Latest news with #LadiesWeNeedToTalk
ABC News
13-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
Loneliness — you're not alone, from Ladies, We Need To Talk
Sana Hello, it's Sana here. We're doing something a little bit different on All In The Mind this week. You are a fan of the show, right? So you know that we like to dig deep on the mental health challenges that people are going through. So I wanted to share an episode from our friends over at the ABC podcast, Ladies, We Need To Talk, about loneliness. It's a topic right in our wheelhouse, and in Australia, about a third of us feel lonely. That's according to the 2023 Ending Loneliness Together report. And on top of that, many of us are embarrassed to talk about it. But at All In The Mind and at Ladies, We Need To Talk, that is what we do. We talk about the stuff that can be sometimes tricky to open up about, so that all of us listening can feel hopefully less alone. So here's the episode. Sandy You can't say, hey, I really feel lonely at the moment or I don't feel that connected because it's not something we talk about in society. Sofie It feels pretty shit. It just feels like your heart hurts, your chest Bella hurts. From the outside we could look like a very sociable person who potentially has it all, but feel incredibly lonely. Sandy You can feel lonely when you're surrounded by people. Yumi It's like 5.40am and I'm just getting in my car to drive to meet some friends, to go for a run this morning. So it's still pitch dark outside, which is how I like it because it's too hot otherwise. And then you get the most glorious sunrise as you're running. There's my friend's car. Once or twice a week I get up at the crack of dawn and I drive in the dark to run between 7 and 10 kilometres. Alright, what do I need for this run? I started this running group during COVID lockdowns because I was ashamed to discover that I didn't really know any people who lived close by me. Morning. Hey, what happened? Do you remember Val? Hey. It's not as humid, is it? Like I have friends, but none of them lived all that close by and none of them wanted to go running. So I reached out and made the first move with people from my neighbourhood and now there's a small group of us who meet up for runs. Look, there's the sunrise. Shall we try and sprint that last, after we get around the corner? Sometimes followed by coffee, sometimes not, and there's always a lot of chat. Sofie The endorphins at the end of running are just a bit like jumping in the ocean, you just never regret it. Sandy Well, you know, it's a shame if you don't get out of bed and drive. Yumi Having this quite wholesome thing in common with people has helped me through some tough times and the friendships that I've made with my fellow joggers are super dorky and have nothing to do with work and the whole thing has made me feel way more connected to my community. The sad truth is we're lonelier than we've ever been. In Australia, almost a third of us feel lonely. That's according to the 2023 Ending Loneliness Together report. There's a sense of shame around our loneliness. More than half of those who feel lonely do not talk about it. And loneliness doesn't just feel awful, the science shows it's really bad for our physical and mental health. So why, in this hyper-connected world of WhatsApp group chats and being only a few swipes away from a shag or a pash, why are we lonelier than ever? And what can we do about it? I'm Yumi Steins. Ladies, we need to talk about loneliness. Sandy It was just torrential rain and the first Uber cancelled on me. Then the second Uber cancelled on me. Oh no. And then the third Uber, I was just so desperate. I rang him, I said, please tell me you are on your way. Yumi This is Sandy. She's waiting for a ride and the rain is hammering down. It's her 50th birthday. Sandy I got out and I got into the bar and I just sat there by myself and ordered myself a lovely glass of champagne. And I actually said to the bartender, I said, it's actually my birthday. And he said, oh, happy birthday. And I said, thank you. And besides my son at home and my son who called me from overseas, no one really sort of said anything. I didn't feel I could ring anyone. Yumi So I have a real picture of you at this bar looking great in your birthday outfit with a glass of champagne in hand. Sandy Even thinking about it now, I get emotional. It was very hard not to be upset and just having that sinking feeling in your gut. And for me, I feel it in my chest as well, almost like I'm forgetting to breathe. And it's a mixture of feeling upset, but also feeling embarrassed. And that sense of shame that I'm 50 and I'm at a bar by myself. And my husband's overseas. And I spent the morning with my dog and my cat. Yumi And predictably, the family pets had not organised a surprise party nor a birthday cake for Sandy. Those pets are rubbish. But there's nothing like sitting in a bar alone on a really important milestone birthday to make you reflect. Sandy I thought to myself, I would just love to have a group of friends. I know people and I have friends, but I don't have that, you know, sex in the city, we're so close or that, you know, we went to high school and we're going to celebrate every birthday together. And I was just like, you know what, I'll just sit here and just have my champagne. Yumi How were you feeling in the lead up to that big milestone? Sandy I was dreading it. My husband had at the last minute been invited to go and do a management course. And it was the week of my birthday. And I wasn't going to say no, but I was dreading it. And I just really would have liked to have just slept through it. And I still remember the day before thinking to myself, I've just got to get through it. And I'd taken the day off work and I thought to myself, why did I bother? I've got nothing planned. I'm pretty sure he hasn't planned anything. Yumi Sandy comes across as someone completely together. Sandy When you meet my husband and I and you see our boys, we look like we have everything and we look like we're a great couple and we're super happy. Yumi Throughout her marriage, Sandy has kept herself busy raising her boys, supporting her husband and working. Sandy But for me, there is this sense of loneliness where I feel like there's a disconnect. Yumi One of the kids has left home already and the other isn't too far from going. And Sandy's been forced to think about what her life will look like afterwards. Sandy I'm at a point now where the boys don't need me very much, but I'm sitting here going, oh, what do I do now? Yumi A lot of women have written to us saying they feel lonely in their marriages. You know, you're married to this person, but you're actually lonely a lot of the time. Does that resonate for you? Yes. Yes. Do you still sleep in the same bed? Sandy Yeah. Yep. But there's no sort of like kiss goodnight, no sort of cuddles or anything like that, which I've just gotten used to. Yeah. As sad as that sounds. Yumi Can I ask you, do you feel like you've moved further apart from each other as your marriage has gone on or is it just sort of always been at this distance? Sandy I think we've moved further apart. But I think if you asked my husband, he would not acknowledge that. He's not someone that shows emotion or will give you a hug. And sometimes I just crave that. Yumi Outside of her marriage, Sandy works, she goes to yoga and she has friends, but she doesn't have those ride or die friends. Sandy And I at times can't figure out why, because I do think I'm pretty easygoing. I'm easy to get along with. I am social, but for whatever reason, it just hasn't happened that way. Yumi And admitting to others that you're lonely, that can be pretty awkward. Sandy I was having a particularly tough day. So I went to yoga, not feeling great, but hoping that by getting on my mat, I would feel better. And my friend at yoga, she said, how was your weekend? And I said, not that great. How was yours? She said, oh, we went for a long lunch. And said, that must have been lovely. I said, you know, sometimes I find it really hard to meet people at this age and I feel lonely. And she looked at me sort of wide-eyed and I looked at her wide-eyed and I thought, oh, shit. I've made myself really vulnerable here. And she said, oh, yeah, it can be slightly difficult. Oh, yes. Okay, I've got to go to work now. I'll see you later on in the week. And I just grabbed my mat. Oh, and I just raced out the door. And I could feel myself getting red and just feeling hot in the face, like, why did I say that? Bella Loneliness is stigmatised. A lot of us don't want to admit we're lonely still. Yumi Dr Bella Ingram is a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Wollongong. Bella If we look at national data, even the general public perceives that, you know, someone who admits they're lonely, there must be something wrong with them. Yumi Bella's research focuses on loneliness and the role of social connections in health and wellbeing. Bella In Australia, we're predominantly a Western culture, which is quite an individualistic culture. And that's pretty terrible for loneliness. Yumi And the research shows unequivocally that women are lonelier than ever. Bella What we know about loneliness is that that really comes about when we kind of have these shifts in identity and when we're undergoing life transitions. And a woman who's sort of trying to navigate a career path, for example, and also trying to navigate parenthood and perhaps a carer for elderly parents as well, there's a lot of roles in there. And so trying to figure out where there's time and space left for social relationships, that kind of often falls by the wayside. Yumi And it turns out that loneliness is making us really sick. Bella So there's a lot of research out there now that talks about loneliness being linked to, you know, high risk for morbidity and mortality. It's worse for us than smoking and obesity. And the reason for this, we think, is that loneliness is linked to cortisol, the stress hormone. And so when we're lonely, our cortisol increases and this reduces our immune system. We know that cortisol is also not great for weight. It's not great for a range of things. And so that's one of the theories behind why loneliness impacts our physical health. Yumi The research shows a particularly strong link between loneliness and cardiovascular disease. Bella When we're lonely, we might be more likely to drink alcohol. We might be more likely to binge eat, to comfort ourselves. And all of these kind of behavioral risk factors, what we call them, are also really big contributors to heart disease. Yumi And yeah, I can almost hear you saying, yeah, duh, Yumi, because loneliness, of course, hurts our mental health too. Bella Loneliness and depression are really intertwined. Loneliness and anxiety are really intertwined. And we know that people who are lonely tend to experience poorer physical and mental health. But also it's the people that might also have existing mental health conditions or existing physical health conditions that are also more likely to experience loneliness. Ah, so it's a cycle. It's a reciprocal cycle and it's a nasty one. Yumi What are the measures of loneliness? Bella It's a really tricky one. A lot of scales don't necessarily use the term lonely. They kind of dance around it a little bit. And I think that's still this big question mark is how do we know if I asked you, Yumi, how would I know if you feel lonely? There's going to be a range of different reactions that we have. So some women, they might completely withdraw and maybe no one will notice. For other women, they're going to power on and act like nothing's going on and they might not even know they feel lonely themselves. Yumi Yeah, I just felt really confronted when you asked me how do I know when I feel lonely because it's very hard to describe. I think the last time I felt really lonely was years ago because I've got so many children around me. I'm sort of always in company and feeling quite loved. But I remember the feeling of my bed, the space in my bed next to me being empty and it's being very symbolic of the emptiness inside of my heart. Do you know what I mean? Like this yawning great big expansive bed that nobody is sleeping next to me. But yeah, how would you put that into a survey that is specific to different individual experiences? Very tricky, very interesting. Bella So what we know about loneliness is that that really comes about when we kind of have these shifts in identity, when we're undergoing life transitions. Yumi By life transitions, we're talking the big stuff, puberty, your 20s and 30s when the career and baby race is on, divorce, my favourite, perimenopause, major illness, empty nesting. Bella And when we think about that, it's that, you know, a woman who's sort of trying to navigate a career path, for example, and also trying to navigate parenthood and perhaps a carer for elderly parents as well. There's a lot of roles in there. And so trying to figure out where there's time and space left for social relationships, that kind of often falls by the wayside. How am I going to progress? What's next for me? So all these questions, I think, can really play into our sense of identity, which can then play into do I belong? Yumi So the overarching idea that I'm getting from this, Dr. Beller, is that it's needing a sense of belonging and the absence of belonging that creates a feeling of loneliness. And when we move from life stage to life stage, it's a bit of a reinvention or a redrawing of ourselves where we're unsure at that point in our lives of where we belong. That's a beautiful nutshell. When we set out to make this episode, we did a call out via my Instagram asking if anyone