Mother’s Hour With Carolyn Van Beers – Mum’s Who Have Transformed Their Lives

Hello and a warm welcome to Mother's Hour with me, Carolyn Van Beers, here on Women's Radio Station. I am super excited about today's show. I have two incredible guests with me in the studio, but be prepared to be shocked, amazed and totally inspired. So we all know about becoming a mum. It represents quite a big change in your life. We may have gained a child, but we've also lost a little piece of ourselves. We've lost our freedom, sometimes our career, and we can feel like we're in no man's land. For some, this can be very extreme and very lonely, leading to desperate times. Sound familiar? Well, times that by about a hundred. And you get my special guest today, two incredible mums who have totally transformed their lives. Their stories will definitely inspire you and show you that no matter how dark things may get, life as a mum can be even better than the life you had before. So do get ready to be reinvented, reinvigorated, because motherhood is not the end, it's just the beginning. Ladies, ladies, ladies, welcome, welcome, welcome. First of all, let's go to Lucy Da Silva. Thank you for coming on the show. Lucy had bulimia. She was an alcoholic, a drug addict. She's now a psychotherapist, studying for a master's in psychotherapy, owner of her own company, happy as Larry, and mum to a little girl called Ruby. She's 36. Welcome. Thanks, Carolyn. Thanks for having me on the show. I'm really excited, very excited to have you here. And your story really is absolutely amazing, fascinating. I'm in awe of you. Thank you. My other guest in the studio today is actually a friend of mine, Daniela Dessa, 45. Daniela is an actress and an agent and a mum of three boys. Since having her first child, Dani had weight issues and she suffered quite badly with postnatal depression. And her life was kind of sprawling, a little bit out of control. Then she found something that not only sorted out her weight issues and her depression, but she decided to make that her career. Welcome, Danny. Well, that's a fantastic intro. Thank you very much, Carolyn. I'm very happy to be here. Yes, thank you very much. So, Dani, we're going to start with your story. Describe Daniela before children. Who's Danny? Someone who likes to party, someone who likes to go out, not come home, hopefully come sometimes come home with different people. But, yeah, I was. It was all or nothing, I think. Half Scott, half Serbian, Mum's side and mixed in with that, a little bit of alcohol and Devil's May care. I kind of Wanted to go to an extreme. And that was really where I found sort of the heightened state. And I was kind of all over the place at the same time. I think like most women, you have moments where you get completely out of control and then you sort of rein it right in and you find your feet. And somehow I think kind of there is a pattern with that. With women, you get to a point where you go, I can't do this anymore. So within that I managed to still do things. So, you know, I went to Goldsmiths early on, finished when I was 21, and then went into camera work by accident. Terrible camera operator, really bad. And then got into casting and casting assisting. So that was all going on. But I remember having X Men things and they thought it's related to holding the camera and some of the stuff that they use on the cameras. But I think it was really frustration, deep rooted frustration, not doing what I should have been doing, which was. Which was at the time was definitely acting and still is to a lot of degree. Jonathan Alteraz, if you're listening, get me a job, please. There's no swearing in that. Yeah, so that was definitely an element. And then after that, in between all of that, I was finding my feet, you know. So I ended up casting, working with an amazing American woman at MTV and doing castings. And my mother cried because I took all that money and went to drama college. So she was quite upset about that. So I had. In between all of those moments is sort of finding your feet. Finding your feet. I don't think that's particularly gone. I think I'm always a little bit of a soul search. I'm always kind of looking for the next thing. But you sort of get better at seeing the signs in yourself, don't you, as you kind of develop. So then from there I got into sort of not having kids. I remember meeting lots of guys saying, do you want kids? I was like, no way. That's what my sister does. I want to be an artist, but sort of being a bit derailed. And then I met Dan and then I had kids. So, man of youf Dreams, Dan, how old were you? Of my dreams at the time? If you're listening, that's just for you. No, you. Yeah. Man of my dreams. Well, yeah, it took a year for me to realize he was the man of my dreams. I mean, yeah, I mean, I kind of said no. And he was like, charming. And then I said, leave it on a par. And he said, that's a golfing term. He wasn't Very happy about that. And then a year later, I realized he wasn't nuts and that maybe I should give it a go. And then we got pregnant very quickly. With your first child? Well, no, with miscarriages. And in between that, there were. Obviously, what I was going to kind of link that into the starting of pregnancy was before then. When I was about 28, I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which is basically, you know, a low metabolism, but affects your brain, your memory. I was falling asleep, and exams kind of made. Made it quite apparent where I'd gone wrong in that. In drama, I would fall asleep during productions. Unless I was moving. Unless I was moving, drinking and talking, I would just, like, fall asleep. So I was like, in a car, if I was on the. I was on the floor, furthest gear up a hill. That's the only way I could move. There were no sort of gears in between. Otherwise, I kind of couldn't operate. And I think that's when, like, in motherhood, you get to an extreme before you kind of realize you need to get all the other gears in place. So I got diagnosed, and it takes about a couple of years for that to come into place. But that was quite dramatic. And a lot of frustration came out of that as I got more organized. But that sort of. That. That. That period happened between before Dan. But at the same time, I was working in bars and so on. So when I met him and actually had a kid, I mean, that was sort of, in a weird way, the worst and the best beginning of a kind of change. A new chapter. A new chapter. So let's go now. Okay, so we know Danny before. Now Danny has her first child. Yeah. And you give birth to your first child. Five stone overweight. Five stone overweight. And I was. Gained five stone during your pregnancy? I was. Yeah, I gained a lot of weight. And, you know, it was never apparent to me when I was giving birth that you have to be in a boxing ring ready for a marathon to give birth. I was like, this is all gonna happen. I don't know quite how. And of course, there were complications. There was some rude intervention by doctors saying, oh, oedemia. And I was like, I know those terms. Do you mind not talking about me in the third