‘When I was younger, I would pick up other people’s thoughts everywhere — it was exhausting!’

The northern beaches is full of amazing characters and interesting stories. This week we talk to Balgowlah-based psychic medium Deborah Menderin

Deborah Menderin is a fourth generation psychic medium and reads from home as well as on the telephone and via Skype.

• ‘I’ve seen the start of life and I’ve also seen the end of it a few times.’
• Giovanni Pilu — from Sardinia to Sydney’s northern beaches
• The Manly tattooist who swapped the navy for body art

My mum Carolyn is a medium, so I just grew up with it. She would talk about it all the time, so it was a very normal thing for me. Some people’s mums are accountants — mine was a medium.

I thought that’s what everybody did, seeing spirits. Mum had a reading room at home, like I do, and I remember creeping past her room because there was, I guess, so much “activity” in there.

I’m 43 now, and when I was little I would see some woman and I’d describe her and it would turn out to be my great grandmother or someone I’d never met.

Deborah pictured in her reading room at home in Balgowlah

When I went to high school I realised maybe it wasn’t the norm. I tried to keep it under wraps a lot because even though for me it was a normal thing, for everyone else it was like a circus sideshow. In your teenage years you want to be the same, not different.

Most people are born with some level of intuition and the older we get, the more we’re taught to shut it down or question it. I was never taught to shut it down, so I guess in some ways that has given me what I’ve got today, because I was allowed to run with it.

Deborah with husband Isha

The couple on their wedding day

With spirits, I’m just the conduit — the telephone — so if you imagine me on one end and them on the other. I ask them if they want to say anything and sometimes people fall over themselves to come through — if they were talkative in this life then they’re still going to be talkative!

I describe what I do as being like a glass of water. Whoever drank from it left their fingerprints, and I’m just reading the fingerprints.

I let them do the talking and I give the recipient everything I get. Sometimes it doesn’t make any sense to me, but I just have to pass it on.

I have twin girls, who are almost 16 months, called Giselle and Chiara. We have seen it in them already. When you have two little ones looking at exactly the same spot and saying “’bye” to nothing, you think, “Yep!”. The first time this happened, an hour later an old man turned up at the door — I think he was connected to the land. He comes in sometimes and chatters away.

Deborah on her first birthday with her mum Carolyn, who is also a medium

I can smell and taste things when a spirit comes through, like cigarettes. There was one man who came through, I could smell and taste corn and it turned out he was a corn farmer.

I’m a psychic and with friends it always seems to work itself in to the conversation. They’ll say, “I’m seeing this new guy, do you want to see a photo?”

I don’t mind it, although sometimes I’m just trying to be a normal human being.

If I see a warning, I’ll work it in to the conversation in a way that is gentle and not alarming.

It happened with my mum. She had health issues with one part of her body and the posse in my head were telling me to look at another.

Deborah on Psychic TV Australia in December 2014

I called her and made her book an appointment to have this part of her body looked at, and it turned out she had cancer there.

I see things in my own future. My husband, Isha, is a hairdresser and the first time we met was during the consult. I started seeing us together (in the future), which had never happened to me before. I broke into a sweat and couldn’t concentrate because I was seeing so much. He is intuitive too and his people upstairs told him he had met the one!

On our first date, when he asked me how he could connect with the spirit, I almost fell off my chair. I’d never been able to talk to anyone so openly about it.

When I was younger I’d pick up thoughts everywhere and that was exhausting. It’s not healthy to constantly pick up other people’s energy. Now I pick and choose. When I’m really tired, I might hear more.

Deborah with tarot cards in her reading room

Sometimes when I’m doing a reading, I might hear someone think “Rubbish!” and then I’ll say to them, “I know you think this is rubbish ...” and they’ll look shocked!

Scepticism is fine, but you can’t do much with a cynic. Hopefully I pick up enough information that the accuracy changes their mind.

Contact Deborah via her website www.lunachic.com.au