went through?

Hugh: I think it's coping in a challenging time. I heard an educational psychologist say once that resilience is "the ability to bungee jump through the pitfalls of life," which I really like. But for me, resilience is the ability to cope and just get through things. If you become stronger because of it, that’s great. If something positive comes of it in the long run, that’s terrific. But I don’t think that’s essential to being resilient. It’s simply the ability to cope in a challenging time.

Jo: Do you think you're born with that ability? Because there are some people who just seem to be capable of pushing through anything. Is it actually something that you're born with or a skill that you can learn?

Hugh: I've been asked this question so many times, and every time - no, no, no, no, no. Every time I’m asked, I think I need to actually research what the correct answer to this is because I’m sure there is one. I would hope that you very much can become more resilient throughout time as you learn different coping skills.

But there absolutely is... I look at my kids now. I’ve got three kids, and already I can see they’re born with a very different level of ability to cope with things from a young age. One of them is okay with negotiating certain things that pop up, the other one really struggles.

So I think we certainly come at the baseline inherently, but we can do things that will make us more resilient throughout time. And I do think life—living, being alive—just teaches you that even if you don't go to The Resilience Project or you don't do resilience courses or whatever, life will deal you certain disappointments, setbacks, or heartaches that you will get through, and then realise that you can get through them. So you become a bit more consciously aware of, "Oh, I am quite resilient," and, like anything in life, you gain confidence with that.

So I think for what we went through with Georgia, perhaps I always had it in me to cope, but I certainly learnt that I can cope with really difficult things because of that experience. And that gave me some confidence the next time I had to go through something difficult, and the next time, and the next time.

Jo: Do you think there are some big social issues nowadays in terms of building and maintaining resilience that we probably haven’t had in the past?

Hugh: Far greater. I think, and this is my opinion based on absolutely no science whatsoever, just from observations of the world - it is a lot more difficult to be resilient at the moment. I just think about what my childhood looked like and what my teenage years looked like compared to a teenager’s today. I mean, my brain, if I could put it very simply, had a lot more downtime and a lot more rest time.

And I think that’s really important for all areas of brain development. But I certainly think, as far as reflection and growth go, I was able to analyse, reflect, and grow with the experiences of every single day. Because every day after school, for example, I would walk 10 minutes to the tram stop, then have a 20-minute tram ride and a 15-minute walk home. All up, I had about an hour to myself every single day after school.

No one I went to school with really lived near us, so I was always by myself. I would have an hour to myself every single day with nothing - no screen to look at, no distractions.

And I would just walk and think about things. The more people we interview for our podcast at the moment, the more I realise how important that experience was. Mind-wandering is really powerful; where you don’t have anything pressing to think about, nothing capturing your attention, nothing scrambling for your focus.

You just have this time to make sense of your day, reflect on it, and make conclusions. You can forgive yourself for certain things. Then, when I got home, I would play basketball outside, or cricket, or swim in the pool, or do homework. I got this genuine social rest. I could recharge, and I would turn up the next day with my batteries fully charged to engage socially again.

But I don’t think kids ever really get an opportunity to do that anymore—none of us do. And I really, really don’t like the world that we’ve been thrust into.

And it’s not going anywhere. The cat’s out of the bag. It’s not.

Jo: It's like, I remember 10 years ago, I was pushing really hard every time I did an interview to say, we need to wrestle back control. Look at it now. And the thing is, I don’t have an aggressively optimistic view of what’s coming either. I feel like there might come a time when we’ll look back and go, "Oh, it was so much easier when the kids were just staring at a screen the whole time rather than…" There’s something with AI.

I don’t know what it is. Who knows what’s around the corner. Yeah.

Hugh: I think there's also been this huge rise in perfectionism that's come off the back of a lot of social media. And it is actually a really common trait amongst people with eating disorders. We had Professor Tracy Wade on this podcast, and she spoke about some research showing that treating perfectionism can actually have better results than treating anxiety and depression in a person with an eating disorder.

Jo: You know, and I know you love this because this is your favourite topic, but how do we embrace that imperfection and encourage others to do the same when we've got this social media constantly showing us what everyone else is doing and making us compare ourselves to people we've never met?

Hugh: I love this. We just had Adam Grant on our podcast. Well, it was the episode that came out two days ago and he talked a lot about perfectionism and the fact that perfect doesn’t exist. He learned this as a junior Olympic diver who was trying to get a 10 out of 10. His coach said, because he told his coach, "I want it to be perfect", his coach said, "No, look at the rules. A 10 isn’t perfect. A 10 just means it meets the criteria. There’s no such thing as perfect." And that, to him as a diver, was very freeing. He realised, "I don’t need to be perfect. I just need to meet the criteria."

