Thea Joshi sits down with Venus Madden. An Occupational Therapist by background, Venus shares her experiences of miscarriage and postnatal depression, as well as the impact of moving to the UK from Hong Kong as a teenager. We discuss how facing inequalities in health care have shaped her and how she’s using her story to call for change in maternal mental health.
If you appreciated this episode, we’d love your support to keep our work going – please donate today: www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/donate
Listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. The full transcript is available below.
Show notes
- Download our report that looks at to improve maternal mental health support by expanding the workforce, improving training and addressing inequalities.
- Check out our briefing that explores how integrated care systems can meet the mental health needs of women who need support during the perinatal period.
- Read our blog by Sandra Igwe that looks at the way racial inequalities can affect mothers’ mental health
Alethea Joshi (AJ): Hello and welcome to Centre for Mental Health’s podcast. Centre for Mental Health challenges policies, systems and society so that everyone can have better mental health. I’m Thea Joshi, and each episode, I speak with our guests about mental health and social justice. And today, I sat down with Venus Madden. Venus is an occupational therapist by background. She’s also a speaker and public governor at an NHS Trust, and she talked me through her experiences of miscarriage and postnatal depression, as well as the impact of moving to the UK from Hong Kong, and how her personal experiences of health care and inequalities have shaped her. Before we jump into the conversation, just a reminder that Centre for Mental Health is a charity, and we rely on support to produce this content, so please consider donating – the link is in the show notes. Hope you enjoy. Welcome, Venus. It is so lovely to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for giving up your time to do this.
Venus Madden (VM): Thank you very much Thea for having me today as well.
AJ: So Venus, obviously you are an occupational therapist by background, and I know that you moved from Hong Kong to the UK aged 18, and that must have been, I mean, presumably, a massive culture shock?
VM: It was. I was actually very young, and I probably would say I was very naive as well. And I will always remember the first conversation I had with my parents when I arrived here at the boarding school. At that time, I was still making phone calls in the hallway, like you have to queue up to actually make a make a phone call. And I remember the first thing I said to my parents is, oh, my God, I’ve never seen so many sheep in my life. So I think that tells you something about that cultural shock. It’s not just the psychological shock, but also the you know, things that you see, definitely.
AJ: Welcome to Britain. I know, I know. And I guess I was interested to sort of understand a bit more about like, how the process of immigrating to the UK affected you or affected maybe your mental health. So yeah, tell us a bit about that.
VM: I guess, because I was actually only 18 at the time, everything was very exciting for me. And I think that excitement and sort of like being away from my family didn’t really make me feel homesick or anything at the beginning, certainly, anyway. And I actually thought I was very lucky. I made friends very quickly in the boarding school. And I also, you know, met a lot of really great teachers who were very supportive. But I think the time that made me realise, well mental wellbeing was quite a thing was, you know, unfortunately, one of my very good friends I actually met at the time, he sadly took his life. And I think that was just before Christmas as well, when it all happened. And I was very, very close to him, and I didn’t find out that happened until after New Year.
I think it’s around like January, early January, time when the boarding school reopened. And he was someone that I was very close with, because when I was doing my a level, then we were seeing each other day in, day out. Pretty much it was only me and him that were sitting on a level within one year. So the school contacted me, I think it was actually the principal who actually called me into the office after the holiday, and I was like, Oh my God, what happened? And they literally just said to me, I’m really sorry. You know, you know the guy, he sadly took his own life just before Christmas, and I’m just wanting to let you know.
And I think was in absolute shock. And at the time, the principal wasn’t even someone that I’m close to. They could have actually chosen someone that I know very well. I got a couple of teachers there. But also, when looking back, and I actually did have a missed call from him a couple of days before Christmas. And I, you know, I used to wonder what would have been different if that actually if I picked up the phone call. But the school decided not to tell me until I got back, because they said that we thought that you wanted to celebrate Christmas and we didn’t want to ruin your time, and your first time ever, you know, Christmas in the UK.
And so, in fact, I didn’t have a chance to attend his funeral, because that happened all very, very quickly, as I said, we actually had two and a half weeks off. And so, yeah, that was the time that I started to feel very alone, and I didn’t know what happened. And because I was so far away from my family, waiting to make a phone call in the hallway, I called my parents, and at the time, they actually just said, you know what, this is very sad, I’m really sorry, and you just have to get on, because we pay for you to study in the UK, and you just need to continue. So that was the time I actually realised that, you know, moving from one country to another country, probably it’s okay ish, but I think it’s when difficult times like this happen, then you felt very alone, and you felt that actually no one was there to listen, if that makes sense.
