The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Sophie McCartney on health anxiety and Dr Google

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

In this guest episode of The Therapy Edit Anna chats to comedian Sophie McCartney about her One Thing. Sophie talks about her experiences of health anxiety and shares her advice about trusting your gut instinct as a mother much more than Dr Google!Sophie, the force behind the internet phenomenon Tired and Tested, is a 30-something comedy writer and social media sensation who made her name with her viral Ed Sheeran parody, Smell of You. She has since built up a loyal following of more than a million on Facebook alone for her funny and honest videos, which have attracted hundreds of millions of views.Her debut non-fiction, Tired and Tested: The Wild Ride into Parenthood, was an instant Sunday Times number one bestseller on release in February 2022. Sophie's debut novel, Mother Hens, is out in Feb 2023 and you can pre-order it here https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0008475334?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_WB2PTM58RB1NE8BSPSTQYou can also follow Sophie on Instagram at @tiredandtested

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist's mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hello and welcome to today's guest episode of The Therapy Edit. I have with me, comedian and social media sensation, Sophie McCartney. I followed Sophie for ages. She is hilarious, just so honest about motherhood in the most fantastic of ways. She is tired and tested on Instagram. She has a best-selling book, Tired and Tested, The Wild Ride of Parenthood, and a new book

coming out in March called Mother Hens, which is fiction. And I'm so excited to dive into that. So welcome, Sophie. How are you today? I am good. I'm a little bit tied around the edges, but I've got a three-month-old baby. So that's normal, right? So that's fine. I imagine if I came on and I was like, I feel brilliant. You don't hate me, wouldn't you? So no, tied around the edges, but holding it together. Klinging on. I feel like that is, that is generally, yeah, that's a great way of explaining life. Yeah, and it's just just just the fingernails. You know, we're just always just waiting for someone to come and stamp on your hand and then you just go, you know, tumbling down into the darkness of despair. A bit titanic, a bit titanic, but with the better ending. Yeah, yes. Yes, hopefully, yes. Well, it's so good to be, it's so good to be talking to you. And we were chatting away, weren't we, and having a right giggle. And then I said, we'd better press record.

Otherwise, you're going to give all the good stuff away, and we'll have to scrape it back out of you. But, I mean, where do you get all your inspiration for the funny bits? Is it just motherhood? Yeah, do you know what? My kids do things every day that inspire me to bitch about. them. I love them dearly, but some of the things that come out with, they are hilarious, to be fair. I mean, my daughter is funnier than I am, for sure. Like, I'll say that I'm a comedian,

but some of the things that she comes out with, she's just, and she's savage as well. She's just turned seven. So now she just, she's got no filter and she just, you know, says it as she sees it. And you just sit in there afterwards after you've had a conversation with it, just feel like you've been torn apart by a panther. But she's brilliant with it. She's much, but she's so cute with it as well and you think oh my gosh at what age can you not get away with that anymore to actually just say things like that to people's faces yeah yeah when does it start it's so interesting isn't it because I think so many of the clients I've worked with is actually starting to take away that filter again a little bit yeah because that filter can go on it can go

on a little bit too much sometimes so I think it's yeah the honesty is always welcome yes yes yes it is all about fine lines always you might end up with no friends yeah very much so yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're important. They are very important. Right. So the question that I have for you is, if you could share one thing with all the mums, what would that one thing be? Okay.

I would say, always, always go with your gut influence. Don't go with your gut influence. I don't know if that's the right word. Gut instinct. It turns where it takes you. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. If it's going to take you to teeth whitening and stuff, then maybe I don't know.

go whatever you've been influenced by you got by. Go with your gut instinct, I was going to say, before my teeth fell out. Go with your gut instinct. And don't let other people distract you from kind of what you know is right for yourself and for your kids. And especially Dr. Google. I mean, this is a big one.

Yeah, this is. So for me, I suffer quite badly with anxiety when it comes to any kind of health concerns. Not so much nowadays for me, but I mean, I did probably pre-kids, but now I've got the kids. I've got something else to put all that worry into. So, you know, you care less about yourself, don't you?

When your kids come along, you put everything into your kids. So now when the kids are not well or just, it's just the smallest thing, I, and I know I shouldn't do it. And because I know it always ends badly for me, but I'll go to Dr. Google. Now, I've got three kids and I've been around the block in terms of, you know, we've had all of the childhood illnesses. You know, my two now are my big two, are nine and seven. They've all survived. Like they've come out of everything absolutely fine, all the things that I've worried about, all the high temperatures, everybody's been fine. So there is a rational part of me, that gut instinct, I guess, that knows that everything is probably fine.

