#29 - Mariana: Menopause, Perimenopause, Drug & Alcohol Training, Argentina, Methadone, Injecting Lemons & Pouring Milk On Her Cat Food

Matt engages in conversation with Mariana, a respected figure in Drug and Alcohol Awareness Community Training. 

Mariana brings forth a wealth of insights, blending personal anecdotes, cultural perspectives, and crucial topics such as community training, substance effects, and the often overlooked issue of menopause, emphasising its relevance in workplace discussions.

As they delve into the conversation, they stress the significance of community engagement and support systems in effectively tackling substance misuse. From exploring Mariana's roots in Argentina's cultural context to addressing methods for identifying drug use in professional settings, the episode offers valuable guidance on navigating addiction and accessing support services efficiently.

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🎙️ Facilitator: Matthew Butler
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🏢 Network: ReNew

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

This is a new original recording. Hello and welcome to the Believe in People podcast. My name is Matthew Butler and I'm your host, or as I like to say, your facilitator. In today's episode, I have the pleasure of chatting with Marianna. She'll share her remarkable journey of moving from Argentina to the UK, navigating the rich tapestry of multiple languages and intricate interplay of their culture and identity. Mariana also discusses her role as a community trainer and how she bravely addresses the impacts of menopause, challenging societal stigmas and striving to promote open conversations and awareness on this crucial topic. Well, first of all, can you please introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Yes, my name is Mariana Suarez. I'm from Argentina. I'm a community trainer from Renew. I would like to talk today about what I do in my role, how I end up being here, how is it to live abroad on my own, and particularly about menopause and my experience through going through

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

it. So a lot of things that we're going to talk about today, Marianna, and to be honest, I always like to start from, I suppose, the beginning. So tell me a little bit about yourself and about your upbringing, and I suppose, what made you want to move to the UK to begin with?

SPEAKER_00: 1:03

Well, that's a funny story. So I Basically, I lived in Argentina like any other girl growing up, going to school and so on. But then when I went to university, I went to have a degree in psychology, but I also had a degree in education. And the way to pay for it was, although it's free, you get to get money to pay for books and so. So I have a friend who had a tattoo shop at the time. And I start going... just to look up because I really like tattoos and so on. He said to me, we're looking at expanding and getting our piercing, a piercing artist. Would you like to be that person? I thought, well, I have nothing to lose. So I learned to do it. And then for 10 years-ish, I started doing it. I ended up being in a freak show. I ended up being in a lot of like body modification scene, having my disease early 2000. And South America was having a really big... boom and that kind of things like you know people getting tattoos getting pierced and implants and stuff like that so up in my university well the bits of my university doing that and then one day that was in Colombia no sorry in Peru I got somebody taking a photo somebody took a photo of me and put it online and this was a magazine a very well known magazine that I think is international so I'm not going to mention it just in case and it was a Like talking bad about women with tattoos or women who are doing the things that are not like the typical trad girl that they expect. So I sold them. I won$10,000. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 2:39

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00: 2:40

Yeah. At the time, if you remember 2006, 2007, there was before Facebook and all that, there was MySpace.

SPEAKER_01: 2:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 2:49

And I had a MySpace.

SPEAKER_01: 2:50

Such simpler times with MySpace. I really enjoyed

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

MySpace. We didn't realize that how much we learned to code by I did it

SPEAKER_01: 2:57

from using MySpace, HTML coding, like customizing your profile. If you want to put your music on it.

SPEAKER_00: 3:03

And there was a bit of community, different communities that you could go into, different forums or different discussions. So I went into this metal one, because I like metal music, heavy metal and all like that. And there was this band called Satyricon, which is kind of black metal. Obviously, I've never seen them because they never went to Argentina, but this guy from England... I've just seen them and wrote a review. So I went and commented something. I started talking. Well, he was from Hull. Okay. And we ended up having a relationship, like saying, oh, would you want to meet, blah, blah, blah. And then when I won those$10,000, I said, listen, I can go and meet you and see what happens. So I came to Hull of all places. We fell in love. We got married. And I've been living here for about 13 years now. Came in 2010. Did

SPEAKER_01: 3:45

you know any English before you came over?

SPEAKER_00: 3:48

The language?

SPEAKER_01: 3:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:49

I'm learning English. in school since I was 10 years old then I did some side learning like so going to the different what they call culture institutes where you can learn different things about different languages and different cultures so I want the English one but I think

SPEAKER_01: 4:09

just tell me what did you learn about English culture like English language one thing but the culture I can only imagine what they teach when it comes to English

SPEAKER_00: 4:19

culture they teach about mostly the Queen's English or the King's English London and you know the five o'clock tea and stuff like that and then I'm up to holding people start talking about having their tea and I'm thinking oh we're going to have a cup of tea and actually they are eating this big thing so this was a big culture shock for me to come here and find out the things are absolutely different particularly the whole accent it took me ages to know I have a little bit of that

SPEAKER_01: 4:48

considering it's such a small island as well I always find it interesting that even I've got friends who live in Leeds Bradford they're an hour down the road on the M62 and the way we pronounce certain words is so different like they take the mic out the way that I say five they go five but the way they say one they go one one two and I'm like you so even so close proximity there's still differences and I always think Hull is probably one of the worst it's very

SPEAKER_00: 5:19

difficult when you come with the typical standard English like I remember one of the things that first happened is like I was in my house it was a new place and everything new and my husband at the time was like can you place the curtains the what?

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

the curtains our ability to drop letters from words and then add them sometimes when they're not needed as well or prolonging letters in words taking one syllable word into three or four syllables just completely unnecessarily.

SPEAKER_00: 5:51

I got a full-time job by the time in Hull College. That also opened for me a lot of learning about these things because people would say, oh, so-and-so didn't come because she's poorly. I never heard poorly until I came here so I would know that somebody was ill or was sick but not poorly and in my head it's like poorly what does that mean so yeah I learned a lot and now I have this weird I always said when I start my training sessions that I have my Spanish kind of seep into my English and I speak very fast because of that but also sometimes I'm talking I go I

SPEAKER_01: 6:30

just

SPEAKER_00: 6:31

go with this

SPEAKER_01: 6:31

hollish accent

SPEAKER_00: 6:33

myself so yeah So, well, that's why I've been living here. And then I worked for six, seven years about whole college delivering an access course, delivering psychology, social, no, social, no, health studies, and something else that I can't remember now. This is a manual post for you. I can't remember what I'm going to say. No, it's all right. Study skills. And then after that, I started my own business teaching Spanish because I realized there's a big, there is a big, group of people who are retired and they don't know what to do with their lives and most of those people are going you know traveling abroad and they want to learn how to speak to be able to go to Spain for example and order something and I end up having groups of like I don't know three four ladies on their 60s 70s and I still sometimes talk to them and I have this really nice relationship with people who actually needed learning the Spanish but they also wanted that community feeling and that was great but then do you

SPEAKER_01: 7:33

have much of a an argentinian community here in whole world do you have many friends no which is weird what's it like because i remember reading a poem when i was back at school and it's all about the poem i can't remember the name of it but i always found it interesting how they talk about how the the learning of the english language is now replacing their mother tongue and I think the poem is something along the lines of this person's in panic because they had a dream that was in English and not in their mother tongue of Spanish and they start talking about how they feel like they're losing their identity and even that sort of the way our voices in our head that consciousness that their native language had been replaced and they start to think more in English as well and they feel like they're losing part of who they are but my question to you is do you ever Do you ever think in English? All the time. Is it?

SPEAKER_00: 8:24

What's that like for you? I'm a language teacher as well. So one of the things that... Very first things I did in Buenos Aires, where I come from, was teaching English to Spanish speakers. And you always hit this... You learn all these basic words and you learn to... But then when you start speaking, it's when you hit the block. Because you are thinking in your own language, translating in your brain, then... saying it out in the other language, the other person replies to you, you translate, and that takes a lot longer. So my aim as a teacher, or as a professor at the time, was to tell them, we need to learn to think in the target language. So now I'm talking to you, I'm thinking in English.

