The Power of Being Seen: Identity, Resilience, and Dismantling the Closet

Matt Tulle: From Hiding to Healing — Lived Experience and Peer Work

EPISODE SUMMARY Not every journey to purpose is a straight line. For Matt Tulle, it wound through stigma, addiction and some of the darkest corners of mental health — all while growing up queer in rural Queensland. Matt didn't just survive that journey. He transformed it. Today he works as a peer worker in alcohol and other drugs (AOD) support, walking alongside men who are exactly where he once was. In this honest, generous conversation, Matt unpacks ten years as a "functional drug addict", the cocaine years in a Melbourne ops manager role, the breakdown that followed, and the night he felt his late father's presence and chose a different path. This is a story about lived experience as a connection multiplier — and why peer work might be one of the most important roles in modern recovery. KEY TAKEAWAYS LIVED EXPERIENCE IS A CONNECTION MULTIPLIER Matt explains why "me too" lands in a way no textbook can — and how peer work uses it with intention, not as a trauma dump. SHAME TO GUILT IS THE MOVE "I'm a bad person" becomes "I had a bad moment." Matt walks through how that single reframe rebuilt his self-worth. ADDICTION CAN BE THE THING HOLDING IT TOGETHER For ten years, the drugs weren't the problem — they were the unprocessed solution. Real recovery meant doing the harder, slower work underneath. THE WORK TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES Eight years into healing and still going. Matt's view: time doesn't matter, you'll do it when you're ready. YOU MAY NEED A NEW POT On outgrowing people, redrawing boundaries, and why moving on isn't betrayal — it's growth. GUEST BIO Matt Tulle is an AOD peer worker based in Queensland, supporting men through addiction, mental health and recovery. A social work graduate, Matt brings a decade of lived experience to a workforce he believes belongs at every multidisciplinary table. RESOURCES MENTIONED - Lifeline Australia (24/7): 13 11 14 — https://www.lifeline.org.au [https://www.lifeline.org.au] - Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 — https://www.beyondblue.org.au [https://www.beyondblue.org.au] - QLife (LGBTI peer support): 1800 184 527 — https://www.qlife.org.au [https://www.qlife.org.au] - 13YARN (First Nations crisis line): 13 92 76 — https://www.13yarn.org.au [https://www.13yarn.org.au] TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction 03:11 Growing up queer in Gympie 13:20 Melbourne, burnout and cocaine 15:42 Breakdown, withdrawal and first attempt 22:00 Losing Dad and the cat moment 26:00 Uni, therapy and doing the work 30:48 Peer work — shame to guilt 52:21 Future of peer work and LGBTQI+ hopes CALL TO ACTION If this conversation moved you, share it with one person who needs it. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and please leave a rating and review — it helps others find these stories. Support Kintsugi Heroes with a tax-deductible donation: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] THE KINTSUGI CONNECTION Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] If this resonated, you may also like: - KH episodes on men's mental health and recovery - KH episodes on lived experience and peer support ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit storytelling platform sharing real stories of resilience, disability and transformation. Inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi — repairing broken pottery with gold — we believe our breaks make us more valuable, not less. PARTNER WITH US Sponsorship and partnership enquiries: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] DONATE Make a tax-deductible donation: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] CONNECT Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes [https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] Theme music: "Broken" by Colin Lilly, used with permission.

The Beacon on Your Head: Breaking the Silence That Gives Abusers Power | Donna Kent

