Life Uncut - Laura's got Covid 🦠 A new theory on Oxytocin and A Principal's newsletter

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

From the highest of live show tour highs, to the depths of viral lows, we've had quite the week. Laura's luggage is on a little journey of it's own and is...most likely... still in Brisbane (*trying to get more info on this).Laura, Producer Keeshia and Mitch have all fallen like dominos from covid and somehow Britt's immune system is still going strong. There's a neuroscientist who has claimed that there are chemical reasons that women fall in love with men when they are having sex; whereas it's not quite the same for men. The science is a bit up for debate but Laura has some anecdotal evidence she'd like to bring to the table. We also unpack a newsletter sent by the headmaster of the Sydney all boys private school where Lilie James was murdered where he labelled her murderer as 'not a monster.'These types of character descriptions, along with other accounts of positive personality traits are a way for people to distance themselves from the idea that they know someone capable of such violence. We don't want to think that a person we know or care about is capable of such evil behaviour. A huge part of breaking down the false perception that society has around domestic violence is that we need to better understand that these men are 'normal' men, who live where we do and hold normal jobs.  We also discuss how certain media using phrases like 'scorned lover' diminishes the responsibility from the murderer, and contributes to victim blaming. If this episode has brought anything up for you, please reach out to Life Line - 13 11 14 If you have a question please send it on it to life uncut podcast on Instagram hereJoin us on tiktok Or join the facebook group here Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Wollongong land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany and I don't want to brag, but it's probably going to come back to bite me, but I'm the only healthy person left in this Life Uncut podcast group. Excuse me.

Excuse me. I think you are getting a little bit ahead of yourself because it could be coming for you, Brittany Hockley. As soon as I actually said it, I'm like, you idiot, because I actually believe in that shit. I believe in jinxing and stuff. And as soon as it was coming out of my mouth, I was like, oh, I'm going to get so sick. No, we finished the live show tours.

It was incredible. the next day everyone in the team Mitch Turi producer Keisha Laura Byrne all started to feel a little bit under the weather and then everyone got COVID it was from the highs of the highs to the lows of the lows Keish got it first and then I got it I went down like a sack of shit and then Mitch so it was kind of just like a domino effect that happened no and I was on the plane with Keisha so producer Keisha and I were flying home together you were staying up a little bit longer Laura with the kids and Matt and then Mitch flew on a different plane and I had to sit basically next to Keisha the entire time and still somehow I didn't I don't know what's going on

I think I had it a few months ago in Scotland so maybe like my immunity is still up from it I don't know this time it's hit me okay I feel like I've been transported back to 2021 I spent my entire weekend trapped in the house with the kids not a big deal it's only two days I get it 2021 was very very different to that but what happened was I stayed in Brisbane for an extra day I thought I was just tired from like the live shows you know I thought that that was just a normal level of tiredness totally I got to the airport I went to check in and I walked up to the front counter and the lovely virgin staff that was standing there goes to me she looked shocked like she looked visibly shocked she went and I thought it was because maybe she recognized Matt and I

but then she goes oh you look so different to your Instagram you look really tired no she did not she did you can't tell someone that they look different to their Instagram unless it means you look better she was like you look like shit and I was like yeah anyway I knew I didn't feel 100% I thought I was just really tired like I just had really this real body tiredness I didn't feel sick and then when I was on the plane I started to feel itchy this is a fucking weird symptom but like my face started to feel itchy my arms started to feel itchy and I went to the bathroom and I was like oh I look like actual shit I understand now I don't remember itchiness I'm just trying to think I've had it twice but I don't remember ever having that itchiness feeling I wonder if that's a new

addition to the 2023 strain of COVID oh lucky me I don't know I feel like for me I've never had like I mean I have had the traditional symptoms I've had like the not being able to taste not being able to smell but like this started off really weird which is why I didn't realize what it was at the time and then when I got home also very sorry to anyone who was on that fucking virgin flight I'm deeply deeply apologetic I got home and I did a test uh like maybe about four or five hours after I got home and those two lines came up so quick they came up faster than when I did a pregnancy test like they were like bam you have COVID. So the live show tour is over how do you feel now it's like oh you've got COVID so it doesn't count but I went on a proper like I don't

want to put myself in this this basket but a lot of artists call it like like the adrenaline come down post-show post-tour Sam Fisher was talking about it that it's like it's a real thing and I think I had it for a few days I went complete hermit introverted didn't want to talk to anyone and it was a really weird feeling and I was like what what is this feeling and Sam Fisher was like oh it's just like a post-tour adrenaline dump all your adrenaline all the highs out and you're just like flatlining wait did you feel sad that it was over or did you just feel like you had nothing left in the tank I can't be sure I think part of me was happy it was over so that we could calm down but then part of me was really sad it was over and it was so incredible and we can't wait to do it