But so many of us are still striving for perfect, and perfect doesn’t exist. Now, I’m not suggesting this as a way to help fix someone with an eating disorder - "fixing" is probably the wrong word but rather as something that might help people struggling with perfectionism in general.

What I’ve found really helps me is, rather than striving for perfection when you're doing something, you choose two words. You have to think about: what are two words you'd like to be described as? What two words would you like people to use when talking about you behind your back? Or, as mindset coach Ben Crowe says, "What two words would you like people to use to describe you in your eulogy?"

That’s a bit more of an intense one, but it makes you think. So for me, I went through this activity about three years ago. Actually, I had an old chapter in my book Let Go on dealing with perfectionism. And to do that, I went through this task of choosing two words. I can’t remember who got me to do it, it was a psychologist somewhere, but they said, "What are two words? Choose your two words."

And instead of trying to be perfect, try and be those two words.

Jo: What were your two words? Can you remember?

Hugh: Yeah, I can't remember. It was kind and humble.

Jo: I was thinking kind and fun would be my words.

Hugh: Yeah. So there you go. One of the areas I suffered from perfectionism was absolutely with the talks that I used to do because occasionally I would do these talks that just felt perfect - like everything went exactly right. But I felt like that was pretty much as good as it gets.

And then the next week I’d do one, and it wouldn’t be as good, and I’d get really down on myself. And instead of trying to be perfect, I realised I was just striving for something unattainable. So I changed my focus. Instead of trying to be perfect, I just wanted to be kind and humble.

And I could control that with the content that I spoke about. I may not have spoken every word perfectly. I might have missed certain stories or forgotten certain things, but as long as it was a kind and humble presentation, that’s what I was striving for, and I could control that.

So that was a really nice thing to do to help with perfectionism.

Jo: And as part of The Resilience Project, you have the acronym GEM, which you believe to be the key pillars of resilience—Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness. I think gratitude is obviously a really tough one for carers, so maybe we’ll come back to that in a little bit.

But how can empathy make us better carers? And how is empathy different to sympathy or compassion when you're caring for someone with an eating disorder in particular or caring for someone generally?

Hugh: Yeah. So I think gratitude is more about, obviously I know you didn’t ask me about gratitude, but I’m going to jump straight to it because I was just thinking about it as you were talking. My wife and I find ourselves in a caring role at the moment, but the most important thing you can do is to look after yourself.

I know it sounds a bit cliché, but the oxygen mask sort of thing - like, put your own oxygen mask on first. If you are not looking after yourself, you're not in a great position to care for someone else. And so that often means doing things that feel counterintuitive, like being away from the person for a certain amount of time and doing whatever it is that fills your cup. For me, it’s exercise and then recovery from exercise.

That’s what I have to do to really look after myself, and I prioritise that to this very day because I know I’m a better carer when times are really tough, and I’ve had time to regenerate, recover, and do what I need to do. And part of that for me is practising gratitude. It’s paying attention to the things that are going well for me.

One area of my life might be very, very difficult as a carer. In fact, it can be all-encompassing, and it can be the only thing on your mind, especially when it gets really dark. I have been there with an eating disorder in the family. Someone saying "practice gratitude" almost can come across as a little bit patronising or annoying or as if they don't actually get how bad this is.

But I do find if you can look at other areas of your life, if you almost see yourself like a video game character—when you're a video game character, you have to choose your character. They have different strengths. Some things are really strong; other things are weaker.

And you might say, "Yeah, well, in my caring life right now, that’s not strong right now - the health of the family." But there are other areas of life that are going well for me. And you just spend a little bit of time focusing on those.

I’m not saying you should say to yourself, "Oh, I should be fine because this year my life’s good." But at least reflecting for a little bit on some things that are going well, I think, will help keep you afloat.

I think as far as empathy is concerned, one of the most important things you can do for a child who’s struggling is to validate what they’re experiencing, and you can only do that with empathy.

Sympathy, to me, someone far more intelligent might correct me on this, but sympathy sounds more like, "I'm really sorry you're going through that," or putting a bit of distance between you and the person. You’re really saying, "Well, sorry that’s happening to you." But I think empathy is saying, "I know how it feels to feel stuck."

I know how it feels to feel like you can't move forward.

