Take It From Us with Kent Johns
If you're navigating mental health struggles, addiction or recovery — your own or someone else's — you'll hear what actually worked, what didn't and what people wish they'd known sooner.
Take It From Us is the voice of lived experience, featuring people sharing their own journeys, unscripted and unfiltered.
Host Kent Johns is a broadcaster and health coach who believes everyone has a story worth hearing if someone takes the time to really listen.
Press play — you might hear your own story in someone else's.
If you need support, click here for helpful links, phone numbers and resources: https://ember.org.nz/resources/in-a-crisis/
Take It From Us with Kent Johns
Latest Episodes
Mia Simcock: The bipolar diagnosis she didn't want anyone to know about
Mia Simcock didn’t know what a psychotic episode was until she had one.She was 19 and studying at Otago when she went five days without sleep and lost touch with reality. A second episode a few years later brought a bipolar 1 diagnosis, ...
'Do you ever feel like there might be more?' Jemarl Paerata did
For nearly 20 years as a firefighter, Jemarl Paerata pushed the trauma to the back and drank to keep it there. But one day, after a cardiac arrest callout, he asked the boys in the truck, "Do you ever feel like there might be a little bit more?...
Eman Ghandour: On being not Kiwi enough, not Arab enough
"You don't feel Kiwi enough for the Kiwis, but you don't feel Arab enough for the Arabs."Eman Ghandour was 10 when her family moved from Jordan to Dunedin. Growing up, she tried to get her "ratio" to 50/50 Kiwi and Arab, and it kept land...
Jason Blyth: The boy who had to advocate for himself at nine years old
Jason Blyth was nine years old when he asked his psychiatrist a question no child should have to ask: why was he the one being brought in for treatment, when his mother was the one abusing him?Between the ages of two and fifteen, Jason s...
The 4000 kiwi adults stuck living at home with Mum and Dad
Flynn Mitchell spent three years in a Dunedin university flat built for wheelchair users — accessible kitchen, accessible bathroom, full independence. Then he moved home to Auckland and lost all of it. Now he needs a carer just to wash his own ...
Fan Mail
Great interview. Interesting. Informative. From someone who got through Bulimia and Substance Use Disorderer, I appreciate the honesty of Lotta and the subjects she covers. I recommend her books. Thank you for this subject.
New Zealand