wanted to share their experiences of loneliness. And God, we appreciate that so many of you are willing to share. One of the voice notes we received really hit hard. Sofie I am a 35-year-old single female. I've just come back from overseas. Most of my girlfriends are married, who have their own children now. And I am childless and not in a relationship. Yumi This is Ladies' Listener, Sophie. Sofie My friends are now in a different spot in their lives. And I feel incredibly lonely. Even when I'm out with them and they don't have their kids with them, I just thought I would share this because, you know, maybe this can be some sort of, I don't know, help me through by talking about it. It's one of the most lonely stuff I've felt in my whole life. Yumi Being at a different stage of life from your mates can be isolating for so many women, especially if your friends are in the marriage and babies era and you're not. And as Dr Bella pointed out, those states of transition are often the loneliest dots on your timeline. After hearing Sophie's voice note, we wanted to meet her in real life. Sandy Hi, Gab. Alright. Yumi Okay. Feel free to take your time. Okay. It's a sensitive thing to talk about. Yeah. And we want to get deep in the feels of it. So can you tell us about a recent time when you've hung out with your friends with the babies? What is it like to be there as the person who doesn't have the baby? Sofie It can be quite isolating and I try not to let it be isolating because I'm one of those people who just makes a joke but I'm actually feeling quite uncomfortable and I'll go up at the end of sentences. So I try not to make it feel awkward but it kind of does. And I find that the awkwardness more comes after the event and then the reality of it comes out which is I don't have that. Yumi A lot of women will be able to relate to your yearning for a baby and a family. Can you describe that feeling of yearning? It Sofie feels pretty shit. It just feels like your heart hurts, your chest hurts and you want that and you don't know what you can do to get that. Yumi That chest hurt feeling, I think that'd be very familiar for a lot of women. Yeah. How often are you feeling that? Is it all day? Is it just sometimes? Sofie No, it's every now and then. Like it just pops up. Like now that we're talking about it I can definitely feel it, you know, simmering. And you know, if you hear another baby announcement or even like so and so is getting married. Yumi Loneliness comes in waves for Sophie. It can be painful in those big, loud announcement type moments but the quiet times can often be even harder. Sofie The loneliness I think can come often at night time, often on the weekend. That's when I feel it the most because during the week I'm like go, go, go, go, go. And then the weekend comes, you reach out to your mates and they're busy with their families. It can be like a Saturday night and you're like, oh, I'm not doing anything. Like it's just me and the dog, who I love, but she doesn't talk to me so, you know. Yumi Staying in at home on a Saturday night inevitably involves an element of FOMO and that sense of a clock ticking for Sophie that a lot of single 30-something women can relate to. Sofie I feel like I'm kind of wasting my time. You know, I should be out there. That's what people are doing and I'm not doing that. And you know, it kind of often ends in a cry. You caught me on a, that was like a Saturday night. Yumi Oh, on a cry night. Yeah, that was cry night. Crying is good. Yeah, I love a good cry. I can tell Sophie that you're funny and you're outgoing and you're quite good company. I mean, in the short time that we've spent together. Do you feel like admitting out loud to people, to humans, that you're lonely kind of is a bit of a vibe kill? Sofie Totally. Yumi Right. Yeah. So you don't want to be that guy? Sofie No, I don't want to be that guy, but you know, jokes aside, which is big for me to say, but jokes aside, I do think it's a really important thing to talk about. Yumi After returning from living overseas at the end of last year, Sophie's got some new roomies. Sofie I'm back at home with my parents. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, Sophie. Yeah. That's a horny place to be living. It's a really great place if you're dating, you know. Oh my God. Like, my parents are great. They're like housemates, but I feel like the closest people in my life at the moment are my parents. Because at this time in my life, that care and love surely should have been passed down to these imaginary children that I thought I was going to have. Yumi Let's talk about being single. Okay. So what do you think that having a partner would bring to your life? Sofie I've thought about this a lot. I don't know what a partner would bring to my life because I don't think my life is horri- like, I don't think it's terrible and I'm quite self-sufficient on my own. Sounds like it. So I don't know what a partner would bring, but I know that it would be nice. I see my parents who have been married for a long time. You know, you kind of long for something that's like that. Yeah. Yumi You know? The yearning for a romantic partner occupies a lot of space in Sophie's mind. Sofie I've been single a long time and I'd like- even though I know it might not be great or they might disappoint the crap out of me, I just want to try it again. You know? I was- now I'm going to get emotional. I was in a relationship when I was in my early 20s and then it ended. And I've not had a connection with someone like that for a long time and I do- I would like that again. You know? Just to- just to- yeah. Yumi What do you miss about it? Sofie Just that someone's in your court, you know? Bella I would argue that loneliness is more about the quality of relationships than the quantity. Yumi This is Dr Bella Ingram again. And by quality, she means getting your needs met. Bella So a varied range of needs. I mean, having shared values, not just hobbies, but actually really being able to connect with someone and go- walk away from that connection and be like, that's my person. Whereas quantity is around, you know, I've got a thousand social media followers. Yumi If you look at people's social media feeds, you could be forgiven for thinking that no one's lonely and everybody's surrounded by really gorgeous friends and doing fun stuff. It's hard not to compare to the shiny, happy versions of life when we see our friends, particularly real people that we know, living that life. Bella I think as women, we're all guilty of this, but we know comparison is the thief of joy. We know social comparisons that are more pronounced now by social media and the accessibility of information can be really difficult when it comes to loneliness because it's exactly what you described. You see something and think, how come I don't have that? What am I doing wrong? Yumi A big part of Bella's research is the connection between women's drinking and loneliness. Bella Women are increasingly one of the highest consumers of alcohol in Australia, particularly middle-aged women. These are also the women that are reporting feeling more and more lonely and women are turning to alcohol to fill a void of some sorts and it becomes a bit of a habit as well. We know that alcohol can be a social facilitator in some instances. It can really help us lighten up, be able to engage in interactions that we might have felt a bit uncomfortable to do otherwise. Yumi But it can be a slippery slope. Bella Where we might find ourselves drinking quite a bit or too much even on one instance and we can actually no longer socially engage very well. We could do things we regret, we could say things we regret, we might wake up feeling a bit embarrassed or we might just find ourselves in this habit of just relying on alcohol to be able to engage socially. Yumi So, okay, we shouldn't rely on alcohol to numb our loneliness but what can we do to protect ourselves from that feeling of loneliness? Bella I think it takes a lot of introspection. I think it's about knowing yourself and so this is going to be difficult for some women and easier for others. But I think if you have a good sense of your values and what's important to you, that's going to be your compass to help navigate you in terms of where you're going to belong. But you're going to know, you're going to trust your gut and you'll know whether they're your people or not at the end of the day. Yumi I like that idea of knowing yourself and having a compass to kind of steer you to the right people. But in essence, isn't making friends hard? Bella Yes, it is so hard and I think again, this is, it takes self-compassion and it takes bravery and courage and I think what it's about is persistence too. What we also know is that navigating knockbacks can be really tricky. That's a really big barrier to being able to connect with other people is that fear of knockbacks. It's shame, it's embarrassment. And it trickles into all this, am I good enough? Yumi Doctor, as somebody who's an expert in this field, who spends a lot of time thinking about loneliness, what are you doing to shore up your own personal future so that you don't become a lonely old woman? Bella My poor husband, I talk to him about this all the time, the poor guy. So I'm giving myself permission to not have to have a big social network that doesn't necessarily fill my cup. I think I'm recognizing that I'm going to have different needs met in different places. So I have some needs met with my work relationships and I love that because I don't get that need met with my husband or some of my friend groups. I'm recognizing that with my husband, I have a lot of needs met, but he's not interested in talking politics with me. That's for friends. And then I walk away from those interactions feeling full, feeling valued, feeling recognized. Sandy We don't acknowledge that there is loneliness in the world and there's loneliness within marriages and that it's okay to feel that way. Yumi It took a lot of courage for Sandy to come on Ladies We Need To Talk and open up about her loneliness, but she wants to shed some light on the issue. Sandy I think it's not acknowledged enough and I wish that women were a bit more honest about it. Yumi What would you say to someone listening right now who is feeling alone in her marriage and her community? Sofie Oh, that's very tricky. Sandy I think that probably what I would say is what someone said to me this morning, is that you're stronger than you think you are and you think you can't do it, but you can. What I would also say to women is you deserve a life, your own life. Yumi As for Sophie, who sent us the voice memo on cry night, she's still struggling with her loneliness, but taking steps in the right direction. Sofie I'm in the bottom of the pit right now. Yumi Well, thank you for reaching out from the bottom of the pit. You're welcome. So what sort of things do you do to try to build connection with others? Sofie I've enrolled in doing a course, not to how to meet people. Yeah, just a course. Just a course of something that I'm interested in, which is a great way to meet people. I exercise, I do boxing classes and I date a lot. Yumi It's not just Sophie who's keen to find a partner. The people around her are invested too. Sofie I hear so and so saying, do you know this guy? Have you met this guy before? Maybe we can set you up. Just because there's two single people doesn't mean we're going to be compatible. Sofie Absolutely not. But they're like, Oh, I know a guy. Sofie Yeah. And you're single and so is he. Sofie He's got an odour. Sofie Yeah, but that's fine. Sofie He hasn't worked in 14 years. I mean, he doesn't have a girlfriend and you don't have a boyfriend. Sofie So maybe you guys would be a match. Yumi Okay, there are six things to take from this. Number one, just because your friend is single doesn't mean she wants you to set them up with some random jobless guy who smells like unwashed butt and corn chips. Be real. The world's man scraps are not your friend's future husbands. Stop that. Number two, cats and dogs are terrible at organising surprise parties and are officially being put on notice that they need to get their shit together or risk being scrap heaped next to the man scraps. Number three, one spouse cannot meet all one's needs. You need to build a social network of awesome people beyond that one person so that you have different people to tap when you have a different need. Four, you can expect transition times to be tough. That includes transitions to new motherhood, menopause, unemployment, divorce. Any situation where you're no longer living the same daily setup that you were. Prepare for this by buying more cats and dogs. Number five, making friends takes intention, work and vulnerability. It may also involve making the first move. My advice is to have a cool thing that you want to do, whether it be going running at dawn or having a sewing group or finding like-minded anti-pollution mining company saboteurs or starting a rock band or acting in amateur theatre or getting into swinging. Have a shared purpose that preferably doesn't involve drugs or alcohol and takes the focus off you and onto the thing that you can do together. Number six and the final on our list, the definition of loneliness is craving connection and not getting it. If you are lonely, we really hope this episode helps and please know that you're not the only one. Yumi This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gundungurra and Gadigal peoples. Ladies We Need To Talk is mixed by Ann-Marie de Bettencoe. It's produced by Elsa Silberstein. Supervising producer is Tamar Cranswick and our executive producer is Alex Lollback. This series was created by Claudine Ryan.