Donna carries memories from 18 months old, including repeated sexual abuse by her father beginning at age three. Through childhood and adolescence, she endured trafficking, gang rape, attempted abduction, and betrayal by peers. Two abortions—one illegal and traumatic, one legal—marked her teenage years. At 16, a suicide attempt by overdose nearly killed her. She married an abusive narcissist in her early twenties, escaped after years of rape and violence, and found safety with her second husband at 21. Real healing began at 38 when she finally disclosed her full story in a safe relationship. Hypnotherapy, EMDR, spiritual practice, and boundary-setting ('weeding the garden') became pivotal tools. At 44, just as she felt emotionally stable, her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died after 23 years together. Today she lives with peace and freedom, working toward a healing practice while helping others see hope beyond their circumstances. Donna Kent is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, trafficking, and ongoing violence across her lifespan. Now in her late 40s, she works in bookkeeping and payroll while developing a healing practice as an intuitive guide and psychic medium, drawing on lived experience and multiple therapeutic modalities to support others in their recovery. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with Natalie Stockdale, Donna shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Silence is the mechanism by which abusers maintain power; speaking up, even when terrified, immediately disempowers the abuser and opens pathways to help. • Trauma survivors develop sophisticated masking behaviours early—suppressing inconsolable crying to avoid drawing attention—which becomes a lifelong pattern that prevents authentic help-seeking. • Different therapeutic modalities work at different stages of healing; no single approach is sufficient, and survivors must remain open to trying new tools as they progress. • The body archives trauma separately from emotion as a survival mechanism; EMDR and similar therapies work by reconnecting memory to emotion so it can be processed and archived rather than continuously relived. • Healing requires conscious boundary-setting ('weeding the garden'), including the difficult work of removing or distancing from family members and lifelong friends who drain energy or perpetuate cycles. • Survivors often dissociate into separate selves to survive; true integration requires bringing these fragmented parts back together, not just processing individual traumatic events. • Empathy and the ability to help others see alternative perspectives is one of the most valuable gifts that emerges from having survived and recovered from trauma. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Content warning and introduction 03:13 First trauma: sexual abuse at age three on Christmas Eve 04:11 Early memories: hiding at 18 months, being trafficked by father's taxi to paedophiles 06:05 Attempted abduction by strangers at age 10 07:08 Gang rape at bus stop age 12: survival and silent continuation 12:18 Living in constant fear: the cost of enforced silence 13:49 Pregnancy at 15, rejection by family, illegal abortion in Tweed Heads 18:21 Betrayal by friend at party, rape at knifepoint, first suicide attempt 22:37 Meeting and marrying first husband: narcissist and abuser 25:23 Pregnant at 21, assaulted, second legal abortion, planned escape 🌐 CONNECT WITH DONNA KENT: Lifeline: https://www.lifeline.org.au/ 1800RESPECT: https://www.1800respect.org.au/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit Australian podcast network sharing real stories of resilience and transformation. Named after the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the philosophy that what's been broken can become more beautiful for the mending — every episode honours the cracks, the rebuild, and the human underneath. We believe every story matters. Every scar has something to say. And every person quietly finding their way through deserves to be heard. 📺 Series on this channel: – Kintsugi Heroes — real stories of resilience | hosted by John Milham – Animals & Us | hosted by Natalie Stockdale – Grit Diaries: from Grit to Grace | hosted by Simone Allan & Maryan Bova – Golden Threads — stories of disability & resilience | hosted by Dan Dougherty ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💛 SUPPORT THE NETWORK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kintsugi Heroes is listener-supported and run entirely by volunteers. Your support helps us keep sharing stories that matter. ❤️ Donate (tax-deductible): https://kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate 🤝 Partner with us: https://kintsugiheroes.com.au 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week and join a community that believes in the power of human stories. We're all in this together. 💛 #KintsugiHeroes #KHMainFeed #FirstPersonStories #RebuildingAfterFracture #TraumaSurvival #ChildhoodAbuse #SpeakingUp #HealingJourney #MentalHealth #EMDR #Boundaries #Empowerment