again next year actually wait wait wait huge thank you shut up okay sorry what did you just say well I think we're going to do a different next year but we already spoke about that let's just repeat it I can't wait to do it really differently in the regional towns next year no we don't want to put anything out there in case we don't know what's going to happen but we we would like to try something different next year we're unsure what that will be yet but I did want to just say a huge thank you to some of the people we worked with along the way that actually helped make the tour possible and amazing and one of those was the Avani Oaks team so they're the hotels that we stayed at mainly around the country and they were just beautiful they had all the

rooms always ready for us even if it was a bit of an early check-in and they just really looked after us they had beautiful pools everywhere the staff were amazing and it just made it a really enjoyable tour yeah and we were also doing like a whole heap of our podcast recording from there as well so having a space that felt like a home away from home was perfect totally and then so we tried to have different couches lounges on the stage at all the different shows and you might have seen some of them we had these big pink lips I had loads of people writing to me actually wanting those for their offices and things like that now I do think you can buy them you can't buy them through the company we use but we hired all of our lounges through simply seated which is like a

higher function right they do lots of different events I think they do like weddings but anything that you need you can hire through simply seated and they've got different warehouses around the country but I even asked them I was like hey if I wanted to buy this for our own office can you do it and she said look you can't buy through them but you can for all those people inquiring you can buy that exact thing somewhere on the interwebs but if you do want to just hire it simply seated were absolutely incredible to us I love the disclaimer there if you want to buy it you can buy it from somewhere else not them but if you buy it somewhere on the internet if you want it for the weekend simply seated is the place to go okay well do you know I want to tell you you would think that

my low would end with COVID. You know how you say like you had the post-show comedowns? I also had the post-show comedowns, but for very, very different reasons. And I can't be sure exactly which reason is the main reason, but this also contributed to it. So we got back to Sydney airport from Brisbane. It's a short flight guys, one and a half hour flight. We land, we go to the baggage carousel and Matt's bag comes off, Marley's bag comes off, the spare bag that we packed for the kids shit comes off and they were all the first bags off the carousel anyway so then I was like okay my bag's coming it's coming it's coming okay it didn't guys it never came I still don't have my bag Laura is still waiting for the carousel it's been four days

it's been five days now my bag has not come we went to go and see them at the like counter where they help you and they're like oh yeah I'm so sorry it's definitely still in Brisbane it'll be on the next flight and we'll get it delivered to your house so anyway get home it's like nine o'clock at night the fucking bag has not arrived so I'm on the phone they're like not a problem tomorrow it'll get delivered anyway tomorrow comes the bag does not come day three I'm calling again day three I find out that they don't even know where the fucking bag is the bag is gone oh my god the bag's in Frankfurt the bag has disappeared and the new update is look we can't actually locate the bag. So once we locate the bag, we'll let you know that we've located the bag. So then

I get a call the next day and they're like, Hey, just letting you know, we think we've located the bag. And he's like, but we need to know what's in your bag. And I was like, okay. So I started going through all the things that were in there. I was like the kids, I've got Halloween costumes in there. The kids are in there. I've got two toddlers in there. Can I please get them delivered back as a priority I was like the kids costumes are in there I was like there's recording equipment in there because some of our recording equipment is in there there's clothes anyways rattling off all this stuff and then the guy on the phone goes um is there any female personal items in the bag and I was like female personal items I was like I didn't pack that and you gotta bear with me

because I like I very very much have COVID I was very fucking tired and I was like I I didn't pack what my dildo I was like I don't think so and he was like yeah female personal items and I was like I was like maybe it's purple and then I started describing to him what my vibrator looked like the poor guy on the phone he sounded so confused and then I was confused and then he was confused he was asking me if I had a hair dryer or any makeup in the bag what then just say do you have a hair dryer or makeup not do you have a um unpersonal item you're like shit did Matt slip that in did matt want to get freaky this weekend it turns out that my vibrator is still safely in my top drawer in the bathroom and it was not in the suitcase but i described it exactly to him

so if he needed to look for it it's not in the back i feel like it has four speeds five vibrations purple it has a little sucky bit at the front pulse and suck action that is so funny what you know what i don't get so they lied to you twice because they're like oh yes man we've got it it'll be on the next flight back you didn't have it then two days later they're like yeah yes we've found it we have found it was coming back you still don't have it do you actually think they have it if it ever shows up again I'll be so thrilled it's also just such unfortunate timing because so we all have recording equipment right but we often it's always a backup we don't always need it because we're always together and this is the only time we needed it is today because you