AJ: I mean, it totally makes sense. And yeah, it’s very hard to put words to that kind of experience, isn’t it, and how that affects you. But I can’t imagine having to do that so many 1000s of miles from everyone that you know, in that kind of isolation. Yeah, it must be hard to consider the impact of that.
VM: And I guess, well, reflecting back now is the fact that I wonder, like, whether there’s any procedures or policy or anything that actually support the school or any organisations to support them to break the bad news. And whether people actually understand how to actually share bad news like that, and actually, what support have I got? At the time, and we’re talking about like over 20 years ago, 25 years ago now, actually, And I think I wasn’t offered any occupational health appointment or any counselling, or anything, nothing. The only thing that I was offered at the time is one of the tutors who did the lecturing or teaching with myself and the guy, she came to talk to me afterwards, and then she was the one who actually said, you know, I’m really sorry that you didn’t get to attend a funeral. What about writing to the mum and actually share a little bit of that life that [his] mum didn’t realise? So I did that, and that was kind of my closure. And I did have a very lovely letter back from the mum as well. But at the time, there was no support. And I think it is almost no one knows what to do, apart from breaking the bad news. And then, what is that aftercare? What is that wellbeing? So, yeah, so that is something that, yeah, looking back now, I think I wish that the school could have done something differently.
AJ: And obviously suicide bereavement and dealing with the aftermath, the aftershocks of a suicide is maybe quite a specific thing, but we know that just more generally and more broadly, mental health support in schools is something which is so needed, and I think there has been some improvement in that from when we were at school. You know, I hope so, but we also know that the level of needs have gone way up, and so it’s something that we’ve been calling on for a long time to get more support in schools, more access to therapy, because we know that school is a place which is both has a massive impact on young people’s mental health, but also it is an amazing place of opportunity for young people to access mental health support, whatever their family life is like. You’ve talked before about the impact of going through a miscarriage and and the effect that that had on you and on your own mental health. And I’m wondering if you could tell us a bit more about that, and also how other people’s responses affected you at that time.
VM: So as I said, I am from Hong Kong, so I am Chinese and our culture is very, very different, I think. And actually, I think that episode, the miscarriage episode, also demonstrated that a bit more. So after my first child, it went very smoothly, everything was good. And then I became pregnant quite quickly, well actually not super quickly, but actually it was quite natural at the right time. Then I think, around three months when I had the three months scanned, when I went into hospital, they just said that they couldn’t detect the heartbeat. And so they asked the consultant to come in to have a chat with me. I think by then, my husband, even though it wasn’t about him, he actually collapsed. He actually passed out, bless him. But the consultant was actually very, very, very fantastic. So I think I was actually crying, but also laughing in a very hysterical way. But it was a shock to us, and we were very lucky. As I said, the consultant was fantastic, but it was very interesting, because after it happened, I called my mum immediately to talk about it and I think the first thing my mum said to me was, what have you done? How could that happen? I told you to take it easy. What have you done? So I think that was a lot of blame and and it was very weird, because mum didn’t even ask, how are you? Are you okay? And that was the immediate and then you started questioning yourself saying, Oh my God, have I actually really done something? Was it really me? Even though the consultant in the morning just said to me that actually, this is quite common. It happens to actually one in four women. That was the research at the time. So I think that was something. And then I also called my mother in law. So my husband is white, so they were born here. And when I called my mother in law, the first thing she actually said is, oh, my god, are you okay, Venus? And I remember very, very well, she was actually just about to join her work Christmas do, but she just said that if you want, I can come over.
I will come down now to look after you look after your first child, so you can actually have some time away looking after yourself. You need that time. And I think it was very interesting because when I talked to my mother in law afterwards, she actually said, what made her just wanted to drop everything she shared with me that actually she also had a miscarriage herself, and she wanted to make sure that I was okay. And she again, I think it’s like lived experience, because she said at the time she didn’t have enough support, that’s why she wanted to make sure that I was okay. Whereas with my mum, I also found out that my mum actually had a miscarriage, and she never, ever told us. And that’s something about the culture, I think. Whereas my mother in law actually told my husband before, but my husband just never really mentioned that. So my mum never shared that she had a miscarriage, but when we talked about that, she just said that, well, do you know what? I actually went back to work two days later, so she didn’t realise that actually that does have some impact. But I think it’s more the way, the approach, the things being said people around me said, that I think it impacted on me, as in how I think about the miscarriage. At the same time, I think I’m very lucky because my mother in law, my family, my husband, they’ve been absolutely fantastic to actually support me through. But yeah, that tells you quite a lot about different cultures, how they respond, the family, the things that they say have an impact on your thinking, how you cope and your coping strategies, isn’t it?