person? Am I talking to my face? Especially when you've got your hand there. So I kind of got the idea that there was complications. And then 38 hours later, I had an emergency C to get him out, even though he'd been crowning for ages and he was op. Back to front and all this stuff. He came out, found a very long, beautiful sausage and was about £9. And I remember a lovely Jamaican woman saying, you don't want to give birth to a nine pound baby on your first one. So I was like, okay. But the recovery for that was tough. Yeah, I'd taken every drug under the sun during labor, including Pithodin and all sorts of things. I was tripping out. I mean, so I kind of. I'd been to a nightclub by the time I gave birth, but it wasn't. It was. I hadn't danced. It wasn't a real night. I didn't get to dance, so I didn't get to get rid of all the excess fluid. And then. And then, of course, I remember a lovely woman saying to me, you know, don't worry. She came and saw me rolling around with this baby and he wouldn't latch on. And then the milk didn't come in because I'd lost so much blood. One thing after another then I've had five days in hospital trying to get my milk in some woman. Horrible. You know, unfortunately, and I say this nicely about NHS because my mum worked for it for 30 years, but. And she's the one that got me out actually of there. This woman kept saying, why don't you just give him a bottle? Because it would be much easier. You could get out now. And I was like. And then I cried with him on my chest. And of course, that's when the milk comes in, doesn't it? I fell asleep in the contact with the baby. Suddenly I was kind of. There was Milkorama. And we got out and that was Sasha. And then I had to deal with me as this sort of dilapidated carburettor of bits of parts of me that I no longer recognized, and bras that I never recognized, and pants that just looked far too old for my age even then. And I was just like, wow, where am I gonna get back from here? How do I do this? And to be honest, the beginning process of that was the dignity of going to just yoga class. I started at home because I was kind of really overweight. And so I did yin yoga, which helped with a lot of scarring tissue, which I never realized would be so dramatic. Just lying on the floor and holding certain positions, holding certain stretches, rolling on the timing, getting rid of the knots that caused by operations linking your body back up to itself. And it was really. I walked five miles a day with the pram over the hill to Crouch End and went to a yoga class and walked five miles back. And in that time I'd buy lunch or supper, whatever it was. And that process in itself, within a year, and I think pretty much a year and a bit, I'd lost all the weight. Wow. So the. So hang on, let's just rewind a bit. So you had, Sasha, you felt you had postnatal depression. Oh, 100%. But I didn't know it. I was just a new mum who wanted to run. I was like, Jesus Christ. And your relationship, if you've got a relationship with your dad or anything that you haven't dealt with in your life, it comes up, like, 100% nodding, you know, I think, you know, just stuff comes. I've tried to warn my friend of this, where she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay. Okay. Which is fine. But if you're not, it's okay to be honest about not coping. And I think a lot of issues came up about abandonment or my dad not really being there, my mum and dad having a horrendous, maybe divorce at some point. And I think issues come up. So because you're so sensitive, because you're new, you're in this new past, you're right, you've come through this tunnel into motherhood and everyone keeps going, call you Mummy in hospital. And you're like, I really do know I've just had my body ripped apart. I do know that I'm a mum. It's funny. It's not like something I've found in my handbag. Oh, there's a baby. So that's weird. They're like, mummy, Mummy's not well today. And I'm like, my name's Danny. No, I'm not. Mummy has postpartum blues. I'm like, okay. I feel like Craig David, stop talking about me in the third person. This is Mummy's house. This is Mummy's bag. This is Mummy's husband. This is Mummy walking out of the hospital, away from you. So, yeah, okay, that's absolutely brilliant, Danny. So we've just started with after your first child, and we're going to come back to you in a few moments and carry on your journey and look at what you actually found and how you made it your career. We're also going to be talking to Lucy da Silva a little bit later in the show as well, and finding out her incredible, incredible journey. Do stay with us. We're talking on Mother's Hour to two incredible mums and telling their true story. We'll be back just after this short break. Welcome to Women's Radio Station. I'm Sarah Louise Ryan and welcome to Love Lessons live on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to future Classic Women Awards with me Stefania Passamonte on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to Julie Mae is Listening. Hi, this is Anna Kennedy and we're at Women's Radio Station supporting Women, Women's well being and we're talking all things autism women. The possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Falguni Desai of Action Coach. Are you a business owner with more than five employees? Do you want to grow your business? I'm a London based business coach who helps small and medium sized businesses to grow and make a profit. I will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses in your business and then work with you to improve it using a structured framework. To find out more, contact me on 072-16-54640 and book your one hour complimentary one to one coaching session. Thank you. Hi, I'm Tracey Weeden of Brownhill Insurance Group. We are an award winning family run insurance broker covering a wide range of insurance products ranging from commercial lines to personal household, high net worth and fine art. You can contact us on 0208-658-4334 or visit our website www.brownhillgroup.co.uk for your free no obligation quotation at Brownhills. We've got you covered. Hi, I'm Hazel Butterfield, a blogger, book lover and mental health advocate and you can listen to my show get booked here at Women's Radio station daily at 5am and 5pm throughout my shows we'll talk about the books I've read, new releases, chapter authors, publishers and book enthusiasts, all with a theme and aim of supporting women's emotional well being. If you have a book to tell us about, get in touch@presentersomensradiostation.com join me on my show and share my love of books and writing. Hi, I'm Valentina Barbacci and I'm the Executive Director of Media Matters for Women. We're a registered charity operating in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo and we produce and share podcasts via Bluetooth on mobile phones focusing specifically on women and girls excluded from information due to extreme poverty. We empower those living in rural areas with media that transforms how they access, own and share information. To find out more and be part of this movement, come check out our