guys all have COVID I can't have you come near me because I'm egg freezing again we all need the equipment it's the one time the equipment's literally in Germany like where is it I live in hope that today is the day that it'll arrive on my doorstep well as a little update the reason I was really really adamant that these guys no one in my life comes anywhere near me right now is today is day one again of the egg freezing cycle I am doing another cycle now of egg freezing and I probably won't go into it as much as I have in the past because I feel like I've done it this is my third time you guys you know I have updated you a lot in the past but I'll keep you posted along the way with how it's going but it is day one today and the last one I did the reason I'm

doing it again because I get a lot of questions about why do you keep doing it and why are you doing it again so soon and that's because I was really unsuccessful in the last time and I didn't get any in the end they didn't make it the ones I thought I had weren't healthy enough I will talk about that properly once this cycle's done maybe next month once it's all over I'll get into that little bit more because there's a few more aspects I want to get into and I want to talk about in relation to that but now it's not the time right I know that for you it feels like you speak about the egg freezing process a lot but also I know that last time was so incredibly disappointing for you and when you say that people ask you why are you doing it again I don't think it's so much

why are you doing it again but what will make this time different in terms of like how's the approach going to be different what are they going to change in order to give you more chance of getting more eggs well this is actually interesting I actually ran into a girl in the park yesterday I was at the dog park with Delilah and there was a girl Laura hi Laura from Melbourne she was just literally here visiting her sister's new baby she came to the Melbourne show she like she came up to me she was like oh my god I came to Melbourne it was amazing and we started talking about egg freezing and she said something interesting she's like oh you're doing it again kind of thing and I was like yeah you know because I wasn't successful last time and she said oh I've often she's 34 and

she said, I've often thought about if I should do it because she's single. But then I always just think, you know, let's risk it for the biscuit. Let's see what the universe gives me. And I said, look, I'm all for that. I said, in all honesty, if there is any single, and this is what I want to say to everyone listening. I was like, if there's any little tiny part of you that thinks you might want a child one day in the future, whether that's alone, or maybe you're not going to meet your partner till 40, whatever that is. If there's any part of you that wants a baby in the future I was like go to your doctor and at least start the testing look at freezing because the difference in me in just two years I did the first lot two years ago and I got a few eggs on

ice I think I ended up with 15 two years later I did it and I couldn't even get one and I think that that's a really important lesson I don't want to say it's a lesson but it was a real wake-up call and I don't want to tell women that to scare them but I want to tell them so that they're armed with the knowledge that they can do something about it before it is too late if they're in the same position as I am because I do have friends that went a little bit later in their 30s even early 30s they're like oh maybe I'll go and do it and they couldn't get anything yeah and that is just that's just being realistic and it's not to scare people but it's just taking it into your own control so that is the reason I am doing it so close together is because your eggs every single

month that you age in every period you lose eggs and they don't come back now you do have hundreds of thousands of eggs but at some point they deplete that's when we go into menopause that's the whole thing it's not even a guarantee it's still only a backup it's still only a maybe the eggs might not work but it's better to have that option down the track so that is why I'm doing it again and what they're doing differently this time for me is they're giving me a lot more hormones so they're giving me a higher dose which could potentially put me over into hyper ovarian syndrome which is not good and that's what I had a little bit of the first time when I did get a few eggs so this process I don't know if you followed me for those that followed me a month or two ago

when I did it I was actually so fine and I remember telling you guys I was like until the last day or two it's cruisy I feel like I was like not really noticing much the last two days are really uncomfortable but this time is going to be different because they are going to pump me full of a lot more to try and get as many out as they can so I don't imagine this next fortnight is going to be overly enjoyable, but it's what I think is a small price to pay. Okay. Well, speaking of hormones. So I came across something on the internet in the last couple of days. Now I sent this in the group chat to both producer Keisha and to Brit. And there's this woman online who I follow. Her name is Elisa Bilyeu. I don't know if that's exactly how you say her name, but she's the

founder of a company called Women of Impact. She is the co-founder of another company called impact theory. I've been trying to get her on the podcast for so long. And I would say that she, oh, she's probably not going to come on the podcast after I say this. She almost borders on toxic positivity because she's so like, rah, rah, rah, you can achieve anything. And the thing that's amazing about her is that she actually has achieved the things that she sets out and says, you know, you can achieve anything. Her and her husband, they've been together for like something crazy, like 18 years. They don't have kids, but they have these incredibly successful businesses and she has really insightful conversations with people, all different types of

people, similar conversations to the ones that we have. There was something that I came across on her Instagram. It's now had close to 30 million views. Insane. And it was all around how women fall in love when they have sex and men don't necessarily feel the same. I'm going to play it for you guys. Fun fact for you. Women release oxytocin whenever they have sex. Men release testosterone whenever they have sex, but only oxytocin if they're in love with the woman. Oh my God. It's an evolutionary mechanism, but it's the explanation for the fact that if a woman sleeps with a man enough times, she's going to start falling in love. Whereas for a man, it's not necessarily going to happen. And you know, that is the basis of so many relationship