SPEAKER_01: 9:08

But

SPEAKER_00: 9:09

you can tell, especially, and I remember this was a funny thing, a comment in college when I was doing the evening sessions, I'm tired. When I'm tired, I realise that my English gets a little slower because I am starting to think in Spanish. And I'm doing that translating, repeating, saying out, understanding, translating. So it is a thing. It's a process as

SPEAKER_01: 9:33

opposed to, because that's the thing, I mean, I'm just scratching my neck right now, but the way my mind tells me how to, it's all done in milliseconds. So it's a similar thing, I guess, with languages. You're not necessarily thinking about it, it's just a constant process that just happens, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 9:49

Yeah, so it's funny that you mention that, because a lot of people ask me, do you dream in English or in Spanish? I don't know, because I dream in images. But sometimes I realize that in my dream, depending what my dream is, who is part of my dream is either in Spanish or in English. I realize that. It's weird. But I speak Spanish every day anyway, because I speak to my parents. So even, I don't have friends Argentinian friends here. I do talk to my Argentinian family and friends all the time through the phone. You know what's up? My dad speaks every day Off-late which is fantastic after it's weird after 14 years almost living here I found out there is a community of Latin people in home and I met a lady who's Chilean on the bus and And she lived on the corner from my house and we never met. So now we're meeting and going for walks so we can both speak our language and have mate, drink mate, which is a drink that comes from my place. What made you

SPEAKER_01: 10:47

want to stay in the UK then, stay here in Hull? I know obviously you... Married. Yeah, married being one thing. But I think for a lot of people, they often dream about moving to countries like Argentina to get away from, I suppose, this...

SPEAKER_00: 11:03

I'm going to be honest. I never... Probably England would have been one of the last places I would have moved when I thought about moving. So when I first... When I met my... ex-husband now but at the time my husband I was in the process before knowing he existed I was in the process of moving away from Buenos Aires still in Argentina to kind of like a countryside town like a small city actually where I wanted to start working as a therapist because I'm a psychologist and in Argentina you finish your university and you can be you can start working in therapy if you wanted but then when I met him and I just said bueno did you realise that it comes out and I met him and then I moved to England. And I thought, well, this is what life is taking me. I'll just go in. And I've been married for 12 years. We separate. It's all fine. But I thought, well, I'm going to start again. Going back home with no credit. Because there is a gap for them. For Argentinians, there is a gap. In my history, they say, what did you do all this time? Oh, I work in Hull College. And I was like, how can you prove it? You can't really. You could, but they're not going to go through the lengths to talk to a college in England and sort it. So I thought it's easier to stay and then see how it is. But I'm actually liking it anyway. I have friends. I played six years of roller derby. I met a lot of friends who are really close friends of mine now. So I've got people around. Some of my in-laws are still in touch with me. We've got friends. We've made friends as well. So it's not that I am alone completely. Although that's how we feel. sometimes

SPEAKER_01: 12:34

yeah i was going to say that that's part of that's why i asked about the community because i imagine just in terms of like language and culture do you know it i'm i thought i could you could experience feelings of isolation from not having

SPEAKER_00: 12:46

you know when was the last time I felt obviously when going through my separation was really hard because I came here to start a life with somebody from here and then all of a sudden I'm on my own but you know when the last time I felt it during the World Cup

SPEAKER_01: 12:59

yeah of course yeah because I was on my own we tried to support you and Cheryl and Robbie even wore an Argentinian shirt in here at one point that's

SPEAKER_00: 13:08

true but that Sunday when it was the last you know the final I was at home and I'm thinking I'm on my own at home and everything around me is really quiet and I was imagining like if when this happened before in 86 that I remember um Argentina was a massive like it was an uproar it was a party everywhere everybody was you can hear people like shouting at the telly and then I could imagine imagine my next door neighbor listening to me shouting in Spanish like crazy woman ah like that and then it was raining and I remember I was wearing my Argentina my socks and it was really cold as well because Argentina is summer and we won So I got on the street and it was raining. I was on my own on the street. And my people across the road who I'm a good friend with, they come out and get me like a bottle or something. I say, yeah, well done, well done. But I was like, yeah, but it's not the same. You're not feeling the same I'm feeling.

SPEAKER_01: 14:05

I can imagine that, to be fair. That's something that I'd hit home with a lot of people because... When you do think of those celebrations, I mean, obviously it's never happened in my lifetime with England, but I'd like to think if it ever did, that I would have been somewhere abroad. I'd like to be here when that happened. Because again, you see the videos, you see the pictures, the entirety of Argentina just became a giant party for like, Two, three days, wasn't it? Just constant, non-stop.

SPEAKER_00: 14:32

And I had to go to bed because I had to work the following day or

SPEAKER_01: 14:35

something. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 14:35

exactly. And then everybody was, obviously in Argentina, nobody worked the following day. Or they went to work, but they were everybody like having, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 14:42

That was it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:42

And it was like two or three in the morning because obviously for them it's then 10 in the night. And the people still messaging me saying, hey, we're working. we were like a lot of things and you could hear in the background all the you know the the trucks going baby and it was fab but i was here of my own you know that that's when i felt

SPEAKER_01: 14:58

that's actually that's actually made me quite sad to think of that i didn't obviously i knew you know back when it happened but i didn't think of it as being such an isolating feeling that you're describing there

SPEAKER_00: 15:09

it's difficult

SPEAKER_01: 15:10

so what brought you to um to skip forward a You interviewed to become the community trainer. I was on the interview panel that day. I was very impressed by the presentation that you give. What attracted you to drug and alcohol treatment as a sector as well, I suppose, not just a job?

SPEAKER_00: 15:35

So when the whole separation happened, I had to leave my personal business. I had my own business. I was a sole trader because I wouldn't be able to live on my own. So I needed a full-time job. And I know a friend in common who works already in Renew. And I remember when he got the job, he felt really fulfilled. So I messaged him saying, you know what, now that I'm looking for a job, I want a job that could make a difference, that could do something different. towards community, towards social change, rather than just sitting in an office and inputting numbers. And he said, oh, I work in this place, and you won't believe it, but they're looking for a trainer. And I thought, oh, how weird that, as soon as I asked. So I went to look for, to apply for it, and I couldn't find the trainer thing. But I applied for another, something else. And then I thought, no, this is not for me. It's still in Renew. I can't remember what it was. It's something to do with housing or something like that. But this is not what I'm looking for. So I left it. And I remember being at my gym. I'm training. I do weight training. And then... This guy messaged me back on Facebook, like, Marina, did you apply for the thing? He said, no, I couldn't find it. You said it was a trainer, but I couldn't find any trainer. I might have missed the deadline. So he looked for me, and there was a mistake on the, you know, when you put for finder. Something was a typo or something, so it wouldn't come up. so I thought oh no I have four hours now to apply for it so I stopped training I went home and I remember saying I need to have a shower first no I'm going to do this first so I sat there and wrote the whole thing all sweaty doing an application form yeah like that you know with the I remember going home having my how do you call it when Wrist straps. Yes, the wrist strap. And I was thinking, oh, I'm going to write it down. So I send it. And I thought, oh, it's too late. I don't think he's going to get it. Well, I'll just drop it. And then I got, I think it was Robin messaged me. And then you sent me to have an interview on his own day.

SPEAKER_01: 17:34

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It had come from the wrong day. I remember that, yeah. So obviously you knew that one show, didn't

SPEAKER_00: 17:38

you? Yeah. And I thought I was in my garden thinking, oh, tomorrow's my interview. And then my thing come up saying, your interview's in 20 minutes. Yeah. What? It's a Sunday. It can't be. I should have known by then. I mean luckily I had everything prepared and everything sorted so I didn't know it was exactly alcohol or drugs until I applied for it but I wanted to work on something like this so it was perfect for me.