ABC News
11-06-2025
- Health
- ABC News
The women of the 'sandwich generation' caring for young and old
I started to notice my 81-year-old mother, Di, struggling just under a year ago, when she texted me late on a Saturday night worrying about some legal paperwork and I could not get her to calm down. After that, she became increasingly anxious and depressed. She no longer took pleasure in the things she loved and began having trouble looking after herself day to day. Realising that mum needed serious professional help, we checked her into a psychiatric hospital for a short stay that turned into six months. Her decline was rapid. She seemed to wither before our eyes. There were falls, a broken arm, delirium, COVID, and, most likely dementia. She couldn't walk from bed to the toilet unaided. Only months prior, mum had lived alone and was independent. She had always been fearsome, a former school principal with a booming laugh and a single mother who made sure I had everything — a picture of self-sacrifice. We love each other to pieces, but also annoy each other like no-one else can. When I realised mum wouldn't be able to live on her own anymore, we planned for her to move into a granny flat at the back of our place when she left the hospital. I suddenly found myself part of what is sometimes called the "sandwich generation": people (mostly women) who have the task of being the primary carer for the generations on either side. My life was hectic even before mum became unwell. I'm an executive producer on the podcast Ladies, We Need to Talk and a parent to my two lovely and spirited neurodivergent kids, who are nine and 11. I knew it was going to be hard work, but nothing prepared me for the difficulty of trying to look after everyone all at once. Every day is spent frantically managing other people's needs, and our time spent together is mostly functional, keeping everyone warm, medicated, fed and showered. As well as helping mum after her release from hospital and getting the kids ready for school, a team of support workers for mum came and went daily, which required a tonne of admin and endless time on the phone. I often feel tired, and like my emotional reserves are used up on everybody else. It could break me on some days. But I'm not alone. There are around 1.5 million Aussies who are in this situation, and the numbers are rising. The 2022 Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (the "HILDA") Survey, found that women were "considerably more likely" to be carers than men. As Australia's population ages, by 2050 the 85+ age group is expected to triple. We're also having babies later, which means women are often at the peak of their careers when they need to start caring for their kids and their elderly parents too. So, I wanted to find out what the sandwich generation can do to take care not only of the people around them, but of themselves. And for those not at that stage yet, how can we set ourselves up to survive this period? I met with Nasalifya Namwinga, a clinical psychologist and burnout researcher, who often sees how women carry most of the caregiving load, and how heavy this can be for them. "I think there's an expectation that as a woman, you'll provide this care. You're being pulled in three different directions and you are being stretched to meet the needs of these particular roles [as a mother, carer and partner]," she says. Namwinga says it can be helpful to have conversations about expectations of who does the care work early on, "while the parent actually has the capacity to engage or contribute". I've used the word burnout a lot in the past year. But I've often wondered how you know you are experiencing carer burnout as opposed to just being a bit tired and over it? Namwinga says there are three components to burnout: exhaustion, low efficacy and cynicism. I identify with "low efficacy" — stuff like missing kids' appointments, or being late on paying my bills — things that are not the norm for me. Namwinga says cynicism is also one to keep an eye on. "[Cynicism] might play out as anger or intense emotions that don't match how you feel about the thing that you're doing. Those are the feelings that come up that; 'I just wish I didn't have to do any of it.' That's probably a sign you're experiencing carer burnout." I think a lot of mothers and carers struggle with asking for help, because we're used to doing it all, and we are really good at juggling a million things. Namwinga says protecting ourselves from burnout is ultimately about "scaffolding" ourselves with support from others. "So if I start experiencing exhaustion to the point that I'm struggling to get out of bed, who can I call? And asking them for support when you need it. And that means you have to prioritise yourself." Phyllis, who is looking after her mother and children, thinks the term "sandwich generation" needs a rebrand. I spoke to Phyllis because I wanted to hear about women going through similar experiences. She is in the thick of it right now, caring for her 94-year-old mother, Barbara, and two teenage sons, who are 15 and 18, while also working four days a week. She's been her mum's main carer since Barbara's husband died 13 years ago. "He was the filter through which mum saw the world, so when he passed, I had to step into that role," she says. Barbara is in great health for a nonagenarian, but she doesn't drive anymore, and Greek is the language she's most comfortable with. So Phyllis is Barbara's emotional support, her taxi driver, her translator and personal assistant. She tries to see her mum twice a week, and they stay in constant phone contact. But she has set clear expectations with Barbara about how much she can offer as a carer while also trying to parent two teenagers. "My sons come first," she says. "You cannot in this day and age take your hands off the wheel. You can't just say 'hey they're teenagers now, go be free'. It adds a whole other layer of complexity to the parenting equation." As the primary carer, Phyllis can sometimes feel the pressure of non-stop demands from her mum. Coupled with exhaustion, it means Phyllis can sometimes lose her cool with her mum. "The boys have been present when I've argued with my mother and we've gone hammer and tongs and it's been really ugly. But then they also see when we make up," she says. The women staying single by choice in a world of relentless dating pressure The idea of modelling healthy relationships to your kids is something Namwinga leans into in her practice. "When we mess up as parents, it actually provides a beautiful moment for repair with our children, which teaches them something about relationships. It teaches them that you are not perfect," she says. "You can get things wrong. [Saying] 'I was wrong and I'm sorry', is a really powerful experience for a child to learn that if my parent doesn't have to be perfect, then maybe I don't have to be perfect either." Phyllis says there can also be little moments of beauty with her mother. "She can be a really complex, difficult character, but she's very loving and she's very kind and beneath all the bluster, is a very frightened, vulnerable little girl," she says. "And that's what I try and hold onto when times can be tough. "And it makes me emotional because, she's just such a force of nature. She's been through a lot of rejection and pain, and yet she's still who she is unapologetically. She's dealing with her frailties of aging with as much grace as she can muster." I recently spent the day with mum after she had been in respite care for about three weeks. I took her shopping and I could tell she thought she felt good about herself for the first time in a long while. It was so great to see her sparkling a bit. We went out for lunch and she told me about some friends she made in care, and how they get together to complain about the food. Having a chat with me was out of the ordinary for her; normally it's just a list of worries. It made me feel a bit lighter, like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I know there'll be many more bad days ahead, but she's in a good place right now, and we've just signed the paperwork for her to stay in care permanently. But I'm also battling with something more existential as I watch my mum get older — a living grief for the woman she once was. A part of me is also preparing for the end. "It is a complex grief to be watching someone you love slip away from you," Namwinga tells me. "If they experience things like dementia, they're losing memories, they're losing mobility, [and] watching that process can be quite heartbreaking." It is a privilege to be in a position where I can care for my mum and be able to pay her back for a lot of the stuff she did raising me. If I was going to give any advice, it would be that it's going to happen way faster than you think. You think you've got years, but one event can just send everything spiralling out of control and change the whole world for them and for you. So talk to your parents early about their power of attorney, their enduring guardianship, about their will and final wishes. They're hard conversations to have, but it's much easier to have them sooner than later. The host of the Ladies, We Need To Talk, Yumi Stynes, once gave me some words of advice when I was having a bit of a shitty week: "Don't be heroic." So I've taken those words on board and it's now my current Sandwich Gen motto.
