Latest / The Dr Louise Newson Podcast / 33 - Menopause and the making of Riot Women with Sally Wainwright

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33 - Menopause and the making of Riot Women with Sally Wainwright · The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

• 0:00
  This is a really exciting episode.
• 0:02
  I've got with me Sally Wainwright who's a multiple
• 0:05
  BAFTA award-winning writer. She's really inspirational and
• 0:09
  she's just written the series Riot Women on BBC.
• 0:13
  It's definitely worth watching, but she's really open about her
• 0:17
  own personal experience and what drove her to write this series,
• 0:22
  so enjoy it. So Sally, I feel quite nervous
• 0:27
  actually because I just don't know of everything that you do
• 0:31
  and it's just such an honour to have met you.
• 0:33
  It must have been like 2-2 years ago was it feels quite a while
• 0:37
  ago. Yes, Yeah, I guess it is.
• 0:39
  Is it? Yes, it's two years ago.
• 0:40
  It was when we start. We were researching Riot with
• 0:43
  me. It's just amazing.
• 0:44
  So, so your journey has been incredible because you just get
• 0:49
  under the skin of people and you really like seem to know so much
• 0:53
  about how different people from different backgrounds really
• 0:56
  live. And when I say really it's
• 0:58
  really important because like I've worked in lots of areas of
• 1:01
  deprivation in Manchester, I've, I've been to some houses that I
• 1:06
  wouldn't ever want to visit again, the smells, the noise and
• 1:09
  what's been going on. I've worked a lot with drug
• 1:12
  abusers, I've worked with all sorts of people.
• 1:14
  And for me it's a real privilege.
• 1:16
  But I can do that as a doctor being allowed into people's
• 1:18
  houses. But you've got this way of just
• 1:22
  really bringing it all to life. But your story of how you learnt
• 1:26
  so much I think is really interesting.
• 1:27
  So I don't know if you don't mind just sharing a bit about
• 1:31
  how you got that lifting experience when you were working
• 1:33
  on the bus? Obviously when I worked on the
• 1:36
  buses. Well, I suppose, yeah.
• 1:40
  When I, when I finished university, I wanted to be a
• 1:41
  writer. Yeah.
• 1:42
  And back then everybody said if you want to be a writer, you've
• 1:45
  got to live in London. Yeah.
• 1:46
  So I moved down to London without any money.
• 1:49
  I think I was down to my last 5 lbs, literally at one point.
• 1:51
  Yeah. And a friend of mine said, oh,
• 1:55
  you like driving, why don't you apply to be a bus driver?
• 1:58
  So I did. I applied to be a bus driver and
• 1:59
  I became, I quite enjoyed it. I quite enjoyed driving the bus.
• 2:02
  I like, I like vehicles. Yeah.
• 2:05
  And the bigger the better. So I used to drive up to
• 2:07
  Heathrow Airport on the 111. Was fantasizing about driving
• 2:10
  the aeroplanes. Oh my gosh.
• 2:12
  Yeah, but it's interesting talking about the sort of nitty
• 2:15
  gritty of writing shows because I think for me it's it's often
• 2:19
  about getting a really good advisor on board.
• 2:21
  Yeah. Like when I was writing drama,
• 2:25
  drama, like Scott and Bailey, for instance, had a fantastic ex
• 2:29
  detective who was really intrinsic to the show and she
• 2:35
  told me stuff in a bit like you've just said, it's kind of
• 2:38
  kind of thing that you you kind of come away wishing you almost
• 2:41
  didn't know. But it's it's it's essential
• 2:43
  when you're writing a drama like that.
• 2:45
  You know, the truth is always, I think much more interesting than
• 2:47
  anything I could make up. Yeah.
• 2:50
  So it's, for me, that's the key is, I mean, you know, really
• 2:54
  good advisor on boards on, on whatever capacity, whatever
• 2:57
  you're writing about, you know, whether you're writing a
• 2:58
  historical drama or a police drama or drama about rock music,
• 3:03
  you still need people on board. And I mean, and that's why we
• 3:06
  came to you because we, I wanted to write about women who were at
• 3:09
  a certain point in their lives. Yeah.
• 3:10
  And certainly the menopause is a big aspect of that.
• 3:14
  You know, it's not the only thing going on in their lives,
• 3:16
  but it's a big it's. Something that connects in
• 3:17
  there, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
• 3:19
  And it's a it's a big thing that's going on in their lives.
• 3:23
  And and it affects certainly. I realized as I was starting to
• 3:28
  write the show, how many elements of my life it affected.
• 3:32
  And did you realize that before you started researching?
• 3:35
  Yeah, it was always meant to be about.
• 3:36
  I think I started writing the show about 10 years ago.
• 3:39
  I started thinking about the show properly about 10 years
• 3:41
  ago, which would have coincided with me starting I.