SPEAKER_01: 18:10

It is I think especially with what you're doing it's a very rewarding experience really for a lot of people to educate people on the harm of drugs and alcohol. I think it's one of the things that people always find really surprising what do you think people are most surprised about when you are delivering training around alcohol specifically to learn or find out

SPEAKER_00: 18:31

well there is some a difference um this is what i see because i see all sorts of people i'm not working only with professionals but i also work with service users i also work with moms i work with anyone and usually it's these misconceptions about alcohol so first of all understanding what a unit is because everybody comes and tell you uh oh you shouldn't have more than so many units but what is a unit it because we all drink different things and different different drinks have different percentages and also different different measures measurements will have different amounts and people can't grasp what that is so we don't we mostly what I do is I bring an activity and then people kind of like can measure it on themselves and but that creates a lot of discussion about oh I never knew it was this. It reframes what people think about. But then the other one that is always funny is, give me a couple of examples of how to speed the processing of alcohol. People tend to say that because something makes you feel sober, the alcohol is magically gone. And it's really funny when that happens. I think it's a good... It's a good practice in terms of the training to rethink what we know and not just keep what my mom told me. So one of the things that we discuss usually is in pregnancy. So how much can you drink when you're pregnant? And nobody knows. And people bring that, you know, you could have Guinness because of the iron. Because of

SPEAKER_01: 19:58

the iron,

SPEAKER_00: 19:59

yeah. Doctors used to say that back in the day, wasn't

SPEAKER_01: 20:01

it? It was the old wives' tale and stuff, wasn't it, about drinking Guinness. It's good for the fetus because it's got iron in

SPEAKER_00: 20:07

it. Yeah, when you're also giving them alcohol. So this is an interesting point of conversation. It's always really rich. While when we do the part of the substance and drugs, I have the drug kit, and it's more like curiosity. Obviously, some people who already have the experience with them, they know what we're talking about, and they ask more specific questions. But particularly when professionals or you go to somebody who never even seen them and heard that, I heard that if you do this, this happened. So we debunk all those myths, and we talk about that, and people can ask the questions. How do people use this? Why do they take it? What are the side effects? Talk about harm reduction. What is harm reduction? Why is it so important that we talk about it? So it's really interesting. I

SPEAKER_01: 20:52

always found that when I did my alcohol training years ago when was talking about the equivalent in calories and it was like the calories of a like a large glass of red wine is is the same as as a jam donut or something like that which people don't often think about because because it's liquid because it's liquid you know so i always found that interesting and that's something that was what always jumped out to me oh that's surprising um but i realized the mathematical equation of working out units which was a percentage uh times volume divided by 1,000 equals the units. And I remember being given a list of drinks. It's the same training that I deliver now to service users when I do alcohol awareness training and make them go for a list of 500 ml of lager at 4.5% equals. And you've got to do the equations for them all. And there's people like, I'm not good at maths. I was like, you don't need to be good at maths. It's just this and

SPEAKER_00: 21:47

this. One of the things I do is obviously I show the equation. I explain where it comes from. But I have an activity where we follow a fictional guy who goes out and I tell them tell me how many units but guess from the top of your head because when you go out drinking you're not going out with your calculator and your formula so if you need to know oh do I need to drive the following day or not it's kind of like you know top of your head tell me what it is and it's interesting because people after we do the activity tend to be quite close and if they're too far away okay why do you think it's too far away and then we can work it out that way so I think it's for somebody who does that on a weekend and go drinking but oh you know what I'm going to drive to pub I'm going to leave pub that car there and come back the following day but they might have enough units the following day and then you know pick up on the breathalyzer and things like that so we discussed that where that comes from

SPEAKER_01: 22:39

similar myth as well with like you know mixing drinks gets you more drunk and obviously that's not true it's that you can't it's harder to keep track of the amount of drinks so if you're on lager and then move on to spirits and then you're having your whiskies and things like that People say, oh, you feel more drunk. It's not that you feel more drunk. It's just that it's just units are then all over the place. Whereas you're not on the set sort of four units, four units, four units. It's always the same, yeah. So it all goes a little bit crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 23:06

Something that makes me... I get a bit funny when I started. I always said that this is not judgy or preachy. No, of course not. But when we start, people say, we start talking about you and it's like, oh my God, oh no, Mariana, you don't want to know, you don't want to know. And I said, I'm not your mum, so you

SPEAKER_01: 23:21

know what I mean. I don't judge

SPEAKER_00: 23:23

you. I do have, every now and then I have my gin or I have a drink or whatever. It's not a matter of, you know. But I can see on their faces that they look at me and say, oh my God,

SPEAKER_01: 23:31

no. Well, this is the thing that I always say when it comes to drug and alcohol treatment. I think some people think, I don't drink half as much. I don't know if that's just a thing of getting a bit older as opposed to being in my early 20s and

SPEAKER_00: 23:42

just

SPEAKER_01: 23:43

absolutely pounding drinks. But it's the idea, you know, is people think we're the fun police and we're here to tell people to stop drinking. And it's like, no, we're not here to tell people to stop drinking. We're just here to tell people to do it in moderation, how to do it safely as

SPEAKER_00: 23:55

well. Oh, I say it's like this is the information for you to make an informed decision.

SPEAKER_01: 23:59

And

SPEAKER_00: 23:59

if you see that this is already affecting your life in many cases, then maybe it's good thinking about it. But I'm not here to tell you do this, do that. And once I start talking about my own experience of like when I drink or when I was young and I try things and stuff like that, I think they feel a bit more like, oh, actually. About

SPEAKER_01: 24:16

ease, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:18

Oh, I see what you mean, blah, blah. So when we talk about Christmas, Christmas usually we don't, I particularly don't drive or don't go places. I stay at home so I can have big, I like gins or whatever. And then I go to, with friends or whatever to the pub and I think, oh, can I have gin? And they put this tiny bit like that. I say, oh, you're tight. But it's like, no, it's me that I am just going for it because I'm home. So we talk about all those things and people can relate. So I think after that, everything flows a little better. But at first it's always like, oh, she's going to tell me not to drink and I really want to drink. But, no, it's about discussing what we do.

SPEAKER_01: 24:52

It's a completely different message. That's why we say, again, it's harm reduction.

SPEAKER_00: 24:55

It's harm reduction, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:56

So tell me a little bit about what the actual training offer is that you do then.

SPEAKER_00: 25:01

Well, we are reaching anyone. It could be anyone, not necessarily has to be, or an organization, a group of people, anyone who live, living, working, or studying in whole can have this training. So at the moment, there are five. The main one usually is that gives the basics of the understanding of the basics of alcohol and drugs and awareness and what they do to the health. It's called Alcohol and Drug Misuse Awareness, and usually we cover all these things about units, different... different issues with health, like we said about pregnancy, how it's linked to the development of cancer, how it's linked to other things I can't remember now because my brain, and also withdrawal. This is the thing that is super important that we mentioned. I realized that as I started doing it, I was following very much the PowerPoint, but now I realize that I am more talking about it and see how people react to that. But there's something that I am very keen on explaining is how biological dependency creates inside our bodies because people tend to think something like, oh, if somebody is very drunk, we say that, we say you're a right alcohol, if somebody drinks a lot, that not necessarily means that the person has a dependency, a biological dependency. But on the other hand, if somebody has a dependency and then the family or friend said, if we stop the drinking, he will get better, then we can kill that person. So I explained what withdrawal is and how that creates. It takes a little bit of time, but I got really good Feedback into that. Say, no, I understand now. Actually, a parent, this was for me like a moment of reward and moment. A parent of one of our family groups, obviously they come with a different way because they are more invested according to what's happening to their loved ones. So this is a mom of somebody who is an alcoholic. And this mom said to me, this is the very first time after so many years that I understand what's going on. I said, what do you mean? He said, yeah, when you explain about the cupcakes, I explain that alcohol is cupcakes and the receptors of our neurons has a hungry mouth. And I go and eat them. And how you need more mouth naturally if you have all those many cupcakes. So I explain all this. He said, now I can see why. we're doing what we're doing and we are not actually stopping it and why stopping it would be bad for her but in the back of their minds it was said if she stops the daughter stops then it would be okay so It's great how people get into them kind of things. Because