ABC News
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Jessie Tu, on miscarriage and doing motherhood her way
Yumi Hey ladies, before we start, I want to ask you a favour. We're looking for feedback. I'd love to know what you think about Ladies We Need To Talk and the sorts of things you want to hear about more on our show. What do you love? What topics are close to your heart? What things have we missed? And what would you love to hear less of? We've posted a survey on the Ladies, We Need To Talk website and in the show notes of the episode that you're listening to right now. If you could fill it out, it will help us to understand you more and help us to fashion the best possible episodes in future. Please take five minutes out of your day to fill out the survey. You'll be helping our show to be more your show. It's completely anonymous, so you can be brutally honest. Just don't say you love me because it'll make me cry. And thank you. Jessie It's the most weird and mind boggling thing to fall pregnant and to have this thing that is the most ecstatic, joyful thing in the world happen. Yumi Author Jessie Tu was pregnant with a baby she had longed for. But seven weeks into the pregnancy, the dream evaporated. Jessie And then for that to go away, it's just I don't think we have the language for it. I think that people are uncomfortable and don't know how to sit with grief, like the specific grief that is miscarrying. Yumi On a regular Sunday morning last year, Jessie, aged 37 at the time, was in her pyjamas in the courtyard of her house when she got a phone call telling her that the baby she thought was growing in her belly was no longer viable. Jessie She said the results have come back and they're not what we want. Yumi The doctor didn't use the word miscarriage in the call, but Jessie would become very acquainted with that word as she waded through her loss. Jessie It's a distressing, inexplicable kind of harrowing grief that you go through. Yumi I'm Yumi Steins. Ladies, we need to talk about writing your own motherhood script with Jessie Tu. Jessie Tu is a high achiever. She was a violinist before becoming an author and turned her classical musician past into inspiration for her first novel, A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing, which made her one of Australia's most dazzling young authors. She's also the classic Asian diasporic kid, believing that a relentless work ethic and nonstop grind gets results. But that was something she had to unlearn in the unpredictable lottery of pregnancy. Even trying to conceive, she realised she couldn't be the model minority perfect A-grade student to get what she wanted. Jessie You spend your whole life as a woman being told, don't fall pregnant. This is how to not fall pregnant. And the moment you want to fall pregnant and it doesn't happen immediately, it is so discombobulating and it's such a shock to the system. Also because we as women are so resourceful. And what I mean is that if we want something, we know how to get it. Yeah. And there's one thing, there's one thing that we're told is so natural and common and ordinary. The fact that it wasn't happening month to month, like for me, it was, it drove me quite insane. Like I had to get a lot of, I talked to a lot of friends about it. I sought therapy about it. But yeah, I just felt like such a failure. Yumi And did it make the process of having sex with your partner weird or a bit more joyless? Jessie I know a lot of people said that. Yeah. It becomes like a chore. For me personally, I found it fine. I guess maybe because we'd been trying for less than a year. Yeah. So maybe it would have been different. But for me personally, no, it was still a lot of fun. Yumi Jessie didn't always want to be a mum. She grew up in a Taiwanese family and through her young eyes, their adherence to traditional gender roles was repellent. Jessie I think a lot of it just looked kind of oppressive. I saw the way my mother was asked, as most women of her generation were during that time, to give up her career aspirations, any kind of identity outside of motherhood and wifedom, when she got married at 24 and had four children within six years. And then all I saw of her the moment we migrated to Australia when I was four, five, was complete sacrifice, self-sacrifice. She had no identity outside the home. She was a chauffeur. She was the cook. She was a nanny. She was a caregiver. I just thought, I don't want to be like that. It just seems like so hard. And I never wanted to be invisible. And to see my mother have all her labour unacknowledged, it just made me angry. Yumi It made me so angry. So funny. I'm the youngest of four as well. And I remember thinking the exact same thing about my mum. It's like, why does she have to work so hard? So being a mother to you was being somebody who just gave and sacrificed herself. Jessie And was unrecognised. That I think was the most bruising to my ego. Yeah, right. Yumi No acknowledgement, no thank you, no gratitude. Jessie I think I've always saw marriage as a straight jacket for women. The men go out, do their thing. They could come home and still get praised at the workplace for just being a father, just for bringing in the dough. And the women were invisible back home. I just thought that wasn't the model of happiness that I wanted to pursue. Yumi It is a modern feminist conundrum. What to do when your attraction to men seems to put you in harm's way. Jessie Maybe because it feels a little bit like I'm giving in to male power. In the last few years, I've consistently and very actively and stridently questioned my heterosexuality because there are moments in my adult life where I thought it's a joke that I've been fooled into thinking that getting a man to validate and love me is just all a game. Yumi But look, she was straight. How annoying. And as Jessie came into adulthood, the men she was meeting were not making great ambassadors for dating or heterosexuality. Jessie I had, I want to say the word horrifying, but just like a series of very unpleasant dating experiences all through my twenties. And I realised upon reflection that it's because I was chasing a feeling. And the feeling is Hollywood generated. It's the feeling of being swept up, you know, butterflies in your stomach, all of those things that we are told by Hollywood and books to feel, to know that this is love, capital L. Yumi And then in 2020, Jessie was 33 when she found a connection. There was less capital L love at first sight and more capital R for real. Jessie It really came through weeks and weeks of just hanging out with him and being friends first and realising that I felt completely myself and comfortable. And I know this is cheesy, but he just felt like home as in like, he just felt like someone I had known for a long time and who I didn't need to put a mask on when I was around him. That was quite revelatory. Wow. It's that's so beautiful. And really the decision to become a parent was meeting my partner and realising that I can actually have a life where I parent a child and for my identity to not be totally annihilated. I think that was quite liberating. Yumi After dating for about a year, Jessie and her partner, Andrew, were on a weekend away in a little seaside town in New South Wales. Jessie He and I were sitting on an embankment, like just looking out onto the sunset, and I was just overcome by sheer beauty, like looking at the sunset, just sitting with him sitting next to me. And I just thought, I think it would be an incredible thing to bring someone who doesn't currently exist into the world because the world is and can be a beautiful place. I think for me, I'm very beauty driven, beauty in the sense that natural beauty, good things in the world. Like there was a change in my belief system that I was no longer as cynical as I was before, thinking this world is so messed up. It wasn't worthy of bringing a child into. But then seeing that sunset, just something changed in me. Yumi Your molecules got rearranged. I think so. Nothing like true love and a sunset to get those ovaries pulsating. So Jessie and Andrew got to it, having plenty of unprotected sex and dreaming about vast oceans and sun setting skies. And of course, we little tiny cute babies. But it wasn't happening for them. And each month that Jessie didn't fall pregnant was another crushing disappointment. Jessie My therapist said that every time you see blood in your underwear, it's a little bit of grieving because it's something that you hoped that would happen and it didn't happen. Yumi Eleven months into trying for a baby, Jessie was at the doctors getting an iron infusion and she had what she thought were cramps indicating an oncoming period. Jessie And my doctor, I sat down, was ready to inject the iron. She said, are you pregnant? And I said, no, I'm pretty sure I'm not. And she got me to do a test and then she sat down next to me and I could sense something was happening because she was chatting to the nurses secretively. And then she turned to me and said, you're pregnant. Yeah. And I was just really in shock. Like, I didn't believe her. Yumi Usually, those cramps meant that her period was on its way, but not this time. Jessie got in the car and drove home to tell her partner. Jessie He was elated. But I always foresaw the moment of knowing that I was pregnant. I remember thinking for the whole 11 months, I would literally put on a pair of joggers and run out on the streets and wave my arms around and scream with joy. You know, all I wanted was to be pregnant. Yumi But when the moment finally came, instead of running around screaming with happiness, Jessie was hushed by how utterly powerless she felt in this pregnancy. Jessie I was just wracked with anxiety from that moment on. Oh no. Because I was like, is this going to continue? The whole experience of falling pregnant, getting pregnant, having children is so fraught because you never know when anything could happen. Yeah. There is no moment of certainty. And then I hear my parents say, even when you do have a child and they come out healthy, you never stop worrying. Yumi So how much future imagining did you do in the first weeks of that pregnancy where you're kind of projecting forward? Not much, to be honest. Did you imagine what sort of mother you would be? Jessie An angry one. Yumi Oh, great. Why is that? Because of your mum? Jessie Because I'm just a very angry person. I'm quite impatient. Like if someone doesn't. Yumi You're describing me. Everything you say, I'm like, oh my God, this bitch thinks me. Jessie Yeah. Like if someone doesn't do something the way I want it in the time frame I want it, I'm like, just like, I get fucking angry. Yumi What about your child, your future child? Could you picture them? Jessie I tried not to, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. I know I had friends who, when they were pregnant, they would send me, you know, the tracking apps that would tell you how big. I could not do that. Because if I did mess carry, I didn't want to imagine this as a potential human being because I didn't want to jinx myself. Yumi Like most intelligent, reasonable women with over-achieving anxiety and a human growing inside their body, Jessie was obsessively Googling. Jessie I read on some website that said the most dangerous, like quote unquote dangerous time for a pregnancy was week seven to eight. Oh, well, that's doom and gloom. Yeah. Yeah. And then so when I hit around six, seven weeks, I started worrying a lot because I was like, every day I was like, is it going to be today? Is it going to be today? Yumi Jessie was seven weeks pregnant when she noticed there was light bleeding. But physically, she was feeling fine. Jessie I had a friend who said it's normal. Some women spot during pregnancy. It doesn't actually could mean anything. Just go for a blood test. And then I think one or two days later, my doctor called me and she said, are you sitting down? And I guess that's never a good opener. Yumi She wasn't sitting down, actually. She was standing in her courtyard on a very bright, sunny Sunday in April. And she stayed standing as she got the news. Jessie And she said, the results have come back and they're not what we want. She just kept saying they're not what we want. And I was like, what do you mean? Can you just tell me if this if I've miscarried? And she said, I don't think this will be a viable pregnancy. She kept using that kind of technical, medical language that I just frustrated me. It made the whole experience even more alienating and lonely that she just she couldn't just say the words. Yes, you've miscarried. She conveyed to me that my HCG levels had gone down. And then I consulted Google later and it said when HCG levels go down during a pregnancy, it means the pregnancy is no longer going to continue. I hopped on the phone with a friend