mental health

So, what’s with the robot cat?

If you follow my socials, you may have noticed that I acquired a robotic cat.

If you don’t, or you haven’t seen the relevant posts… well, I acquired a robotic cat. 23 October 2024 was his official Gotcha Day, lol.

An orange robotic cat wearing glasses while appearing to read Black and Blue by Lee-Ann Khoh.
William Shakespurr reads Black and Blue.

His name is William Shakespurr and he’s an orange tabby from the Joy for All Companion Pets range (which includes cats, dogs, and birds).

You can also call him Billy for short – I have fond memories of watching Billy the Cat as a kid, though I’ve never read the comics, which apparently have a much darker tone. I don’t think the comics were ever translated into English?

The Joy for All pets are marketed for seniors, including dementia patients. I was interested in whether these companions might help with my anxiety, since petting dogs and cats seems to work well for me, but I’m not in a position to adopt a real animal right now. I also love stroking and/or cuddling soft plush toys for similar reasons.

I unboxed my robo-kitty with one of my colleagues (who also aided in the yet-to-be-released audiobook of Black and Blue) and her mum, who volunteers at the disability organisation we both work for.

William’s fur is soft to touch, despite the body being hard. He’s a nice size and weight, and a rideshare driver thought he was real until I explained otherwise. The meowing is clearly a human voice actor and not super realistic – though it did trigger someone who’d recently had to put down their own cat, so it’s worth keeping that in mind.

Say hey to my new robotic co-writer!

I think his purring is a lot closer to the real thing, but you may disagree. 😉

I love the way he opens and closes his eyes and licks his paw, though his movements are not very fluid. Probably because he’s animatronic, lol. Every time he moves, you hear mechanical clicks and whirs, but I don’t mind that.

I do wish he was USB rechargeable. Partly for ease of use, partly because batteries are a big waste management issue.

But with the exception of the person who’d lost their cat, everyone who’s met William seems to be charmed by him, or at least by the novelty of him. I’m not going to say William has magically cured my anxiety or stress. Nor was that the outcome I was expecting. But having a purring robot cat on your lap can be quite comforting and therapeutic. The world is pretty shite a lot of the time. Sometimes it’s just about finding those little moments of calm in a chaotic universe.

Woman putting on green boxing hand wraps. Text reads "It's Lee. Hi. I'm the problem."

It’s Lee. Hi. I’m the problem.

You know how sometimes you sit down to write a blog post, and then life gets in the way, and all of a sudden half a year has elapsed? No? Just me?

Okay. Well, first of all, apologies to Tay-Tay for the blog title (see “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift if you don’t get the reference).

Secondly, this post was originally supposed to piggyback off the season of New Year’s Resolutions but now it’s mid-June. Whoops.

(I’m the problem, it’s me.)

But even though we’re well past the point where most people have either committed to a life change or broken their resolutions… I’ve been thinking about goals a lot. Or rather, my coaches have been telling me how valuable it is to have them, to write them down and have them visible on a place you look at all the time like the fridge or your phone. And I get that, I do. But to understand my reticence, maybe it helps to know a bit about my life.

For those who don’t know me, my name’s Lee-Ann. Some people call me Lee or L.A. for short. (They also just call me short, and at least one person describes me as “4 foot nothing”, which is very hurtful because I’m more like 5 foot nothing, lol.)

Once upon a time, I got told I was a gifted child. I don’t exactly know what that means. But I was reading and writing before I started pre-school, and could read adult books by the time I was about eight years old, though I didn’t do it often because… well, the lives of grown-ups weren’t very relatable to me, unsurprisingly.

(My alleged giftedness came with no social skills whatsoever, but that’s another story. I’m also not that great with numbers.)

Point is, I was supposed to be really smart. But I probably peaked around the age of 12 and was positively average thereafter. And thus began a life of ongoing existential crises and abandoning anything I did not immediately excel at.

I mean, that’s the oversimplified version but it sums me up pretty well.

I can and believe I do work hard in my professional life.

At home though? I start things with a bright vision, then quickly get overwhelmed and stop. Whether it’s a creative endeavour/potential hobby, or something more basic like getting rid of stuff I know I don’t need.

But I’m trying not to be like that anymore.

I’ve been training both Muay Thai and Western boxing for a while, and heaps of people who started after me are more advanced, but you know what? That’s okay. I’m on my journey, not theirs.

And I just really like training – a surprising development for the girl who’d do literally anything to get out of PE back in the day. Muay Thai in particular has probably been my main focus for the past seven months or so. It’s given me an outlet for my anxiety, and my mental health has improved a lot as a result.

To be clear, I don’t think physical activity is some magic bullet for mental health conditions, and I get really peeved when folks tell someone with a mental illness to just go outside or exercise. I’m just saying that training has become one of the tools in my personal wellbeing toolbox.

