TRIGGER WARNING!!!

My next guest, Stephanie Giese is a mother of five, a celebrated writer, a prolific blogger - recognised as one of HuffPost’s most viral bloggers of the decade & was named a BlogHer Voice of The Year - a former teacher and a tireless advocate for children and families living with mental illness. 

Stephanie and her husband Eddie are foster, adoptive and biological parents.  They adopted their first child Nicholas at 13 months. When Nicholas turned three, he started blaming an imaginary friend he called The Other Nicholas for terrifying things he did that he couldn't remember or explain. 

By the time Nicholas turned seven, professionals were starting to use words like "psychotic break" and "crisis unit." 

And by the age of twelve, he’d been admitted to paediatric psychiatric hospitals on four occasions.

Stephanie’s just published memoir, All I Never Knowed, which has been launched to critical acclaim, is the true story of the Giese family and the fight for Nicholas as he struggles with severe mental illness. Written at Nicholas' behest and told from the perspective of his extraordinary mother, Stephanie intimately shares the years & the enormous toll of navigating her child’s mental health crisis.  It’s also the story of the unbreakable love between a mother and her son, as well as a husband and his wife.  

And it’s a love letter to each family struggling through mental illness; each child battling the scars of trauma; and each parent questioning their worth.

This is not an episode that any parent or prospective parent can afford to miss!!!

This is Stephanie and Nicholas’ story…

BUT BEFORE YOU GO…

Find more about Stephanie here

Follow Stephanie on Facebook here

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Follow Stephanie on Insta here

Buy Stephanie’s remarkable book, All I Ever Knowed here

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CREDITS:

Creator, Host & Executive Producer: Tammi Faraday

With thanks to my special guest: Stephanie Giese

Audio Editor: Zoltan Fecso

With very special thanks to George Weinberg and Ursula Ferguson.

BRAVE JOURNEYS acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we record this podcast on, the Yaluk-ut Weelam Clan of the Boon Wurrung who are part of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respect to their Elders, both past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.