• 3:46
  My menopause was late and I think I hadn't really thought
• 3:51
  about it much till it started. And so I'd be starting to go
• 3:55
  through it, I think. And like a lot of people, you're
• 3:59
  not really, you're not too consciously.
• 4:02
  I think people are more now because of people like you who
• 4:04
  were, you know, making us so much more aware of it.
• 4:08
  But I think I wasn't particularly waiting for it or
• 4:12
  anticipating it in the way that. Most of us don't.
• 4:15
  You know, you kind of don't really, you think it's probably
• 4:17
  not going to. Happen to you?
• 4:18
  Yeah, Yeah. But of course it is.
• 4:22
  And so I was starting to be aware of it and starting to be
• 4:24
  aware of certain things going on in my life that I was having to
• 4:29
  juggle with. And that's kind of what the show
• 4:33
  is about. It's about women of my age, as I
• 4:35
  was then 10 years ago, 50, mid 50s, early 50s.
• 4:39
  It's an age where you're, you're very capable.
• 4:41
  You know, you've, you've weathered a few slings and
• 4:44
  arrows and you've got a lot on your plate.
• 4:46
  You're juggling a lot of things, you know, you've got for in my
• 4:50
  case, I had my mum who started with dementia, which was a
• 4:54
  shock. And again, something you don't
• 4:55
  anticipate because you don't, you don't expect it to, you
• 4:59
  know, you don't expect it to happen, even though you kind of
• 5:01
  probably should. In some ways you kind of don't,
• 5:05
  you don't. It's the kind of thing you don't
• 5:06
  worry about until it happens. I got teenage children, teenage
• 5:09
  boys, a very busy job and you see juggling a lot of things and
• 5:13
  in the middle of that the menopause starts.
• 5:15
  So I wanted to write about that. I want to write about how the
• 5:19
  menopause comes and gets you, but I wanted to write about it
• 5:22
  in an I wanted to write about it in a way that was kind of
• 5:24
  uplifting and interesting and not because I think there's a,
• 5:27
  you know, there's a tendency to think of the menopause as some
• 5:29
  until you came along and sort of blew the doors off that, you
• 5:34
  know, we don't talk about it. It's a bit miserable.
• 5:36
  It's a bit low energy. We don't really want to go over
• 5:39
  there. And I wanted to try and find a
• 5:40
  way to write about it that was, you know, engaging.
• 5:44
  And educating as well, because you know, when I talk to my
• 5:48
  mother and she's fortunate 'cause she did see a Doctor Who
• 5:51
  started her on HRT in the 80s, but it was referred to as the
• 5:55
  change. They didn't even use the word
• 5:57
  menopause. And a book I was reading from
• 5:59
  the 1800s was describing it as the crisis time.
• 6:04
  And he was really, this is someone called Edward Tilt,
• 6:06
  amazing doctor, but he was talking more about the
• 6:08
  perimenopause actually, and, and talking a lot about mental
• 6:11
  health. But this crisis, it often is.
• 6:14
  And then it's interesting because I talked to some people
• 6:16
  who say, Oh, you need to tone it down, Louise.
• 6:18
  People are now being scared about the symptoms.
• 6:21
  They're being so scared about the mental health symptoms.
• 6:23
  And it's because you're talking about it and it's like, hang on,
• 6:27
  women don't make up symptoms. You know, we're quite tough
• 6:30
  really. But what I think I have done is
• 6:32
  unmasked it so that women who have been labeled as being
• 6:37
  depressed, schizophrenic or personality disorders or
• 6:40
  whatever are actually now thinking, hang on, how much of
• 6:43
  this is related to my hormones? And, and I think it's women.
• 6:46
  We've just been gas lit quite a lot actually.
• 6:49
  And I don't use that term loosely, but like so many people
• 6:53
  have said to me, well, you will feel like this because you've
• 6:56
  got children and you're busy, but I just find that really
• 7:00
  frustrating. Yeah, yeah.
• 7:02
  Well, it was, it was really interesting for me when I came
• 7:05
  to meet you and talk to you about how just knowing that it's
• 7:08
  the menopause just helps you deal with it better, You know,
• 7:11
  because I was having, I have, I've always suffered from
• 7:14
  depression and I've always thought it was part of being
• 7:17
  alive. I've always thought it was part
• 7:19
  of part of being a writer. You know, it was kind of part
• 7:22
  of, you know, the, the things you have to deal with.
• 7:26
  So it's been interesting just knowing that there's an
• 7:29
  explanation for. And did you ever talk to anyone
• 7:31
  about it? I've been to the odd therapist,
• 7:34
  but never for more than about 5 minutes.