I know that feeling, and it must be so awful to be feeling that because I know what that feels like. And then also, empathy might look like reminding yourself that this isn’t their fault—this is an illness. Because at times, you can get frustrated. And I think most parents are probably like that anyway (or siblings) but being empathetic could be reminding yourself that this is like getting cross at someone for catching a cold and resenting them for having a cold.

That can’t help. This is happening to them. It just is.

And so I think that's what empathy looks like. Mindfulness - the thing you want to ask me about at the moment - because as I discuss this, I realise I, strictly speaking, don’t do meditation at all anymore. I don’t, I really don’t enjoy it anymore.

And that’s just me personally. I think people should do it. I think it’s so wonderful. And when I do it, it’s great. I'm really into breathwork at the moment, and breathwork helps me to feel present. I mean, mindfulness is your ability to be wherever you are. And for me, doing breathwork really, really helps me do that. It's not strictly meditation.

Jo: We have at the start of this podcast a minute-long practice, and people can skip it if they want to and go straight to the interview because it's exactly a minute long. Is a minute enough? Is a minute a good start? Does it need to be hours of work?

Hugh: No, I mean, I think five seconds is enough, especially in the case of the example you've just given me, which is a really great thing to do. I feel quite jealous we didn't think of it for our podcast, but it just allows - taking five seconds of mindful breathing or mindful experience - it can just anchor you wherever you are. It can really help. Instead of going, "I've come from this meeting, and I'm gonna pick the kids up, and I'll put this podcast on quickly before I go pick up the kids," you're kind of not fully in it. It can take a few minutes to get into it. But by taking a minute just to remind yourself where you are and what you're doing, you'll only serve to make yourself more present, which will increase the experience of listening to this podcast or whatever you're about to do next.

That’s why I often practise mindfulness (not meditation) but before I do a lot of racing or running, just before the race starts, I always take three really deep breaths and really pay attention to how it feels. I can get very nervous, thinking about the result and who else is racing, but I always take three deep breaths, and it helps me to just think: I'm running one lap around the ice track. That’s my event. It always has been. Nothing changes.

It's the same track, the same direction. There are two bends, two straights, and that helps me be very present. So any practice in slowing down, stopping to pay attention to what you're doing, where you are, is very powerful.

That gratitude - I like that idea of looking for glimmers, you know? I'm really trying to practice that - looking for those little moments of gratitude in the day. Like a beautiful butterfly, a delicious coffee. You know, I'm so grateful for the cool breeze, too.

Jo: So it can just be those tiny little moments in the day. And I think that’s probably what carers really need - the idea of just something small they can look for.

Hugh: Yeah, I think if you think of it as small wins. Adam Grant, on our podcast, talked a lot about languishing, the feeling of languishing, and how, during COVID, a lot of people felt that way. I think that can be the experience of a carer as well.

You feel like you turn up to work, and you're at such a great disadvantage to everyone else who seems to be moving forward in their life, kicking goals. And maybe they are. But you feel like you're just kind of languishing because all your emotional and physical energy is going into caring for this individual. So you have this feeling of languishing.

And one of the ways to get out of that feeling is to rack up little wins - small wins. Like, "I love the way those flowers smell. What a great smell." Or, "I love seeing the sunrise." Or, "I’ve drunk a litre of water before 10 in the morning." Or, "I got a really lovely text message from my partner."

The more little wins you rack up, the more you build momentum for yourself. And when you're caring for someone with an eating disorder, my memory is that you don’t feel like you have many wins in your life. In fact, you feel like you have a lot of losses - loss after loss.

So trying to stack up some small wins for yourself, no matter how small they are… If you register it as a win, it helps you fight that feeling of languishing.

Jo: Great. Good bit of advice there. What about empathy fatigue? There’s a lot of empathy fatigue when you’re caring for a loved one. Do you have any tips for people on remaining resilient in the face of what can be really quite tiring and grueling caring roles?

Hugh: Paradoxically, I’d say to empathy fatigue - have empathy for yourself. Just remind yourself that this is so unbelievably hard. And if I'm feeling fatigued in my life, that totally makes sense because I didn’t plan for this. I don’t want this.

I didn’t know this was going to happen. And this is not how I thought parenting would be. So whatever I’m feeling right now. That’s to be expected. I totally forgive myself for feeling this way, or I empathise with myself for feeling this way. So having empathy for yourself is really, really important.

Jo: Could you give me some ideas about what you would see as traits of resilience? Obviously, managing to bounce back after hardship but the challenges of caring for someone with an eating disorder can go on for years. Is there a way to benchmark what signs of good resilience are in this situation?