AJ: Yeah, totally. Okay. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I know that’s an incredibly hard thing to just talk about on a podcast. And you went on to have a second child, and is it then that you began to sort of struggle a bit more with your mental health?
VM: Yes, and I think probably because I didn’t deal with the miscarriage very well. At the time, as I said, because of the cultural things, and traditionally, this is something that you just get on with it, you don’t want to ask for help. So I actually didn’t ask for help. I went back to work. I think I literally, I had two weeks off. But that was more because of the physiology rather than psychological. And so I went back to work. I didn’t deal with it very well. I decided that, actually, we would just get on with our life. And then when the second child came along, I think all these feelings all came out. But at the beginning of it, I just thought, you know what? I’m an occupational therapist. I’ve worked in mental health. I know. And you also thought, you know what, you’ll be fine. I will be fine. You kind of like brainwash yourself to think that it’s okay. It wasn’t until, I think probably, like three/four months in when the second baby were around three, four months in that I realised that actually I was very angry all the time. So if you actually think about the research of what is the common symptoms of postnatal depression, we normally talk about feeling low mood and the lack of sleep, the appetite and everything.
For me, I was slightly different as well. I was angry all the time and and I think my mood swing was quite… it’s just like I couldn’t describe it. And I was also very tearful all the time, which is not me. I didn’t really have the lack of sleep, but the appetite was a bit of a problem for me as well. And at the time, actually, it was very interesting as well, because I’m in my culture, we always think about like, you have to stay slim. So at the time, I thought that’s a good thing. Because if I’m losing weight, and that’s really good. So I think, as you could actually see that your belief, or your cultural belief, actually really have a role to play in your mental health. Because I was so tearful all the time, one of my very good friends actually said to me, hey, Venus, this is not really you. Have you thought about whether you’re alright or not, because you’re all so up and down. And I was actually very strict with my oldest child. I was shouting at him quite a lot, but not proportionate to his behaviour. He was only like, what, 18 months, 17 months old. So anyway, because of that, after my friend said that, I was like, oh, my god, actually, you’re absolutely right. There’s something not quite right. I’m not well. So I contacted the the health visitor, because the baby was still under six months, and apparently you call the health visitor.
I called a health visitor, and they were just saying to me, oh, sorry to hear what you’re experiencing. I was actually crying down the phone, and then she said to me, I need to find out whether you will be looked after by the health visitor team, or you’ll be referred to the community mental health team because your baby is now getting older and so there’s some procedure things that I actually didn’t need to know, because I was actually very upset and crying. And all I wanted is someone to help me and to listen and to say that it’s okay. But they said that they’ll call me back. Sadly, they didn’t call me back for another three months. But what happened is, a few days after I made a phone call, my husband being absolutely amazing, he just said that, you know what, you’re crying all the time, your mood swing is completely crazy. You need to call for help. Why don’t you just contact the GP and then just see what happens? And I was like, I don’t think I can actually call the GP, because they’re always busy. They couldn’t help me. But actually, my husband was the one who pushed me, and I did call the GP, and the GP was amazing. And it’s not my usual GP, it was someone else. The first meeting that I had with my GP, she actually did offer me to go to a postnatal depression support group. And I remember saying to her that I won’t go to those groups because I used to run those sessions. I know the content, I know, but I couldn’t do it myself, and I just needed to have a space that actually I can share information and everything.
To cut the story short, my GP actually saved me, and I was very, very grateful. She was very understanding. She had listened to me. I felt very guilty as well, because she used to give me, like, half an hour, 45 minutes on a weekly basis. We also explored different medication and everything that actually could help as well and that’s probably another story for another day, but I think what I wanted to say is the fact that if it wasn’t for my GP, I don’t know what would have happened to me or to my children, because I was angry all the time. And as I said, I was very shouting. I was shouting at him quite a lot. And the people did come back. The health visitor team did come back three months later, by then, I was actually thinking about going back to work. And they said that, we realised that now we will refer to you to the community mental health team, and someone will contact you. And I said to you know what, don’t bother, because I’m already under someone’s care. But because of that experience, and I wanted to make sure that no one else goes through what I went through because if my husband didn’t push me to see the GP, as I said, I can’t imagine what would have happened to me.