issues. You know, you've heard it before. Let's keep it casual, but we are having sex. The woman kind of thinks at some point he's going to change his mind and we're going to be in a relationship. but if that's what the guy's told you from the start physiologically chemically it's not going to change for him okay now this caused quite a bit of debate in our little group chat the woman who is speaking there her name is dr tara swart she is a neuroscientist but she's also she's kind of moved into more spiritual healing and manifestation all different things so the reason why it caused a bit of conversation was because we are unsure of the validity of it but fuck it reigns true for my 20s yeah and the reason was we say well I'm sure of the validity and this neuroscientist I

love that she's a neuroscientist like Keisha and I would talk about this obviously incredible she's a doctor she has a PhD she's amazing she's dedicated her whole life to study but then she has transitioned into manifestation achievement boards wellness as a holistic sense which I also love and a lot of her stuff is a culmination of both like she takes a little bit of the neuroscience and a little bit of this so i don't know if what she has said about this whole sex thing is 100 percent accurate i think a bit of bees leaked into bit of a can we stop let's stop let's stop taking instagram as though it's gospel and just appreciate that i fell in love with a guy who had a mattress on the floor and used to sleep on his clothes because i had sex with him enough

times but laura sent it to me laura sent to me she goes oh my god after all this time my whole life is explained by this neuroscientist everyone I fuck I wanted to marry literally literally I am not joking I could not even be remotely attracted to a guy or like you know kind of think he's good looking but like no part of his personality or his life or anything to do with him did I think was a good match for me and then if I had sex with him enough times I'd be like maybe I could don't take this the wrong way because you know I love you and you're my really good friend but i am not convinced that that is just because of what these neuroscientists have said i don't think it's just these endorphins and whatever fucking other hormone comes out oh you're calling

me crazy i think it's also because you had you're calling me codependent you had attachment issues which we've established which we've talked about you've written a book you definitely do have attachment issues and you did i'm not having a laugh but you did want to find that safety in a partner and somebody and i sometimes wonder if if it was more leaning onto that side like you're like, oh, I could make this person my partner. And then I, and then I would have someone for a while. Literally. I feel sorry for any of my exes who ever listened to this podcast. I'm sure they don't. I'm sure they don't give a flying fuck, but if they did, I get you all great guys. You have great personalities. I loved you all. But if they did listen to it, they would think that

I hated them. I definitely didn't. I just knew that they were terrible matches for me at the time, but yet I really tried to shove a triangle in a square. Yeah. And you, it's funny because when you sent me this, you were like, you know, this is, this is low, low, low. This is what I did is this what you did as well all the science is true and when I look back at mine I actually was so opposite to that like I would even last year before I met Ben you know there was that one person that I was hooking up with who on paper but on paper like great guy and on paper he was incredible like on paper he ticked a lot of boxes fucking wasn't paper Laura he was not paper when you write it down okay he's all he was good hold on hold on hold on a guy who goes out

gets blind drunk and then rocks up at your house in the middle of the night yelling Brittany I love you and then buys you flowers the next day to apologize and then does the exact same thing the following weekend is not a great guy hang on at all I mean on paper he's got a great job he's attractive he was funny uh he was driven of age of similar age which I think is important because I always date down oh he was he was younger but but not that much not that much younger no but my point was like that didn't happen for me and it was the opposite but I have definitely been that person in the past and one particular person comes to mind one person that I was in a situationship with for years like years of my life and I entered that as a situationship I entered

that being like don't fall in love with me and he was like no I won't and I was like I know but really don't he's like no I'm really not gonna and then and then I fell in love with him and I kept being like I'm gonna be that stupid woman that's like I know you'll change for me like I know if I just keep doing everything and be the perfect person for you that one day you'll wake up and be like oh my god she's the perfect person and I'm in love and it never happened and I tried to do that I tried to change his mind for three years and it never happened I think every I mean I shouldn't say everyone can relate to this because obviously we've all walked different lives but I think there's so many women who can relate to having sex you had that nice little

cuddle afterwards and you're like oh you know you weren't really into it beforehand but then you're cuddling and you're in there you're in their little man space and you're like this and I'm speaking more obviously for heterosexual relationships because that's the only one that I can speak to from my own personal experience and you're there and then you're like oh maybe this is maybe I am falling in love maybe maybe I am falling in love with this person and then you have a bit of space and you realize it was all a fucking lie your hormones lied to you what's the quickest point like when you look back at all the people you've fucked or hooked up with what was the quickest from like when you met them and slept with them for the first time