• 7:37
  It it, it was for me. It was really interesting
• 7:41
  starting on HRT because I came from, as you know, from a
• 7:45
  background of oh, I don't need. That, yeah, of course.
• 7:48
  Because I'd, I mean, I the only the person I'd really talked to
• 7:51
  about menopause was my mum. Who was it?
• 7:53
  But just suppose it's true of a lot of people.
• 7:56
  And she, she always claimed that she laughed her way through the
• 7:58
  menopause, which I now don't believe she did.
• 8:00
  I think she was actually quite depressed, but that was her way
• 8:03
  of dealing with it, of sort of telling herself that I'm not
• 8:05
  going to be beaten by this and I'm going to laugh my way
• 8:08
  through it. But I remember her suffering
• 8:10
  from headaches and all kinds of aches and pains and being really
• 8:15
  quite low. But I just bought into her
• 8:17
  telling me that she was laughing her way through it rather than
• 8:20
  actually seeing what was in front of me, and it's only now
• 8:23
  I've realised that she wasn't laughing her way through it at
• 8:25
  all. Yeah.
• 8:26
  And I often think, and I still do now, that menopause is not an
• 8:30
  ovary condition, it's not a wound condition, it's a brain
• 8:33
  condition. The commonest symptoms affecting
• 8:36
  people are brain related symptoms.
• 8:39
  So the mood, the concentration, the energy, but most people that
• 8:43
  I see and speak to say it's the mood changes.
• 8:46
  They feel joyless, they feel flat.
• 8:49
  They yeah, it's it's just that sort of exhausting not living
• 8:53
  I've. Forgotten that feeling, Yeah,
• 8:54
  but I remember talking to you about that, where you just feel
• 8:57
  like all the joy's gone out of life.
• 8:59
  I remember someone saying to me about 10 years ago, my clinic,
• 9:01
  the zest for life is gone. And I thought I I get that
• 9:05
  completely. And until you've been there,
• 9:07
  it's quite hard to describe, isn't it?
• 9:09
  Because it's not something you can like, say to people.
• 9:13
  It's not like you're crying all the time or you're, you know,
• 9:15
  some people are some people tearful, some people are angry.
• 9:18
  But a lot of it, it's just like you're just flatlining really.
• 9:20
  Yeah, but I think people don't talk about it because you don't
• 9:24
  want to be a drag, you don't want to be the person who sucks
• 9:26
  the energy out of a conversation.
• 9:29
  So we sort of keep it to ourselves.
• 9:30
  Yeah. And I think also like
• 9:32
  externally, like you're really successful.
• 9:35
  You've got the most creative brain.
• 9:37
  You're, you know, producing so much so people wouldn't expect
• 9:41
  you. And like, then who do you talk
• 9:43
  to and say, actually, guys, I've woken up this morning again
• 9:45
  feeling really low. No one wants to hear that, do
• 9:48
  they? No, no.
• 9:49
  And you remind yourself of all the things you've got to be
• 9:51
  grateful about, but it doesn't seem to matter.
• 9:53
  It doesn't does it but. You know, it's really
• 9:55
  interesting that I've forgotten that feeling.
• 9:57
  It's. Because you don't have it now.
• 9:59
  Yeah. Amazing isn't it?
• 10:03
  Because I do remember they talking to you about right
• 10:07
  women, but then also saying I think we need to talk about your
• 10:10
  own hormones and you'd not I. Remember the first question you
• 10:14
  asked me? Oh, what was it?
• 10:15
  Well, it was just tell me about yourself.
• 10:17
  Tell me about your mum. And I said that my mum had
• 10:23
  dementia and that she'd got osteoporosis.
• 10:26
  And you said, well, that's two good reasons already why you why
• 10:29
  you should be taking HRT. But for me it was worse than
• 10:33
  that. It was feeling really, but just
• 10:38
  that joylessness that somehow life had lost its meaning.
• 10:43
  And it's, you know, I don't think I'm suicidal, but I did
• 10:47
  have just vague notions of the world might be a bit better off
• 10:50
  without me. Oh, I remember talking to you
• 10:53
  about when I was filming Gentleman Jack and feeling
• 10:57
  tearful in the mornings and talking to our head of makeup
• 11:01
  who was on HRC, and she was insisting that I needed to get
• 11:04
  HRC. And I'm like, no, I don't.
• 11:06
  I don't need things like, but which was it was, yeah,
• 11:15
  interesting thinking, thinking back to and.
• 11:17
  Why did you think you were so resistant to it?
• 11:20
  I just, I just don't like taking any medication that you don't
• 11:23
  need to take. I've I've always thought.
• 11:27
  But do you see it as medication or do you see it as just?
• 11:31
  I guess. I guess the idea of.
• 11:32
  Just you know what I mean. It's.
• 11:33
  I do because it's putting something into your body that
• 11:35
  isn't isn't actually being created anymore.