Kindness at the End: Harpreet Kalsi-Smith on Dying Well and Community

EPISODE SUMMARY Harpreet Kalsi-Smith founded The Kindness Company after caring for her mum through end of life. Shaped by her own migration story and over 15 years working with First Nations, migrant and refugee communities, Harpreet walks alongside people approaching death — making space for grief, honouring culture, and proving that kindness is the quiet thing that changes everything when someone is saying goodbye. TOPICS COVERED End of Life Care • Kindness • Grief and Loss • First Nations Communities • Multicultural Health • Palliative Care • Community Healing • Stolen Generations • Advance Care Planning • Sound Healing • Compassionate Communities • Advocacy EPISODE CHAPTERS 00:00 — Welcome and Episode Introduction 02:00 — From Kenya to Brisbane: A Life Shaped by Community 06:00 — Losing Her Mum, Finding End of Life Work 11:00 — Walking Alongside: Trust, Time and First Nations Communities 16:00 — Why Kindness Is the Whole Point 26:00 — Grief, Witnessing and Community Healing 44:00 — One Small Act: Legacy, Advocacy and a Parting Message KEY TALKING POINTS ● Kindness is not soft — it is the difference between being re-traumatised and being seen. Harpreet reflects on the one physician, among many, who sat with her family and treated them like people, not a case. ● Trust is not a transaction — it can take a year or more. A stolen generations uncle asked her to come to his home with the end of life paperwork — twelve months after she first raised it. ● Person-centred care only works when someone slows down enough to listen. Equity is not about treating everyone the same; some people need more time, more support, more context. ● We live in a death-phobic, life-prolonging society. Harpreet unpacks why so few healthcare conversations make room for "not prolonging", and why families suffer for it. ● Communities heal in community, not in isolation. From yarning circles to the tree of grief and strength, Harpreet shows what collective grief actually looks like. "Healing happens when people are witnessed, not when they're fixed." — Harpreet Kalsi-Smith CONNECT WITH THE PODCAST Website: kintsugiheroes.com.au Listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube — search "Kintsugi Heroes" Instagram: @kintsugiheroes Facebook: /kintsugiheroes LinkedIn: /company/kintsugi-heroes CONNECT WITH HARPREET KALSI-SMITH Website: thekindnesscompany.com.au Location: Gold Coast, QLD — Yugambeh Country LinkedIn: Harpreet Kalsi-Smith Instagram: @thekindnesscompany Email: hello@thekindnesscompany.com.au [hello@thekindnesscompany.com.au] SUPPORT RESOURCES ● Griefline — 1300 845 745: National service offering grief, loss and bereavement support across Australia. ● 13YARN — 13 92 76: 24/7 culturally safe crisis support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. ● Advance Care Planning Australia — advancecareplanning.org.au: Templates and guides for every Australian state and territory. SHARE YOUR STORY Kintsugi Heroes exists to help people tell the stories they need to share, so others can find the stories they need to hear. If this episode moved you, or you know someone whose story should be told, get in touch at kintsugiheroes.com.au/share. Music credit: Thank you to Xavier Rudd for the use of "Follow the Sun".

From the Beach to Belonging: Jay Borthwick on Dyslexia, Identity & Building Inclusive Communities