AJ: Just interrupting our conversation briefly with a quick plea. Centre for Mental Health is an independent charity, so if you appreciate this podcast, you can support our work, either by following and rating this podcast, or by donating at centreformentalhealth.org.uk/donate. We really appreciate it. Right, back to the show.
VM: I’m very, very lucky because as I said, my husband is white, and I do wonder that if actually my husband or my family were all Asian, the culture and our belief that actually we get on with it, you do it. And in fact, I think my mum still doesn’t believe that postnatal depression is a thing. So if I ask them for help, I probably [just] wouldn’t go out for help. And actually we know, with the research and things they’ve been telling us that actually BAME mothers, they don’t traditionally go out for help, and actually quite a lot of the postnatal depression is undiagnosed with this population. So anyway, I feel that I’m very lucky. But in order to make sure that no one else felt that, I found out that there was a public governor post with this organisation. And so I went to do it to represent. I was very lucky at the time, because the Chief People Officer at the time, he was the one who actually made sure that I talked to the relevant people. We did make some changes to the referral process and exercise to make sure that people don’t get left out. And actually, at the end of the day, when you’re a mum or a parent asking for help, no one actually cares about who is gonna help. I didn’t care who was gonna help me. I just wanted someone to say to me, we’re gonna come and look after you. This is okay. This is normal. So that was that part of the story.
AJ: Yeah, and there’s so much there isn’t there. I mean, it’s shocking, isn’t it, that you would be in that place and then wait three months to hear anything back. And I think obviously what’s kind of appalling is that that is not an exception, and people are waiting shocking times or falling through the cracks of referrals. We know that’s happening, and it kind of seems like this story we hear a lot where you’ve got that side of things, which is incredibly hard, and you just think, what’s going on here, but then also, in the same breath, stories of really amazing professionals going above and beyond to provide amazing service. It’s a really challenging picture, isn’t it, and making sure that everyone gets the help they need the first time they ask for it, particularly when we’re looking at people who are really struggling with their mental health, particularly mothers. We know that perinatal period is so important, both for the mother and the child, and so falling through the gaps of referral processes needs fixing.
VM: Yeah. And I guess, in a way, if you actually think about as well, we are constantly evolving the services. Both of my children are now 9 and 11, so they are a lot older now. But at that time, that was before the pandemic, as well, I was able to access quite a lot of community services, almost. So we had this mother baby unit. We had the breastfeeding clinic and quite a lot of things that in the community. So I used to feel, and I think I was very, very active as well, so I was very happy to actually go out and talk to different mums and everything. But I think with the second child, as I said, because of the miscarriage in between, I started to feel a bit guilty. I just thought that, why would I deserve to have a second child because I lost one. And then you have different feelings and everything. So I wasn’t as active, comparing to the first one. I didn’t access as many of the community services available, the free ones, as I did with the first one. And then now, some of the services have gone because of the funding, and then you also have because of the pandemic, we also changed quite a lot of things and they’re no longer in person. It’s actually more like virtual and it’s very, very interesting to think about how we do things.
Are we, I mean, of course, services have to evolve. But are we still meeting the needs? Are we still meeting the mums, first time mums, and also, as I said, mums who are from ethnic minority backgrounds, how can we ensure that we are meeting those needs and who is actually our advocate? Because you don’t have a person to actually speak for you. You don’t have a person to to seek help and advocate for you. Thea, you asked me about like, how does that impact me? I think it didn’t just impact me as a person, but it also impacted me as a professional, because I started thinking a little bit about, how can I share my story? I mean, this is all very difficult. I mean, I can now talk about it. I can now reflect I can actually make a bit of a joke when I say that my husband actually passed out. I can now laugh about it, but I think that I’ve been through quite a lot, but, um, I’m happy to share my stories, not only to actually say that I have survived, I have managed, I have coped, so other people should have that hope, but I also want to say that actually, we’ve got so much work to do. We need to change the narrative. We need to get people to see things differently, because what will happen is, if we don’t deal with this, more primary problems, we will get into we are the people that are going to use the secondary care, we’re going to use the long term. You know, we are talking about we want to support people, empower people to actually manage their mental health at home, primary setting closer to home. But if you don’t have the right support to do that, how can you prevent admission? How can you support people to actually manage their longer term problems? And I think this is a question that we need to ask.