SPEAKER_01: 27:37

obviously, I mean, they're not wrong in the sense of, you know, if people stop drinking long term, you know, thinking in the future they will be better. But I think people forget that there is a path to get from that point of drinking heavily to the point of physical dependency to not drinking. And it's kind of like a hill that you just slowly walk down, really, as opposed to just jumping from one little, like, tap this little lily pad to another sort of thing you can't just go to it there's a process

SPEAKER_00: 28:06

so I try to fill that gap there because I don't think it's understood from the point of view of particularly a parent that live with it every day so I try to fill that gap but I try also to see what are the needs of this group in that particular case or not longer work with people who are smoke free so they need to work out how can they work out they work their thing with people who are smokers of kind of is because the problem is smoking there. So I bring the training about cannabis and brief intervention, but focus on what they do. So I like that a lot. I'm at the moment working with several organizations that they need their specific intervention for a specific thing, always linked to alcohol and drugs, always linked to what we do, but a specific kind of thing. And I create something around it, always explaining about the units, explaining. So the basics are always there. I believe that you can't really go further if you don't get the basics first, but then focusing on what they do. need the most so it's kind of like bespoke in a way without going too far still covering the basic things and I think one of the main ones also that I've been delivering a lot is Naloxone training there's lots of organizations that find themselves in positions that For example, finding in the street people who are overdosing not knowing what to do.

SPEAKER_01: 29:25

Yeah, just tell me a little bit about naloxone. For someone that was listening that doesn't know what naloxone is.

SPEAKER_00: 29:30

So naloxone is a substance that you can give someone who is overdosing. What it does is basically block the action of the opiate. This only works for opiates. And within like 20 minutes... or half an hour that are precious because this person is dying to let the body recover the natural rhythm. So a person who's going through an overdose of, let's say, heroin or methadone or any of the opioids, what happens is because it's a depressant, the body slows down a lot to the point that it stops breathing. So when you encounter someone who is already not breathing or breathing very, very shallow and very, very little, you give naloxone and what naloxone does is It sits on the same receptors that the molecule of heroin will sit. So basically think of, I sit on your chair, so you cannot sit on my chair. But now this heroin is still there. It doesn't mean that it destroyed the heroin. And this is probably the main misconception about it. So for 20 minutes or half an hour that naloxone is sitting on that chair, heroin cannot... create that depressant um effect so the person can recover their natural rhythm you know natural breathing natural um habit but in that time you have to call an ambulance you got like naturally oh that's it sorted now um so we do that training a lot um and the funny thing is like obviously we work with kids that are fake kids and then people have to inject a lemon to practice with that and this usually is hilarious people have a lot of like laughing about it but um are you already had people saying that they knew what to do when they encounter the actual real overdose. And I actually said, it's not the same as a lemon, eh? Well, no. But you did it.

UNKNOWN: 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:17

So it's one that we have a lot. Even if people might think, oh, I never used that. I'm never going to use that. So this actually happened. So I'm never going to use that because I work in, I don't know, private housing. And then when I explained what it was, they said, no, actually, you know what? I might need that. Because what if I go to a house and somebody is overdosing? So you never know. I have my own. Of course, I don't work with users, but if I'm walking, you know, coming back from the cinema and somebody is, like, overdosing in the back of the station, I can do something about it.

SPEAKER_01: 31:50

I remember a situation that I had before. I was up not too far from our office on Beverley Road and someone was having an overdose. And I didn't have an Naloxone kit on me, so I had to run back to Beverley Road, tell the nurse, and then we ran back. And she used the Naloxone. didn't work because whilst he was overdosed and he was overdosed on benzodiazepine so obviously similar it didn't it did it looked similar in in terms of the presentation of the overdose but the naloxone didn't actually do anything but that was a moment to me when i thought you know i probably should have one of these kits in my bag just in case because you know you never you never know and especially like when we talk about stigma on this podcast a lot how many people, if there was an overdose in the town centre, probably wouldn't even recognise it as an overdose and just walk straight by that

SPEAKER_00: 32:34

person. Yeah, just a druggie.

SPEAKER_01: 32:35

Exactly, just a druggie, just whatever, just that disregard for that person. Whereas someone like myself and the background that I have working in substance misuse services, if I did spot an overdose... at least I'd be able to intervene. So I always think that's a cautionary tale of why more people should carry them around. And not just understand naloxone, but understand the signs of what an overdose looks like as well.

SPEAKER_00: 32:57

Yeah, I always bring that thing that it might look the same because they have the same effect. But if you don't know, you don't know. When I do the training, when I'm delivering the training, I grab my naloxone and I say, this is the only thing you're in control of. Basically, you're not in control. You don't know what the person has taken, when, how much, the tolerance of that person. But this is the only thing you can act upon. So it's the same as if you see someone in a street and you do CPR. If you know how to do CPR, you do it. And whatever happened, it's not your fault. You did the best you could.

SPEAKER_01: 33:25

At least you've done something. Doing something is better than doing nothing, isn't it? That's the main thing.

SPEAKER_00: 33:29

So the other one that I realise now, having a lot more. So now I'm kind of in my second phase. I always say Mariana Season 2 is the second cycle of training. So a lot of people who I already worked last year and I did a lot of the alcohol and drugs are coming back and asking, can we have more of this? And a lot of the new... bookings I'm having is for harm reduction. So now that you know exactly what or have the basic of what is an opiate, what's the difference between an opiate and a benzo, what's the difference between a depressant and a stimulant, what happens when you mix them and so on, we can work on harm reduction. And one of the bits that I work in harm reduction as well is spiking. We work on spiking. And what is spiking? Why? Why happen? How does it happen? What can we do about it? So These are all mixed up at the moment. So, I'm having the spiking, benzo training. We talk about benzos and what they are, how people get them, what happens when people cannot get the prescriptions, and also synthetic drugs that are absolutely massive at the moment. There's a lot of contamination from synthetic drugs. And also, we cover novel psychoactive substance, that is synthetic drugs, but just on that and particularly about spice and what's the difference between spice and cannabis so I am getting now the people who did the first round asking for that kind of training so it's great

SPEAKER_01: 34:58

and your knowledge is improving as well like you said when you were first doing it you were just reading from a presentation which again when you start that's kind of what you have to do but you're learning yourself a lot and I think I deliver in peer mentor training every time I deliver volunteer and peer mentor training with people with lived experience of addiction I always come out with They're learning more. And I always say this as a sort of photo at the beginning of the training, especially when it comes to drug awareness and alcohol awareness. I was like, look, you guys probably know more about this subject than I do. So I said, I'm sure you're going to learn things from me, but I'm equally aware that I'm going to learn just as much from you. Yeah, I say the same thing. It's always the case. I always learn something new from people. And it is a nice job to do as a trainer.