website@mediamattersforwomen.org you're listening to women's radio stations, supporting women's well being. Women's Radio Station's creating a global network for the empowerment of women and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter @WomensRadio station. That's WomensRadio stn or Facebook. Women's Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programs. Welcome back to Mother's Hour with me, Carolyn Ranbiers here on Women's Radio Station. We are talking today to two incredible mums. They're telling us a very honest journey that they've been on, an inspirational journey, I would call it. And I'm very honoured to have you with us. I've got Lucy and Danny, but we're just doing Danny's story. So just to recap, Danny, you've had your first child. You got quite bad postnatal depression. You'd gained five stone in weight gradually, and you started doing yoga. Yeah, I mean, I think what I did was the only place that I could have any time for myself was this space called yoga, where I lost my personality, where the klutzy me, the one that could control anything, suddenly had control, suddenly had space and had dignity. So yoga gave you control? Back in the day, 100%. Looking in the mirror and standing poised like a ballerina, even though I wasn't one, gave me a sense of dignity against the kind of characters that you can be hooked by, by your family or by anyone else. Not blaming anyone. But, you know, we all know there's types. We've all been through different jobs. I mean, I did a barmaid. As soon as they started calling me barmaid Danny, I was like, I'm out of here. Because, you know, you get a Persona, so you carry all these Personas, then you have the mum Persona, which is so heavy and so in your mind every moment. Do they need the loo? Have they got milk? I mean, right now I'm thinking, did she get the nappies this morning when she took the kids in? Because we've run out. So, you know, you've got this constant thing that never leaves, which is fine, you know, but it's part of being a mum. So in this space, I could just be no one. And in a way, you know, if you get onto a deeper level, you know, could just be the spirit that you are without anyone else telling you what you are are. By standing a certain way. I mean, drama helped. Having done character work, I was always interested in the way people walked sat, what that told you about their character. So you did character parts. So, you know, that comes into yoga. Being very still, doing very simple postures with dignity. So what did you do with your baby when you were doing the yoga? Got rid of him? Just. Just gave him away to. No, I put him in a creche. Okay. So the only way to do that at the beginning, and this is the hard and amazing thing about women, I think, is the dynamism of realizing you need to do something, trying to find help, and then finding it somehow, you know, and that was a lot of us don't. Don't do that, do we? Well, I think. I don't know that you did. Yeah. Was yours. I had to savior, wasn't it? Yeah. I had to find. I was not in. I needed help, and I did get postnatal help. I did go and have some antidepressants, which personally didn't really work for me because I felt nothing. And for me to feel nothing is so scary. I'd rather be angry or happy or sad than lithium of nothing, which is fine. Nothing against lithium for anyone who takes it, but it doesn't work. It didn't work for me. I took it for like four days and hated it. So I didn't give it enough time. But I. But the yoga, just having this repetition and this one routine for an hour. I put him in the creche at Virgin Active. So they had a creche there. Got to know them all there. They'd even run in saying, you've baby's thrown up, but you'd just be at the end of your class. So you just about make it. So you make it through your class and he's in the building. You know, it's an amazing umbilical cord of the child's in the building, so you don't feel so bad. And I really. That's Virgin act, who was amazing. I did 10 years, really, between off and on with them. As gyms go, I think there are amazing ways for women to start getting into what kind of workout they want. I personally didn't want somebody shouting at me because I shout at people and at my children. So I didn't want to go in a room with someone shouting at me on a bike. I had to go somewhere. It's calm. Women might like the adrenaline of that. So everyone likes different things. But yoga was really it for me. Yeah. So yoga is definitely bringing you in a new space, giving you your dignity. I love the sound of that. What does it do for you physically? Well, physically it was quite. I mean, I've written This recently because I'm applying for a new job at Triogo as a hot teacher trainer, and I kind of have to always remember this. So the checklist really for me was hypothyroidism. It stopped the pain in my legs. I had had, you know, varicose vein operation when I was 21, before I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. It got rid of all the pain. My arches started to lift. My legs got really strong. They got far more dynamic. I could stand for much longer, which I used to hate. And sort of dynamically, my body came into much more of a structural position. Obviously, after birth, you get a lumbar curve, an extreme lumber curve. So it helps to reinitiate that. Also, if you're prone to depression, your front ribs slightly collapse, you can sometimes be chopping onions and you're kind of leaning over and you're not even aware how much that's giving you a feeling of sadness. And then in the back of the neck. So once you start to know your checklist, you. You recalibrate your body into its proper line. And once you start to do that, it will affect your body. So I have people now that I teach, and I see them get upset and men as well, when they suddenly stand properly, they go, you know, I haven't been here since 1973. It's amazing how just stacking the body without your personality can have quite a revolutionary effect on your. Yeah. State of being. And then it's hard to keep that going in everything else. When I saw you after your second child and I'd had my triplets, were about two or three. Yeah. You came to stay with us. You remember? Yeah, you and Dan. And I'd known you as a much bigger girl and you'd had two children. You were slim. You stood so upright and so I hardly recognize you. It was like, what have you done? And you went, yoga, baby. Yoga. I mean, yoga was just. You just couldn't stop saying how, you know, it was your real thing, your real driving force. Yeah. I think it's really important for women to, like, wherever you've got to, to the point of having kids or not having kids, or even wherever you're at in your 30s, 20s, not so much. Obviously, we're still exploring the world. Your Persona. You seem to think, who am I? What is my character? Who am I? This is my Persona. And the nice thing about yoga is it's like standing tall in a mirror when you try on something that you really like. And it kind of gives you a Dignity. And you sort of go, is this who I really am? So it's knowing that you can evolve, I think is so important in depression