🎙️ EPISODE SUMMARY What happens when the thing you were told to hide becomes the very thing that shapes your purpose? Jay Borthwick grew up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches — a life filled with ocean swims, surf lifesaving, and community. But behind that upbringing was a challenge that shaped everything: dyslexia. In this episode, Jay shares how navigating school with a learning difficulty, being labelled early, and learning to adapt built the resilience, self-awareness, and leadership that now define his life and career. From working in mainstream media to becoming a multicultural communications specialist at SBS, Jay’s work is centred on connection — helping people and organisations communicate across cultures, languages, and lived experiences. This is a conversation about identity, inclusion, and what it really means to build environments where people feel seen, supported, and able to contribute. It’s also a powerful reminder that sometimes the very thing you struggle with becomes your greatest strength. 🔍 TOPICS COVERED dyslexia and learning difficulties, neurodiversity in the workplace, multicultural communication Australia, inclusion and accessibility, mens mental health, identity and resilience, surf lifesaving Australia, SBS multicultural media, personal growth and leadership, building inclusive communities ⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS 00:00 – Introduction 01:00 – Growing up on the Northern Beaches 05:00 – Early independence and life by the ocean 10:00 – Living with dyslexia and school challenges 15:00 – Being labelled and finding confidence through sport 20:00 – Discipline, resilience, and learning through adversity 25:00 – Career journey: Channel 9 to SBS 30:00 – Multicultural communication and inclusion in Australia 35:00 – Why connection matters across cultures 40:00 – Neurodiversity, awareness, and workplace change 45:00 – Building environments where people feel supported 50:00 – Fatherhood, mindset, and raising confident children 55:00 – Legacy and doing the small things well 01:00:00 – Final reflections 🔑 KEY TALKING POINTS * Dyslexia is not a limitation — it’s a different way of processing the world * Being labelled early can shape identity, but it doesn’t have to define it * Confidence is built through action, not perfection * Inclusion starts with understanding and curiosity * Communication goes beyond language — connection is human * Small, consistent actions create long-term impact * Leadership is about creating environments where others can thrive * Legacy is built through everyday actions, not big moments 🧩 EPISODE PILLARS 🌊 Growing Up & Identity A childhood shaped by the ocean, independence, and community on the Northern Beaches. 🧠 Dyslexia & Resilience Navigating school, labels, and learning differences — and turning adversity into strength. 🌏 Multicultural Communication A career built on bridging cultural gaps and helping communities connect across language and experience. 🤝 Inclusion & Accessibility Creating environments where people with visible and invisible disabilities feel supported and empowered. 👨‍👧 Family, Leadership & Legacy Raising confident children, prioritising mental health, and building a legacy through small, meaningful actions. 🔗 THE KINTSUGI CONNECTION Jay’s story reflects the essence of Kintsugi — embracing what once felt like a flaw and recognising it as part of what makes us whole. His journey shows that resilience isn’t about avoiding challenges, but about learning how to adapt, grow, and contribute in meaningful ways. To explore more stories like this, visit: 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes/videos 🎧 RELATED EPISODES Navigating Identity & Adversity: Explore more conversations on resilience, lived experience, and personal growth across the Kintsugi Heroes series. 🌏 ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES Kintsugi Heroes is an Australian not-for-profit (DGR endorsed) dedicated to strengthening mental wellbeing through the power of storytelling. We believe that lived experience is something to be shared — creating connection, reducing isolation, and building resilience through real human stories. 🤝 PARTNER WITH US Align your organisation with resilience, inclusion, and social impact. 👉 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/partners/ ❤️ SUPPORT KINTSUGI HEROES Your support helps us continue sharing powerful stories across Australia and beyond. 👉 Donate: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate/#donate 🔗 CONNECT WITH US 🌐 Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Kintsugi-Heroes-100084850387170/ 📢 SHARE YOUR STORY Have a story of resilience, recovery, or growth? 👉 Get involved: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au

From Grief to Courage: Kevin Holloway on Loss, Identity & Becoming the Person You Are

🎙️ EPISODE SUMMARY What does it take to rebuild your life after losing everything you built together? Kevin Holloway shares his deeply personal journey through grief after losing his wife of nearly 40 years. From overwhelming loss to finding meaning again, this is a powerful conversation about courage, identity, and what it truly means to keep showing up. Through his experience as a leader, coach, and human being navigating profound loss, Kevin explores emotional resilience, presence, and the importance of connection and self-awareness. This episode is a reminder that while life can break us, it can also reshape us — if we’re willing to do the work. 🔍 TOPICS COVERED grief and loss, men’s mental health, emotional resilience, courage, vulnerability, identity, healing journey, leadership, personal growth ⏱️ EPISODE CHAPTERS 00:00 – Introduction 01:00 – Kevin’s story and loss 05:00 – Understanding grief 10:00 – Courage as a foundation 15:00 – Identity and being 20:00 – Love and forgiveness 25:00 – Men’s mental health 30:00 – Connection and support 35:00 – Surrender and control 40:00 – Presence and joy 45:00 – Redefining success 50:00 – Becoming who you want to be 🔑 KEY TALKING POINTS * Grief is ongoing, not something you “get over” * Courage is a daily choice * You can feel fear and still act * Presence creates space for healing * Vulnerability builds real connection * Growth requires honesty and self-reflection 🌏 ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit organisation sharing lived-experience stories to build connection, dignity, and mental wellbeing across communities. 🔗 CONNECT WITH US Website: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Kintsugi-Heroes-100084850387170/ ❤️ SUPPORT & GET INVOLVED Donate: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate/#donate Partner: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/partners/