SPEAKER_00: 35:40

So when I do Naloxone for service users, for example, I go to different hostels. It's fantastic because I don't have to do any of the science, but they come and tell me, oh, you do that. And they have an absolute mastery of how to put together the kit and how to do it. But then they start talking about it. And then this idea that, for example, this main idea that heroin, if you use heroin, but it could be any opiate, disappears when you give naloxone. This was, for me, the point of discussion on that training. They know what it is. It's

SPEAKER_01: 36:16

like you said with the whole seat analogy. That's just someone... Imagine being on a busy train where people are stood up in the aisles. That's the blocker right there on the seats. But when then people get off at the stop, you want to sit, you want to take their seat, don't you? You are the molecule of heroin wanting to sit on somebody's seat. And I think that's a really good way of putting it and looking at that, that it is still there. It's still in the system. It hasn't disappeared. It's just been, it's someone's just sat there. and it's blocking

SPEAKER_00: 36:45

and it was fun because we did it not long ago and we were saying that and I make sure that I was saying that many times or repeating it or re-explaining it so not necessarily repeatable sometimes you don't need to repeat it you need to change the words to convey the same message and that was the main thing for me rather than the actual when you do it with other people who have never used any kind of substance or you never encounter an overdose you focus on other things but these guys it was fantastic how they were just oh yeah they're doing like that oh yeah my boyfriend overdosed twice oh yeah my girlfriend overdosed so they know what we're talking about so I'm not going to go around

SPEAKER_01: 37:22

no no it's like when I first started working in services and with harm reduction advice it's funny we've had some recent feedback from service users saying oh I hear that every time I'm given the same harm reduction advice I don't need to be told the same thing a thousand times that's fine obviously we are a harm reduction service we do have a responsibility to do it but part of what I would do in there especially when I was first working the nil exchange I would ask them, how are you going to keep yourself safe? And you find they know it all. I was like, no, I'm not letting you leave until you tell me how. And it's like, then they start reciting the harm reduction advice, not using alone and that sort of thing. So they know it. You just quiz them on it. And as long as they say it back to you and you know they've got an understanding of how to keep themselves safe when injecting, cycling, using different sites when they're injecting, all that stuff, if they've got knowledge of that, Jobs are good. And I think that's the same when it locks in. You're asking those questions, aren't

SPEAKER_00: 38:15

you? You're giving the power to them. And I think when you empower someone, that person would make... more effective decisions and probably more positive decisions. And that for me is a difference because I need to look up what is going to be my audience when I prepare these sessions. Yes, if I'm going to different companies, when we talk about, you know, HR or something like that, I know that I'm going to go kind of the college kind of way. But when I talk with service users or family, the family members for me are, the sessions with family members are super heavily influenced They're very emotional charged. Yes. And you can tell them the questions they are. The questions that they want to ask their child or their partner or whatever. And sometimes I don't even finish the whole PowerPoint thing because these people need to talk about this now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's very interesting. It's not about going

SPEAKER_01: 39:06

there with your own agenda. It's about reading your audience and listening to them. And I think training is a perfect example of that. It's part of the way we do our training. It used to be so fill this space. manualing and then you hand it back and then it gets marked sometimes it's just let's just discuss it let's just talk about drug awareness let's talk

SPEAKER_00: 39:24

about many times you said oh i booked with these people i don't know hi drug and alcohol brief intervention because obviously you need to understand as well that particularly when i work with carers or nhs that they have rotas it's very difficult to fit everybody in one day so Well, bring three people and then bring another three people another day. I accommodate to whatever is their need. But many times you have these three people and they're knackered. And I said, you know what? Let's finish. Let's not do harm reduction today. Let's focus on this one. Answer all your questions and everything you want to know. And then another day, we book another day.

SPEAKER_01: 39:58

It's like having training before at the beginning. It's like, what do you want to get out of today's training? And you all say what you need to do. And they write it all on the board. And at the end of the day, they go... You look at the board and go, actually, we didn't go for any of that because they had their own agenda for what they wanted to bring to train. And it's about listening to the audience.

SPEAKER_00: 40:14

It is a thing that I get a lot. And I actually kind of like try to look for it. I said, okay, listen, this is not a college lecture where I have to cover all these things. I want to know what you need to know for your practice. And I try to always accommodate my– not accommodate, but kind of like focus my– training towards their practice so if i'm going to be talking to um this this happens like say moms or people who work with um don't know women i try to focus a little bit more on the side of pregnancy and what to do when you have a pregnant um a pregnant person that is drinking and stuff like that well maybe i don't know for people who do outreach we work a little bit more you know overdose in the streets and things like that so i try to focus on

SPEAKER_01: 40:59

that relevant to what they need to know otherwise there's just going to be i think sometimes when you go with your own agenda you just pass so much information out and they'll only grab a little bit because they'll grab the little bit that's relevant to them so just try and make it all relevant

SPEAKER_00: 41:11

and something I like when people tell me oh it felt like really cozy like a family thing because they're expecting to come into a classroom and somebody in front going blah blah blah and I try to make them all like let's talk about this and yes I'm going to show you all these slides and we're going to talk about them and we're going to do this activity but I want that to be a dialogue rather than me talking

SPEAKER_01: 41:30

and that's the difference between if you think about our roles you know we're not like lecturers so we don't stand there and point out things and say this is it we're facilitators so we facilitate a conversation with people

SPEAKER_00: 41:41

for me it's difficult though because I've been a lecturer for so many years

SPEAKER_01: 41:44

that's all I was about to ask you

SPEAKER_00: 41:45

the transition at first I came I said oh it's SMS college and then I said this is not SMS college it's absolutely the opposite and it's great because also I'm seeing when I was doing college training when I was teaching people in college I was teaching people who are going for social work who are going for nursing and Now I'm seeing them after they finished the university. I had already some, my access course teacher and say oh my god it's great it's rewarding but also it's like yeah well now that idea that you had of me is a different one so

SPEAKER_01: 42:18

it's

SPEAKER_00: 42:18

hard

SPEAKER_01: 42:19

so you talked a little bit earlier about like feeling tired and things like that and sometimes I guess one of the things that you've said to me before is when you are tired you end up speaking in your native tongue and that's when you're going through this process of listening to another language and processing it in your native language and then feeding back but another thing that you're saying about is when going through what you're going through now with the menopause that can be something that makes you switch between English And Spanish. Do you know what

SPEAKER_00: 42:50

is the weird about it? So, something that you might have noticed because it already happened live, one thing, is when I start my sessions, I always said something like, first of all, you might have noticed, this is not my English, it's not my first language. However, I said, I try to speak as fast, as best as possible. If I speak too fast, let me know and explain that. And the second thing I said is, I am going through I would say menopause, perimenopause, because I am just there. So if I'm talking all of a sudden, I go, this is what happened. My brain goes blank. But it goes blank in both languages. Okay. Right? So nothing comes out. No, nothing. So what happened is sometimes the other day I was talking to my mom, and I was trying to say something, and I said, I can't say it in Spanish, but this is because I forgot. My word? But I can also say it in English. So the meaning of that word, the semantics is gone. And it's because I'm having one of those minutes. And sometimes I need something that gets me out. But something that is terrible for me, at least, particularly in the early morning, is I have massive mental fog. And that means stuff like, I was having a laugh about it with one of my colleagues yesterday. saying that sometimes i'm preparing my my breakfast and my brain does it automatically and the other day i'll put milk on the cat food instead of on my breakfast or i'm going to um you know get dressed in the morning put deodorant and still the other is hairspray and it's like why am i doing that or things like i want to grab this bottle and i try to grab the air but my brain knows i'm That the bottle is there, but it's that kind of like lack of coordination that I don't know where it comes from. It's really weird. And I noticed that it's been happening for ages. I used to skate, like I mentioned before. I used to play roller derby. And there was a time that I thought, why is it taking longer for me to recover compared to my teammates? I was playing until I went into my 40s. And it was me and another friend who were the same age, but everybody else is a lot younger. So they could skate two, three days in a row, and me and my mate were like knackered. And everything hurt, and then your joint hurt. Some of my joints were used to hurt. So I was thinking, what's going on? But that was in my 30s, 40s, early 40s, late 30s. So that's when you actually start. Not everyone the same, but that's what I started, I think, with symptoms of perimenopause. But now they are really big. They're really massive things like absolute crazy, like overwhelming emotions that are coming from out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_01: 45:31

What was the difference between that and menopause then?