and in having kids. Knowing that it's not the end point, that from now on it's just a case of making dinners. You know, there is some element of evolution even in yourself as a person. So I personally do say to people, like, I'm really glad I had kids because I got much better figure afterwards than I had before, you know, And I feel much happier all round. And in small things in life, going out, having a drink with a friend is amazing. Like your good self. Although it's always amazing, but it's fantastic. It's heightened because of the amount of energy the engine of looking after kids is involved in the truckload of that. So I did it three or four times a week. I had to do three or four times a week. Yeah, I do Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So I was very old fashioned, got really into a rhythm so that I was no longer looking at it. I was depressed, I'd go. If something had happened, I'd still go. If I had a huge argument, I'd still go. So it became my metronome to sanity. And it wasn't so needy needy, but I just needed it as this friend that allowed me to escape. And that really became like the hook, you know, the close hook for my sense of change. And then I. Somewhere in that, after 10 years of Ashtanga and then in between the boys, I was like, okay, am I always going to be a pupil? I want to learn more. I want to give back now. That was my next question. So when did you decide? Yeah, yeah, when did I decide that to become a new teacher, to me, everything takes me a long time. I'm very old fashioned like that. It takes me a long time to actually change. And at the moment I'm losing everything all the time. So I feel like I'm changing but I'm not letting go. Falling on my ankles. And they always say that's sign of change falling over. That's just the drink, love. That's just the alcohol between breakfast. No, but yeah. When, when was that changed? So 2000, my dad died. Okay, right. So my dad died in the middle of all that. My best buddy, the nice guy. My mum's delicious as well. Love her. Love you, Mikey. Anyway, but dad dying was quite prolific in two ways. Because it allowed me the income to make the decision. Because he left some cash, I made sure he left some cash. There's a whole story behind that. With his second marriage and out in Manila. So there was a big thing of going out there to try and see him before he died. It was really, really vicious. And the one thing that was on my mind when I came back because I felt myself going was that I needed to invest in teaching. So I went to try yoga and did the two and a half year training there. Two and a half years? Yeah. But you with kids it's not six weeks and go. I don't think, no offense, I don't think it ever can be because the amount you have to read, you know, so it's every third week. So you have all this reading and then you come in. So you can do it with kids. Do you know what I mean? So it's a longer process. So are you qualified? Yeah, yeah, I qualified in 2016 and I teach tri yoga scarabelle inspired at home one to ones if you want to come. You can get that details down to that in a minute. Anyway. No, I let her do that. But yeah. So I teach from home one to ones and then now I just trained as a hot yoga teacher to teach at tri yoga, hopefully those classes because that was revolutionary. The hot yoga was another whole other level of yoga training that really kind of detoxed and kind of took me somewhere nutsly good. Wow. So I really, I really benefited from that. Okay, in a nutshell, what's. What's the difference who should do what? What should you start? Okay, well look, I mean I would actually yeah. If I was programming someone, I'd say it depends on their character when they come in. Vata, pitta, whatever. You know, getting an idea of somebody bespokely on a one to one is really important. But for me coming out something quite car crashy, if you come out of a car crash, you kind of cesarean scenario. I would suggest Yin yoga. You can get Simon low cassettes and CDs and obviously now app free. Actually his app is free on Yin. I've got it on my phone. I use it with some of my clients who are older as well. So that's Yin Yin Yoga Y I N And that's really good for restoring the body from some scara, from scarring tissue, from shock. So once you come through the shock of labor, which it is for a woman, and then obviously the rehabilitation of your body back into its skeletal form. Yin's a great way to go. Which is good for say weight loss. So. Well, they're all great. Weirdly enough, Yin because it works on your digestive tract and it Realigns your digestive tract, so certain positions like twists are flushing out your intestines and your kidneys and everything else at the same your spleen. By that, they're reinvigorating the body with the proper hormones as well. You get proteoglycans into your muscles from moving them around, which is all in your spine. All of those things are endorphins, so they give you an endorphin that also helps your metabolism and restabilise. So even being still in yoga, which my mum loves because she doesn't like moving. Can I lie down? Yes, you can. You're doing something. It's quite active. But obviously then combined with kind of cardio of walking, I can't recommend walking enough. You don't have to run. No woman wants to run with her bra full of breast pads. Walking, walking, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. And do one class. Wow. Well, that's an incredible journey, Danny, and we're going to come back to you in a couple of minutes and just talk about what the top tips are that you could possibly give some someone who wants to start doing that. We're also going to be looking at Lucy's story, which is shocking. Incredible. We'll be back in a couple of minutes. Welcome to the Women's Radio station supporting women's well being. Women's Radio Station is all about diversity from opinions, career, ethnicity, education and most importantly, women's well being. We aim to see celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. Visit our website womensradiostation.com for more information. Hi, I'm Liz Van Linden, the UK travel consultant for Hazelmere Travel. People come to me as they want unique experiences and a personalised service. This happens from the moment that they inquire till they come back home. I work with luxury tour operators. You can contact me on 078-254-4122 and Liz spelt L I S at hazazelmaertravel.co.uk I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone. Many women want to be smarter with their cash, but just don't know where to start. @empowerandenrich.org you will find a host of options to help you take charge of your finances and learn how to put your money to work for you in an easy, affordable way. Get in touch with me@empowerandenrich.org and let's change your future together. Hi, I'm Carolyn Van Beers. Please join me for a brand new show here on women's radio station Its Mother's Hour. If, like me, you're a mum juggling far too many balls and dropping most of them, this is definitely the show for you. We'll examine the highs and lows of motherhood and make sure you laugh out loud as