One of the flow-on effects of never committing to anything before has been that I’ve rarely ever set goals for myself. In recent fitness-related questionnaires, I’ve listed tongue-in-cheek goals like sweep the head Muay Thai coach (unlikely), land a head kick on the very tall club manager, and not run a marathon because that sounds bloody awful.

So what are my real goals? I mean, to be perfectly honest, it’s to keep going and just get by. Which is not a SMART goal at all, but it is the thing underpinning everything else I do.

Obviously, I want to finish my next books too. And I will, but my day job does come first, given a) that’s what pays the bills, and b) I love it and would continue to work there even if I was one of the few authors who actually made a living from book sales.

Oh, and conducting an epic spring clean is a must. Or maybe I can hire an awesome, non-judgemental, professional declutterer to do it for me instead. 😉

Group of women doing squats in an exercise class.

Give it a squat for Lifeline

63 people die by suicide every week in Australia.

That’s why I’m taking on the challenge to do 63 squats a day in December. I’m hoping to raise some awareness and funds for Lifeline, a 24/7 Australian crisis support service.

Lee-Ann, a woman with long black hair tied into two French braids, points to the text on her dark blue T-shirt that reads "Hope starts with me".
Hope starts with me.

If you read Black and Blue, you’ll know Jade is struggling with her mental health. Even though the story is fictional, it’s no secret that I did draw heavily on my own history of depression and anxiety to get inside Jade’s head.

Lifeline helped me when I felt like I was completely alone. Now that I’m in a pretty good place, I’d like to help them continue to provide support to others. $39 enables a Lifeline crisis supporter to answer one call but every little bit is valuable.

Obviously money’s tight right now so I don’t know if I’ll be able to get people to sponsor me but I’ll give it a shot. And a lot of squats!

If you can spare a few bucks, please donate. You’ll be helping me feel better about the burning in my quads and glutes… but more importantly, you’ll be helping Lifeline save lives.

Here’s the link to the Facebook fundraising page: I’m completing 63 squats a day in December for Lifeline

You can also donate directly via my Instagram profile: @ leeannkhoh

If you can’t donate, consider sharing the fundraiser and maybe sending some words of encouragement. Like “keep going” or “get lower” or “biatch, you’re Asian, surely you came out of the womb squatting”. 😜

If you want to donate, but can’t do the Facebook/Instagram/Meta thing, let me know and we can figure something out.

Anyway, whether you can contribute a little or not, I know the festive season can be rough for people so do take care.

Aussies needing support can call 13 11 14, SMS 0477 13 11 14, or chat online. Internationals, please reach out to the relevant organisation(s) where you are.

Text reads: Support my 63 Squats a Day IN December to bring hope and save lives. Lifeline #Squats2SaveLives.
Sponsor the Lifeline #Squats2SaveLives challenge.
Text reads: The burnout bar. Background contains photo of a fuel gauge close to empty.

The burnout bar

Hey blog world. I’m not dead! Just really busy. And sleep deprived (yay for chronic insomnia).

But it’s the WA Day public holiday here in Western Australia, so I carved out some time to pen a few thoughts. And with “state daddy” Mark McGowan announcing his resignation as Premier and Member for Rockingham a week ago due to burnout, it got me thinking about my own breaking point.

It was late on a Sunday afternoon in the summer of 2012. I was in my friend’s car, and he was driving me home from the Scarborough pub that would later loosely inspire the Sherlock Arms in Black and Blue.

But that manuscript was still a while away. On this Sunday, I was just a girl in a car, crying because I had to go to my Toxic Job the next day.

I would continue to alternate between crying, nausea and total numbness every week until I finally quit that job with nothing lined up. I was still at the beginning of my career, but I’d always been quite anxious and cautious – so up until that moment, I never thought I’d be the person who left a job without a backup plan.

I realise many people don’t have the luxury of being able to do that anyway. But I did, I took the chance and I don’t regret it. I was burnt out and dying inside.

It’s been 10 years now but I did actually learn a lot from Toxic Job. Like how not to behave as a professional… Think workplace affairs between managers and direct reports, threats against ex-employees, exploitation of recent graduates less likely to know how to advocate for themselves, and just gross misconduct.

But more to the point, Toxic Job became my bar.

I have high levels of social anxiety and moderate levels of generalised anxiety. I find I have to put up with things I’m uncomfortable with pretty much every day of my life in order to participate in society. That’s just the way it is, and it can be exhausting, but I handle it.

However, Toxic Job is the standard I won’t walk past. If anything ever gets as bad or feels as icky as that, whether it’s in a professional or personal context, I’m checking out.

Writing-wise, things are moving pretty slowly but I’ve got two projects in the works: my second novel and a poetry collection. So that will probably be books 2 and 3 – I don’t know which will be ready first at this stage, but that answer should reveal itself in due course.