AJ: Yeah, 100% that. And it’s something I feel like I end up talking about quite a lot in the podcast, the work that we did some years back on the economics behind health services, but literally that so often we are inadvertently funnelling people to more acute, more expensive, more extreme forms of help because they haven’t got the help they needed earlier on, which is more distressing for everyone involved, really, if you think about it. So yeah, totally agree with that. And it was interesting what you were saying about the pandemic and how that’s maybe changed services, including perinatal mental health services, because, and I’ll link to this in the show notes, we did a piece of work quite early on in 2021/22 with the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, looking at mother’s experiences of of perinatal support during the pandemic. But I think a lot of that is still relevant, because, as you say, services has have adapted, and hopefully that is meeting people’s needs in a new way. But you know, we’ve got to, just as you say, continue to keep evaluating, are we meeting people where they’re at, and particularly when you’re talking about, as you said, kind of women from and mothers from racialised communities, what we know is that often they are seeking support for mental health, but it’s not in a way that is culturally informed or the professionals don’t have that cultural informedness to acknowledge the barriers there that you’ve been talking about, and so people are left with support which doesn’t meet their needs, which doesn’t kind of fill that gap. And so it’s, I think there’s also a piece about ensuring that professionals and services are culturally informed to know how, you know, poor mental health in mothers might look in different cultures, not just in a Western worldview.
VM: And I guess this is the thing as well, because I think you really nailed it about the prevention or the early intervention. And if you actually think about my journey, certainly, is that, you know, with my friend who actually took his own life, and then how the school dealt with it. And I think part of me, I did feel that if it happened to someone else, I mean, I did suffer anyway, it did have an impact on my mental health, but, um, but that is something that you don’t know how other people would manage without any support. I think all it takes is actually, like, you know, someone who is more isolated than me and they didn’t have the right support, and as I said, if they didn’t have the right network of friends or support, then how could they manage the same thing? So I often think of, you know, like, now we got the Zero Suicide, you’ve got a lot of different initiatives that people are there to support. To think about, you know, what interventions can be offered.
And then you think about miscarriage, as I said at the time I felt, and I still feel it now that I was heavily being criticised by my mum and she is my family, of course, like we are miles away physically, but, you know, she was criticising that I should just get on with it. And, you know, it’s almost like, why didn’t you avoid that? How could you do that to yourself and to your body? And then moving on to my own postnatal depression, as I said, not everyone back home knew about because it’s just not something that we promote or we share, because people see that as a weakness and so I think for me, that’s something about the early intervention. There’s something about picking up different signs, because it looks very different. I mean, it’s all about individualised now. And as you said, if you got people that, or, you know, mum or dad or anyone that are from a very different cultural background. How can we support them? And how can we not just support them to actually manage it, but also their family members? You know, it’s quite a big piece of work, but I do think that, like, you know, do we have enough funding to actually support the mental health service? Probably not, with the pandemic. We also talk about mental health and mental wellbeing now, actually, it’s like the younger generations, what happened to them, and how do they I think. I just think that we probably haven’t got enough energy and investment into the mental health piece of work. That’s my feeling at the moment.
AJ: And I was also really encouraged by the fact that you were talking about, I mean, I guess there’s a lot of difficulties with both being a professional in a place and having your work out, and also needing to be a patient. And I think that’s a really unique interesting challenge, I think facing health care professionals. But I was also encouraged by the fact that you were able to kind of use your personal experience in a professional capacity, as you said, in that Governor role, to actually feed back to services and say, this is how it feels on the other side of this, and to kind of bring your whole self. And this idea that we don’t have to have these weird, binary categories of lived experience and professionals, because we know that that’s not how people are. Like we all have our own experience of mental health or mental ill health, and so being able to bring that into your professional role is really heartening for me to hear.
VM: Thank you. And I think I am, I do feel I’m very grateful. I am very lucky to have a very supportive network of like, family and friends. And I think with my role as well, because I do give out lectures, and I do give out a lot of keynote speeches in my own professional capacity, but when the timing is right and and if the audience are sort of like the right audience, I do share because I do see that my experience actually had an impact on who I am as a person but also as a professional as well. Because now I definitely will say that, um, you know, I will tell people that actually it is okay. This is just part of me, as in my experience is just part of me. But I also share with people that actually we can, or you don’t have to be a leader to actually make an influence.