SPEAKER_00: 45:34

What do you mean? Period menopause? adolescence, kind of when your reproductive system starts getting active, you know, puberty, adolescence, there's a massive change on a lot of hormones. Then you have your kind of like reproductive cycle where you're supposed to be like the most fertile in between your 15 to 18 to 30 something. And then a lot of your hormones start declining, kind of preparing naturally for your body to stop being fertile. or having children, basically. And you start having a little bit of decline of these hormones, but then eventually these go full down. And this is when you start not having periods. Now, particularly with me, I don't know yet where I am because there's three months without a period and, oh, I'm getting there. Boom, period. So this restarts. Oh, no, now I can't. But I don't know as well if this is natural or is this part because I have a Mirena coil for other reasons. So it's different for everyone. This is the thing I can't tell you, oh, this is how it looks like, this is how it feels, so this is what it is because everybody has a different thing. So I never had a hot flush ever. And I have a friend who is slightly older than me, a year older than me, and she was having hot flushes I don't know, half 45 or something. I'm 49. She started at 44, 45. Jesus, no. Don't do that thing. What are you going to say? I

SPEAKER_01: 47:25

feel like that Kevin Hart segment. Have you seen it? I can't remember the number. It's like, damn. Anyway, ignore that caveat.

SPEAKER_00: 47:34

No, I'll tell you what. I'm getting used to it. I'm very used to that. You don't look 49. Yeah. And I think people tend to think that that is a compliment. However... it's really not because behind that thing you would think but then how should i look then or haggard and knackered and you know what i mean so what is your idea of an old woman i

SPEAKER_01: 47:54

think this is the one the conversation that was having before really there is this element of we have uh in our minds a stereotype view of someone of a certain age and i think that's kind of there's a the woman that plays um aunt may in the new peter parker and new spiderman series

SPEAKER_00: 48:09

she's marisa tomei

SPEAKER_01: 48:10

yeah she's like 50 odd and people say like oh it's incredible that she looks like it's like no it's just we don't say oh no she looks too young to be Aunt May and it's like no she's in her 50s it's just that we have this warped view when it comes to society of young people old people yeah so when we think of the Aunt May character we've always just imagined it yes like obviously it's quite normal to be an aunt to a 16 year old boy in your 50s but in a way we always imagine Aunt May to look like this old lady character that she's always been depicted as well that's not the case so it's like actually no she's fine she looks absolutely perfect for her age it's just the way we view characters in media in Hollywood we have young people and old old people and there isn't that in between

SPEAKER_00: 48:53

and when you talk about midlife midlife crisis and midlife woman or middle age or whatever you start thinking of somebody a guy who is going mad and buys a house or buys an expensive car and start dying her hair and it's like oh a woman who is I don't know like old and getting really fat and all it does is like going to the front and you know with a broom and sweep the porch and it's like it's different it's absolutely different it's not like that and especially today because I am Gen X right Generation X and a lot of us grew up like with Grunge and Nirvana and all the things that now are back into into trendy bits but so we kept that style and it's like oh well you're 50 you're not well I'm not supposed to wear that exactly well this

SPEAKER_01: 49:39

is this is a conversation that I had before about old like old old people wearing like the sort of like the flat caps and things like that and like you know that sort of attire and I was like no here's the thing like When my generation, specifically millennials, will be old, I'm probably still going to be wearing caps and high-top trainers. And what we're going to do is we'll probably change the stereotype as to what an old person looks like because they'll now be based on... I don't think your style changes completely, does it? You just kind of tend to wear the same stuff that you did in your 20s. But now you're in your 50s, 60s or whatever,

SPEAKER_00: 50:15

there isn't that change.

SPEAKER_01: 50:16

The one

SPEAKER_00: 50:16

thing that happens, and I don't know if it just happened to me, but I noticed that it happens to a lot of people I talk to around my age, particularly women around my age, is that we start not giving a fuck anymore what we wear. So I used to, so now I'm wearing like a bright teal dungaree and I would never wear dungarees before. Because no, they are like for pregnant people or they are for young kids. No, no, how are you going to wear them? You need to wear your age.

SPEAKER_01: 50:44

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 50:44

yeah. Always wear my

SPEAKER_01: 50:45

age. What does that mean? What does that mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think your individual style is your own individual style. This sounds stupid, but a few years ago, I had a bit of a crisis with the type of caps that I like to wear. And I was like, maybe I'm getting a bit too old to wear these caps now. And I'm thinking to myself, well, no. And in a way, you're obviously meeting Robbie and stuff. We have a very similar dress sense. And I was like, no, he's pulling off and he's a few years older. I mean, I could still wear the caps that I want to wear. And you kind of have that, don't you, really? You just... And that's the one thing I'm accepting now is actually, I don't give a fuck about what other people think. If you think you look too old to be wearing jean shorts and a flat

SPEAKER_00: 51:25

cap, fuck you,

SPEAKER_01: 51:27

I'm happy in my jean shorts and a flat cap. That's what

SPEAKER_00: 51:29

I'm going to wear. That's why you start not paying attention to all the things. And then say, I have naturally, well, I don't think it's naturally, actually, it's socially conditioned, but I have a body dysmorphia and I always have issues with my image and I even have eating disorders when I'm very young. And I remember the thing that if I'm not going to wear anything that make me look this way or that way or fat here or fat there. Now I look at the photos and thinking, oh my God, I was an absolute twig. I even had times where I'm not going to wear this thing because it makes me look too fat. And then the following day I had to go, not hospitalized, but taken into emergency because I pass out due to not eating. So those kind of things. So now when menopause or perimenopause start hitting, something that happens in your body is that you start, not everyone, but at least it happens to me, you start getting more fat around certain areas. So the middle part of my belly, what they call the menobelly. And it's not very good when you have body dysmorphia or something like that. It's constant. But on the other hand, there's another part of your brain that says, you know just wear what you want yeah because when are you going to wear it when I'm going to you know when I'm going to wear a I don't know shave head if I wanted or Dr. Martens with or Crocs or when I'm going to wear it yeah so it's You're going to, I don't know, 20, 30 more years down the line?

SPEAKER_01: 52:51

Exactly. I mean, I've always got that to me. And so I saw a quote a few years ago that made me kind of change my perspective on things. And it was something along the lines of, 20 years from now, you will look back at a picture of how you look today and you will give anything to look that way and have that same level of health that you've got. So just kind of embrace how you're feeling today.

SPEAKER_00: 53:11

It's nice when we say it, but then eventually when I go, so I have a wedding on Saturday and today I try my dress. First thing I say, oh, I look fat. I don't look good in this. Oh, no, how can I hide this thing? And I thought, wait a minute, I'm going to celebrate a friend who is getting married. Why am I thinking about all these things? You know what I mean? But when you're young, you really don't think about it because what is heavier is how you look and how you feel about it compared to what you're going to do. Exactly. I think that is something that you kind of earn with age.

UNKNOWN: 53:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 53:45

And I would say with menopause for a lot of women, a lot of my friends at least, I say women because anyone in a female body, you start having all these extra bits that perhaps you never had before. And you start thinking, oh, no, I don't look, I look like an old woman now. I sometimes... I find myself thinking, I look like an old woman now. What the hell? What are you saying? I can lift weights. I can do a lot of things that maybe my grandma wouldn't be able to do. So what does that mean? It's different. So it's hard. For me, the worst part is probably the intellectual part. That mental fog is terrible.

SPEAKER_01: 54:25

Especially with the job that you do, I imagine that's quite very difficult.

SPEAKER_00: 54:28

So there's a word that I use. It's my bread and butter. It's neuron. I don't know. Neuron is something that I use in... As my education degree, also my psychology degree, neuron is basic. And I remember standing in front of like 30 people talking, and the word neuron was just gone. There, ooh, when I started doing that. And then I look at them and say, menopause, and I laugh. Try to, you know, diffuse that. But my brain is like, I'm really getting frustrated because I can't say neuron. So I can't just start saying something wrong. that looks like or this is the idea you know the cell that makes the nerves the part somebody says you don't have the word i'm looking for but it's really frustrating when you think of it and you or you are in a meeting or something and you want to say something all of a sudden it's like what what's going to say and it sounds like i'm like going crazy here the typical thing i'm going downstairs to pick something while i'm in the kitchen what do i need from the kitchen go upstairs Oh, that's why I need it, and then come back. It's just constant, and it's really tiring. What are

SPEAKER_01: 55:30

some of the symptoms of menopause that you're experiencing that people may not necessarily know about? Because just before we started this, you were telling me about this pain in your teeth, and I would have had no idea that was a thing.

