Joanna Fincham - Out of the Blue: A city girls tale of true love and romance with a man on the land

Joanna Fincham moved from Melbourne to country South Australia to live on a beef cattle, sheep, cropping and forestry farm in 2008. She continues to live there with her husband Rob and their daughter Darcy. Jo runs her own commercial photography business when shes not busy on the farm:

www.jofincham.com

You can follow Jo on twitter @JoannaFincham

Out of the

Blue

JOANNA FINCHAM

First published in 2012

Copyright Joanna Fincham 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 549 6

Internal design by Blue Cork
Set in 13/20 pt Minion Pro by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to individuals who suffer from
depression. May your souls soon find peace.

Also, to my familywords cannot express my
love and gratitude.

And lastly, to my husband Rob. For helping me
look in the mirror, make some big decisions and
see the light...

Contents

Everybody has a story, their own story. Just imagine all the tales of love, loss, heroism, adventure, sadness and joy that go untold from all walks of life, from all corners of the globe. Mine would also have been an untold story. Until now.

When I first toyed with the idea of writing a memoir, I asked myself, Is my story one that is worth reading? Who would want to read a book about my life? I felt writing a book about myself was a bit self-indulgent. A little egotistical, perhaps. But when I thought of the experiences I could write about and the possibility of helping others, I began to wonder, Why not?

My story is in no way more important or more interesting than anybody elses. What makes it a tale that someone may want to read is the battle I have had with an illness that many are unfortunate enough to suffer, an illness that, until recently, was considered taboo. It is a condition that people didnt want to admit to suffering from, much less talk about and receive help for. That illness is depression.

For as long as I can remember, my friends, family and people I meet have always commented on how I seem happy all the time. Always smiling, laughing, joking and relishing in making people do the same. I got the biggest kick out of telling jokes and making people smile and laugh. But behind all the smiles and all the laughter lurks a secret that had been with me for seven years of my life. I was depressed.

A lot of people have the opinion that depression is not an illness, that it simply doesnt exist, that those who say they suffer from depression are just having a bad day, week, month, year... Until I was diagnosed with depression in 2004, I admit I didnt think it existed either. I didnt believe that people could not possibly feel sad every day of their life, or that sometimes they just didnt have the strength, both physically and mentally, to do ordinary things such as getting out of bed or eating. Now I understand.

My depression grew from a seed that was another problem altogether: bulimia. It is a word I have come to know very well over the past 18 years of my life. Bulimia is another health problem which wasnt talked about in an open way until recently. Thankfully, over the last decade, bulimia, anorexia and other eating disorders, have been recognised as diseases that affect millions of girls as well as boys throughout the world. With the rise of celebrity culture as well as social media, teenagers today have so many pressures on them. These days, help is at hand for sufferers of these cruel, devastating, physically debilitating and life-threatening diseases. Now we just need to make sure those who have eating disorders feel they can reach out and ask for that helpnot an easy task when a large part of the disorder is secrecy.

My battle to beat depression and bulimia, and all the side-effects that come with those illnesses, is one of the reasons I wrote my story. But this is not just a story about mental illness. This is a story about finding myself. Its about how I found complete happiness, fulfilment and contentment, both emotionally and physically. Its about finding a place to call home, somewhere to belong. Its about accepting myself for who I am and being thankful.

Above all, though, its about love.

I was born in Melbourne and lived there for the first 31 years of my life. Here was everything I had ever loved and known, my family and friends, my house, my job, my life. Then, in 2008, almost overnight, I found myself living on a farm in country South Australia. Why leave everything I had, everything that was familiar and safe? I have asked myself this question many times. But theres always only one answer: falling completely in love changed everything.

The way we met was a little different to meeting through friends, or at work, or at a bar. As some of you know, I met my husband Rob on a television program, a country-boy-meets-city-girl matchmaking reality show called The Farmer Wants a Wife. If someone had told me that I would appear on a reality dating show on national TV, meet a farmer, fall madly in love in front of more than one million viewers, leave everything I had known in the city and move to the country to live on his farm, I would have told them they were full of the brown stuff that features so prominently in our cattle yards! But fall in love and move to the country I did. And, although I didnt know it then, it was the best thing I could have done for my happiness, my health and my life.

In this book, I talk about many topics from family, friends, past relationships and lifestyle choices, to sport, my photography career and, of course, The FarmerWants a Wife. All of these parts of my life make me who I am today. Some experiences, especially early on, have contributed more than others to my psychological problems, but its important to know that I am not blaming any person or event. For this reason, too, some names have been changed to protect people who would prefer not to be in the telling of my story. In my life, it was a string of experiences which together led to my mental illnesses, but I am also grateful as these challenges have made me into the person I am todaya strong, confident, happy person.

The main purpose in writing my story is to make people aware that what you see on the outside is not always whats on the inside. I want to show that mental illness, including eating disorders, can happen to absolutely anybody; that these diseases dont discriminate. And I also hope to inspire people who suffer from psychological problems, to prove that these devastating illnesses