we take on this challenging role together with spoonfuls of advice, incredible stories. It will be refreshing, honest and funny. Look at being a mum. Are you struggling with money? Turn to us as a national charity helping people struggling to make ends meet. Job loss, illness or bereavement can cause a real financial crisis. We give practical help to get people back on track. Whether you're thinking of having a baby, trying to get out of an unhappy relationship, or just unsure what benefits you may be entitled to, we can help. Visit turntous.org.uk welcome to the women's Radio station supporting women's well being. Women's radio station can give voice to your brand. With a wide range of sponsorship opportunities, including individual programs, we can tailor your experience for you. For more information on how you can sponsor a Show, go to womensradiostation.com Women's radio station supporting women's well being. Welcome back to Mother Dao with me, Carolyn Van Beers, here on women's radio station Station. Thanks for staying with us. We are looking at two really inspirational stories from mums and we're just about to meet Lucy Da Silva, whose story really is incredible. But it starts a bit earlier than Danny's. Danny's kind of. We started from when you had your first child. In fact, you were 15 years old and you actually left home. I was very young to leave home, yeah. What happened? Yeah, well, growing up, I went through some really traumatic times. Actually. I experienced a lot of abuse as a child and when I was coming to the end of being at school, I was doing my GCSEs and as a result of the stuff that I'd been through when I was younger, it affected my studying and I didn't do very well at my GCSEs. And so I actually left home when I was just 16, when I just left school. So, you know, still really, really young, but I didn't really have much of a choice in it. I was almost. I was pretty much forced to leave. But on the flip side, because of everything that had happened, it was an Opportunity for me to just be free from, you know, all the stuff that I'd experienced. So it was. It was really hard. But in another way, it was the best thing for me to do. When I look back now. Where did you live? Well, it is. So I had been living with my parents, but they moved out and, in fact, left me and my sister in a house on our own. So, yeah, it's pretty bad. So we were kind of left to just fend for ourselves. And I didn't know what to do with myself, with my life. I didn't know where to go. You know, I hadn't had the opportunity to go to college because I hadn't gained the GCSEs that I wanted. I'm. And I'm a trained singer, so I wanted to. I wanted to go on to study performing arts, and I wanted to take that as a career forward. And what I had to do was go and find a job, which, you know, to survive. To survive, yeah. To buy food and to pay for electricity and to pay for this. For, you know, this stuff that I'd never been educated how to, you know, look after myself. And all of a sudden, I was on my own. Well, with my sister. How old is your sister? She's a year older than me. So there's just. You two? Yeah, yeah. Two kids living in a house on our own. My goodness me. So things started to spiral out of control a little bit for you and particularly your weight. Yeah. So I think that was kind of like a. So as a result of having some of my freedom, I was. Then there wasn't someone watching me all the time, and I wasn't being. I wasn't frightened of. Of everything I was doing. So I, as an almost sticking two fingers up, you know, at my upbringing was, well, I can eat whatever I want, so that's what I'm gonna do. And. And I did. And I developed a binge eating disorder. I would eat so much food, and as a result of that, obviously gained a hell of a lot of weight. So in my teen years, I was size 16 to 18, I would say, so three or four stone bigger than what I am now. Yeah. So. And now I can look back and realize that a lot of that was an opportunity to mask how I was feeling because of, obviously, what had happened to me growing up. And also, like I was saying, that sense of freedom, you know, I can do what I want, so this is what I'm gonna do. And then, obviously, the drinking came in, and bulimia is a sense of trying to take control when you're feeling a little bit out of control, but you don't quite realize, because it's like, I can do this. It's mine. This is my own thing, isn't it? That's exactly what it was. I mean, at that point, it was just the binging, so I hadn't quite got to the point of purging, so it was just the food intake at that point. Bulimia came a bit later on, in my early 20s. Oh, wow. Okay. So you were just gaining weight? I was just. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't actually, you know, making myself sick at that point. Okay, and then you start drinking, both you and your sister? Well, my sister, she's always had a bit of a. More. More of a handle on her substance use. She experimented like I did, but I guess I've always been a lot more emotional, emotionally vulnerable as well. And when I picked up a drink, it was. It gave me this sense of. It numbed everything for me. And it was. It was this solution that I'd been looking for. So when I started drinking, it was just. I felt like I'd found the holy grail. Like, this was. This was my future. This is what I needed to do. And because I was so vulnerable emotionally, you know, it took hold really, really quickly. And. But I do look back at my drinking now, and I do realize, you know, there were a lot of times. Times that I had a lot of fun and I did really enjoy myself, but it got out of control really quickly. So how old are we now? We're drinking. How much are you drinking and how old are you? So early 20s. I was binge drinking. A lot of it was recreational. But then when the drugs came into. All got completely out of control and morning drinking started, and, you know, the job. Any job I had. Okay, rewind, rewind. Okay, so you're eating loads still. You are drinking now. What are you drinking? Are you drinking beer? Are you drinking vodka? Anything I could get my hands on. Okay, and are you going out every night of the week? Mostly, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I would go to work, and it would be literally money in my hand and then money out my hand. That. That week, you know, all my money went on alcohol, drugs, and food. That's. That's all I had. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And bulimia. So I didn't start the process of bulimia until I was about 22, 23. I was. I went to the doctors and the doctors because my periods are stopped, and the doctor said I had Some issues with my ovaries and. And I was like, well, what do I do? And he said, well, they could. There were cysts on my ovaries and he said they could burn them off, but that could damage your fallopian tubes. If you want to have children's, that might not be recommended. Or you can take control of your diet. Because I was really big at that point and, you know, my mind went, ooh, you know, let's try bulimia. And very, very quickly I went from a size 16 down to a size 8 to 10 within about 8 months, 9 months. I was seriously unwell and still drinking. Still drinking. But the kind of. The. What gave me a boost from doing that was because I lost weight so, so quickly. All of a sudden all these men were interested in me and it was like. And that is another, you know, to feel wanted by a man is what I wanted as well. And so then to be, you know, a big girl who didn't have any self confidence, to then be slimmed down really quickly and all of a sudden these men are, you know, getting attention. It was really attractive for me. So you carried on. There you go. So when did the. So you're going out most nights of the week, clearly having fun with men as well and doing drugs. When did the drugs come in and what drugs did you do? Yeah, so my first. The first drug I took. Well, I mean, I smoked a bit of pot when I was a teenager, but nothing crazy, but my first proper sort of addiction to drugs would. Well, I took ease quite a lot. MDMA is a big part of my story. Cocaine. So uppers. I always wanted to feel like I. Because I guess when I wasn't drinking or taking drugs, I was quite depressed, so I wanted to feel elevated. You know, the drugs I took, I wanted to feel elevated. And that's what MDMA and cocaine did for me. And the same as drinking did, it took hold really, really quickly. So I'm in early 20s, up until I came into recovery, which was when I was 30, but it went on for a while, so. And you were doing this nearly every night of the week. I mean, how did you sustain that? How did you keep your job? I didn't. In the end, I went from job to job quite a lot. So as soon as I'd made a really good impression to start with, I mean, I was a singer, so I was also working seasonal work as well. So I would go out to Cyprus, for example, or Spain, and I'd work out there for four or five months. And a lot of drinking and drug taking is kind of accepted in that industry. And so, you know, I fitted, I fit it in really well and, you know, so that was okay. But then I'd come back and I'd. Because I'm a PA as well, personal assistant. So when I came back, I'd do that work in London. But very quickly it would become apparent that there was something not quite right. So I would do a lot of temping work, jump from job to job, but. So you never got discovered. Not until near the end of my. When my recovery started, because I got a good job that was paying really well. And that's when everything really started to unravel. So talk me through the. When did you go, I need help or did somebody else intervene? Well, a lot of people had noticed that, you know, things weren't right and I was drunk pretty much. Friends or family or friends? Yeah, a close friend that I live with, she saw a lot of it and she was, she could, you know, with my bulimia, you know, it's quite hard to disguise that when you're living with someone and it's a very secretive eating disorder. But she, she noticed quite soon that, that I was, you know, doing that because there's only so much food in the fridge that can disappear really quickly. Like, you know, there's something going on here. But she, she noticed with my drinking, I'd come home quite a lot drunk and I was drinking in the mornings on the weekend, not necessarily before work, but then I was lying to work and, and, and anyway, so all this started to get really apparent that there was problem. She sat me down, she said to me, do you think you should go to aa? And instantly I was absolutely gobsmacked because I was like, are you calling me an alcoholic? My view of an alcoholic was an old man on a park bench. It wasn't, you know, this high flying city woman who is going out drinking nice wine and. But the reality of it was that it wasn't like that. I was ending up in a wet bed most mornings because of that. You know, it's, it's pretty, you know, it's not glamorous when it gets like that. And did you lose your memory like you were drinking? Couldn't remember what you'd done the night before. Blackouts all the time and ending up in places that weren't. Perhaps your own home? Yeah, Falling asleep in hallways, on stairwells, you know, all sorts. Yeah, so. So, yeah, so. And I, but eventually I went to the doctors and I tried to get signed off work because I said I had depression. And as a result of that I got referred to to a psychiatrist at a treatment center in London. Wow. So you actually went for depression. So you kind of kidded them really and said I've got depression. But actually your real problem, the depression had come from alcohol, drugs and perhaps your bulimia. Absolutely. That's absolutely fascinating. We're going to talk in just a few minutes about your recovery and how you completely turned your life around. You are now a psychotherapist, you're doing a master's degree, you have your own company. It's an incredible, incredible journey. So we'll talk about that in a few minutes time and we'll also get some top tips from Lucy and Danny towards the end of the show that you can perhaps use to help you along your way. Back in a couple welcome to Women's Radio Station. I'm Sarah Louise Ryan and welcome to Love Lessons live on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to future Classic Women Awards with me Stefania Passamonte on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to Julie Mae is listening. Hi, this is Anna Kennedy and we're at Women's Radio Station supporting women's well being and we're talking all things autism women. The possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Falguni Desai of Action Coach. Are you a business owner with more than five employees? Do you want to grow your business? I'm a London based business coach who helps small and medium sized businesses to grow and make a profit. I will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses in your business and then work with you to improve it using a structured framework. To find out more contact me on 072-16-54640 and book your one hour complimentary one to one coaching session. Thank you. Hi, I'm Tracey Weedon of Brownhill Insurance Group. We are an award winning family run insurance broker covering a wide range of insurance products ranging from commercial lines to personal household, high net worth and fine art. You can contact us on 0208-658-4334 or visit our website www.brownhillgroup.co.uk for your free no obligation quotation at Brownhills. We've got you covered. Hi, I'm Hazel Butterfield, a blogger, book lover and mental health advocate and you can listen to my show get booked here at Women's Radio station daily at 5am and 5pm throughout my shows we'll talk about the books I've read new releases, chat to authors, publishers and book enthusiasts, all with the theme and aim of supporting women's emotional well being. If you have a book to tell us about, get in touchenter that will womensradiostation.com join me on my show and share my love of books and writing. Hi, I'm Valentina Barbacci and I'm the executive director of Media Matters for Women. We're a registered charity operating in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo and we produce and share podcasts via Bluetooth on mobile phones focusing specifically on women and girls excluded from information due to extreme poverty. We empower those living in rural areas with media that transport transforms how they access, own and share information. To find out more and be part of this movement, come check out our website@mediamattersforwomen.org you're listening to women's radio stations supporting women's well being. Women's radio station's creating a global network for the empowerment of women and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter womensradio station, that's women's radio session or Facebook women's radio station to keep up to date with all our exciting programs. Welcome back to this week's Mother's Hour. You're joining me in the studio with Lucy da Silva. Thank you so much for coming in and telling us your story. It is quite shocking. If you're just joining us, Lucy was bulimic, an alcoholic and a drug addict. So we just got to the point where you go to the doctors, not even about those things. You're still in denial. You say I've got depression, I need some time off work. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happened. You know, I don't think I was ready to look at my drinking and my drugging and my eating disorder because all of that had been coping mechanisms for me to survive through my pretty much my entire life. So to think that that might be taken away from me in an ironic sense, you know, it's the most frightening thing, you know. So what happened? What happened? So the doctor signed me off and I came out of the doctor's surgery and walked over the road into the off license and bought a load of wine, which, yeah, so I went through a two week process of doing drinking, drinking loads of alcohol, anything I could get my hands on, binging on food purging, so being sick afterwards. And that was a two week process of a complete mental breakdown. Oh my gosh. Because you'd come out of the Doctor's surgery got okay? Yeah, yeah. Thought you were being clever. Yeah, yeah, this is me. Great. I'm going to go and have a party for one, you know, so. So that's what I did. And, and, and was the beginning of the end for me. I think I had to have that final. This is it for me to actually, at the end of that two weeks, to realize that, in fact, this is, you know, this can't be right. People don't do this sort of stuff, you know, they don't lock themselves away at home. You were in a mess. Yeah, it was. Yeah, I was. Terrible state. Yeah, yeah. So I made an appointment with the treatment center in North London halfway through these two weeks, and I called them up at 3 o' clock in the morning, thinking there was gonna be someone there, saying, oh, well, I can't make the appointment. And it was a voicemail, obviously. I left a voicemail saying, I can't make the appointment because I'm not feeling very well. And it gave me an opportunity to drink and, you know, do whatever I wanted to do for another week. This is because my flatmate was also away on business. So it gave me that, you know, I was on my own. And then the night before she. She came back. All right, I realized, you know, this is. I've got to do something about this. And made the appointment for the next day, went along to the treatment center. And I was actually, I was so desperate at that point because obviously I felt horrific. I mean, I stunk to high heaven because I hadn't, you know, washed for myself for two weeks. And I've been drinking so much alcohol and just disgusting. And I saw a psychiatrist who. Then I saw a specialist, an addiction specialist, one of the counselors that works there. And I remember that she. We were in a room and I was on my own and I. She came in and she sat next to me and she said, you want to tell me what's been going on? And everything just came out. And I just said to her, I. I'm so frightened. I don't want to die because I think that's what's going to happen to me if I carry on. And she said something to me I've been wanting to hear for all of my life. She said, don't worry, we're going to take care of you now. And it still, it sends shivers down my spine, you know, that finally someone was going to look after me. And that's what I'd been craving all my life. I needed safety. I needed someone to put their arms around me and tell me it's going to be all right. And that's what they did for me. But you'd actually done that for yourself. In actual fact, by taking yourself to that appointment, you'd actually put your arms around yourself. You just didn't realize it. And you were actually on the road to recovery then, because that's the hardest thing. Like you said, you're in denial. You don't want to give up all these things that make you feel great. Why would you? But you did. So you went into a recovery program for all three things. And then. So how long were you in recovery for? So I went into the treatment center and it's a 28 day program. I was residential, so I stayed there on the ward and I was given a medicalized detox program because I drunk so much my body could have gone into shock and I could have had seizures as a result of withdrawal from alcohol. So I was given Librium to help me for about a week. I had to take those. And during that 28 days, I had to have intensive group therapy, one on one therapy, art therapy, all sorts of therapy. And you know, it was the hardest thing I'd ever done because it's started to unroot all of this stuff that I'd been masking by using these substances and behaviors. And it started a really long, hard, sad, grieving journey that I had to go through. And that was just the beginning. And luckily the treatment center was a 12 step treatment center. So when I came out, I went into meetings and so I did go to aa. I went to all sorts of different fellowships. And that started my journey, really. And it's been five years since I started my recovery, but it's been grueling, gruelling for a long time. But you've done it, and look at you now. It's incredible. So you didn't just go back to your old job, you decided, no, I'm gonna do something new. Yeah, well, I mean, I had a bit of time off of that job to sort of reintegrate, integrate myself back into society. But I did go back for some time just to sort of, you know, get myself back into normal life. But what I did is I made a decision to go into a profession that would help others as a result of what I'd been through. So I retrained as a psychotherapist. I'm now, I've got my postgraduate degree and I'm now in my third year of my Masters and I'm writing my Dissertation at the moment. Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, yeah. And you specialize in addiction, don't you? Yeah, yeah. So emotional and addiction. Yeah, so very closely linked. My belief is, is addiction is. Is part of an emotional disorder where we. We can't regulate how we feel. So. So we use substances or behaviors to. To mask those feelings and to numb that pain. And for some, it's. It can, you know, it can be so attractive that that's where the addiction takes hold. I believe that. Yeah. And on top of that, you weren't quite happy with that. You thought, okay, I'm actually going to set up my own company. Yeah, yeah. So with my husband. My husband, Alex da Silva, he'll be listening. We set up our own company called Happy as Larry Group. And he is an emotional intelligence expert. So he. He's more like the coaching side. So goal setting, you know, forward thinking, planning sort of stuff. That's what he specializes in. Whereas I'm more therapeutic, which looks at past stuff and healing from past pains. So we bought both of our expertise together and we work with people who have addictions or don't just. Or depression, anxiety, stress, whatever it is they're suffering from. And we work with them one on one or in groups, seminars. We do talks, all sorts of stuff. Wow. Yeah. So I've got a little quote here from your Happy as Larry website. We're here to help you. Here to help you find the emotional recovery you need. And we will support you every step along the way. That's beautiful. So using a combination of coaching, as you said, therapeutic and mindfulness techniques, we can help you ensure the emotional intelligence you need to succeed in every aspect of your life. You really are giving back here, this. Yeah. Because you had three addictions going on and obviously you just want to go, I can't. I don't want. I want to help people who are going through similar things. Absolutely. Yeah. And then there's a whole new element to it. Now I've had a child. Absolutely. Yes. Mum to Ruby. Yes. Beautiful. Yes. So now you're a mum. How. How is life different for you? It's been really hard becoming a mother. It's something I could not have prepared myself for. And there was. I went through. It was a really difficult birth. I had to have an emergency C section. And, you know, and it just, it was. I had an idealistic view of how it would be to be a mother. She was going to go on my breasts and I was going to be this natural earth mother and it couldn't have been Further from the truth, I was in so much pain and I was. You know, the milk came in and the hormones, and I didn't even like her. I didn't like my baby for at least a month, I would say. And I didn't really want to be around her. And the shame to feel that was overwhelming, and it still is, actually. So I have to work on trying to forgive myself for feeling like that, because I'm starting to understand that it's natural to feel that way. So. Yeah, but she. She encourages me to be a better person. And there's always. Now there's not just me that encourages myself. I need to think about her, you know, as well. Wow. Well, that is a beautiful story. In fact, both my guests today have done incredible stories where you've taken your lives with strength, determination. You've just turned it all around and you're really enjoying life as a mother. I'm going to come to both of you. What would be your tips? If anyone is going through maybe a bit of depression or a really hard time, or maybe they have an addiction that, you know, they need to work on. What would be your top tips? So when. When you become a mum, you know, there's. There's. I mean, this is kind of aimed at people that have become a mum. I would say find time for yourself. Always find time for yourself, whether that's, you know, picking up a magazine or having a bath. But I mean, touching on the addiction side of stuff, if. If also could that. Because that can be elevated after you become a mum as well, you know, and so the best thing to do is just to talk about how you feel. Be really open about why you feel you might have a problem. Find someone that you really trust to confide in, because there are so many people going through it that just don't talk about it, you know, I'm pretty certain that every single woman who will listen to this would have experienced a sliding scale of addiction in some way. Definitely. Oh, that's incredible. And as Dani was saying earlier, she used yoga to take back a bit of control. Because when we have a child, or children, or many children in my case, you really do get this feeling of being very, very, very overwhelmed and that your life is out of control. Ladies, we're getting towards the end of the show. Can I just get some details of you? What's your website that people can go to if they need help or they want to reach out to you? Yep. So you can find us at www.happyaslarygroup.com if you just go on to our. We've got loads of information on there, got contact page. Just contact us from there. Lovely. And also Danny, what's your details? Yes, so if you want yoga one to one, you can get it out@dannydessacloud.com and mysmalrevolution.com is not up yet. So Danny Dessa D A N I D E s s a icloud.com just gonna leave you with this one, lady. A dream written down with a date is a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action becomes a reality. Go for it, girls. You can do it. Join me next week when we will have another show, another Mother's Hour. I'll see you then. Welcome to the women's radio station supporting women's well being. Women's Radio Station is all about diversity from opinions, career, ethnicity, education and most importantly, women's well being. We aim to celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. Visit our website, womensradiostation.com for more information. Hi, I'm Liz Van Linden, the UK travel consultant for Hazelmere Travel. People come to me as they want unique experiences and a personalised service. This happens from the moment that they inquire till they come back home. I work with luxury tour operators. You can contact me on 078-254-4122 and Liz spelt lisazelmeretravel.co.uk I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone. Many women want to be smarter with their cash, but just don't know where to start. @empowerandenrich.org you will find a host of options to help you take charge of your finances and learn how to put your money to work for you in an easy, affordable way. Get in touch with me@empowerandenrich.org and let's change your future together. Hi, I'm Carolyn Van Beers. Please join me for a brand new show here on women's radio station. It's Mother's Hour. If, like me, you're a mum juggling far, far too many balls and dropping most of them, this is definitely the show for you. We'll examine the highs and lows of motherhood and make sure you laugh out loud as we take on this challenging role together with spoonfuls of advice. Incredible stories. It will be refreshing, honest and funny. Look at being a mum. Are you struggling with money? Turn to us as a national charity, helping people struggling to make ends meet. Job loss, illness or bereavement can cause a real financial crisis. We give practical help to get people back on track. Whether you're thinking of having a baby, trying to get out of an unhappy relationship, or just unsure what benefits you may be entitled to, we can help. Visit turnto us.org.uk welcome to the women's radio station supporting Women's well being. Women's Radio Station can give voice to your brand with a wide range of sponsorship opportunities, including individual programs. We can tailor your experience for you. For more information on how you can sponsor a show, go to womensradiostation.com women's radio station supporting Women's well being.