SPEAKER_00: 55:43

Well, for me particularly, so I'm going to tell what I feel. The pain in my... It feels like somebody is drilling... My teeth from the inside. And it's random because I'm just talking and then all of a sudden it goes like, oh. And I think that's what you guys noticed because I touched my face and I said, what's going on with Mariana? And it's like it's that pain that something is drilling from the top, from the bottom in my teeth. And I'm thinking, oh, something is wrong with my teeth. And then I go to my dentist and, no, everything's fine. And my dentist told me that that could be. part of menopause and that's the one and then the other thing is same similar random pains yesterday i was coming back home about to open you know put the um key on the lock and then have a random pain in there

SPEAKER_01: 56:33

it's right in the crease

SPEAKER_00: 56:34

like in between yeah my elbow body inside and i thought How? Why there? I mean, it's not like I've been training or I've been doing something and you expect that. So that's the one. And are these

SPEAKER_01: 56:47

things that definitely, obviously, I know you said your dentist had said about that, but these pains, do you definitely know they're linked to menopause? How do you know they're linked to it?

SPEAKER_00: 56:54

No, I don't know. I think so because it started happening.

SPEAKER_01: 56:57

It's kind of an assumption with everything else that's going

SPEAKER_00: 56:59

on. Yeah, but also, this is another thing. I mean, this is something that I've never been really extremely clear about menopause. six, seven years ago, I've been diagnosed with ME. ME has this kind of similar things, which is kind of like a debilitation of your nerves in a way. So you randomly have pain out of nowhere or there's days that I can't get off bed. And one of my colleagues said to me at the time, she said, Are your shoulders not perimenopause? And then when I went to doctor, they did like all sorts of things. And I said, well, it could be because those symptoms overlap. Because in menopause or perimenopause, you're going to start having pain, random pain. Your shoulder is a big one. If you talk to any person going through menopause, they will say something about their shoulders or their knees or their ankles. A friend of mine not long ago just said, don't you have like terribly, terribly bad pain on your feet? I don't, but hers doesn't. the feet so it affects different joints and bones perhaps because I do weight lifting some of those things might not be as bad for like they are for other people but then the other hand I put a lot of strength in some of my joints like my shoulders and my elbows but it's a known thing that perimenopause and menopause will cause this kind of pain in your joints. So every time you talk to lots of people, like I am part of the menopause forum for our organization, and the other day somebody said in the forum, so tell me something you immediately associate with menopause. And everybody was like, joint pain, menobelly, mood swings, random crying, sweats. I didn't ever experience them, sweats. Or I don't know, eating a lot or not eating. So everybody's different in that respect.

SPEAKER_01: 58:53

How can, I suppose, again, I mean, you said this before we started, but you said we don't know how lucky we are as men to not go through the things that obviously you as a woman have to go through. But sometimes, obviously, working in the office that I work with, I do work with older women, people that are going through the menopause. I sometimes don't know how to react when people are having menopause. like a hot flush or something. I kind of just go quite... I'll just get the fan. I was like... for me as a person, my natural instinct is to make some sort of wisecrack joke or something, but then I also know better to make a joke towards a menopausal woman. How can, I suppose, what more can men do to support women? What can we do to have more awareness about it?

SPEAKER_00: 59:33

So from my point of view, the awareness thing is important. So there's a different thing there. What can you do to support in a situation like that or in general? So being aware of these things, like we were discussing with a person which was saying, my wife is going through this. Yeah. Being aware of what this person might go through, your partner might go through, or your mom or your sister or whoever. It's important because if you crack a joke at me, I might look at you and go, no, I forgot. But then somebody else might feel sad about it. So it's knowing who you're talking to. And that's a very personal thing. But I think awareness is super important, that awareness. You know what to expect. So something that I was discussing with the lady who's organizing it with Don is I remember when I was young, 12, 13-year-old, my dad at the time, my dad is 70-something, and right now is a very open man, but at the time was very much like a lad. I remember saying something like, him saying something with his mates, something like, oh, that's all right, because at 40, you know, women go all crazy, do they? And it was the common, like, Things that men would say, oh, women are crazy, let them alone, women are crazy. And then my dad was blessed with three women, three daughters that are going through the same thing. My mom didn't go through natural menopause because she had a hysterectomy, so she'd go through kind of like forced menopause at an early age. So when I think back into that, I say, no, they're not going crazy. You don't understand what's going on, but you're supposed to understand that. to support her at the time. And I'm thinking how many, because also menopause is one of those things that we don't really talk about that much. This is something you talk with your best friend that is also going through it. If not, you don't talk about it. Well, the more we talk about it, the more aware people are about it, the easier it's going to be for everyone. Because it's not only for me as someone who's going through it, but it's also going to be for you as the partner. So if you know that your partner is going through this and is crying out of nowhere or is cranky or irritable out of nowhere, she's not happy being like that. I'm not happy in being overwhelmed or being sad or whatever. So then you will know better than do something to make her more like that. So what can I do to help you? I think it's very much in that particular case, talk to the person who's going through it. But then being aware of what to do at work, for example, being aware of that, that's fab. So I find myself... very well supported because i know sometimes in the morning i said i don't want to have meetings in the morning not because i'm lazy it's because i know that when i'm i don't forget what i'm saying i will feel bad about it i will feel frustrated that will not add to my my day i won't feel productive after so then i avoid having meetings or very early morning sessions or if i have early morning sessions i know that i have to get up three hours earlier for to be okay for that and that's not also not good

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:29

yeah i got that yeah

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:30

or if i'm having a like just happened like having a day where I'm overwhelmed go home go home Mariana because what's the point of sitting here and clocking if your mental health is not in the right place so these kind of things are very important now not many women talk about it because they don't want to be you know lose their

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:49

jobs I think it's going back to the I mean like normalising it as well and talking about it and again I've been in the office nearly 10 years working with you know women that I've gone through but again going back to those early days I felt a little bit like not uncomfortable I just didn't know what to say what do I do whereas now I went to an office I went to one of the rooms um you know winter just gone and it's freezing but one of the women we work with was there with three fans on her and I was like well I know what's happening here So I was just like, you all right? Do you know what I mean? It was normal. I wasn't thinking, why is she in this cold room with three fans? I was like, I knew she was having a hot flush. Absolutely. And there's nothing you can do. Exactly. But I suppose being around it more as well has normalised it. But again, I'm a man who works in a predominantly female-led environment, whereas not many men will have that. A lot of men will work with other men and therefore not be around it as much and then get caught.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:48

And I guess it would be even worse for women who are in a male-dominated environment.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:51

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:52

And I keep saying women and men, but it's probably not because there's a lot of men that transition that will go through that. Or might, we don't know that. So it's not necessarily that. Or non-binary people who go through that. So it's just... The biology that is doing that to you, basically.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:11

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:11

Something that helps a lot, though, for me at least, I noticed a massive difference. Now I mentioned this, is hormone therapy. So of all the things that people could do, because there are many things that you could do, for me it works. The kind of therapy that I am having, which is a gel called Ostrogel, that you put a little bit here on your arm or in your leg, and that's it, in the morning. Mm-hmm. That works for me. That means that my energy has been a lot better. My mental fog has been a lot better. I mean, I have it, but it has been a lot better. I've not had that much of that random pain. And another thing that I forgot to mention, I was having absolutely random panic attacks out of nowhere. I'm going to bed. Oh, good. I'm going to have a really nice bed. You can feel my heart like that. Oh, what's going on? And then you start feeling all these feelings of fear. And in my head, it's like, why am I feeling this? What's going on? And it was horrible. So that is a lot better with my HRT. But for other women, HRT didn't work. I got a friend who was absolutely miserable with it. And didn't work. And also different kind of HRT treatment would work different for different people. So some people get pills, some people get patches. I got the gel, but it's different for everyone.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:30

Is HRT the only treatment that you can get for?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:33

No, some people go without treatment. Is

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:35

there other types of treatment for menopause or is it just HRT?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:38

No, there are other types, but not all. You mean medical treatment?