• 11:39
  Yeah. But it's interesting what you've
• 11:42
  just told me about contraceptives, because I took
• 11:45
  contraceptives when I was in my middle late 20s and I just
• 11:49
  ballooned. I mean I've always been disposed
• 11:52
  to be bigger than I should be, but that was shocking when I it
• 11:56
  was like within the special weeks just put on something like
• 12:01
  2 stone. And did you stay on
• 12:03
  contraceptive then? No, but I didn't lose the weight
• 12:05
  when it. Stopped.
• 12:06
  I mean I I have lost weight since then and I was struggling
• 12:11
  with weight but. But it is interesting.
• 12:13
  I mean I I think a lot and educate a lot about the
• 12:17
  difference between natural hormones and synthetic hormones
• 12:20
  because when people say hormones or HRT they immediately think
• 12:23
  risks breast cancer. I really shouldn't be having
• 12:26
  this. Whereas most of us have taken
• 12:28
  contraceptive pill. Didn't even ask about it.
• 12:30
  My sister told me the other day and she was 16.
• 12:33
  She just went to the school doctor and said oh can I have
• 12:36
  the pill now I'm 16 because she's a June birthday.
• 12:39
  So over the year all her friends started taking it.
• 12:41
  We were in an all girls school that was boarding, so we had no
• 12:43
  access to boys anyway. And she just said, oh, I went on
• 12:46
  it because. And the doctor went, yeah, here
• 12:47
  you go. Take it.
• 12:48
  But the irony is that the pill even now still contains
• 12:51
  synthetic chemicals that really are not natural for the body.
• 12:54
  They're not the same chemical structure, whereas the hormones
• 12:57
  are literally replacing like for like.
• 12:59
  And so when you think about your brain house, your bone house,
• 13:02
  you're just stimulating those receptors that weren't there,
• 13:05
  you know, weren't stimulated. So the the pill just gives
• 13:09
  people a chemical menopause. So you would have been floozed
• 13:11
  into menopause with your contraception, which no one
• 13:15
  really thinks about. No.
• 13:16
  It's it's quite interesting when you think, but the mental health
• 13:20
  component is huge programme like the the characters, they've all
• 13:26
  got different issues, different backgrounds, but mental health
• 13:30
  does run through it, doesn't it? A lot.
• 13:32
  It's it's, it's mainly the two main characters, Beth and Kitty,
• 13:37
  who go on to HRT during the course of the show.
• 13:41
  Between episode 3 and 4, there's a jump of six weeks and pre that
• 13:48
  we meet Beth and Kitty. They both start the show and
• 13:51
  they both suicidal at the beginning.
• 13:52
  They both basically trying to take their own lives into very
• 13:56
  different ways. Beth's kind of going out with a
• 13:58
  whimper and Kitty's trying to go out with a bang, but they both
• 14:04
  struggling with mental health at the beginning.
• 14:06
  Then they meet each other and this very unlikely friendship
• 14:10
  develops between them. And then we jump on after
• 14:13
  episode 3 to episode 4, where they've both started taking HRT.
• 14:17
  Their lives have changed. Their lives have changed in a
• 14:19
  number of ways, but they certainly cite that as being a
• 14:23
  factor. And how would the actors and the
• 14:26
  team like? It was funny because because it
• 14:28
  is very dramatic, one of the ways of trying to take a life.
• 14:33
  And I've heard lots of women want to take their life and had
• 14:37
  these dark thoughts and planned how they were going to do it.
• 14:41
  But I've sort of numbed it because I hear it all the time.
• 14:43
  But for lots of people, menopause is flashes and sweats.
• 14:47
  So when they were reading the script, like, what were people's
• 14:51
  responses to it? Did they believe it or did they?
• 14:53
  Oh, they certainly believed it. Yeah, that was interesting.
• 14:56
  I don't know one ever questioned whether it was true or not.
• 15:00
  I think I think the great thing was it just sparked a lot of
• 15:02
  conversation amongst us socially anti rehearsal about, you know,
• 15:09
  the slings and arrows of women that age.
• 15:11
  You know, the things that that we go through and that we deal
• 15:14
  with and the the things that come to biters that we didn't
• 15:17
  expect or anticipate. As I say, like with my mum
• 15:19
  getting developing dementia and, and again, just that being part
• 15:24
  and parcel of life at that age for women.
• 15:26
  You know, the female experience of how you deal with it when
• 15:29
  you've got all these other things to deal with as well.
• 15:31
  And the surprise of it, the surprise of what it does to you
• 15:34
  and those, as I said earlier, not being consciously aware of
• 15:37
  it of of all its aspects. You.
• 15:40
  Know not being able to articulate all its different
• 15:43
  aspects. Our hormones change throughout
• 15:47
  our lives, especially during perimenopause and menopause.