And I should listen to that. So it's my advice for other mothers, but I don't listen to it to myself. So I know that I go, yeah, do you know what, he's got a fever, he's got some cowpoll in him, it'll be right. If he's not, I'll call the doctor tomorrow. That's the rational side of my voice. and most of the people would probably give me that advice also. The crazy part, the crazy part that loves them so much and just thinks that somebody's going to take them away from any given second of the day

tells me you need to Google that and then you need to call an ambulance. So that's where I sit constantly on a day-to-day basis, that's where I sit. Between being rational and listening to my own kind of gut instinct that goes, you know what, it's fine. And if it's not fine, we live in a country where we're very fortunate. to have access to great medical intervention and we can get there quickly. And then the other half of me that goes, nope, they're going to die. They're going to die because Dr. Google told you.

Dr. Google told you that they're going to die. And they told you really fast, so it must be true. And Dr. Google, I'm pretty sure if Dr. Google had done any kind of medical training, he would have been struck off. Oh, absolutely. You know, so many times. He wouldn't have getting a job in any hospital. But I have spent hours Googling.

hours googling symptoms and yeah just felt my anxiety and fear just kind of ramping up by the second with every line that I'd read and it's I don't know about you but what tends to come up on my Google searches when I search about health stuff at all of those forums like all of those kind of advice yeah you know a doctor Janet step away do you know what I mean oh I know and it's so it's so immediate though isn't it and it's so it's so quick and we can get onto it so fast and once somebody has planted the seed so something that i also for victim to quite a lot is the fact that i will talk about it on my social so if i'm just doing because when i do my instagram stories i i've pretty much got no filter on there i will pick up my phone and i will just

how i'm feeling whatever and i will just say anything that's going on around me at that particular the moment in time, I'll just be chatting about it on my stories. So if I say maybe, oh, one of the kids has got a rash or, you know, I've been up all night because one of them's got a cough, somebody's like, have you checked to make sure it's not tuberculosis? And I'm like, oh my God. It's just a random person. They have no medical qualification whatsoever, but suddenly we're being flung back to, you know, some 16th century disease that I'm now absolutely convinced that my child has got. And I'm thinking, can I call the doctors with this? Or are they going to think that I am absolutely off my rocker. I think my, I've got a GP mate actually and she once said to

me, bless her, she has been on the receiving end of photos that nobody should see. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And she said, she said to me something years ago that I found so helpful and she said, Anna, common things tend to be common, the common things. And to me, that was just like really reassuring. Like most likely it is probably going to be the most boring explanation. explanation. And that is what I try and hold on to. But there are, yeah, those moments where the temptation is high. And I think it's just, we just want that sense of, we want someone to tell us it's going to be all right. Yeah. And Google is not that person. No, Google's not that person. So this is very, very random. But I've been watching, if you watch the English yet on

the I player? Was it about? So it's Emily Blunt in it. And it's about kind of the origins of when the English came to America and everything that happened there with the native people that were there. It's very good. It's very, very good. But there's a little bit, yes, put it on there, but what I'm going to tell you isn't going to ruin it, but there's a little bit in there

where they talk about syphilis. All right, I'm just going to see it. Talk about syphilis. And I hadn't realised that back in the day, you know, it's still syphilis nowadays. You know, you get a course of antibiotics, don't you? And that's it. It's nothing really more to it than that. But back in the day, your face would rot off with syphilis.

It attacked your soft tissue and it was horrendous and it was a really slow, long drawn-out death if you had sick, it's awful. So anyway, they talk about it in the English and I did a little Google. Because I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that something nowadays that can be cured with a bit of penicillin back then

was that awful. Anyway, starts talking on Google about congenital syphilis. so it was passed on to children in the womb. And I was like, oh my goodness, that's horrendous, horrendous. One of the symptoms, sniffly nose. The very uncommon niche symptom, very rare. So now Nate has had a sniffly nose now for about two weeks. This is about 2 o'clock in the morning.

I'd just done a feed, and I was just waiting for him to wind properly and back down. I'm sitting on my phone. And I'm like, oh, oh my God. does he have congenital syphilis from the 17th century? I spiraled. Yeah, I spiraled into an absolute decline that maybe at some point in my life I'd come into contact with syphilis.

