I know exactly how Helen Skelton feels – I was abandoned after giving birth, it’s suffocating, says Ulrika Jonsson
I DON’T know Helen Skelton, but I’ve admired her greatly over the years.
She’s a fearless pocket rocket who takes on physical challenges for charity and TV shows in a way I have respected and that has terrified me in equal measure.
I was truly sad to hear the news that she has split from her husband Richie Myler – or he has split from her.
Regardless of whether it was her decision or his, an eight-year marriage collapsing and leaving you with three children – one of which is merely four months old – is not without acute pain.
I’ve been there myself. When you’re left holding the baby, either through a decision of your own or someone else’s, when the life you had pictured comes to a halt and the future couldn’t be further from certain, it’s hard not to crumble.
One of the least favourite and least helpful expressions I’ve heard in my darkest hours has been when people have told me: “You’ll get over this. You’re strong.”
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They are phrases not backed up by certainty or knowledge. It’s what others are willing you to be and do because it makes them feel better. They want us to recover and get through it.
Just because people have shown doggedness, resolve and tenacity in the past, it doesn’t mean they don’t need a bloody big hug and to be told that it’s fine if they need a cry or can’t cope.
Even the strongest people need space to buckle and yield.
I hope Helen is surrounded by those who allow her to do that. If that is what she needs.
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Imagine it… a woman going out at night and feeling safe
THE latest ad for a well-known mobile phone brand shows a young woman setting the alarm on her device to go running at 2am through the streets of London.
Women’s safety campaigners and running groups have accused the ad agency of being “tone deaf”.
Others claim it is not “representing the truth for women”. It is simply not how we dare to live our lives safely.
In response, the company has said the premise of the ad is to empower people to pursue wellness on their own schedule. Which is all terribly romantic and pragmatic.
It would never occur to me to even go running, let alone set an alarm to do so at crazy o’clock.
The Office for National Statistics says that half of all women have felt unsafe at some point walking alone in the dark.
This may have something to do with the fact that, from a young age, we’ve always been on the defensive and on high alert for male attackers when out alone and in the dark.
Stepford Wives
I was told to hold keys or other sharp objects in my hand just in case.
I always knew that as a female I had a vulnerable place in society and that looking over my shoulder was my first line of defence.
Walking in the dark was discouraged and, to that end, as a young girl my movements would always be limited. It was not the same for men.
The murders of so many women — including that of 23-year-old Ashling Murphy in Ireland in January, who was out running — only served to reinforce this state of affairs.
Women are being murdered in their homes, too. Essentially, safe places for women are fundamentally fewer than those for men.
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And yet, while I wholeheartedly agree with the concerns of campaigners who say the advert is wholly improbable, I would mention two things.
Firstly, since when have ads been realistic? We have always had representations of women looking nothing short of perfect, managing their lives without as much as a hair out of place, with perfect male partners and perfect children in perfect homes.
And up until recently there was little representation of diversity — just white, middle-class Stepford Wives to which we should aspire.
Secondly, the conversation has recently turned on its head and we now talk about how danger for women should not be an issue for them but the responsibility of men.
So why would you not show a woman doing exactly what she wants at a time of her choosing?
Why aren’t we promoting this as a concept — that we are, and should be, perfectly entitled to go out when it’s dark and not stay locked indoors?
There was a huge shift in mentality after the murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021.
It energised many elements of society and brought women together as a collective.
Indeed, we started shouting about it, shaking things up by writing a new version of how things should be for the next generation, so they don’t feel they are the problem but rather it is up to men to alter their behaviour.
Campaigners do right to call out fabrications, pretensions and the absence of realism in anything that might sway, impress or persuade us in the way that ads do.
And it’s surely no coincidence that the account managers on this advert were male.
But we can’t have it both ways, where women are only represented in what we have always perceived to be safe places, surrounded by safe people.
To me the ad is a bit bonkers. Equally there was a sense of freedom about it.
It showed a world I would love to inhabit. Obviously not one where I’m forced to go running — God, no!
But one in which I could do if I wanted to. In the dead of night.
Without fearing for my life.
MP's porn allegation
OH the hoo-ha about the male Tory MP viewing porn on his phone in the House of Commons.
Of course it’s disrespectful and vile.
Could we just take a moment to acknowledge the vast amount of porn watched daily by adults and children, whether at work or at home.
So, a sad, bored, sleazy bloke who represents a constituency, searching on his phone for filth only proves he’s human and fallible.
And probably desperate for sex.
Of course I don’t approve. And I don’t mean to play down his lack of respect for women and his workplace.
But be grateful he was sitting down.
Imagine if he stood up to speak and was found to be having a General Election.
HRT is not just some lifestyle choice, it’s vital
LADIES, I think we need a round of applause.
All those ’slebs and non-’slebs – I include myself in this, of course – who’ve campaigned so brilliantly for better treatment for symptoms of the menopause have started to see some great results.
More and more women are seeking help and insisting on being prescribed hormone replacement therapy.
But now we’re being told there is a shortage of HRT.
It’s a sure-fire sign of the success of campaigners, including Davina McCall, but a damning indictment of how bureaucracy and a lack of preparedness are leaving women stranded.
It’s worse than just being stranded because, for the majority of women, the symptoms can be crippling and extremely debilitating.
HRT can help relieve all this and make us feel like fully functioning humans again.
It’s taken years of forcing the conversation about this difficult stage of life for a woman.
Decades of us finally refusing to be fobbed off at the doctor’s because they think we’re depressed, when actually we need prescriptions for hormones to help us.
And now we’re all flying around in absolute misery because we are terrified our symptoms will re-emerge.
We’re not talking a little sniffle or a small rash that can wait a week or so, the reality is dire and complex for so many.
I’ve written in this paper about how, for me, the onset of menopause caused over-whelming anxiety, memory loss, brain fog, weight gain and mood swings.
HRT is not a lifestyle choice. It’s not a cute little addition to the end of our working day.
It’s not a nice glass of wine or a charming hors d’oeuvre before the evening meal. It is very much a necessity.
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It feels so horribly unfair that just as we’re starting to get everyone on board – successfully spreading the message and getting doctors and workplaces to sit up and listen – many of us have it taken away.
Please free up access to this most cherished and brilliant solution to the menopause and don’t send us back over the edge from whence we came.