• 15:51
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  Your body will thank you. But it shows how common it is.
• 16:42
  Because I think if it was uncommon for women especially to
• 16:45
  have these thoughts, people would have said, no, that's that
• 16:49
  must be really uncommon, Sally, to don't put that in or
• 16:51
  whatever. But you know, when you look at
• 16:52
  the research, even research we've done, one in six women who
• 16:56
  come to our clinic have thoughts of suicide before they come.
• 17:00
  And with balance that we've got hundreds of thousands of people
• 17:03
  that symptoms. And again, it's about one in six
• 17:05
  and it's one in six women are not getting help and one in six
• 17:08
  women aren't even being prescribed hormones.
• 17:10
  So a lot of people are internalizing it.
• 17:12
  And it's not just menopausal women.
• 17:14
  A lot of women before their periods often have that really
• 17:18
  low dark thoughts. Thankfully a lot of people don't
• 17:21
  go through with it, but they still think about it more than
• 17:25
  other things and it is the mental health symptoms that
• 17:29
  affect women more than the physical symptoms.
• 17:31
  Because I knew we were talking about how much of the hot
• 17:33
  flushes and sweats to tease out. But you know, well, that's, it's
• 17:37
  interesting. I remember at one point we were
• 17:39
  going to call the series hot flush and you were really
• 17:41
  against that. And, and I was, I got to a point
• 17:44
  where I didn't, I didn't want it just to be about hot flushes
• 17:46
  because that's, it's kind of lazy shorthand for what's what
• 17:51
  it, what, what it really it, you know, it's, it's, there's so
• 17:54
  much more to it and there's so much more to women's lives as
• 17:58
  well. And it's sort of reducing it to
• 18:00
  a joke, almost. And that's what's happened, you
• 18:03
  know, even in the 30s and 40s when they first discovered
• 18:07
  hormones, the research was done with flashes and sweats because
• 18:10
  they could literally have usually men with a clipboard
• 18:12
  monitoring the number of flashes that women had because you can
• 18:15
  physically see it. Whereas to ask someone what
• 18:17
  their mental health is like, how can you measure that?
• 18:20
  And so that's why they've ignored it, because they
• 18:22
  couldn't prove that it was related to hormones, whereas the
• 18:25
  sweats and flashes could. So it's great that you didn't
• 18:29
  call it. The other thing that we talked
• 18:30
  about a lot in the show is feeling invisible.
• 18:33
  Yes. And that's another symptom I
• 18:34
  remember is just feeling like you're disappearing like nobody
• 18:37
  kind of you don't everybody wants a piece of you.
• 18:40
  And in the middle of that you're disappearing.
• 18:42
  Are you becoming somebody you don't quite recognise anymore?
• 18:45
  And that's that was certainly one of the themes of the show
• 18:48
  that the Joanna Joanna's character talks about Beth in
• 18:51
  the first episode feeling like nobody can see her.
• 18:55
  Everybody. People are complaining about
• 18:56
  her, but then they don't see that she's got issues going on
• 18:59
  that nobody's interested in or helping her with.
• 19:02
  And I think also people have reduced self esteem, low self
• 19:06
  worth. One of the questions we've,
• 19:07
  we've got a new symptom questionnaire and one of the
• 19:09
  questions that we added was that just don't feel like yourself
• 19:12
  anymore, which is really, really common, but then you're less
• 19:16
  likely to ask for help. And it, it is that sort of just
• 19:20
  withdrawing from society. A lot of people stop going out,
• 19:23
  they stop socialising. It's not just work, it's
• 19:25
  everything. They just sort of excuse.
• 19:27
  And I sort of think my mother and grandmother's generation,
• 19:30
  they sort of hid behind their apron strings.
• 19:32
  They didn't have to really go out the same way.
• 19:34
  And a lot of people have crippling anxiety.
• 19:36
  So they don't drive anymore. They don't want to go on the
• 19:38
  underground, they don't go on a holiday.
• 19:40
  So they're sort of making their worlds get smaller and smaller
• 19:42
  and smaller. But the other area that really
• 19:46
  worries me is the addiction side of things, because we did a
• 19:51
  survey the year and a half ago now about addictions and not
• 19:55
  just alcohol, but drugs as well. And some of the free text
• 19:59
  responses were really quite harrowing.
• 20:01
  Women turning to cocaine to really, yeah, classy drugs
• 20:05
  because they can't get help. And a lot of them are saying
• 20:07
  they can't get help. Things up to.
• 20:09
  I have such awful anxiety. I have such deep, dark thoughts.
• 20:12
  It's lovely to have this euphoria, this escape from
• 20:15
  realism. Taking these drugs and.
• 20:17
  But they've never done them before.
• 20:18
  There's women in their 40s and 50s.