Hugh: I've always thought a sense of humour is a really good character trait for anyone trying to cope with anything difficult. Even at your lowest moments, you can still find things to laugh about. Things can still make you laugh. Not to say you should try and make light of things that are going on around you, but…

Jo: Because, say, if you were looking at parenting, resilience might be being able to cope with change, because kids can be so random, and accepting the imperfect. You go out, you have baby vomit on your shirt, but you’ve made it out of the house and into the park, into the sunshine.

So what about those signs of resilience in a caring role?

Hugh: I’d say a sign of resilience is someone who’s still trying to stack up little wins. Like I said before. Someone who's still trying to create little scenarios in which they feel like they are achieving in their life.

As a parent with a child who’s struggling, you can’t help but feel like - even though logically you know it’s not the case - you can’t help but feel like you’re kind of failing. Even though that’s absolutely not the case, it’s certainly how you can feel.

So doing things that feel like little wins and continuing to stack them up—getting up and having a shower, exercising, eating well, still catching up with friends.

I find that one quite hard. Looking back on Mum and Dad, and certainly my life and my experience caring for someone, you feel like, "How can I catch up with someone socially right now with this going on?"

But I think the more social you are, the more it helps you. And that’s the other thing I’d say, sharing what you’re going through with the people you love is really powerful. If you send out a message to your community that you’re not coping, people will wrap their arms around you.

But if you keep it to yourself because you think, "I don’t want people to know what we’re going through," no one’s going to reach out to support you. And it’s very hard. Reaching out is, I’d say, a very big sign of resilience - the ability to reach out when you’re struggling.

Jo: If you could distill this down, what are your top three tips you’d like people to take away today about resilience and really nailing the caring role?

Hugh: Obviously, I’ve spent 15 years talking about GEM—Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness—but if I could make it very specific to eating disorders, I would say:

Look after yourself. Because you’re no good to anyone if you’re not in a good place. Reach out and share what you’re going through with as many people as you feel comfortable with. The more people you can confide in, the more support you’ll get. Have empathy for yourself. And try to picture yourself five or ten years down the track, looking back with kindness. I look back on myself as a teenager going through this with so much empathy and awe that I got through it. I’m so proud of myself, and I’m so proud of my mum and dad because we got through it.

But in the moment, we are so critical of ourselves. I think we should try to look at ourselves with a great deal of pride and admiration for what we are enduring. As awful as it is, you can take some level of pride in the fact that you continue to turn up every single day.

And having a win - looking for those small wins every day.

Jo: What’s your favourite bit of advice that you give as part of The Resilience Project?

Hugh: It changes all the time, depending on what I’m going through in my life and with my family.

For a long time, it was just reminding young people that you are enough as you are. We’re all so desperately trying to achieve so much to get someone’s approval, love, or attention. And I think we forget that we are already enough.

Lyle Stone says this: no one’s ever had a baby, looked at it, and thought, I don’t know… I’m not sure that’s enough. I need it to be more.

The moment you meet a baby, you feel this ridiculous amount of love for it. And not just your own kids, I look at my younger brother Josh’s kids, and the love I feel for them is impossible to explain. That was the first time I met them.

I don’t look at them thinking, I need you to do more to earn my love. But I still find myself trying to impress my aunties, my uncles, my parents. And now, as an uncle myself, I realise you don’t need to do anything. I couldn’t love you any more than I already do.

I think that’s a nice reminder for people.

The other bit of advice I’d give right now, based on my work with The Resilience Project, is very specific. Some people roll their eyes, but one of the best things you can do is to pick a difficult event to train for.

Jo: Like a fitness challenge?

Hugh: Exactly! But difficult is up to you. For some people, it’s a marathon. For others, it’s a one-kilometre swim, a 10K walk, or something else.

Hamish Blake recently did Coast to Coast, which is this ridiculous endurance race.

Jo: 30Ks, right?

Hugh: Yeah - 30K run, 180K bike ride, and a six-hour paddle. That was his challenge. But anyone you speak to who has set themselves a goal like that three months away, six months away, a year away, and then structured their life around training for it… I tell you what, it would be such a good thing to do for a carer.

Because it gives you a healthy distraction. It forces you into good habits. You prioritise sleep, eating well, moving your body. It gives you a focus.

And honestly, when people come up to me and ask for advice about things they’re struggling with, I always say, I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a counsellor, I can’t give that advice.

But I feel like handing them a brand-new pair of running shoes and saying, Wear these out. Come back to me in six months and tell me how you’re going.

