About Mary O'brien
Mary O'Brien is the founder of the Are You Bogged Mate? initiative, which she described as a program that travels to remote areas of Australia to talk to rural men about mental health in a "user friendly" and "irreverent" manner. O'Brien stated that she started the initiative after writing an opinion piece following the suicide of two men in her area. She has said her approach involves "breaking down the stigma" and connecting people to professional help, and she noted that she has received emails from men who sought support as a result.
In a separate capacity, O'Brien has worked as a social worker intern at the Mount Vernon Police Department. She said she decided to pursue a master's degree in social work after a near-death experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which she credited a hospital social worker with saving her life. O'Brien has also given a TEDx talk in which she discussed a "paradigm shift" approach to personal change, emphasizing the concept of seeing people "in their wholeness" rather than focusing on their difficulties. She has additionally served as an emcee for the Immeasurably More Women's Conference.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Mary O'brien's recent appearances.
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Transcript (11 segments)
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Interviewer0:01
After our chat with Frank and getting set up at the caravan park for the night, you never would have guessed who we bumped into at the pub. Well, the people you bump into in Hebel. This is Mary O'Brien. Now, I know a lot of people will know Mary, but there'll be some of you who don't. Mary, tell us about what you do.
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Mary O'Brien0:14
I travel the country talking to blokes and ladies about mental health in a very different and fairly irreverent manner.
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Interviewer0:22
So how did you get into this?
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Mary O'Brien0:24
By accident, as most things in my life. I actually wrote an opinion piece after we lost two guys to suicide in our area about four years ago. It just sort of happened organically from the article. People started asking me to come and talk about it because I take a very different approach. I'm not a psychologist. I don't talk about any fluffy stuff. I just think people don't really understand how these blocks operate and how they learn, how they take on information. All I'm doing with this is making it user friendly, breaking down the stigma, connecting blokes to professional help, and hopefully saving a few lives.
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Interviewer0:57
You're a trooper, absolute legend. So tonight at the pub, you're going to get up and give one of your presentations?
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Mary O'Brien1:04
I am. That's something I do quite a lot nowadays.
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Interviewer1:08
If someone is watching and they say, 'I would like to get Mary to come to our workplace or our area,' how do they go about organizing for you to come and have a chat to the locals?
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Mary O'Brien1:16
They can jump on our website and flick us an email through that, and we'll put it in the calendar. We are pretty busy, and we will go anywhere in Australia. Our website is abogmate.com.
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Interviewer1:28
I would ask you to keep up the good work because you are doing good work. If they're handing out sainthoods in the bush, I dare say we'll be interviewing St. Mary today. You keep up the good work, love.
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Mary O'Brien1:42
Thanks, mate. Good to see you.
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Interviewer1:44
Good to see you too. Someone who won't get bogged down is Luke in his Wonderland RV XTR 1907. Let's take a look at his digs.