• 20:20
  Yeah. And I've seen it in my patients.
• 20:22
  Someone recently was telling me that she's she's very posh and
• 20:25
  she was telling me how she'd been microducing with some
• 20:28
  cocaine and something else and I was, I didn't like so how how
• 20:31
  nice do you get a hold of that? Like I have no idea what I would
• 20:34
  do, but she said it's the only only thing that can help me.
• 20:36
  Louise. She said, oh, doctor news and
• 20:38
  she said the like my doctors, all they do is prescribe me
• 20:41
  antidepressants and I know I'm not depressed, but I can't cope
• 20:44
  with these intrusive negative thoughts.
• 20:47
  I can't sleep, I'm very anxious. So I just thought I would try
• 20:50
  it. But she said, but I'm a bit
• 20:52
  scared of hormones. So it's probably a bit safer
• 20:54
  than and taking what you're taking, you know, but that's a
• 20:57
  worry. But that sort of teases out,
• 20:59
  doesn't it, with them, you know, alcohol, especially in in riot
• 21:04
  women, but it's. Blamed.
• 21:06
  It doesn't kiss. Yeah, the case of.
• 21:08
  Kitty yeah that sort of teases out doesn't it with them you
• 21:12
  know alcohol, especially in in riot women but it's.
• 21:18
  Blamed. It doesn't kiss.
• 21:19
  Yeah, the case of. Kitty.
• 21:21
  Yeah. Use a lot of alcohol.
• 21:23
  But it's very easy drugs. Yeah, but it's very easy to look
• 21:25
  at Kitty and think, well, she's it's just her life.
• 21:28
  She's just a mess, Yeah, But we we meet her at a certain point
• 21:31
  in life when it's it's kind of reaching her.
• 21:33
  Heads, yeah. So I suppose that, and again,
• 21:36
  it's just because, I mean, she's she's the youngest of the right
• 21:39
  women. She's not quite in that age
• 21:41
  group. But you know, as you said, you
• 21:43
  can menopause. Absolutely.
• 21:44
  Can no absolutely can. And actually when people abuse
• 21:47
  drugs and and alcohol, their ovaries actually usually switch
• 21:50
  off at an earlier age because the body protects them like like
• 21:53
  kitty's body is not healthy enough when she's full on not
• 21:57
  well to to really support a pregnancy.
• 21:59
  So I mean our babies, our bodies are amazing.
• 22:01
  They protect us. So, you know, a lot of younger
• 22:05
  women who abuse drugs will have an earlier menopause.
• 22:08
  And certainly when I was volunteering in prisons last
• 22:11
  year, lots of women had hormonal issues and lots of them
• 22:15
  obviously doing drugs and alcohol and no one's recognising
• 22:18
  that at all. So just for, to not just judge
• 22:22
  people for, oh, she's had a bad life or, or the character that
• 22:25
  she is actually, could it be related to her hormones in any
• 22:28
  way? And what was great is that she
• 22:30
  learnt from her new friends, didn't see what was going on as
• 22:33
  well. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:35
  Do you think it's going to have? Obviously we've recorded this
• 22:38
  before it goes out. I know it's going to have an
• 22:39
  amazing response. I've seen the trailer and even
• 22:42
  then I had goosebumps. Who knows?
• 22:44
  It you never know, but. What sort of response do you
• 22:46
  want to get from it? What?
• 22:47
  What's like your biggest sort of wish with it?
• 22:50
  I, I also think I always want to entertain people, but I hope,
• 22:55
  you know, entertain people and hopefully make them think and,
• 23:00
  and kind of to tell people something new, hopefully not,
• 23:05
  you know, new in any massive way, but just to, to help people
• 23:09
  think a bit more about something.
• 23:11
  And certainly this was my this, I suppose it was personally my
• 23:16
  way of dealing with the menopause was to write about it
• 23:18
  and what I was going through. So it's, it's, I suppose it is
• 23:22
  just to, it's, you know, to dramatise part of the female
• 23:26
  experience that we haven't seen dramatised until.
• 23:30
  Is it? No, I don't think so.
• 23:33
  But again, it was just to try and find a way to do it that
• 23:37
  isn't poor faced or that isn't going to make people go, oh, you
• 23:40
  know, men think, oh, I'm not watching that.
• 23:43
  Because I think all the men I've spoken to about it actually
• 23:45
  seemed quite once you tell them what it's about, and all the men
• 23:49
  who've worked on the show in post production, for instance,
• 23:52
  the people who weren't there filming it, you know, they've
• 23:54
  come to it fresh and they've actually responded really.
• 23:57
  Well, better have. You know, they love it.
• 24:00
  They enjoy it because it's fun. It's, you know, it's got
• 24:02
  fabulous music. In it, Oh yeah.
