NATALIE BASSINGTHWAIGHTE MY MENTAL HEALTH JOURNEY

THE STAR OPENS UP ABOUT A VERY PERSONAL NEW PROJECT

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Natalie Bassingthwaighte has learnt a lot about mental health in the past few years. She knows that she shouldn't take too much on, and she'll knock back well-paid gigs if she thinks they don't work for her family or “my sanity”. But recently, she found herself filming the series Space 22 at the same time as she was working on the musical Jagged Little Pill.

“These days I would never take on both things," she told TV Week recently. "But because of COVID, they ended up overlapping - one got pushed back and one got pushed forward - and I did find it incredibly challenging. I did have a moment where I was just hysterical, on the floor, crying, at work... So it was a good reminder [that] I can't work like that."

It wasn't just exhaustion. The 46-year-old was also feeling a lot of emotion from filming Space 22. The ground-breaking series takes seven people who have experienced mental health issues - some as a result of childhood abuse or devastating personal tragedy - and leads them through art therapy to see if it can help.

“Being around everyone who's had a lot of stuff happen to them and they're dealing with their emotions... I'm an empathetic person, so I was feeling all that,” she says.