You can actually still create influence and based on your own sphere of influence. So some people actually it doesn’t matter what job you do, it doesn’t matter which position you’re in, but I think you can always share stories when you’re comfortable, obviously, because some people actually don’t really want to share that part. But I think if you feel that you can share the story, if you feel that you can actually tell people about what you have learned, then I think we should do that, because I still don’t think we do enough and certainly I know that by sharing that the feedback I normally get is that they they feel that, oh my god, we actually experienced something very similar, but we never thought to share that. And in the last few years, especially, I think because of a lot of work, the policies changed and strategies are also very more inclusive, but still, we still got a way to go. So I think that’s something about like, how whenever there’s a story to tell, I think there’s work to be done.
AJ: Yeah, for sure. And I wanted to ask you, you sort of touched a bit on inequalities and sort of cultural differences in accessing mental health support, I wanted to ask how you’ve maybe seen inequalities at play in your own experiences of health care?
VM: Well, very sadly, I think I did have that experience after I gave birth to my first child. So I was in the hospital. I was on the ward, and one of the nurses picked up my son, and she was just saying that, Oh, we’re just gonna do some checks in general. So she picked up my son, and I remember she walked up and down holding my son, walking up and down closer to the window, and then come back, and then close the window and walk around. And then she just said to me, oh, sorry, mum, wasn’t very sure whether your son has got jaundice because obviously, like you are Asian. Either she said something about you’re Asian or you’re Chinese so the skin colour is slightly different, so I couldn’t really tell. I tried to look in the mirror near the window, but actually I still couldn’t see. So I might have to do some tests.
Now, I thought that was very odd for someone to actually say that, especially I was a first time mum. I know nothing about jaundice, by the way, and once she was gone, I literally googled, what does jaundice mean? Because I just thought to myself, oh, my God, did I give an illness to my son because of where I’m from? And I remember my husband didn’t come to visit until a little bit later. I think he went home to pick up some stuff. And then when I told him, I was like, someone just said that our boy might have jaundice because of, like, my skin, I think that’s exactly what I said to him. I said, because of my skin. And I said, but they’re gonna do some tests, so don’t worry about. And then, naturally, when we say, don’t worry about, we were all panicking. And so that was like, and then, as I said, once you Google it, opened up, like a can of worms in it, because it’s not professional the advice. Yeah, seriously, you shouldn’t Google. And then, actually, they did do some tests. And I think they actually got one of the consultants, or the doctors, junior doctors, maybe I can’t, couldn’t quite remember now. And then they just said, actually, don’t worry about you’re fine. You just, because he was an autumn/winter baby, so you just have to make sure you take him out to see the sun a bit more and that’s not a problem.
And I was like, I couldn’t take my son to the sun, because in my culture, we are not supposed to leave the house the first month after you’ve given birth. So that’s another thing that I think, when I tried to explain to the doctor, they couldn’t understand. They were like, why would you have to stay inside indoor? And I said, because my culture believes that there’s a term that you actually have to stay indoors so that you keep warm and everything if you go out, you have to wrap up warm, especially your head. Don’t even ask me why. I couldn’t explain to you now, but so anyway, so when you ask that question about inequality, now we know because there’s actually a lot of research has shown about how we assess jaundice, and actually, you know, if you’re from a marginalised or ethnic minority background, we need to actually look check on the signs a lot more as well.
Well, we’re talking about, like, over 11/12, years ago now. But I think at the time, it’s the language that was used, and the fact that she probably was kind, she probably didn’t mean it, but it’s just the way she so casually said, oh, it could be your skin, that left a mark in me and and I think, as I said, until they said, he was absolutely fine, I did have that guilt, unnecessary guilt that I didn’t need and you almost felt that like, oh my god, I really did give an illness to my son when I didn’t. You know, it’s the genetic and everything, but I think it’s just the language, the approach that was used, I think it was not professional, and sadly, I wasn’t savvy enough at the time, because I just gave birth, and otherwise, knowing me now, I would have actually gone straight up to her and say, excuse me, what did you mean by that? And I didn’t, I didn’t do that. So, yeah.
AJ: I think it’s interesting. You know, as you say, she was kind of, you said something like, you know, she was nice and she was probably not trying to be mean. And I think that’s a real barrier to calling out racism in general. Do you know what I mean? Because people say, Well, they didn’t mean it to come out that way, or they didn’t mean it to sound like that. They weren’t trying to be horrible. And it’s like, well, no, but like, you know, it’s still racism, and it’s still like, was, you know, a bad experience for you, and as you said, left it mark.