who's a GP, discussed it. But they were also trying to just evade the whole yes, you've miscarried. Like they just didn't want to say that to my face. Yumi After Jessie took that phone call in the morning, she went to a family lunch for her mum's birthday. Jessie So my family, as traditional as that is, we're very, very transparent with each other. I'm very open with my parents and my siblings. They knew the journey I had been on to try and conceive. But because I was so anxious about the pregnancy, I didn't tell anyone. It was just my partner and I. Because there's this ridiculous rule that you're supposed to wait till 12 weeks. I'm saying it's ridiculous because I just hate any kind of sort of assumed law about things like that, like when to tell people. And so we didn't tell them. And so I rocked up to this gathering and I knew I couldn't hide it. I couldn't just sit there and pretend. And so I sat down and my parents and I, we speak in Mandarin together. And I said to them, my Mandarin is the equivalent of like a nine or ten year old. So my vocabulary is not very good. So I didn't know the word for miscarriage. So I basically sat down and said, Mum, I have something to tell you. I was pregnant and now I'm not. I found out this morning, the doctor told me. And yeah, it was, I mean, I like rumbled into a ball of mess. Yumi Jessie's relationship with the Mandarin language is complicated. Like a lot of children of migrants, she spent her younger years absolutely determined to be an excellent English speaker and consciously narrowing the use of her parents' native tongue. The day of that family lunch, Jessie didn't have the words in Mandarin to tell her mum what was happening in her body. It was only much later that she could face looking it up. Jessie I had to Google what the word miscarriage was, and it's liu hai. And liu hai is two words, which mean like flow and asset. Flow as in like kind of flow out. And then an asset, like a property. Liu hai. Yeah. It was, to me, it felt a bit comforting because I guess at that point, I wanted to feel like what had happened to me was not the loss of a human life, even though it was, but like just something that was not meant to become a human being. Like I found comfort in the language, the sort of clinical separation of like the flowing of asset, the sort of letting like something out of your control, basically. Yeah. Like the way the river flows, the water flows down a river. The following day we went to the early pregnancy clinic and did an ultrasound. And that's when they said, yes, it's confirmed. There's no heartbeat. Yumi And that ultrasound, was that the one where they put it on your belly? Yes. Yeah. So you're looking at the screen looking for a fetus. Jessie Well, I think I was a bit too upset at that point. I didn't look at the screen. Yumi So you told your family, did you talk to other people in your life about having a miscarriage? I Jessie did. I was quite, I'm an overshare. Yeah. I like it was telling like, well, I wouldn't say strangers, but just people I met. I remember a few days after it happened, I hadn't seen a very sort of distant acquaintance at this book event. And I just told her immediately, I just miscarried. And it was so like, for me, it was cathartic because I wanted people to know what I'd gone through. And then often what would end up happening is that once I revealed my miscarriage, honestly, half the time, the women I spoke to, they would say, I also. Have experienced miscarriage. And that's my way of connecting and connecting through grief. You know, I really needed to do that just to center myself and my story. And also hear from these women who nine times out of 10 went on to become mothers that I could become a mother one day, even though this has happened. Interesting. So Yumi it's part of the process. I think so. Yeah. That's a really beautiful way to look at it. Why do you think there's still a taboo around talking about miscarriage? Jessie I think that people are uncomfortable and don't know how to sit with grief, like the kind of specific grief that is miscarrying. It's the most weird and mind boggling thing to fall pregnant and to have this thing that is the most ecstatic, joyful thing in the world happen. And then for that to go away, it's just, I don't think we have the language for it. And I think that people don't know how to react when someone says, I've miscarried. I think a lot of people are just uncomfortable or embarrassed or just would rather not go there. We turn away from things that are ugly or messy or inexplicable. People want to comfort you, but I guess a lot of people just don't know how to, Yumi especially men. Oh, really? They were the most speechless? Jessie I think men are still not rewarded for being emotionally intelligent. And so I know that part of the reason I was so vocal about my own miscarriage was that I had a male acquaintance friend who didn't want his, like his partner had miscarried and he didn't want it to come out. I just think any kind of blanketing of things that happen in our life is unhealthy. Like maybe there's someone who's listening right now who can think of something that, you know, is private things in our lives that should remain private. Poo. Yumi Talking about poo at dinner table. Yes. Okay. Yes, that's true. I think talk about poo with people that love to talk to you about poo, but not at dinner. Jessie Yeah, just not at dinner. Not at dinner. Yeah, yeah. But on the whole, like everything about life, especially the most private things should be aired out. Yumi After the miscarriage, Jessie started trying for a baby again, pretty much straight away. Because Jessie I'm an insecure high achiever. Yumi You're such an Asian. So is that the only reason why? Was the clock ticking as well? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Jessie I was like almost approaching 37, I guess. And with each month, I was just thinking, my chances, biologically speaking, are getting Yumi lower and lower. How did it feel to want this thing so desperately, but not be able to control the outcome? Jessie It can drive you mad. And I think it drove me mad. Yeah. It was one of the most challenging things I had to negotiate psychically, just to come to terms with, this may not actually happen for me ever. Wow. To try and accept that, I think was a giant leap for me. And I really pursued that line of thought every day. Because in my 20s, when I was really struggling to find a male partner who I could see being with, and who respected me as an equal, like I struggled real hard to be in a healthy relationship. And I remember during that time struggling in dating, just thinking, this might not actually happen. Yeah. Like I might just be alone for the rest of my life. And to try and just think, that is okay. It's a huge psychological, emotional endeavour, I guess. With this whole baby making process. This is completely out of my control. You have some news. I'm currently pregnant. Yes. Yumi Congratulations. Jessie Thank you. How are you feeling about it? I'm in my second trimester now. Okay. But the first trimester was harrowing and unpleasant. A lot of crying for absolutely no reason. A lot of inexplicable emotions, highs and lows. The crying would come in the oddest moments. And I couldn't explain it. And I think I was maybe grieving the life that I was going to now no longer have because of this impending baby about to come out into the world. Yeah. And I felt so bad because I know how much I wanted this baby. Like, I just kept thinking I should be elated and that's it. I should only have this one side of emotion. Yeah. Because I had been on the other side of not being pregnant and known and being so jealous of women who were pregnant. And then for me to be pregnant and then not being grateful for it, I felt I was somehow morally corrupt or I wasn't being fair to God. Like, I'm not a believer, but I was like, why am I not grateful? Yumi Jessie spoke to a midwife about that guilt and was told that it is really common to feel guilty and something that a lot of pregnant people go through. It's like, fuck, I wanted this for so long, but I'm also feeling terrible all the time. And it sucks. Jessie We're meant to be just grateful. We're just meant to be ecstatic and excited. I think the excitement is coming now only because the nausea has faded a bit. But when you're nauseous, like you can't think of anything else. Yeah. It's horrible. Yumi Yeah. Tell me about telling your parents that you were pregnant. Jessie I just said to them very casually one day, oh, my period hasn't come in a week. That's all I said to my parents. And then the next time, because we hang out quite regularly, and the next time I saw them maybe two weeks later, I was like, yeah, it still hasn't come. So I think the implication... Oh, my Yumi God. Are you serious, Jessie? Jessie So I just said, and then by I guess by fourth or fifth week, I was like, I think I'm pregnant. Yumi And how were they reacting? Were they just giving you side eye? Like, OK. Yeah. Yeah. They're very, very understated people. Yeah. They were Jessie just like, OK, cool. It was just like a day by day thing because they knew what had happened in the past to me. So they were like, OK, well, just take care of yourself. Like, I've seen a new side to my dad I've never seen before. He's been so caring. I don't know. He's a man of that generation. And suddenly his youngest daughter is pregnant. And he's like, every time he sees me now, he's like, how's the how are you? How's the baby? How are you? Like, he asks me questions. Whereas like my whole adult life, when I see my dad, like he doesn't ask me questions. Yumi Very undemonstrative people, your parents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you allowed yourself to start making plans for this unborn baby? Jessie The only thing we've done is have casual conversations about names. OK, that's all. Yumi When Jessie was young, she saw her mother's motherhood and marriage as painful and endless servitude. But as she steps into being a mum herself, she sees a future where she gets to keep a hold of who she is. Jessie I'm being a mother in 2025, as opposed to in the 80s. And I won't be a mother of four. I have more resources. I live in a country that has so many wonderful resources for women going through pregnancy and going through a lot of mental health changes in the early years of motherhood. And in a society that is more open about encouraging women to talk about the practice, the state of being a mother. I'm very grateful for all of that. And I am in a relationship where my male partner doesn't believe in gendered roles. So I think it will be different. I hope it will. I hope it will be different. Yumi There is so much in our lives that we want to control but can't. We can't control finding the right person to fall in love with. Although, by God, we can try. We can't control the mysterious moment when a single sperm cell swims up to an egg and in that precise second dives in. Although, we can and do try to control that too. And we certainly can't control the random moment when the heartbeat of a fetus just stops. Jessie too formed a tough shell and a ferocity to cope with the world she grew up in and that served her. But she's learning to surrender control to the unpredictability of this messy life. She's softened into loving a good man. She's softened into letting her parents comfort her. And guess what? The truly awful parts? They were made way more bearable by sharing her pain with other women. So yet again, at the end of another Ladies We Need To Talk episode, I'm thinking about holding my ladies real close. And also staying away from sunsets. I have too many kids for that. You said that you like fighting adversity together with friends. The thing that I want to recommend is extreme bushwalking. What makes it extreme? Well, it's got to be hard. OK. And you need to carry all your shit on your back. Oh, OK. And then you need to camp overnight. And invariably, someone will hurt themselves or fall over or shit their pants. So we're talking about poo now. And then you overcome it together. And then you experience nature and sunsets and like food when you're so hungry. And it's incredible. Do you think that could ever be in your future? I'm not a fan of camping. Yeah, I can see it in your face. As soon as I see it, I was like, oh, she's out. I've Jessie lost it. I've lost Jessie. But everything outside of sleeping on a sleeping bag. Yes. Yumi I'll get I'll convert you. I'll drag you into my car. This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gundungurra and Gadigal peoples. Ladies, We Need To Talk is mixed by Ann-Marie de Bettencor. This episode was produced by Elsa Silberstein and Katie O'Neill. Supervising producer is Tamar Cranswick and our executive producer is Alex Lollback. This series was created by Claudine Ryan.