• 24:04
  But I often say to people with menopause and hormonal changes,
• 24:07
  like once you see them, you can't Unsee it.
• 24:11
  And but it's opening the eyes to it.
• 24:13
  And I think that's what this is really going to do because
• 24:17
  everyone's going to resonate with one of the characters or
• 24:20
  some of the symptoms or just the way that they are.
• 24:22
  But the way they help each other and lift each other up is really
• 24:25
  powerful. But the music's fantastic.
• 24:28
  And that, I think, really makes it.
• 24:30
  But just tell me about the song. Oh, well, yeah, I mean, the the
• 24:35
  in episode 4, there's a song that and I think we all helped
• 24:39
  write this song in a way. I mean, arcs, I've written the
• 24:41
  songs. I can't, I can't detract from
• 24:43
  that at all. They've, they've done a
• 24:44
  brilliant job, but we did give them some ideas for what the
• 24:47
  song should be about. And we threw some odd lines in
• 24:50
  as well to suggest things. In fact, the first lines written
• 24:52
  by the police adviser, Lisa, which is I'm so depressed I
• 24:55
  can't get dressed. That actually came from Lisa,
• 24:58
  the police adviser. But then there are some, there's
• 25:01
  one line that I'm sure came from you, whether directly or
• 25:03
  indirectly about oh, if, if, if it happened to blokes, IE the
• 25:09
  menopause, if it happened to blokes, we'd be getting HRT from
• 25:12
  Tesco. And then the, the, and the arcs,
• 25:17
  Hani and Clara, who are arcs, they come up with this fabulous
• 25:20
  refrain when the song goes into Give Me HRT and it becomes this
• 25:25
  chance. And hopefully the audience has
• 25:28
  already seen this now, but the audience pick up the chant and
• 25:31
  by the end of the song, even the some of the men in the audience
• 25:34
  singing Give Me HRT. So it's again it's.
• 25:37
  Trying to make engaging. And uplifting.
• 25:40
  And. Yeah, fun, because you know
• 25:42
  globally how many menopause of women are prescribed.
• 25:45
  HRT probably very few 5. Percent, yeah, whereas all
• 25:50
  guidelines is majority should be taking it.
• 25:52
  Yeah, the other thing I've been talking to people a lot recently
• 25:55
  about is something you told me, people saying when I get through
• 25:59
  the menopause, and I keep saying you don't get through it.
• 26:02
  Well done. It's really true.
• 26:05
  Like I was talking to someone the other day who was just
• 26:08
  saying about the whole transition and there will be
• 26:10
  times where you'll feel bad and other times you feel better.
• 26:12
  But once you're through it and it is this whole and I see so
• 26:15
  many women who say, oh, it's really not relevant because I'm
• 26:19
  through it. And I really try and take the
• 26:21
  word when people say post menopause, say no, you're
• 26:24
  menopausal. They try and get rid of that
• 26:26
  word because it's is that terminology, isn't it?
• 26:29
  But and I also think a lot of people because they associate
• 26:33
  with flushes and sweats, if they don't have them, they think they
• 26:36
  can't be menopausal, right? And a lot of women who.
• 26:40
  They tribute all that other symptoms to.
• 26:42
  Well, they think also they're getting older.
• 26:44
  So women in their 60s, seventies, 80s say, Oh, yeah,
• 26:46
  but I will feel a bit tired and I will not sleep well.
• 26:49
  And I will have some urinary symptoms and I will have some
• 26:51
  joint pains because I'm older. And I don't know how many
• 26:54
  related to hormones, but I'll just say, well, let's give you
• 26:56
  some hormones to help with your bones and your brain and your
• 26:59
  heart. And then literally they'll say,
• 27:01
  wow, I sleep better. I don't get up for the night to
• 27:04
  have a wee. And it's those little things
• 27:05
  that you wouldn't necessarily take a medication for one or two
• 27:08
  things, but it's, it's what it's like, you know, you've, you've
• 27:11
  noticed a difference. Like you're, you just, you're so
• 27:15
  different when I first met you. And there's lots of things that
• 27:17
  have changed. But obviously hormones have been
• 27:19
  a quite a big factor, haven't they?
• 27:20
  Yeah, Yeah, I'm not any urinary, urinary tract infections, yeah,
• 27:25
  since. Which is amazing when you think.
• 27:27
  I only had one or two but it was enough to think I don't want
• 27:30
  these. Yeah, well, you know, 30% of
• 27:33
  sepsis is due to urinary tract infections.
• 27:36
  Is it? Yeah.
• 27:36
  Oh my. God, and it's, it's preventable,
• 27:39
  you know, and we've known since the 80s that women, even just
• 27:42
  using vaginal hormones can reduce the incidence of urinary
• 27:45
  tract infections. And obviously systemic hormones
• 27:48
  will help keep the immune system functioning better, reduce all
• 27:51
  infections. But it's still not sort of, we
• 27:54
  still give antibiotics all the time, which is wrong.
