It Can't Just Be Me - 27: The Series So Far...

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

This week we’re looking back on some of the fun, powerful and moving moments captured on It Can’t Just Be Me so far.  Since launching the podcast, we've welcomed extraordinary guests and experts into the studio who have shared their personal stories with us and given their advice in response to your burning dilemmas.So here are just some of our highlights from the series - are they the same as yours? Get in touch and let us know your favourite moments from the series so far! We’ll be back next week with a new episode of It Can’t Just Be Me. In this episode, you will hear: 1:14 - Kinks, Icks, and Parenthood: An Extended Quick Fire Round with LalalaLetMeExplain4:09 - Managing Perimenopause? With Gabby Logan6:33 - Coming out as a teenager? With Riyadh Khalaf12:21 - Questioning my sexuality? With Milena Sanchez15:20 - Non-monogamy? With Ruby Rare18:15 - Cutting down on alcohol? With Dr Alex George20:37 - Festive Fun with Sophie Habboo—Have questions about sex? Divorce? Motherhood? Menopause? Mental health? With no topic off limits, Anna’s here to prove that whatever you’re going through, it’s not just you.If you have a dilemma you’d like unpacked, visit itcantjustbeme.co.uk and record a voice note. Or tell Anna all about it in an email to [e-mail] podcast contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children. Listener caution is advised. Please note that advice given on this podcast is not intended to replace the input of a trained professional. If you’ve been affected by anything raised in this episode and want extra support, we encourage you to reach out to your general practitioner or an accredited professional.From Podimo & Mags Creative Producers: Laura Williams and Christy Callaway-GaleEditors: Pulama Kaufman, Patrick CarterTheme music: Kit Milsom Executive Producers for Podimo: Jake Chudnow and Matt WhiteFollow @itcantjustbemepod and @podimo_uk on Instagram and @itcantjustbemepod on TikTok for weekly updates. And, you can watch the full episode on Youtube.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, you lot, and welcome to a special episode of It Can't Just Be Me. Now, it's that time of year when we look back and take stock of everything we've achieved in 2023. And you know what? We wanted to do the same. We are so proud to have launched It Can't Just Be Me earlier this year. And over the course of 26 episodes, we've welcomed some extraordinary guests and experts into our studio who've shared not only their personal stories but also been there to hear yours. So here are some of our favourite bits from the series so far but we also want to hear what your favourite bits are so as always please do get in touch and let us know and in the meantime

enjoy. I had feelings of jealousy. It's just all around the middle. I feel like a Teletubby. And then I hated myself for feeling that way. If you've got any advice. I would really appreciate any advice. It can't just be me. It can't just be me, right? My guest today is the queen of spotting red flags, dealing with icks, and sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes to prospective partners. It is, of course, everyone's favourite anonymous agony aunt, la la la, let me explain.

You are the person credited for bringing the term ick to Instagram. I mean, what exactly is the ick, would you say? And why do we get them? Well, there's many different... So first of all, we have to get the ick right okay and this is what pisses me off so I didn't invent the term the ick I think it came up off the back of Love Island actually but I did I was the first person to start doing ick stories on Instagram and then loads of people started doing them and what pisses me off is that a lot of people get them wrong now you can call your general turnoffs an ick so you might say a guy scratching his balls and then sniffing his hand is a big I've got the ick

from that of course you have of course you have and that's a general turn off but it gives you that same icky repulsive feeling so you can call that an ick but if we're talking about the true ick is when you get a feeling of repulsion about somebody who you really did like and really did fancy for no rational reason at all okay so it could just be the way they held their coffee cup and you're like so it's a sudden thing a sudden thing for usually for i mean as i say it can happen for something totally like oh that's fucking disgusting or it can happen for something totally like, oh, that's fucking disgusting. Or it can happen just in these random ways. And often for women, it can be a sense of vulnerability. Like if a guy drops something and then goes, oh, ouchie or something, you know, then a woman can be like.