ABC News
02-06-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Botox and fillers – facing up to the new normal
Yumi Hey ladies, before we start, I want to ask you a favour. We're looking for feedback. I'd love to know what you think about Ladies, We Need To Talk and the sorts of things you want to hear about more on our show. What do you love? What topics are close to your heart? What things have we missed? And what would you love to hear less of? We've posted a survey on the Ladies, We Need To Talk website and in the show notes of the episode that you're listening to right now. If you could fill it out, it will help us to understand you more and help us to fashion the best possible episodes in future. Please take five minutes out of your day to fill out the survey. You'll be helping our show to be more your show. It's completely anonymous, so you can be brutally honest. Just don't say you love me because it'll make me cry. And thank you. Clinician So we'll probably need at least 30 units, but we'll see how we go. Should I take that personally? Yumi This is a friend of Ladies We Need To Talk who wishes to remain unnamed. She's at her local clinic getting a cheeky little bit of Botox. It's 9am on a workday. Clinician These ones can hurt a little bit because it's right where the nerve runs. But it only hurts for a second, as you can attest. OK, frown again. Now I'm doing the right side of the same corrugated muscle. Relax. So again, two injections on the right side. Anonymous friend Oof, that one hurt more. Clinician Yeah, that's right on the nerve. Yumi Just like women go to the hairdresser to get their regrowth covered, more of us are turning to injectables and other treatments than ever before. And just like covering your grey, it is about looking younger. Clinician And now I'm going to do the crow's feet. Just relax for me into a muscle called ubicularis oris. And that's the one... Yumi These treatments are really accessible. Our nameless friend got her face Botoxed and was back at her desk by 10am after handing over a not insignificant amount of money as tribute. So why are more women getting tweakments? And what motivates us to alter our faces? Polly I don't want to be an old lady and I don't want to look like an old lady. Sam I don't want to look 20 or 30 as a 40 year old. I just want to look good for a 40 year old. Jasmine If you're seeing a lot of the same faces and people are also then liking and commenting on those faces on social media, kind of endorsing those beauty ideals, then people can take them on and then also make comparisons. Polly I'd say probably 75% of my girlfriends would be getting tweaks. There is a teardrop shape to all my girlfriend's faces that I can see that's similar. So our faces start to look alike. Sam When you see young women looking in the mirror and thinking, oh my lips just aren't big enough, my cheeks just aren't big enough, my face doesn't look the way I want it to, I think we have lost a bit of track as to what is normal. Yumi I remember the first time I saw a regular non-famous person who had noticeable filler in her face. This was about 20 years ago at a work lunch and a woman there who worked in PR but was not public facing had lots of filler and an immobile forehead. I was a little transfixed and it was so weird to me at the time. Prior to that I was only ever seeing work on people like Nicole Kidman and Madonna. Yes, we were used to seeing celebrities and wealthy weirdos with blasted skin and implausible lips. But a normie? This was new. Fast forward to now and it feels like every second woman I know is getting Botox or fillers or micro-needling or ablative laser or, or, or, or. And these treatments, or tweakments as they're known, are big business. When we're talking about tweakments we mean anything that's non-surgical for the face. According to APRA, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, we are now spending more than a billion dollars a year on non-surgical treatments and a lot of those are happening from the neck up. It's not just women in middle age and older who are spending big. A recent survey from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery found that almost a quarter of people who got Botox around the world were between the ages of 18 and 34. And hey, no judgement here if you get face stuff done or not. We're just interested in what is pushing us to push clinicians to push needles into our faces. I'm Yumi Stynes, ladies. We need to talk about whether tweakments are the new normal. Sam I started having these injections at 19. Yumi Sam is a working mum of three living on the Gold Coast and at 40 years old has now been having tweakments for over two decades. The first time she got Botox as a teenager was to treat her migraines. Sam The wonderful side effect was that I really liked what it did for my appearance. I did notice that the expression lines on my forehead were really reduced and I liked it. And I thought, oh, OK, I want to see what that does. Yumi Happy with this smoothing side effect, Sam started getting Botox around her eyes as well and then gradually in other areas of her face as she got a little older. Sam And now I have a significant amount of treatment that has nothing to do with headaches. So when did you start getting filler? Um, mid-20s, I got filler around my lips for the first time. My partner, who is now my husband, didn't even notice. Perfect. That's always been my approach. So really soft, gentle little enhancements that kind of just push that age line back a little bit without going, oh, I can see your lips from across the street. Yumi Yeah. Sam It's terrifying. Yumi After a lip tweak, Sam started getting filler in other parts of her face too. Sam I have had filler over the years in my jawline, in my temples and in my nasolabial folds. Not all at once at different times. Another treatment that I get is something called Profhilo, which is injected into the face as a regenerative type product. It's not a filler, but it regenerates the skin and the tissue. Yumi When you first started choosing to do these treatments for beauty reasons, did you sort of have a threshold where you're like, okay, I will stop at X or I won't go beyond Y? Sam I think that that's an ever evolving, I guess, finish line. Because as you age, you have to have treatments that are age appropriate. Also, as you gain and lose weight, having had two pregnancies, you know, your face changes as you age. So I think for me, it was about having really considered discussions with the practitioner that was working on me and taking advice and really looking to make sure that I looked like me. They wasn't changing my appearance, that I was simply softening things or even preventing things. I don't like it when people don't look like themselves. And I don't like it when you can tell that people who had work done. If someone who knows me sees me and thinks, oh, oh, you look different. That is the line. That's one I've always been really aware of, is wanting to look natural and like myself. Yumi Sam lives in a part of the world where a specific and highly curated look has become the norm among some people. Now, I know this look. I see it in my feet and when I'm walking down the street. It's almost like there's a very short catalogue of the perfect face that women are choosing from. Big lips, straight, narrow nose and glossy skin. And they somehow end up looking the same, like tweakment Barbies. Sam There is a uniform on the Gold Coast right now. It is tiny little gym shorts that are high-waisted. It is a matching bra crop top. They have to be pastel, apparently. No other clothing is to be worn except for high ribbed socks and runners with a very tight ponytail and your face must be completely overdone. I feel like half of the Gold Coast has dysmorphia and we've lost track of what's normal. Yumi But what is normal? It used to be normal to watch older women wrinkle and sag and quote, look their age. Now we're living in a new normal where a 20-year-old gets so-called preventative Botox and a 50-year-old has a face as smooth as the skin on my custard. But how the hell did we get here to this tweakment heavy normal? And will the quest for perfection ever stop? Jasmine Social media use is linked to interest in cosmetic surgery and dissatisfaction with appearance and dissatisfaction with facial appearances. Yumi Dr Jasmine Fardouly is a psychologist and expert in body image and social media from the University of Sydney. She says the rise in social media means that we're now more focused on our faces than ever. Jasmine Before social media, a lot of the places where people consumed images and actually were faced with beauty ideals was in magazines and television. And a lot of the research in body image was really focused on weight and shape. When social media became popular, it also was at the same time that we had smartphones and cameras on our smartphones and then selfies became popular. And that meant that there are a lot more portrait images and a lot more images of people's faces on social media. Yumi As the focus has zoomed in on our faces, Jasmine says that unsurprisingly, we have become more critical of how our own faces compare. Jasmine And then Instagram brought in filters where people could very easily change their facial features to match a beauty ideal. Yumi Even though filters aren't real life, we can't help but compare ourselves. And research has shown that the use of filters is connected to an increase in cosmetic procedures. Jasmine If you're seeing a lot of the same faces and people are also then liking and commenting on those faces on social media, kind of endorsing those beauty ideals, those facial ideals, then people can take them on and then also make comparisons to the people in those images, judge themselves to be worse. And it's kind of like these processes that can make these filters have a negative impact on how people feel about their faces and their appearance generally. Yumi Wow. So where once we used to be quite fixated on our bodies, it's now much more about the face. Jasmine It's still about the bodies, but we're exposed to more faces. And there is a trend in the literature showing that facial satisfaction does seem to be really important to consider with social media. So there potentially is a bit more of a shift to facial beauty ideals since social media was created. Yumi That's fascinating. And the idea of filters is fascinating because it's not like you really engage or care that much about what filter you use. You just whack on a filter and then suddenly you're immersed in this sort of way of thinking about your own face. Jasmine In some filters, you can just press a button and then there's of course, there's other apps like Facetune where you can put more specific focus on aspects that you want to change. But the ease with which these filters are available is an important thing to consider. And I think that's why it's also so widely used. Yumi And Jasmine, what does the current beauty ideal that filters can help create? What does that look like? Jasmine Generally, in our research, we find that kind of the ideal face has larger eyes, a smaller nose, sometimes straighter nose, larger lips, less wrinkles, clear complexion. There is some research suggesting there's like Eurocentric beauty ideals and Western standards and lighter skin. Yumi Do you think we're more dissatisfied than we used to be with how we look? Jasmine So there is maybe some evidence that we're more dissatisfied with how we look, but it has been a problem for a very long time. It is not a new problem. And the reasons it's harmful is similar. I come back to the same two things that ideals are really specific and unattainable and the pressure people put on appearance is being important for them. That has been the same for a long time. But with social media, we're just exposed to so many more faces, so many more people's match these beauty ideals, just the sheer volume. And then of course, there's all the context, there's the comments and the likes and all of that, which can really emphasize that as well. Yumi Okay, so let me just say this back to you. If you're seeing a sea of beautiful looking unattainable faces, you feel like that's quite normal and you fit, you're