• 27:56
  So so you're not coming off your HRT.
• 27:59
  No, no, no, I don't think so. No, no good.
• 28:04
  So it's it's just such a privilege to like hear and also
• 28:09
  just to watch how the programme. Like, I'm very black and white,
• 28:13
  I'm very scientific, I'm very boring.
• 28:15
  But I came up to Hebden Bridge and watched like.
• 28:18
  How it was exciting. But it was great.
• 28:21
  But what I found like still can't get my head around now
• 28:23
  that you you film like all these tiny little clips and you redo
• 28:27
  them and redo them and redo them and then you go to something
• 28:30
  else and then you go to something else.
• 28:31
  And then it was still just used to be like some massive jigsaw
• 28:34
  and then it all comes together. We shoot everything out of
• 28:36
  sequence because we have to, because we shoot by location,
• 28:40
  Yeah. So we can shoot out, you know,
• 28:43
  we'll dress a location and then we shoot everything in that
• 28:45
  location and then it can be de rigged.
• 28:47
  It's so clever. So it well, it's, it's like a
• 28:51
  military operation filming. It's like a military operation.
• 28:53
  You've got like, you know, 75 people on set every day.
• 28:57
  You know, times money and you've, you know, you've to
• 29:01
  really crack on with it. Yeah.
• 29:02
  And I suppose the The thing is because you shooting out
• 29:05
  sequence, you have to have the whole thing in your head.
• 29:07
  Hmm. But that's what I found amazing.
• 29:09
  I mean, you were so kind. I was like your little shadow.
• 29:11
  I just wanted to just, I was a little on your shoulder watching
• 29:14
  everything and just the way that you.
• 29:17
  It's fun. Is it?
• 29:17
  It is fun, but you have to be really patient as well.
• 29:20
  They because that scene, you, you were just redoing and
• 29:24
  redoing the pub. Yeah.
• 29:25
  And like the top wasn't quite there, like the strap was down.
• 29:28
  And it should have been enough an issue to do it again.
• 29:30
  And, and for the actors, it's really hard.
• 29:32
  It's so much easier doing live television because you're just
• 29:34
  on and then you're on to the next, whereas this is just you
• 29:37
  want it and each time you want it better and the the right one,
• 29:41
  but you've got that. You could just see it, you know,
• 29:43
  the one. And then when suddenly you know,
• 29:44
  it was the right clip. That was it.
• 29:45
  You can move on to the next. And it's, it's such an art.
• 29:49
  It's incredible. So I'm just so excited to like
• 29:52
  watch it all together. But like I say, seeing the
• 29:55
  trailer, just seeing those characters come to life, I, I
• 29:58
  know there's not going to be someone that doesn't sit there
• 30:01
  and think, yeah, that's me, or that's my mum, or that's my
• 30:03
  aunt, or that's my sister or my daughter, my or someone at work.
• 30:08
  And what I really hope from it is that people will just start
• 30:12
  to start that conversation and make it, but not normalise it,
• 30:16
  but just then facilitate them to be able to get help and advice,
• 30:21
  support and treatment that they want in a non judgmental way.
• 30:24
  Because that's really important, isn't it?
• 30:27
  So very grateful, Sally. But when when I finished my
• 30:30
  podcast, I was asked for three take home tips.
• 30:32
  I just would really like to ask you three things that you wish
• 30:40
  you'd known about hormones before I met you.
• 30:43
  I wish I'd known that the report about connecting it to breast
• 30:49
  cancer was had been discredited, as far as I understand.
• 30:55
  Yeah, because I think that's what put me off.
• 30:56
  Yeah. I wish I'd known that my lower
• 31:03
  moods could have been helped massively by taking hormones.
• 31:09
  What about bones Helping your bones?
• 31:12
  Osteoporosis. Did you know that before?
• 31:15
  No, I didn't. I didn't know, OK.
• 31:17
  I didn't know that those linked with osteoporosis or dementia
• 31:23
  because I do remember that was when we first started talking
• 31:26
  and you asked me to talk about my mum and, and I and I'm
• 31:30
  constantly worried that started with dementia because most, both
• 31:33
  my parents had dementia. So you know.
• 31:38
  I think that's the thing, it's trying to change the
• 31:40
  conversation, thinking about the risks of not having hormones,
• 31:43
  whereas for so many years we've always been thought about the
• 31:46
  risks of having HRT and and the risk to the suffering actually
• 31:50
  for women. So suffering in silence no more
• 31:54
  after riot women. So really grateful for you
• 31:57
  coming. Thanks, Sally.
• 31:58
  Thank you.