But, you know, but it's not intentional and you cannot control it. So the point of this, the answer to this guy's question is that there's nothing you can do. This is interesting. Can I tell you about my itch? Go for it. I mean, I had a situation. It was a while ago now, some time ago. And I was dating this guy.

I thought he was amazing. He was really clever. Right. And he was really fascinating. And one day we were out in the pub and I was looking at him, I was looking at his face thinking, there's something not right about your face while you're talking to me. And then I realised that his teeth were moving independently of his gums. What, just flailing around? No, just ever so slightly. His teeth were just moving out of time.

I know, with his lips. And I hadn't noticed it up until that. Can you fucking imagine? Yeah. But I'm in the middle of my half-a-side at my snake bite when suddenly I'm like, this guy's teeth are moving. And this is the problem because it hits you so strongly that from that point onwards,

it's like you can't bear to hear them breathe or eat. I mean, and it's such a horrible thing. If you're a fan of watching major sporting events, then my guest today needs absolutely no introduction at all. She is the glamorous, glorious, global Gabby Logan. Genuinely, you're thinking, oh, hang on a minute, perhaps I'm starting to eke into perimenopause now. Yeah, I mean, for me, I'm very, very aware of mental health symptoms and sort of mental illness. And I've always been very open about the fact that I suffer with anxiety,

and I've taken medication over the years for anxiety to deal with that. It's very, very hard to separate that now in my mid to late 40s, that sort of anxiety and what's going on there with actually, is this to do with the perimenopause? It's impossible for people to work that out. And it ends up being down to you thinking, is this me and how I've always been? And why is it worse now? Do you know what else though, I think when you say it's down to down to us, I think it's really helpful if you've got people in your life whether it's your partner your children you might be your mum what kind of relationships you have around you to have open and honest conversations with people because when I told my kids and husband

what was happening I could almost see like they literally were like hallelujah because they'd obviously all noticed this change in me and were kind of, I think, slightly nervous to broach anything. Or I would, I remember there was this one morning where it was Sunday morning and I was particularly disappointed with the fact that nobody had cleared up after breakfast on a Sunday morning. That'd be livid. And the pots were everywhere. I came into the kitchen and I just went mad. And I sat at the table. I told them all that I'd been looking at flats in Beaconsfield.

I hadn't. And I was thinking of, you know, going off until they could all sort themselves. And I was literally planning this escape where I was going to leave them all. You know, nobody was more

surprised than Kenny. And I think right now my daughter always like, you know, pretends that she's traumatised by it and she goes, oh, I was just so distraught. And she had tears

kind of like for me. Of course, none of them had done anything particularly unusually bad. But I was obviously just feeling like, I just can't cope with you all right now. And then I had Penny Lancaster on my podcast, The Midpoint.

And she talked about throwing a chicken dinner on the wall, Rod Stewart's chicken dinner at the wall. And she said, Rod took the boys out the kitchen and then came back and sat down with her. And I love Rod Stewart for this because, I mean, he's had some practice. I think there were five wives before. But he sat down with her and just talked about kind of how she was feeling. And then she went off and spoke to a doctor and found out that these were perimenopausal symptoms. My guest today is the cat loving celebrity master chef winning and LGBTQ plus advocate, Riyad Kalaf. advocate Riyad Khalaf. I started to freak out because I'm beginning to figure out who and what I am and what I desire. I don't like it because society at large maybe is telling me that this is

wrong. And because of my dad's background and stories I'd heard in the press, things like honour killings were very much in my mind. God, that must have been terrifying. I have this gorgeous, warm, amazing, sensitive Iraqi father who is my best friend. I go fishing with him every weekend. We're mad about the natural world. We laugh at the same things. And I am for him, as a refugee, I am for him his greatest achievement.