VM: Do you know what? At the time, I didn’t even think that was a racist comment. That was how bad I felt, because I was too focused on, did I give something to my child? And my husband was the one who actually said that she shouldn’t have said that, because that is racist. But I didn’t think because, and I mean, and you’re absolutely right, because at the time, I remember saying to him, I thought, oh, I don’t think she was like that. I was more shocked that I might have given something to my son, but I didn’t think that that was absolutely unacceptable for her to say that. But yeah, I didn’t, because when someone is very nice, you wouldn’t link that with passive aggressive or aggression. You wouldn’t.
AJ: And as you said earlier, I mean there’s just an awful long way to go, isn’t there, with all of this stuff, but particularly racism in in health care. So I did want to ask, and we sort of touched on this, but I wanted to ask you, how do you think your personal experiences, maybe that we’ve been talking about today, how has that shaped your priorities in life, but also in your work?
VM: I do do quite a lot of voluntary work because of my personal experience and that, you know, we discussed quite a few today. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how I prioritise. I think the things that I actually do prioritise is looking after myself, to make sure that I got some me time, to actually do things that I think is meaningful to me, especially, I am an Occupational Therapist, so I do look for activities that make me feel good about, you know, myself. I’m actually serving the last term of office for the governor role now. So I still share my experience, I still actually talk to people, and I do challenge about inclusivity and actually mental health in general. So I prioritise that as part of my, we can call it day job or something, because I think it’s very important, because I don’t want other people to experience what I experienced. But as I said earlier, when I do go out to do lectures or do keynote speeches when it’s the right time, because normally, people actually ask me to talk about my leadership journey, but what I wanted to share is that my leadership journey is pretty much shaped by my personal experience, and that I don’t see my mental health or mental illness that I had is a barrier to where I need to go. I actually see that as the bonus. I would probably call it like my USP now, my unique selling point now, not necessarily to say that that’s a positive thing, but more to turn it around, to actually say that, you know what it is okay, that I have those experiences, that doesn’t necessarily take away my skill.
That doesn’t necessarily take away my experience as a professional. If anything, I will see myself as a stronger person. I do look after myself and I also, one of the things that I have definitely learned is that I also talk to my children about mental health. And I didn’t obviously share the whole lot, but they understand about wellbeing. They understand about like, you know, at school slightly better now. They do have different psychology support and everything. So we do talk a little bit about what does that mean, and we do talk about when it’s like mental health day, when it’s anything like that. We use the opportunity to talk as a family, because I do believe that we need to start, yeah, having this. And it’s not like you don’t want to stereotype for people to actually think that mental health is negative. For me, it’s more like a condition. It’s more like a period that you have to go through. You have to seek help. But actually, what’s the difference between seeking help for your mental illness then seeking help to actually solve, I don’t know, to sort out a broken leg. I see that journey is very similar.
But yeah, so I do do quite a lot of work, you know. And thank you very much for having me today, because I do feel sharing my story, talking to other people, to say that actually, there is a light in the end of the tunnel. And I am a big believer in like, you know, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. So how can we deal with that? And I’m not saying that my journey is a lot easier than other people, and some people might also ask how come other people actually experience it longer or find it more difficult to manage? And I’m not saying that, actually, it’s quite easy for me. Certainly. Now I can talk about it. But at the beginning, I could not talk about it without getting too emotional, whereas now I can talk about it. I can use a bit of me, the whole self, as you said, I can now have a bit of a laugh, and I can now tease my husband to actually say, I could not believe that you passed out when it was all about me. I lost a child, alright? And I think now I can use that humour to actually help me to cope.
AJ: It’s so encouraging hearing a bit of your story, Venus, and to hear you talking about sharing with your kids as well, and sharing as a family, and that idea that you know, wouldn’t it be amazing to have the next generation with more mental health literacy that maybe we didn’t have growing up? That’s a really encouraging note to end on. And I just want to say thank you. I know you shared a lot of very personal stuff to you. I’m really grateful to you. Your story is a massive encouragement. So thank you for sharing it today. And yeah, thank you for joining us.
VM: And thank you very much for having me today.
AJ: Thanks for listening. You can join the fight against mental health inequalities by donating at centreformentalhealth.org.uk/donate, or find the link in the notes. See you next time.