outside of this population as an outlier or an ugly person. Jasmine Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of comparison aspect of it. You think that most people look more attractive than you, whereas it's not the same when you go offline. Yeah, so we've got studies that have shown that as well. In person, they're more varied. So some people might think that others look more attractive than them, but some are similar and some might be perceived as less attractive. On social media, because people do present this most attractive version of themselves, research shows that most of the time people think other people look more attractive than them and particularly in regard to facial appearance. Polly I don't want to be an old lady and I don't want to look like an old lady. Yumi This is Polly. She's 62 and started getting Botox when she was 47. Polly So when I first went, I said to the doctor, I just want to feel fresher. And I was single, nearly single. And I wanted a boost to confidence and maybe a boost to fun and a boost to there's still life in me yet. And maybe it was a preparation. It was a part of the mating game. I don't know. I haven't thought about that. Yumi Well, let's unpack that a bit, Polly, because you mentioned being single in the absolute same sentence as starting to get things done. Yeah, maybe. So surely that must play. Polly It must. I didn't think very much about beauty when I was a lot younger. I had a mum who never thought about beauty. She was almost a natural feminist, didn't shave her legs, didn't shave her underarms, didn't even think about it, never wore makeup. I actually thought I was a really hairy person until I was about 21 and understood that everybody else shaved their legs, shaved their bikini lines. I didn't even know that. I didn't know that. Yumi So how, Polly, did we get from this young girl and a young mum to here where you're in the studio looking at me to talk about tweakments? Polly I don't get tweakments to be beautiful. I don't feel like any miracle is going to suddenly make me. And why would I suddenly look beautiful at my age in my early 60s? That's not even what I'm trying to achieve. I just get a little tweaky bit of Botox to stop frowning. Since I was a little girl, people, my mum used to say, stop frowning, stop frowning, stop frowning. I, even in all the way through my professional life, people would say to me, oh, you know, she's really scary. You know, those people are intimidated by you. And I think intimidated by me. Yumi You've said that you've never traded on your beauty. And I believe you. I know exactly what you mean. But can you be a woman in the world, age 60, age 16, without sort of needing to care about your face and how you look? Polly No, probably not. If I stopped caring, I'd stop caring about a lot of things, wouldn't I? You know, caring about your face and caring about how you present yourself to the world is part of, it's still part of my work. It's still part of showing up for my kids. It's part of showing up for my friends. Yumi The clinic that Polly has been going to for the last 15 years is chic. It's well lit. There's champagne if you want it. It's like a high-end day spa. She's been seeing the same doctor the whole time whom she trusts implicitly. Polly A lot of people, I think, go to clinicians and say, do this, do that. I never have. I don't talk to the hairdresser either. I say, you tell me. And the first thing she said is, well, how do you feel about your jawline? Because I think it's the first sign of ageing. And I said, I hate my jowls. I've always felt a bit jowly here. And she said, no, well, that's, you know, we can do something about that. And I was thrilled when I first, I can really feel when that starts to wear off the jowl line. People never talk about that, but I can really feel that. Yumi You're making me self-conscious. You haven't got any jowls. Touching it. Not yet. So she's looking at you while you're talking and she's politely sussing out your face. It's hard to be objective about your own face. So Polly has an agreement with her squad. Polly I have a pact with my girlfriends. There's no point in, you know, we have a pact. We have the same pact about clothes with my closest girlfriends. If you see me wearing something that I look terrible in, say, not really working for you. But when it comes to Botox or fillers, it was like no point saying just after I've had it done that it looks ridiculous. But just before I tell you I'm going again, that's the time to say don't do it again. I don't know if this is a common thing in aging. Maybe it is. My girlfriends and I, we go out to dinner and I'll see somebody my age, so another 62 year old, and I'll think, you know, we don't look like that. And then I look at us and think, of course we do. Of course we do. We must look exactly like they do. Because I totally get that old story of you walk past the mirror and you go, who is that person? Because I want my face and my clothes and the way I present myself to the world. To match what I feel on the inside. Yumi Yeah. Why don't we want to be seen as old ladies? Polly Because I'd probably fight just as hard against the image that an old lady that I should be sitting at home on my couch watching telly with a blanket over my knee. So I'm fighting that. That sounds great. Well, if you're watching a good show. Yeah, I think there's a lot of, I guess, it's staying relevant. It's staying part of. Yumi Culture? Polly Part of life. You know, I've got a place here. I'm not going to, maybe it's fighting that too. Fighting this idea that women of our age should be at home now, don't try and do this. Yumi Polly, is looking old connected to death for you? And is Botox about looking more alive? Polly Oh, that's a very interesting question. That may be actually right. Looking more alive may be exactly what I'm trying to do. Looking healthier, looking happier, looking more relaxed, looking more relevant, looking more part of life. I don't know if I associate it with death, but I guess I do associate it with ageing. And I do associate that with death. Yeah, so maybe. Yumi I want you to meet Tingting. When she was growing up, Tingting considered herself pretty. But as the child of Chinese immigrant parents, she was more focused on her studies than her face. Tingting The biggest honour I can give for my family is being that studious, good girl. And being a good girl kind of meant not paying attention to beauty. There's a Chinese saying, it's called 身体发福受之父母, means your body is given by your parents and hence, like you should take care of yourself. Yumi Taking care of yourself in this context means not tampering too much with your body, no tattoos, no cosmetic interventions. Trusting what nature and your parents gave you. My mum, who's Japanese, not Chinese, has the same idea. Why muck with what was divinely given to you? But for Tingting, nature didn't necessarily deliver when it came to mainstream beauty standards. I wanted to know what is the conventional look that everybody wants? Tingting White. V-face. Big eyes. Yumi This V-shaped face that Tingting is talking about, with a sharp jawline and defined cheekbones, has become popularised by K-pop stars and is seen as desirable, particularly in Asian cultures. A couple of years ago, Tingting gave up her safe job in engineering to dance to K-pop music on TikTok, where she makes money as an influencer. She soon realised that the better she looked, the more likes and follows she would get. Tingting got Botox for the first time. Tingting And I wanted to have a smaller face. And I've always had this insecurity. And I looked up, it's safe. Then it's like, why not? Yumi After this initial Botox experience, Tingting went to Seoul, the cosmetic capital of the world, with her Korean-born husband and mother-in-law for a glow-up family holiday. Tingting When I went to Korea, I did a little filler. The filler under my eyes is like the most painful thing I've ever experienced. Because your skin is so thin. Oh, yeah. So your skin was like, oh no, what's happening? Yumi So you went to Korea and your souvenir was some face zapping? Tingting Tax-free. Yumi Why was it tax-free? Tingting Because the government is pushing it. Yumi Stop it. Tingting Of course. Yumi What? Tingting And the other thing I did was this salmon sperm. Yumi Salmon sperm? Yeah. Tell us about it. What's salmon sperm? Tingting It plays a similar sort of role where they inject many, many, many, many holes in your skin. And then it's supposed to like activate your skin to be like, hey, we need more collagen. We need to self-generate collagen. So imagine it's just like skincare, but injected into your skin. That's how people sort of see it now. Yumi So tell me about becoming more online, more on TikTok. Has that made you more exposed to K-pop beauty ideals? Tingting For sure. Yumi Right. Tingting For sure. I think maybe 50% of the reason I glowed up like in one year. Yumi Oh, own it. Own it, Ting Ting. You had a glow up, yeah! Tingting Is because I'm creating content around this area. And it's kind of a positive reinforcement. If you're on social media and then you kind of look prettier and then you get the positive feedback and it's useful. Yep. So to grow your audience or just for your own ego boost, I'm not sure. Yumi Can I ask you, do you notice a difference? And I guess by difference, I mean a benefit in how people treat you when you kind of got the polish on. Is it worth it? Is there a payoff? Tingting The biggest benefit isn't from, for me, it's not people treating me different. It's just like me feeling better about myself. Yumi What about being an Asian woman online? Like, does that add an extra layer of pressure? To look pretty? To look perfect? Tingting Yeah, I think the Asian beauty standard is more uniform and more strict. Yumi Even though she's creating this kind of content herself, Tingting knows that it's easy to forget most faces online are probably not as perfect as they seem. Tingting Because what people see on the internet, especially celebrities, they have insanely perfect shape. Flawless, like actually flawless. And it's hard to take into the account that the photos are not perfect. The photos are edited. And when you look at yourself in the mirror, it's very easy to make comparisons with them and feel bad about yourself. Yumi Tingting has noticed a shift in how women talk about altering their faces. Tingting I remember back then when I was in uni, people would refrain from talking about plastic surgery and stuff. But now it's almost like, hey, what are you getting done? Like, what? Oh, really? Like, oh, what do you think about this? Yumi Remember Sam? She's the 40-year-old mum of three who started injectables at 19 years old. Sam has 12-year-old twin girls and wants them to know that a face like hers requires intervention and maintenance. Sam I'm very, very open with my kids about everything that I do in regards to my body and my face, because I want them to understand that it's not normal or natural to look a certain way. I feel like they'd be thinking, well, why don't I look like this or that in the future if I hid that information from them? Yumi Sure, yeah. Sam, you sound really confident about these choices that you've made and you sound happy in your skin and in your body. The next thing that's coming is aging, which really lands, I think, in your 40s and 50s, where you have no control. But there is a universal disapproval of us getting old. Sam Yes. I think ageism is definitely alive and well in our society. And I do also think that there is this kind of lack of respect for women ageing, because men age and we all go, ooh, silver fox. Women age and we go, ugh, old. And we're like, why? That's really unfair. Like, what's going on there? Yumi Would there be consequences if you stopped getting filler and Botox? Sam I mean, yeah. When I was pregnant, in both my pregnancies, I stopped. And then with breastfeeding, I didn't love what I saw. And there was lots of products that I couldn't use during pregnancy and breastfeeding, like a lot of the lasers and a lot of the topical stuff. So my skin quality really was impacted. Yumi So you didn't like it, but do you think there'd be professional consequences or social consequences, or maybe even romantic consequences? Sam No, not at all. I mean, my husband could not care less whether I do it all or don't do it at all. He was kind of quite resistant and a little bit like, what on earth? When I first started kind of divulging the treatments I was having when I was younger. But again, if I stopped doing it all, I can't see him caring at all. There's only so much you can do to make a 40-year-old look 30. And I don't want to look 30. I just don't want to look like an old 40-year-old. Yumi Sam, how open are you with the people around you about the stuff that you've had done? Sam Brutally. I'm really brutally, brutally honest. I think that if you are going to do stuff like this, you have to own it. Otherwise, I'm a little bit worried that you're not actually that convicted about doing it and that you have your own concerns and your own questions that you personally haven't worked through. If it's bringing up feelings of guilt or worry, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. You really have to be on board 100 percent or maybe go back to the drawing board. Yumi How common is this in your friendship group? Like, are all your friends having Botox and filler and needling? Sam I mean, I have friends who have nothing at all. Like, literally not a single thing. And then I have friends who have more than me. And then I think probably most of my friends, I'd say probably 60 to 70 percent of my friends have at least some kind of treatments regularly. Polly I'd say probably 75 percent of my girlfriends would be getting tweaks. Yumi This is Polly again, our 62-year-old tweak veteran. She's seen the transition from tweakments being something that you were super secretive about to it becoming a casual, everyday brunch topic. 