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:42

Yeah, medical treatment and things like that. I don't know. Basically, HRT has been in the news a lot recently. Last year, I remember seeing something on Good Morning Britain or something like that. Can you now get HRT as over-the-counter medication? You don't have to be prescribed it?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:57

No, you have to get prescribed it. What is now is the differences now that you can have, because it's something that you're going to buy every now and then, every two months at least for me, is that prescription is repeated, but you don't have to. You pay a year Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. have any kind of any treatment some other people go for more traditional things like you know meditation things that help them with their own well-being on the spot I work for HRT because I wanted it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:45

What does HRT stand for? Hormone Replacement Therapy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:49

And for me, it works because I have a Mirena coil, which already has some hormones that are releasing. But if you don't have the Mirena coil, then you need all the kind of things. So that's what I'm saying. Everybody's different. I am very lucky that my GP... because not all the GPs are good at this, unfortunately. My GP offers a menopause clinic, and we have a nurse who is kind of like a satellite nurse. I go to all sorts of GPs every now and then who you go talk to her. She goes over all the symptoms of menopause, and she does all sorts of routine stuff like weigh and blood, but not because of the hormones, just to know that you're okay. And then after... three months or something you see it again to see how it's going so I am very lucky that I found this nurse who is fantastic and she's also going through it so she knows what she's talking about but I know that other people didn't get absolutely any kind of help from that so there are other places you can go so Conifer House in town they do have a menopause clinic and you can just pop in and ask for that that's

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:49

good because I often associate Conifer House with I suppose teenagers and you know sexual health it's also sexual health that's good to know so I know Conifer House there is another

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:59

one that is um let me find it it's it's um i found it online i never actually use it so i don't know exactly which is m network.org the uk and it's menopausal so menopause hole

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:13

instead of menopause hole I've heard of menopause hole yeah I liked the pun but I never used it so I don't know

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:23

but if you go online and you put like help because yes you can ask your GP now I think that's a bit of what they call the postcode lottery who is your GP and how good they are with

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:33

that some are much easier to

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:34

get into than others not only that some also might just I know of people who have been just given antidepressants Well, no, just listen to me. I'm going through menopause.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:44

Yeah, yeah. Misdiagnosed.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:47

But there is a lot more awareness into anyone who's in the medical profession as well now. There's a lot more awareness about it. And there's a lot more awareness in the television because of, you know, Davina. What's it called? Davina?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:00

Yeah, Davina,

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:01

yeah, yeah. And a lot of the people who are... actively speaking about

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:05

it yeah and we had obviously we had Michelle Heaton on the podcast last year and she was you know she was absolutely fantastic talking about her experiences and had written a book about it you know having to go into forced menopause at such a young age because of her history to me as well so and you know at the time she attributed that um forced menopause into the start of her alcohol dependency as well getting the grips onto that so that was a really interesting story

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:30

that's why I think we also are wanting to make it big in our service because we have how many users that are going through that and they might not know it and they might not have the GP appointments

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:43

especially people I mean I've told this story before but summertime I remember someone coming and saying the methadone wasn't holding them that they were withdrawing and I was on about the sweat so I was like no you're sweating because it's 28 degrees outside you know you're doing okay and I suppose in the same sort of respect is how many of our women service users going through menopause but actually think this is maybe some sign of withdrawal from taking substances so making sure they're fair educated on the differences between these

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:12

two and more about menopause as well that's what we're trying to make it

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:15

weren't

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:15

to make this awareness to everyone who works in the organization, not only for your partners and for your colleagues, but also for your users. And a lot of this as well is heavily tied to age, the understanding of age, because although the average is 51-year-olds of women who go through menopause, Age is nothing. So I know people who went through menopause at 40-year-old, and they've been dismissed by the doctor saying you're too young for this. Who's saying that? So it's important to keep an eye on that, that 30-something, 40-something, you might start seeing the signs, or you might find out that some of your users are having perimenopausal symptoms and understanding what it is, reading about it, rather than, oh, no, but she's 40, so it's not yet. Soon, but not yet, because you don't know that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:04

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Thank you very much for coming on, Miranda. I like to end every podcast with a series of 10 questions, not related to anything that we spoke about so far. And my first question for you is, what is your favourite word?

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:15

My favourite word? Oh, I don't know. That's difficult. I think it's happiness. That's

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:24

a nice word. Least favourite word?

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:31

Hmm. Dude, I didn't think of it. Least favourite word?

UNKNOWN: 1:11:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:35

What's a word that you hear and you just think, God, that's annoying?

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:38

I don't know. I love all the words.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:40

You love all the words? Yeah, I love all the words. I love all the words. I thought he was actually going to say sadness to me in contrast to happiness.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:47

I don't know. If I pick some, I'll let you know, but I don't really think. I've caught

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:51

you off guard with that

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:52

one, haven't I?

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:52

Yeah. My God, you're going to love these questions then. Tell me something that excites you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:57

Oh, food.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:58

Tell me something that doesn't excite you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:01

Getting up very early.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:03

What sound or noise do you love?

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:05

Do I love music? But particularly, I really like silence.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:12

I enjoy silence. Yeah, like Depeche Mode. The sound of silence. Yes. What sound or noise do you hear?

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:18

It's something that really annoys me is... When there's a lot of people talking at the same time very loudly. Just like chitter-chatter. Not necessarily. If people are engaged or something, but when you know what people are talking about, nobody's actually listening. Okay, yeah. Or you want to talk to someone. It happens a lot in office settings. You want to talk to someone, but everybody around you are talking at their own pace and at their own, and they're loud. It's like, shut up. That's the one with me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:46

What's your favorite curse word?

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:48

Carajo.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:50

Tell me what that

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:52

means. So, carajo, it's... The definition of carajo is that little bit on top of a ship... where you know somebody sits there and look around to see if there's any land around so back in the day this is from the Spanish ships whoever was being naughty or annoying on the ship they were sending up there so they send it to the carajo so mandar a alguien al carajo to send somebody the carajo is getting rid of that however that is used as some sort of like emphasis word so you would say oh carajo I'm going to ruin it and here in England it was fab because Not long ago, I got these messages from people saying, what does carajo mean? And I said, why? It's because people who follow Leeds, you know, football, have these T-shirts all printed, Vamos Leeds Carajo, because of Marcelo Bielsa, who's Argentinian. So it was kind of like, oh, come on, England, fuck it. You know, something like that. So I thought, well, that's great, because it's one of my favorite words to say carajo.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:54

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:58

Interior designer.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:59

Nice. I can picture that. What profession would you not like to do?

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:04

Anything that is extremely corporate, like accountancy or something like that. I hate corporate.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:10

I get that. And lastly, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:14

at the pearly gates? That's great, because heaven doesn't exist. And probably I'm going to hell.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:20

If it did, if it did, okay, you've died, you've gone up a little... escalator to heaven

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:25

right

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:25

god's there with his little white beard and a cup of tea of course he's drinking a brew and he goes down the marina what what what would you like him to say when you when you get there

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:36

oh i don't know something i don't think we have vacancy for you here but okay go in your cat's in there

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:43

like that scene out the simpsons where he pressed the button and he just

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:45

thought i think mine is going to be something like that

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:48

Mariana, thank you very much for coming on the podcast today. You've been absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:52

Thank you for being my facilitator.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:56

Cheers.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:57

And if you enjoyed this episode of the Believe in People podcast, don't forget to check out our other episodes and hit that subscribe button. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Our name is CGL Hull. That's C-G-L-H-U-L-L. We're on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and Google Music. So please like and subscribe to receive regular updates. You can also search for Believe in People podcast on your favorite listening device. And if you could leave us a review, that will really help us with getting our message out there and rising up the daily podcast charts.