And now I am going to have to tell him that I am this sick, disgusting, flawed thing, gay. I know he's going to think it's his fault. How can I do that to him? How can I break this man's heart while I'm still feeling shame about what I am? So I held it in for years and years. It totally destroyed my secondary education, couldn't focus, major anxiety, dealing with it on my own. Became an introvert. Became a really shit son and shit friend.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I lost the essence of who I was. I was a shell of a person. It was still Riyadh. And little flickers of Riyadh would come through. But for the most part, I kept myself to myself. I even had a friend come up to me once

when we were walking from school to the bus stop. And he said, well, you're always looking down. Why are you looking down? Is it because you're sad or because you like nature and you're looking at the leaves? And that always stuck with me. And I'm actually getting emotional talking about it now. And I said, I'm looking at the leaves because I like the leaves. Because I had shame about the shame that I had given it away.

I thought I had it down, the act. I'm fine. Can I just ask what your parents were doing in the middle? Because they must have seen their son looking down, looking down at the leaves, becoming more and more withdrawn. Did they think this is just a teenage phase? Or did they realize that maybe he's hiding something? I think I was actually the best at keeping it from them.

And what helped was that they knew what actually made me happy. It's so weird that you're scared of them, but also their company for me was paramount because they were my best friends. I grew up in quite a rough council estate and because of my inherent femininity, that was attacked. And so I was kept inside and they became my friends, my best friends. And so they just thought when I was acting out, it was just hormones.

You know, that's just how teenagers are. It came to a head when my mother found porn on the family computer. How stupid was I? Oh, my God. And let me tell you, what she found was so adorable in hindsight. I'm not Googling this stuff now. It was hot hunk topless. Oh, really?

Jock big muscles. I'm basically looking for what I could see on the Calvin Klein boxes in the supermarket. Do you know what I mean? And how old were you, would you say? 15, 16. Okay. So your mum then got the clue. She approached me.

Yeah. And she was like, do you have anything you want to tell me? I'm like, no. What? Are you sure? You know you can tell me anything and I'll always love you. And I was like, oh God. Oh no.

It's that. And I knew it was the computer. I just knew. So anyway, an hour had passed of me with my head in my hands, just answering with grunts like, are you this? No. Are you that? And then she said, are you, are you gay? I was like, no, I think I'm bi. Tears, hugs, everything be okay. She took the day off work. I took the day off school the next day. She took me to the Japanese gardens of all place, Howe Camp, and we talked it out.

But the agreement was made there and then that dad would be kept out of this secret. Because she knew and you knew how he would react. It actually wasn't that we knew, it was that we didn't know. Oh. And we were afraid of that we didn't know. Oh. And we were afraid of what we didn't know. We kept it in for about nine months. And in that time, my acting out as a bad teenager became worse

because I preempted that this man who I loved was on the cusp of being a horrible, horrible person to me because he was about to find out what I really was. So if I could get ahead of it and pre-hate him, then I will be protecting my emotions when he does find out. Because I won't be sad because I hate him already. When he disowns me, I've beat you to the punch,

so fuck off. I don't need you, Dad. Which is such a horrible thing to go through and I never spoke about that to my mom I just sort of did it subconsciously yeah and he couldn't understand and our relationship broke down and it was really we no longer went fishing we no longer spoke really it was just horrible and my mom had reached breaking point because she was holding this secret between herself and her and her husband the two men that she loved most in the world. And then she said, I think it's time to tell your dad.

And I'm looking at her going, shut up. And he goes, tell me what? I was like, nothing. And then I tried to say the words. And I was totally paralyzed. Physically, my mouth wouldn't say I'm gay because I still had shame and fear. And I had a school book on the countertop and I just, I pulled it over to me. I ripped the back page out of it and I wrote, I'm gay on it. And then

I slid that little scrap over to him and he looked at it and time stood still. My guest today is one of the queens of the advice podcast world. Milena Sanchez is one third of the Receipts podcast, which I totally recommend if you're looking for straight advice and craving gossipy chat with your girlfriends. When did you realise that your sexuality was fluid? I was really, really, really young. I feel like I was about like nine years old, nine years old when I started like maybe kissing my friends and I just be like,

let's practice for the boys. And they would be so excited to like practice for the boys. And in my head, I was like, I'm not practicing for the boys. I actually quite like this. I like this with you. Also, I went to like an all girls schools school and I was just like oh my god amazing women I don't have to deal with men but it was very very difficult actually because there was a couple of situations in school where I had had interactions with certain friends and then they would deny it and then that would make me feel like oh the shame oh oh my god there's shame that's attached to this am I not enough for them them? And obviously I had so many, like, I had daddy issues and issues when it came to men from a very, very young age

that I've only discovered in my adult life, obviously. There was a lot of feeling like I wasn't enough. And then I went ahead and I told everyone in school that me and this girl had done this thing. Obviously now looking back, I was like, why the hell did you do that? But I was young and I wanted to feel claimed by her kind of thing so from there I was a bit like oh gosh maybe maybe let me just keep this stuff low-key and like not tell anyone really about it because you were getting the reaction to being with a woman being with a girl being gay

it's not a good thing and then like thinking about like coming out to other friends and family and stuff like that I just wasn't ready and then I met my daughter's dad when I was 16 and then we were obviously together just under 10 years and had catalaya and then I've always known I've been attracted to women I've had loads of experience with women and I've just always thought that I feel safer with a woman I feel yeah I Yeah, I feel like me and women, that just feels like my equal, right? But is that because obviously your gender, you know, your sex is that you are female. So is it to do with that you just understand the gender? Do you know what I mean? I love boobs. I'm really attracted to boobs. No, but I hear exactly

where you're coming from. But no, there's this like kind of like emotional connection that I feel like with a woman is just completely different to any kind of relationship that I've been with with a man. And I've really sat down and been in therapy and discovered the reasons why I have been with men and stuff like that. So, you know, that's really, really helpful for me to look back and understand now. But that's not me saying that, God forbid, if anything happens between me and my partner that I wouldn't ever go on a date with a man and stuff. I mean, I don't see it happening, but I'm not somebody that's like, I would never. On this week's show, we are delighted to welcome sex educator extraordinaire Ruby Rare.

I'm going to drill down a little bit more into this because I do know a few people who are either in non-monogamous relationships or have tried non-monogamous relationships. And it seems to me that in the people that I've met, it has not ended well. And it seems to me that there's always one person who's not as happy as they pretend they are, that they're saying, yeah, no, this is great. Yeah, this is what we're doing. It's fine. So I'm interested in what you just said a second ago, Ruby, which is, ooh, it's a little bit tender when I sense that somebody might actually be falling in love with somebody else. So there is a clear difference, isn't there, between sex and then falling in love when the emotion comes in. Is that where it becomes difficult? Is that where it becomes difficult? I mean, I think there's challenges with all of it.

And I think you can't really have sex without care and intimacy and a form of love. From what you're describing, it sounds like the people in your life might have already been in an established monogamous relationship and then changed things. That's not impossible, but it's tricky because you've already got all the context of what that monogamous relationship looks like. And you're kind of having to actively undo that. And I know lots of people who have done that and it's worked. I also know people who've given that a go and it hasn't done. And that's okay as well. I don't think it means that non-monogamy as a whole is a failure, but it's just actually, that wasn't the right thing for those individuals or for one of them,

if one of them actually just wasn't as into it. There's something different about establishing non-monogamous relationships. When I've met a couple of my more longer term partners, we met each other being like, hey, yeah, I'm doing this. This is the flavour of non-monogamy that I practice. What does yours look like? Oh, cool. They align. We're looking for similar things. Do we get on? Yes. Let's have fun. So what needs to be in place then for a non-monogamous relationship to work? Are you saying, Ruby, that it's about finding that other person who's also into that kind of fluidity? Is that the key to this?

Yeah, I think it can be. Yeah, I think it can be. I think you've got to have a really strong sense of self and know what it is you're curious to explore. It doesn't mean you need to have all the answers. And it's finding people who are like-minded, definitely, and finding people where you can really establish a sense of trust. And that's easier said than done. But I think when you can find people

where you know you're not always going to get it right but there is the care and respect and trust as a foundation to that then you've built a solid foundation. My guest today is a former A&E doctor, ex-Love Islander, UK mental health ambassador and somebody I could just chat to for hours. It is, of course, Dr Alex George. I mean, listen, I grew up in West Wales and I probably had a few sips of beer as I was growing up in my teenage years. And certainly by the age of 15, 16, you'd have drinks at home with your friends. And then by the age of 18, I'd go out and and drink and med school was work hard, play hard.

It's our culture isn't it, it's just drinking. I think particularly at our age and before where you grow up and it's alcohol is just such a normal part of socialising. If you don't drink you feel outside of that and I think one of the big challenges of stepping out of the room as it were when it comes to drinking alcohol is learning like who am i how do i socialize without alcohol how do i deal with my problems without using alcohol to numb it because i didn't really realize i was using alcohol to that extent to numb things and for perspective for people i was drinking probably three nights a week and perhaps on a weeknight i might have a two or three glasses of wine or beer that would be one of the nights and i'd probably drink on friday and saturday

we would have more maybe five pints, maybe six pints, which I think, you know, A, is more clearly than recommended amount. But to a lot of people, it's probably like a relatable amount that people drink. Let's be frank. I was just going to say, I can completely relate to that. That, you know, during the week, it's a couple of nights a week, friends going, meet me in the pub for a couple of drinks. And you end up having, you know, two, three glasses of wine.

And then Friday night, fuck, let's go for go for it yeah let's go and have some beers and what i've realized is that actually it's very little to do with how much you drink within reasonable context it's more about why you drink and what that does to you so for me even two or three pints would have a negative impact on my anxiety levels. My stress levels would actually increase as a misanoma that people think it reduces stress levels, alcohol consumption, even a couple of glasses a week, raises levels of cortisol in your blood, which is your stress hormone and makes you more stressed. And I found that actually just knocked me off in terms of my mood. My mood would take days to recover even after two or three pints. So I'm acutely sensitive to it, which now also makes a lot of sense in context that I've been diagnosed with ADHD.

The ADHD diagnosis came before I stopped drinking alcohol and was definitely a contributing factor of why I stopped. My guest today is one half of two of the most dynamic duos in podcasting. She co-hosts both the Newlyweds podcast, previously Nearlyweds, and Wednesdays. It is, of course,

the sensational Sophie Haboo. There's you, there's Jamie, there's your mum and your dad and you've told us that actually they are separated. And then you've got Jamie's family. Are his parents still together? No, and he's got about

seven brothers and sisters. I should probably know. I could count them all. He's got Jem, Tash, George, Zanda and Emmy. So he's got five brothers and sisters. Right. There's a lot. So we're talking now four different families and then there's you guys as a married couple. You've also got your friends and your incredibly busy work commitments. I mean, how do you look so calm? I don't get it. Are you not completely stressed out? This year, we're going skiing with the family

and it's been organised by my dad, which he's, you know, feels like I'm a little girl again with him organising the holidays. And it's just really nice because normally it's Jamie's mum and his dad separated, but they both live very near each other in the countryside. So we would go to one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. And then my parents live abroad, my mum in Portugal, dad in Spain.

So it was really hard to manage it all. And this year it's, you know, it's been taken out of our hands. Hold on. I need to rewind and reverse into, so Jamie's mum and dad are in the country. They live quite close to each other. Your mum is in Spain. No, my mum's in Portugal and dad's in Spain. I mean, previously, how have you navigated at Christmas seeing all these people?

It's been really hard. And actually, both my parents decided to move, even though they're separated at the same time. So they moved just before lockdown, the first COVID. So it was really hard over COVID because I'd always spent Christmas with my family. And then suddenly I wasn't able to go to my mum, knowing she was alone. And the same with my dad, knowing he was alone. I had such a guilt I wanted to be with them I've probably been going out with Jamie for a year I suddenly was going to his family's house for Christmas with their traditions and their family so I really feel for this this girl writing in

with the dilemma because I've definitely been there and it's it's just that sense of trying to juggle it all if you missed any of those or you just fancy another listen you can check out the episodes in full wherever you're listening to this and if you've already binged them and you need more well fear not because we'll be back next week with a brand new episode of it can't just be me