It lay dormant in me, but it had passed on to my baby because he had a blocked nose. And I genuinely thought, I'm going to have to call the doctors in the morning. And then actually, I found a search that said, when you first trimester, when you get your 10-week appointment with the NHS, they give you blood screening tests. One of the things that they check for, you get HIV, you get syphilis and you get hep B. They're like the three comma ones. And I was like, oh, he's just got a snutty nose. Now we're okay, okay.

Yeah, but Google sent me down an absolutely well-upesteped. I felt like I was on that journey with you just then. I think I held my breath the whole time. I know. But we've all been there, haven't we? I know. And I told my husband in the morning and he was just like, right, just walked away from. He had no idea the journey that you had gone on that night.

Babe, both our faces were going to rot off. It was awful. It was awful. Yeah, no. Oh, wow. But yeah, we have all been there. And I think health anxiety and anxiety in itself has a very powerful way of kind of enhancing statistics. So if it's one in a million, you know, health anxiety will have you thinking and believing that you are in that moment, that one.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. is that one. Yeah. Yeah. And we know so much more now, don't we? I know if I hear of a, I think in another life I would have loved to have been a doctor because I have such fascination with all the things medical. And I just Google, I Google, shouldn't do that. Any, any, although I read medical journals, so any kind of disease I've never heard of, I like to know about it. So I have a look. And I think,

you know, a generation or two ago, no one could do that. You wouldn't actually know half the illnesses that existed. So if there was a sniffle, you wouldn't know. that it could potentially be congenital syphilis. It just wouldn't. It wouldn't have crossed your mind. You know, there would have been a virus and a cold probably would have been the main things. And we wouldn't, we didn't have access to all of the stories and the kind of, you know, the worst case scenarios that we have such access to now.

So I do think we do seek Dr. Google more. We do. We do. We do. We do. And you know, sometimes, you know, on the odd occasion, on the odd occasion, it does sometimes kind of put your mind at rest. You were saying about common.

So maybe if you then went on to a forum and you saw lots of people were asking the same question about congenital syphilis, you might go, oh, okay. You know, lots of people are asking this question. So it's not just me. And sometimes it's helpful. But yeah, a lot of the other times it's not. It's just a gloomy, gloomy outlook.

Yeah, maybe thinking then, if you are going to go to Dr. Google, just thinking about where you're going, like what links you're clicking on. Because the forums, if it's, If it is, you know, it was a cold, it wasn't congenital syphilis, splash eating disease, you wouldn't really be driven to go on and write about it. No, you probably wouldn't.

I would say, like, safe stomping grounds are going to be the NHS. I find when I went, yeah, Dr. Google quite often does point me in the direction of the NHS website. And once I've clicked through to there, for example, when it's told me about, actually, I was already tested for that in my first 10 weeks of pregnancy and I don't have it. So, yes. That was helpful. was helpful. Yes, that was a good, a good position to go down, a good route. And I think sometimes we look for someone, we're experiencing exactly the same thing as us. And then we hope so much that the

outcome of their story will be, and then we lived happily ever after. And nothing bad happened. And you know, we just seek so much reassurance. But actually, I just wonder, yeah, if we were just to take a breath. And especially in the middle of the night, that's like, oh, we've got no one to kind of, Yeah, give us a gentle, like, yeah, you know, come on now. Let's just wait and see. Yeah, exactly. Don't call 999. Not right now.

No, don't take him to A&E just because he's actually just got a bogey, but your fingernail isn't quite long enough to pick out. And that's why it's breathing is a little bit funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And watch and wait is quite a good, quite, I find that quite a good rule, especially when I'm like feeling myself get a little bit,

everything's getting a bit heightened. You know, the watch and wait, maybe just put time off an hour, see if anything's better or worse after after cow poll you know yeah and that's where the rational your gut instinct comes from as well because I also think that you actually you know when something is genuinely wrong with your baby and or your child or whoever you you will know and we've had that as well and as I'm coming back to what I was saying in the beginning about trusting that got instinct instead of just being you know led down a hysterical path by Google because I think actually when you are faced with something, you know it immediately.

