‘Someone, please’: Lisa Curry’s emotional plea for mental health support for ‘all the Jaimis’

Lisa Curry has posted an emotional Instagram plea to “help all the Jaimis in this world” after losing her daughter at just 33.

Lisa Curry has opened up about the pain of losing her daughter in an emotional Instagram post, pleading for greater mental health support.

The former Olympian’s 33-year-old daughter Jaimi died in September 2020, with the family confirming at the time that she had lost her battle with a long-term illness and died peacefully in hospital.

Jaimi reportedly battled alcoholism, an eating disorder and mental illness and had spent her final years in and out of hospital with her mother, Ironman legend father Grant Kenny, and her siblings Morgan Gruell and Jett Kenny by her side.

Lisa Curry with infant daughter Jaimi. Picture: Lisa Curry/Instagram

Yesterday, Curry took to social media to call for help for “all the Jaimis in this world”.

“Some days it feels like you can’t continue, but the sun still rises and life goes on … but it’s never the same,” she wrote.

“I wish we could go back to the time before it was too late, and try again, try something else.

“We put men on the moon, people live in space stations, build the biggest ships and the tallest buildings that sway in the storms, the most brilliant scientific minds can solve incredible diseases, robots and machines are designed to help people walk again … but we can’t work out how to fix mental health issues?

Jaimi battled mental health issues in adulthood. Picture: Lisa Curry/Instagram

“Someone … please … make this a priority in your scientific mind. Please. Help all the Jaimis in this world.

The post comes after a recent raw interview with Stellar magazine, in which Curry spoke of the double trauma of losing her adult daughter and her mother – themes covered in depth in her autobiography Lisa: A memoir – 60 years of life, love & loss, which comes out today.

Curry’s mother Pat died just 18 months after the loss of Jaimi, which left the sporting icon shattered.

“Every time I’m in the car their photos come up on the screen, my favourites who I would ring all the time,” Curry told Stellar.

Curry’s autobiography comes out today. Picture: Instagram

“I get in the car and think I’ll ring Mum … oh hang on, Mum isn’t there anymore.

“It was a habit, a daily routine when I got in the car to drive to the coast, that’s when I would ring Mum. And before that it used to be when I would ring Jaimi.’’

Curry said that while she sometimes worried she was oversharing about her trauma, her daughter had insisted she wanted to help others fighting similar battles.

“I had to keep reminding myself that Jaimi said to me on many occasions that she wanted to write a book to help people get through what she was going through,’’ she said, adding she wanted to use her experience to spark conversations about mental illness – and offer support to other vulnerable Australians.