to when you actually started to think like you pictured your marriage and your wedding and your life like what was the quickest it wasn't because i had those big like instant connection relationships where like i wanted to marry them before i'd even slept with them so those ones don't count the hormone wasn't even released yet the sex hormone wasn't even out i was just crazy I just matched with him on tinder I'm talking about the ones where they catch you by surprise like you're actually not that into the person you've gone on a date it's very like unassuming you're not really into the date but you do want to have sex with them because they're attractive and there's like something about them but you also know that they're a terrible match for you

and then all of a sudden you start thinking maybe you can make it work and I have done that many times and guess what you never can make it work it is the sex and it is lying to you so just stay aware and stay conscious of what you're doing right and if anyone's listening to this right now and you're in the midst of maybe you've had sex with them four times four times a danger zone right if you hit four times you're getting some feelings i can three's danger like a hat trick how did the feelings change with matt because that was a different situation you had three months in the house of of no sex and having to date him but you already knew you loved him at the end did the love feelings change when you had sex do you know what i spoke about this what show

was it was it Adelaide no Perth maybe Perth we had an ask uncut question which was around toxic relationships and like going back and forth to a toxic relationship and I can't remember the exact context of the question but it was kind of around the person who was in the audience was going back to their ex even though they were you know had been dating new people and had like the opportunity of being in healthy relationships they kept going back to their toxic exes and one of the things I have come to realize about my relationship with Matt over the years and this is probably through this podcast it's through reading a lot of self-help books it's around like understanding my attachment styles doing all the fucking work is now I am in a very healthy and secure relationship

with a man who I adore and I love but Matt is not drama filled there is nothing about him that is drama filled he is consistent he is kind he is caring he's all the things that I would have thought were boring back in the day because it didn't flame my need for this like toxic like crazy intense love right but boring is healthy yeah totally and i would have met him in real life and been and i'm sure i've said this before i would have met him in real life and been like this is a fucking boring relationship you know if it had not been on the bachelor but the environment of the bachelor satisfied all of the things i needed in terms of toxicity right it gave me the feelings of volatility. It gave me the feelings of uncertainty. It made me really want

to latch onto the relationship. All the things that I had felt in the past when I dated my toxic relationships, my toxic exes, all the things that I unconsciously craved, I got them. I just didn't get them from Matt. I got them from the environment of The Bachelor, which is so fucked up when you actually say those things out loud and you unpack that of yourself. But I guess, you know, it's been seven years now I have kids we've grown as a couple and I can look back on that period and go as much as I was in love with Matt I also had that absolute toxic need met by the environment of the bachelor so what Laura is saying is she wants to back up this neuroscientist that you fucking fall in love if you're a woman but not if you're a man yeah I reckon well I mean look

who knows I think that there's validity to it I would love to know your opinions if you feel like you have been in a similar situation or maybe I'm out here on an island all by myself with my COVID in isolation. Okay we had some absolute bangers written in for Accidentally Unfiltered and what I've started doing is reading them out to Ben just for fun and like just seeing what his responses are and that's the one I pick. So that's how I picked just so you know Laura that's how I picked the Accidentally Unfiltered today. Well I always pick a few of what I think are funny and then I read them to Ben and I just gauge his response. Anyway this is the one he was attracted to last night my husband asked me to investigate an ingrown hair in his bum hole

as you do not around the bum hole no no no it was a hemorrhoid and he's like i swear it's an ingrown hair i feel like the language in this is a bit off no ingrown hair in his bum hole that's what she wrote okay to help the investigation he wanted me to take a photo so i could show him said ingrown hair pimple thing to see if he needed to see a GP as in the past he's had to have one surgically removed moving forward I'm in bed catching up on my messages for the day and I saw that my mother-in-law wanted to see photos from the day with our kids so what did I do yep you guessed it I sent my mother-in-law a close-up photo of her son's hairy butthole instead of a cute butthole for our kids she didn't reply but she's called me six times this morning and I'm

avoiding her help. Now we wanted to take much more of a serious tone with this part of the episode and that is because you guys know that we never shy away from hard conversations on here and something that we have spoken about so many times over the past four and a half years of doing this podcast it's something that both Britt and I are incredibly passionate about is speaking up about domestic violence and recently as you would know if you're within Australia if you're one of our overseas listeners you may not have heard the story Lily James she is a school teacher and she was murdered recently by a co-worker and someone who she may have had some sort of romantic connection to his name is Paul Disson and the reason why we want to speak about this is because

Lily is one of five women who's been killed in the last nine days which really goes to show what an issue domestic violence is within this country and it's such a stain on this country it's something that is not talked about enough now something that came up in the news in the last week and something we really wanted to talk about is the headmaster of the shore school dr john collier he's the headmaster of the exclusive private boys school in which paul this and attended and he wrote a newsletter that was distributed to parents and to teachers that newsletter was titled looking in the face of savagery but within that newsletter he talked about how this and who is a murderer was an absolute delight of a student and he went on to say things like

he appeared to be just like the best of us an hour before he committed the atrocity he was speaking in a relaxed friendly mode with staff at that school he was not a monster rather in the last five hours of his life he committed a monstrous act which was a complete contradiction to what everyone who knew him observed in the rest of his short life what actually happened to Paul is that he went on to suicide after he killed Lily this has caused so much outrage Chanel Contos who we've had on the podcast before she is the creator of Teach Us Consent has spoken out it's this idea that he had a lapse in judgment that all of a sudden he he had this moment in time where he acted out and behaved in a way that was not in line with

who he is as a person and I think the really big thing to drive home here is that good men who are brought up with great morals who do not abuse women in their life do not just switch and murder people it doesn't happen and framing him as though he was this great man with great morals just like the best of us just devalues what has happened to Lily the thing that got me is the way the head principal had said it was like a moment of mental disintegration like it really was a spur of the moment thing now I was reading something that really reiterated this Yvette Vignando she's the chief executive of anti-domestic violence organization at Mary's house in Australia she went on to comment and she said I commend Dr Collier for trying to reach young men and make

sense of the situation through his faith but the language he used was not helpful one thing that stood out to me it was quite jarring to read someone describe after such a horrific murder the alleged perpetrator is described as an absolute delight this language is not helpful i do resonate with what she's saying here because i do think that dr collier didn't think he was doing anything wrong i think he was trying and he has come out afterwards and he said look i went about this the wrong way i'm sorry i was just trying to express my shock at the situation but this terminology isn't it and it doesn't fucking work i think it then comes back to this idea right that just because you are friends with someone or you think you know someone that they

couldn't possibly be the type of person who would do something like this and the reality is is that the types of people who would do something like this aren't walking around the streets looking like outward monsters you're not going to spot them crossing the road and be like oh that's someone who would do such a horrific act like this it happens in homes everywhere it happens in homes and I'm not talking about murder but I am talking about domestic violence it happens with people that you would never expect it is not just the othering of people who are poor or who are mentally unwell or who there's some sort of depravity it happens everywhere and i think it's the language of oh he was just like the best of us that minimizes how common it is in

households of people who look outwardly normal who look outwardly like they have their stuff together who look normally like they can hold down a great job and they're handsome and attractive and successful because that's the issue right is this language once again sort of says that it happened in a moment of weakness and the big point that chanel contos made and this is what she had to say on it it is symbolic of a much larger problem the whole point is that normal people do these crimes it's problematic to try and other it people who perpetuate violence because by doing that we are allowing people who exhibit normal behaviors in other forms of life to go unnoticed without accountability and i think that that absolutely speaks volumes because in this moment

there is not a need to try and justify what a good person he was up until the point that he died he's not deserving of that with what he's done and I just think that all that does is it minimizes once again what Lily has gone through. Yvette Vignando the executive of the anti-domestic violence here in Sydney she said they are out there and living among us and living in some of the most privileged parts of Sydney all across the northern suburbs where the majority of our clients who are victims live the perpetrators are surgeons academics plumbers leaders in business their mates and friends rarely suspect what is going on behind the scenes so that is someone that heads up an anti-domestic violence organization here openly coming out and saying

these are everyday people that you probably know in your day-to-day life they make up some of our biggest victims partners of these people people in these relationships it really does just drive home that these aren't your typical monsters quote unquote walking around of course I mean I'm going to call them a monster for sure but they are the everyday people and that's why it's a problem and that's why it does take away from it when you come out and say oh he was such an amazing person he was a prefect he was so great in all these other aspects but he just had a moment of of mental disintegration this statistic one in five women since the age of 15 have been sexually assaulted now I know that we're talking about sexual assault here and which is different to domestic violence

but the numbers for that are very high as well. I can't remember who said it to me but it really got me thinking. Those numbers are so high like that's 20 percent. One in five women have been sexually assaulted by the age of 15. Everybody knows someone who has experienced sexual assault whether you have experienced it yourself or whether it is your friend or it is your sister or it is someone in your life. Everybody knows someone who has experienced physical violence at the hands of a man, whether it is yourself, whether it is your sister, whether it is someone who you know, but nobody knows the person who does it. Nobody. I can't name one man in my life who I would say, yes, you, you are a perpetrator. But the reality is statistics would show that

there are people in my life who are perpetrators. And that's the big thing to think about is that we never think it is the people within our circles. We never think it is the people who we are friends with or who we think we know, but people can show who they are at face value and be very different behind closed doors and within relationships. That is such an alarming thing when you actually start to break down why there's this mismatch within society, but also it comes down to media and it comes down to the way in which we talk about it as well, because even the language within news articles is so minimizing of what happens to victims. I know there was a lot of uproar last week after the Daily Telegraph article came out. And if you aren't familiar

with the article, I'll read you the headline. After-school sports job for Lily James and Paul Thyssen led to horror Sydney CBD murder. If you were to only read that headline, you would assume that her working in an after-school sports is what led to her dying, not the fact that she was actually murdered by someone who she worked with. No, what led to her murder was she was bludgeoned to death by somebody that she worked with it had nothing to do with the after school like it's just the fucking language that drives me insane she's 21 years old at her place of work by someone she may or may not have been in a very brief romantic relationship with let's call a spade a spade he murdered her that's it that's the headline like it has nothing to do with how unfortunate her

timing was that she had this after school job there's this great instagram account which i mean can be my vibe for this week a recommendation her name is jane gilmore underscore aus so jane Gilmore underscore Oz it once upon a time used to be called fixed it Jane she is a journalist and what she does is she goes on and she rewrites the headlines so that they actually describe what happened rather than this sort of like fluffy pseudo journalism that all it does is is protect the perpetrators rather than supporting the victims so Jane's been doing this since 2014 and the whole point and the reason why she got into it was to try and rewrite the victim blaming that happens because you'll see it in media and it happens all the time. It'll be words like

scorned lover, or it'll be like they were a good father. And then all of a sudden they've done these awful things. And they'll talk about the fact that the couple were in a sexual relationship as if to say that because you're in a sexual relationship with someone that they should have some ownership over the things that they do to you. What Jane wrote in regards to this headline from the Sydney Telegraph, she's crossed it out and she's written, Paul Thyssen's decision to kill Lily James was the only thing that led to her murder he chose to take her life and all the possibilities of her future from her and the people who loved her erasing his responsibility for her murder is a repellent and cowardly act of support for a murderer and I just think it's so

important for us to continue to have these types of conversations and to call out not just victim blaming but almost trying to soften the monstrous act of someone like Paul Thyssen and what he has done one of the big things why and one of the reasons why it's so important is because it's so multi-layered we're never going to be able to combat domestic violence until we start to attack it on all levels and that does include the way in which the media speak about it as you said Britt like it came from a good place but that is irrelevant and like this Dr John Collier sending out this newsletter to try and explain to people that, you know, this was a good man who had a lapse in judgment. Murdering someone is not a lapse in judgment. It is irrelevant if he appeared

to be a good man up until that point. And I think that we almost need to unpack the why. The why do we need to defend? The why do we need to speak about this person was a good father, this person was a good man, this person was a good whatever it was, great at their job or successful to try and make sense of domestic violence because I think we really need to get to a place as a society where we accept and we validate exactly what you said earlier, Britt, that it is successful people. It is normal, quote-unquote, people who do these things and that is what makes them monsters.

Yeah, I think where John Collier went wrong was it's a bit of a read the room and know your audience and know your platform situation. I think what he said is a conversation that he would have had inside, in his home with his partner that's what it would have been expressing the shock that you knew someone that could have done this is something that you would say to someone very close to you not on a public platform not to every single family every single student at that school because it sends the wrong message yeah I know but it goes deeper than that right because like that's that's you nailed it that's exactly it it is the conversation that you would have with your

friends or your family or people around you like oh my god you know they're such an amazing person And how did this happen? But the fact that we think that they were an amazing person, and that's the thing is these layers existed in him already. He was already somebody who was misogynistic. He already had to have had these sorts of ideologies in some way within him to behave like that because good people don't bludgeon people to death with a hammer. It doesn't happen.

So it's like the fact that you can't see that and you still need to write a newsletter to say, oh my God, it came as such a surprise. it's not a mental break in this person it is part of the DNA of who they are and how they have been raised and what they have been exposed to as a person and I think that that is how deep misogyny runs through our society is that we don't accept that some people just are that and that's what makes me feel so fucking mad it actually sort of ties back to what we were speaking about last week Laura and that's how the government is bringing in this education for school kids starting at age five surrounding toxic masculinity and respect for women which we had the conversation last week

is it enough you know is teaching a five-year-old to treat women better enough and should that all fall on the teachers and the place that we got to is well you know what any education at all and any small step in the right direction is better than nothing and whilst it shouldn't necessarily completely fall on the teachers like we did say we don't really have another option and what I want to say by that is we can't control what children are learning in their households in private we can try and educate the adults in their life for sure but what we can try to control is the curriculum and what they're being taught at school but it does make you think now with this head teacher Dr John Collier that's released this newsletter is that maybe it is really

important for the education to be hitting the teachers and the principals and those people in power as well because they need to learn how to reuse this language in order to teach the school kids. So it's almost like it has to start from the inside out. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's generational, right? And it's been consistently passed down. And that is why it is such a slow and steady slog to try and make any change. Well, you know, we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our low light of the week. My suck happened very late last night. You guys know that I'm a sucker for staying up really late and binge watching TV shows because I can't turn them off. Anyway, I was really, really tired and we had to

get up early to do the records today and right before I got into bed at probably 12 30 at night I had a full drink bottle of water on my bedside table I spilled the entire it was like a soda stream bottle so it has a really big opening lid I spilled the soda stream bottle onto my bed but didn't know because I knocked it over with the pillow so I it's not like it was a big clunk and didn't see it drop and the whole bottle the whole liter bottle went all over my bed all through my sheets all into my mattress right at 12 30 night before i wanted to get in the bed so you know what i did you just slept on the other side just slept on the other side yeah i was like that's it i just like laid a towel on it and i was like that's a tomorrow problem i'm gonna sleep on the other

side no do you know what like i'm like no that i will have that suck i will take it you can pour a fucking bottle of water in my bed you can have COVID I'm sorry sorry Laura that you're sicker than me this week sorry that my suck is that take my fucking suck take it what is your sweet my sweet is that my parents my mom and dad and we've just locked it in have decided to come to Scotland for Christmas with me Sherry's over there so they're going to be meeting Ben's family it's going to be this huge event so they've actually just like locked and loaded that in which is really exciting I don't think they've been over to the UK well they've never been to Scotland actually how many weeks until you go we go I don't know what the date is maybe five or six

weeks when when's Christmas yeah I don't know as soon as we go on radio on holiday break I am out the door over to see my lover but my parents are coming so it's like all our families are going to be meeting and the sisters and it's going to be really cool so I'm excited okay well my suck for the week should be pretty pretty obvious I think I would just like my bag back please virgin give me my bag my suck for the week is my bag going missing there are lots of things in there that I really want. COVID has not been great. I wanted to go down and see my grandparents, like my Nana and my mom down in Wollongong, but obviously I couldn't do that. So my suck is just an amalgamation of lost baggage and COVID and two children who I think the only thing that they said the entire

weekend was, I'm bored. I'm bored, which I get it. It was boring. And also I was so sick that the last thing I wanted to do was play tea parties so I also felt like a completely shit mom so my weekend sucked but my sweet for the week is so so many of you when we did our meet and greets gave Brit and I like letters or so many bits and pieces like we got bottles of wine and we got letters and we got friendship bracelets and we got oh my god invitations to weddings like we got really nice very localized like lip balms and moisturizers and chocolates yeah and this one girl like gave us gorgeous like little animal earrings like honestly you guys were so sweet so many of you brought us little things to show us the ways in which you've appreciated the podcast

and I sat down yesterday and I started reading through all the letters that we got given and I've got to pass them on to Brit because somehow they ended up in my handbag so I took them all home and Brit doesn't have them I also have some for you as well I was in tears yesterday reading these you guys are amazing we are so grateful and I know that I've said it so much over the last little bit but receiving that and like being able to touch base with you all and like you know see you guys in the flesh hear your stories it's honestly been so incredible and so that kind of continued my little life uncut live high that I've had and maybe that's what got me through my low in terms of like you know feeling as though the whole thing was over was being able to read through

all of your incredible letters so for those of you who took time to write one thank you so much it means everything to us and yeah they're like things I'll keep for the rest of my life like they're so beautiful cute cute that is it guys anyway we will be back tomorrow we have a fucking amazing interview for you tomorrow we're interviewing Sam Fisher now I know you guys have heard of him because we've spoken about him so much over the last couple of weeks he's the city's gonna break my heart singer but his story and his vulnerability in this episode I loved it so much so some of the things that Sam spoke about and I loved his candidness about this he spoke about going bald and going and getting hair transplants and what it meant for him for

his insecurities how as women we can sometimes downplay and diminish the insecurities that men have around baldness I thought that that was so interesting yeah he's also very he's just a very funny person so even when he talks about something serious like he's he's borderline comedian even when he does his songs and openers he's it's like a stand-up comedy piece yeah but what I found really interesting with Sam is he speaks a lot about a toxic relationship with a narcissistic parent because he has had a very tumultuous relationship with his father and he speaks so openly about that he's so vulnerable about that but he also puts a little bit of light into it as well and takes something positive from the situation but I haven't actually had a conversation

with someone in a long time that was so open about that sort of relationship with a narcissistic parent. And I found it really fascinating. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think most of the time when we talk about people who have cut contact with their parents, usually people are really guarded because there's still this responsibility almost feeling of, of like, I don't want to upset my parents, even though I don't talk to them anymore. Like people are still very guarded with sharing that conversation because it's so personal. And Sam is so giving in this chat. So if you have a complicated relationship with your parent or parents i think that this is an episode you will get so much out of and i can't wait for you guys to listen to it so that is coming tomorrow and

that is it from us guys don't forget tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the love because we love love We'll be right back.