And actually when you're doing all the Googling, that's when there's nothing wrong. Like that that is when actually everything is fine and you're just potentially becoming hysterical over a situation that doesn't need to happen. But I think actually when you know, when you've noticed a big change, because you know your kids better than anyone else, don't you? So, you know, when you actually see something there, you will know, you will know to act. So it's that the importance of that gut instinct, 100%. And do you know, I've spoken about this.

a lot of my friends as well and I think what I've come to the conclusion is that all mothers are the same I think we're all the same I think when it comes to our kids you know that you you just can't it's very hard to just sit back isn't it and just go yeah you know we all do it we all do it's because we love them so much

we love them so much and we just don't want anything to happen I know doesn't it? And they are miracles I look at Nate and I like I sit there and I look at his little fingers and his little toes and I go do you know what I made you and I can't believe that I made do, please, please don't anybody take him away. And, you know, it's that, it's that panic that lives inside you. And it just comes from love. Hysteria comes from love, 100%. Right. Well, thank you

so much. And to finish off, I've got some quick fire questions for you. Okay. So a motherhood high. Oh, the moment that I realized that the envelope openings on the bit on the vest, you know, the little vest that got the little slits at the top, that they were so that you could roll the vest down over their body so he didn't scrape poo in their face. But again, I got to my second child before I realised that. But that was, what a day. Oh dear. What a day. I can't imagine some of the situations that you might not have had to go through. Just cut his hair off. It's fine. It'll grow back. There's no saving it. Yes. That was a great day in my house, honestly, when I realised that. But second baby, I think Evelyn was about 18 months when I realised that. Yeah.

Well, that was a good, that was a good day. A little bit too late, but a good day all the same. And what's a motherhood low for you? Um, oh gosh, mother hoodlows. I mean, there's been, there's been a few. I mean, God love them. But, um, any, oh no, my daughter wants through dog poo at me in the park. That was a mother put out. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There it is. There it is. Yeah. That's, that's in the memory bank, in the long term memory bank. Yeah. I think she just thought it was good and she picked it up and threw it at me.

And I couldn't shout out because she was small and she didn't know. And then we had to walk all the way home with me just holding her hands like outwards, outwards, just so she wouldn't. herself, wouldn't touch anybody else. We were about half an hour away from home. I just wanted to cry. She was crying. I had my own dog. It wasn't her poo. I mean, if it would have been her poo, I don't think I'd have minded as much because, you know, it's that your child, isn't it? You know, I know where she's been in the garden, eating her own poo. But still, like, it would have felt a bit cleaner. Oh, dear. That's not, that's not a good one. That's not a good one.

No, no. That was a low. That was a lot. And what's one thing that makes you feel good? What do you like to do him? Oh, I was going to say something really corny then. That's all right. When my kids tell me they love me, it makes me feel so happy inside. It's really narcissistic that it's just that I love it when they tell me that they love me. But there's just my heart sores because I think when you have down days and there are many when you have kids. And that's not taking away how much you love your kids and how amazing parenthood is and how very lucky we all are that, you know, for those of us who are lucky enough to have had kids.

kids. But there are down days, there are hard days. And, you know, just that little, I love you mummy. And you know what? It makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it? And it just makes it back, isn't it? It is. And you know what? And you start getting it back, especially I'm prompted. Yeah, exactly. We're not bribing them with a bag of chocolate button. Say it. Tell me, I love say it. Yeah. Oh, I know. I'm with you on that. I do love it. And then finally, how would you describe motherhood in three words? Oh, three. Bloody hard work.

Is that three? That is three. That is three. Your sleep deprived brain has done very well with counting today. Yeah. Bloody hard work. But caveat would look like a little asterisk. Always the caveat.

Or if only we didn't have to speak the caveat and just assume that the caveat was always there. Always there. That would be good. But worth it. But worth it. And I love them. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Sophie.

Thank you for all that you bring, all the humor and the honesty. And I cannot wait to read your book, Mother Hens, which is out in March. It's in March. And available for pre-order. Yes, it is. Yeah, you can get it now. I can't wait. I can't wait.

The signed copies. Sign copies are kicking about. I think you can get them at Waterstones and Smiths for sign copies. And then if you just want a normal one, it's on Amazon in it. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe or review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my three books, Mind Oath and Mother, Know Your Worth, and my new book, The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows, and the moments in between. It's a little book you don't need to read it from front to back.

you just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity. You can also find all my resources, guides and videos, all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional and mental well-being as a mum. They are all £12 pounds and you can find them on anamatha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon.