00:00Hi, I'm Rosie, Editor-in-Chief of Hello, and I'm here with Nadia Swahala, who will be chatting to me
00:06about the menopause.
00:07We've partnered with Clarence to kick-start important conversations about this stage of life.
00:12Firstly, thank you for being so open about your own menopause journey.
00:16Well, once I realised that's what it was.
00:18Yeah, true. So take me back, tell me about the symptoms that you were experiencing.
00:23Well, I don't know, about ten years ago now, I actually got quite a lot of symptoms.
00:29Quite rapidly after each other, but I had no idea it was the menopause, nothing at all. No idea.
00:34I think actually initially it was the darkness that came over me, and I've always been very lucky to be
00:40somebody that wakes up happy.
00:42I'm just one of those people, cup is half full sort of person.
00:45And I just got this terrible darkness.
00:48And this real sort of foreboding sense of, this is a funny thing, that everything about my life had been
00:56a complete sort of fabrication almost.
01:00It's the strangest thing.
01:01Actually, that's what started, and I started to doubt everything about myself.
01:05I mean, it's all quite graphic, really.
01:07I mean, the bleeding was a really difficult thing, and I think we still don't talk about that enough.
01:12Because this isn't just like having a period.
01:14This is, it felt like you were hemorrhaging, that's what it felt like.
01:18And then I had lots of brain fog.
01:20I mean, I think it's gone everywhere on YouTube, where I just completely blanked.
01:24One day when I was standing in for Lorraine, because my brain just went.
01:28And in fact, my producer the other day said to me, just out of the blue, she's a young girl.
01:34She said, you know, I can't believe the difference since you've been on HRT.
01:38Because she said, you used to say, what did I think?
01:40Yeah, I've always been saying, what did I think?
01:42And so how did sort of family and kind of in your social life, did you find support?
01:46You know, was your husband particularly there for you through that time?
01:50Well, I was a maniac.
01:51So, I mean, I think, he says there was a point where he did actually wonder if we were going
01:57to make it.
01:58Because I was just so irrational.
02:02It's like pre-menstrual tension, but ten times worse.
02:04So it really, you know, I'd fly into rages.
02:07I wasn't really managing.
02:08I just got used to them.
02:10I got used to them.
02:11Eventually the bleeding stops.
02:13I used homeopathy for my sweats, and that was good.
02:17But then what happens is, you just become used to everything.
02:22You think that's you.
02:23And so mild anxiety, which I'd never had before, exhaustion come three, four o'clock, don't ask me to go
02:30to work, go to theatre and have a meal.
02:32I didn't even have any memory that I ever used to be able to do that.
02:35So you just adapt to it, and then that became me.
02:39Yeah, but then it shouldn't be your new normal, should it?
02:42I mean, you have to really have the strength to advocate for yourself with a healthcare professional.
02:47Tell me also about changes that you noticed within your own body and skin care and hair.
02:54Were there specific changes that you noticed there?
02:58Absolutely.
02:59My skin, I was going to bed at night and just tearing my skin apart, just itching.
03:04I thought that was at the point where I thought I had skin cancer because I also got these really
03:08weird markings on my back, all the way up my back.
03:11So very dry skin.
03:14Obviously, you know, you go into menopause, you lose, I think, 30% of your collagen.
03:19So obviously you start to age quicker.
03:23It's all such fun, isn't it?
03:24It sounds great.
03:28It's a good job you don't want sex anymore, isn't it?
03:34And obviously that is going to all have a big impact on your self-esteem and your confidence.
03:40Oh my God, massively.
03:42How did that affect you?
03:43And then how did that impact you when you started taking HRT?
03:46But once I got through the dark side, I really did start thinking, right, I need to look after myself.
03:54I need to stop thinking of this as just, this is the end.
03:58I have to think of this as a new beginning.
04:00In that process, obviously, there was very little room to feel compassion for yourself, perhaps, in going through this process.
04:08Are there ways that you've brought some kindness or self-care into your life?
04:12Really looking, trying to really look after, not just going, oh, my skin now is this and it's up, but
04:17really nurture it and look after it.
04:19Bother to do my roots more often than I used to, you know.
04:23Just take a little, I'm never going to be one of these high maintenance women that really looks after themselves.
04:28I'd love to be, but I just can't do it.
04:30But I'd certainly thought more about what products I was using, you know, allowed myself to, you know, get my
04:38hair done, all of that sort of stuff, and take a little bit more care.
04:41So why is it so particularly important to you to now advocate for women in discussing the menopause and breaking
04:48down the taboo?
04:49Because I don't want any other women to go through all those stages I did.
04:52You know, I never heard a word about the menopause from my mother.
04:55And, you know, it's really difficult for me because I've got two daughters that are going through premenstrual tension, and
05:01then I'm going through the menopause, and my husband's in the middle of that.
05:04And so it's a conversation for everyone, not just women, because anybody that's living in the house with a woman
05:10that's going through the menopause, whether it's teenagers, partner, whatever, they're going to be affected by that.
05:16And so it's, I mean, I want it to be taught in detail at schools, because women leave the jobs
05:23they love, they leave the marriages they love, they fall out with their children.
05:27This is, it can be, not for everyone, some people just sail through it, but it can be quite devastating.
05:32Well, we're certainly not alone in our experiences, so it's just great to be breaking the taboo in this way.
05:38So thank you again for joining me today.
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