15 years ago, her cosmetic doctor had measures to keep the identities of her clients secret. Polly She used to have a back door. She used to have a back door. A back door and once or twice you'd see the celebs. And they spaced out the appointments so people didn't see each other. Right. I've noticed that's changed. Now you can sit in the waiting room with lots of people and we'd just all chat to each other. Yumi This openness also extends to Polly's friendship group. Polly I think that one of the nicest things about all our girlfriend groups is, you know, that's pretty much no judgment, whatever works for you. Yumi But Polly has noticed something else in this group of friends. Polly When you have a bit of Botox shaping your face, there is a teardrop shape to all my girlfriend's faces that I can see that's similar. And that has got to be from years of shaping of our jaw lines. So our faces start to look alike. What? I don't know that anybody else sees it, but when we take a photo of us all, we go, wow, you know, are we starting to look more and more alike, even though we used to look very, very different? Yumi Being candid about the work we do and the expenses we incur to fit in, to look and feel better, that openness seems kind of like an improvement over the past 20 years. No, do not shuffle me out your back door of shame, Dr. Face Zap. But if this new normal means we all look like a more generic version of each other than ourselves, our natural, weathered, sun damaged and uniquely wrinkly selves, then that seems like a bit of a shame. I don't love to think that as we age, we'll all be injected into a uniformity of face like an army of Joan Riverses. Dear God, it's evidence of gendered beauty standards still chasing us, even as we gallop past menopause, past trying to attract a mate and slow down to trot into what is meant to be our tranquil old age. I asked my mom, Yoshiko, who's in her 80s, if she wanted me to take her to get our faces injected with hot burning lasers next time she visited. And she said, why, Yumi, why? And ladies, I didn't have an answer. Hey ladies, we're planning an episode about what happens to your dating life when you decide to ditch the apps. Have you signed yourself up to a running club? Have you started watching men's football? Have you, heaven forbid, started watching male sports? Have you taken up line dancing to find love? Or are you like going out to bars and trying to talk to real people in real life, in real time? We want to hear from you about your experiences. Please send an email or a voice note to ladies@ This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gundungurra and Gadigal peoples. Ladies, We Need To Talk is mixed by Ann-Marie de Bettencor. It's produced by Elsa Silberstein. Supervising producer is Tamar Cranswick and our executive producer is Alex Lolback. This series was created by Claudine Ryan.
ABC News
07-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- ABC News
Women are lonelier than ever. It's putting their health at risk
Sandy recently celebrated her 50th birthday with a glass of champagne, alone. "It was very hard not to be upset," says Sandy, from Brisbane/Meanjin, who asked we don't real her use name. "[I was] also feeling embarrassed and that sense of shame that I'm 50 and I'm at a bar by myself." Sandy's husband had accepted an opportunity to work overseas during the week of her birthday. "Besides my son at home and my son who called me from overseas, no-one really said anything [and] I didn't feel I could ring anyone. " I spent the morning with my dog and my cat. " Despite a picture-perfect marriage from the outside, Sandy says she feels lonelier than ever. And the research shows many women feel the same way, with ABC podcast Ladies, We Need to Talk, considers why, in a hyper-connected world of group chats, and being only a few swipes away from a hook-up, we are lonelier than ever. Photo shows A young woman with dark hair stands behind a succulent house plant in a home with pictures on the wall. Living alone was great until the loneliness kicked in, writes Eleanor Burnard. Loneliness linked to shifts in identity Australia's loneliest demographics are those aged 18 to 24, and 45 to 54. "In Australia, we're predominantly a Western culture, which is quite an individualistic culture and that's pretty terrible for loneliness," says Bella Ingram, a clinical psychologist at the University of Wollongong. Dr Ingram says loneliness often comes about when people are undergoing shifts in identity through life transitions. For Sandy, that's her kids growing up. "I'm at a point now where the boys don't need me very much … I'm sitting here going, what do I do now?" Sign up to the ABC Lifestyle newsletter Get a mid-week boost and receive easy recipes, wellbeing ideas, and home and garden tips in your inbox every Wednesday. You'll also receive a monthly newsletter of our best recipes. Your information is being handled in accordance with the Email address Subscribe Whether it's navigating a career, divorce, perimenopause, illness or empty nesting, there are many life transitions where women may experience loneliness, says Dr Ingram. "A woman who's sort of trying to navigate a career path, for example, and also trying to navigate parenthood, and perhaps [being] a carer for elderly parents as well — there's a lot of roles in there. "Trying to figure out where there's time and space left for social relationships, that often falls by the wayside." Bella Ingram says loneliness has a mortality risk comparable with smoking and "worse than obesity". ( Supplied ) She says women may be asking themselves, "How am I going to progress?" or "What's next for me?" "These questions can really play into our sense of identity, which then can then play into, 'Do I belong?'" Quality not quantity of relationships As her boys have grown older, Sandy has noticed a growing distance with her husband. "He's not someone that shows emotion or will give you a hug, and sometimes I just crave that." She also finds making deeper connections outside of her family, such as close friendships, difficult. "At times I can't figure out why, because I do think I'm pretty easygoing. I'm easy to get along with. I am so social, but for whatever reason, it just hasn't happened." Yumi Stynes speaks to women who might look like they've got it made from the outside but feel like it's a party for one on the inside. Dr Ingram says even when people are surrounded by others, it's the quality of relationships that reduces loneliness, not quantity. "Having shared values, not just kind of hobbies, but actually really being able to connect with someone and walk away from that connection and be like, 'That's my person'." 'How come I don't have that?' While social media can provide connection, for many, it can also be a comparison trap, exacerbating someone's feelings of loneliness, says Dr Ingram. "[That] accessibility of information can be really difficult when it comes to loneliness because … you see something and think, 'How come I don't have that? What am I doing wrong?'" That resonates with Katrina (not her real name), who says being at a different life stage to her peers contributes to her loneliness. The 35-year-old from Sydney/Gadigal Country says most of her friends are married with children, while she is childless and single. " It's one of the loneliest [times] … in my whole life. " Photo shows Unidentified woman with blonde hair sitting on couch with a Jack Russell Terrier. She wears jeans and her cut is out of frame. While childlessness devastates some, not every person who once wanted kids feels crushed when that doesn't eventuate. She says weekends often "end in a cry" when she's home alone with her dogs, while her friends are busy with their families. And even when she does get time with them, she's reminded of what she doesn't have, but wants. "I feel incredibly lonely, even when I'm out with them and they don't have their kids." Katrina says while it's not always smooth sailing with relationships, she would like a partner to share her life with. "Even though I know it might not be great, or they might disappoint the crap out of me, I just want to try it again. "I was in a relationship when I was in my early 20s and then it ended and I've not had a connection with someone like that for a long time, and … I would like that again." Have you ever felt lonely? What helped, if anything? We'd be honoured to hear from you: Loneliness and our health Loneliness is a health issue with a "We know that people who are lonely tend to experience poorer physical and mental health. "Also, it's the people that might also have existing mental health conditions or existing physical health conditions that are more likely to experience loneliness." Dr Ingram says loneliness increases our risk of cardiovascular disease. "When we're lonely, we might be more likely to drink alcohol. We might be more likely to binge eat, to comfort ourselves. And all of these kind of behavioural risk factors … are also really big contributors to heart disease." Loneliness and its connection to alcohol consumption is one reason it's a health risk. ( Pexels ) A big part of Dr Ingram's research is around women's drinking and loneliness. She says women are "These are also the women that are reporting feeling more and more lonely." Dr Ingram says women report using alcohol to "fill a void", which then becomes a habit. If you or anyone you know needs help: One person can't meet all our needs Making connections can be hard and takes "self-compassion and bravery", says Dr Ingram. "It's about persistence, too. Navigating knockbacks can be really tricky — that's a really big barrier to being able to connect with other people." Personally, Dr Ingram gives herself permission not to have a big social network, but a quality one. "I'm going to have different needs met in different places. So I have some needs met with my work relationships. "With my husband, I have a lot of needs met. But he's not interested in talking politics with me, that's for friends. "Then I walk away from those interactions feeling full, feeling valued, feeling recognised, and competent." Katrina is trying to combat her loneliness by enrolling in a course she's interested in, taking boxing classes, and going on dates. Sandy is committing to being more honest about her loneliness, and hopes other women can too. "We don't acknowledge that there is loneliness in the world, and there's loneliness within marriages, and that it's OK to feel that way."