Jo: Maybe you need a sponsorship deal from Nike.

Hugh: Yeah, I’ll take that!

Jo: I wanted to ask, reflecting on your time at home when Georgia was in the grip of her eating disorder, were there things you wish you had done differently? Or things your parents had said or done? Has Georgia ever shared what she really needed to hear or feel?

Hugh: I just don’t have a great memory of that time. I think I’ve blocked a lot of it out. Mum and my sister have told me that I wasn’t around much. Physically, I wasn’t there. And for a long time, I felt really bad about that. I wished I’d been around more, spent more time at home. But that’s what adult Hugh would have done. That’s what I’d do now.

At the time, I was a kid. I was in love for the first time. I had a driver’s license. And home was hard. It was quite miserable. So I’ve not only forgiven myself, but I’ve accepted that if I was 18 again, I’d probably do the same thing. So I’d say: do what you need to do to get through this. Because the person you’re talking to has to do the same thing.

Just do what you need to do to get through. If that means spending less time at home, or taking some space, that’s okay. But what I never did was talk to Georgia one-on-one about it.

If I had, and she’d said, I really need you to be around more, this is really hard, I would have done that. But I didn’t ask, so I didn’t know. So I’d say: talk to the person. Ask them, What do you need? I can’t fix this, but what do you need from me to make life a little easier?

Jo: That’s a good question - if you feel brave enough to ask it.

Hugh: Yeah. And I think it would have given me the opportunity to say to Georgia, Do you understand why I haven’t been around?

Look at my situation. I could be with my girlfriend, which is fun and exciting. Or I could be here, which feels really grim. Maybe we would have found a better balance if we’d talked about it. But we didn’t.

So I’d say: try and talk about it. You might not get anywhere, but you can at least try. But also, whatever you need to do to look after yourself—without making the person feel completely abandoned—you need to do that, too.

Jo: Last question. How is your sister these days?

Hugh: She’s good, yeah. She’s doing some incredible stuff. She lives in Los Angeles. She moved there when she was 21 or 22, and she’s been there nearly 20 years now. She’s an American citizen.

She’s doing so much to help people experiencing trauma, specifically kids. She started an incredible charity called Arts Bridge the Gaps, bringing arts programs into schools in lower socioeconomic areas that don’t have them.

She’s a weapon. I’ve never seen anyone do more with their time than Georgia. In terms of her health, she has other health issues that she’s working through - not related to her eating disorder.

But she’s the most resilient person I know. She’s an incredible picture of hope and optimism for anyone - or for anyone who loves someone - with an eating disorder.

Jo: Hugh, thanks so much. It’s so great to hear she’s doing well. And so lovely to chat with you today. Thank you also for your support of EDFA and your lived experience insights.

I think there’s so much to learn from this podcast, everyone will probably need to listen twice!

Hugh: It’s a pleasure. I just wish EDFA had been around when we were going through it. I recommend it to everyone who approaches me because it’s such a powerful thing.

Jo: Hugh’s podcast, The Imperfects, is one of the top podcasts in the country, and for good reason. There are hundreds of hours of inspiration in the back catalogue, so add it to your favourites.

You can also connect with The Resilience Project to have Hugh speak to your organisation or even your school. And there are hundreds of blogs and articles on the website's Wellbeing Hub too. And we've put all the links in the show notes.

Check out The Resilience Project’s Wellbeing Hub for more practical tips to boost resilience as a carer.

Thanks for listening to Strong Enough, a podcast by Eating Disorders Families Australia, an organisation caring for carers around the country.

Head to our website at edfa.org.au for links to more resources, including webinars, support groups, and the Fill The Gap counselling services.

All the links are below.

And remember: you are Strong Enough.

EDFA acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Custodians of the land this podcast was recorded on. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and future.

Episode notes:

• Visit EDFA's website: edfa.org.au
• Contact EDFA: 1300 195 626
• Join Eating Disorders Families Australia’s sibling support group or other groups by clicking here
• Want more information and support resources for supporting someone with an ED?
  • Click here to become an EDFA Member
  • Visit EDFA's resources library
  • Book a free counselling session with EDFA’s Fill The Gap program
• Keen to volunteer or donate to EDFA?
  • Learn about volunteering
  • Make a donation
• To learn about specific types of eating disorders, you can click the links below:
  • Anorexia nervosa (AN)
  • Bulimia nervosa (BN)
  • Binge eating disorder (BED)
  • Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)
  • Other specified feeding & eating disorders (OSFED)