Woman's Hour - Fussy eaters, Parliament that works for women, Passing for white, Terri White - editor-in-chief Empire magazine

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

What do you do when your toddler is a fussy eater? A guide for parents about fussy eating which has been available for over ten years, has just been re-evaluated by 25 mothers. Jenni hears from Amanda, a mother of two daughters, plus one of the academics behind the guide, Claire Farrow, Professor in Children's Eating Behaviour at Aston University, Birmingham.The system of proxy voting for MPs on baby leave is due to expire this summer. Last year, Andrea Leadsom, then Leader of the House of Commons, announced that MPs could take baby leave. Men would get two weeks and women would get six months and they can, if they choose, vote by proxy. So, what is likely to happen now? And what can be done to prevent gender equality in Parliament from being seen as a luxury add-on as the country faces the current health and economic challenges of Covid-19? We hear from Andrea Leadsom MP and Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender at Royal Holloway, University of London. To everyone else, Terri White appeared to be living the dream. In her thirties, she moved from the UK to New York to edit magazines and went on to become one of Folio's Top Women in US Media. In reality, she was rapidly sliding towards a mental health crisis that would land her in a locked psychiatric ward as her past caught up with her. The now editor-in-chief of Empire magazine describes her time in New York and her traumatic childhood of physical and sexual abuse in a new memoir, 'Coming Undone'. We speak to Dr Janine Bradbury, Senior Lecturer in Literature at York St John University, about the history of 'passing for white' novels and films, many of which offer deeply problematic representations of mixed race women. Books mentioned by Dr Bradbury: The House Behind the Cedars by Charles Chestnutt, Passing by Nella Larsen, Caucasia by Danzy Senna, The Vanishing Half by Britt BennettPresenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Dianne McGregor

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Friday the 3rd of July. Good morning. In today's programme, how to cope if you have a toddler who's a fussy eater. Why do they do it and will they grow out of it? The phenomenon of passing for white as demonstrated in a successful new novel, The Vanishing Half, we examine the history and impact of novels and films

where a mixed-race woman conceals her black inheritance. And Coming Undone, the effects of childhood sexual and physical abuse on Terry White, who's now editor-in-chief of Empire magazine. Now, on Wednesday afternoon, the Commons Procedure Committee met to discuss the workings of the House of Commons. One issue under consideration rather stood out. The system of proxy voting for those MPs on baby leave

is due to expire this summer on the 28th of July. You may remember that in early 2019, Andrea Leadsom, then leader of the House, announced that MPs could take baby leave. Men could get two weeks and women could take six months when, if they so chose, they could vote by proxy. There was strong cross-party support for the idea from women MPs at the time, so what is likely to happen now? And what can be done to prevent gender equality in Parliament from being seen as a bit of a luxury as the country deals with the health and economic problems created by Covid-19? Well, I'm joined by Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender at Royal Holloway University of London and by Andrea Leadsom, MP for South Northamptonshire. Andrea what convinced

you that proxy voting for MPs on baby leave was the right scheme when you suggested it? Essentially when you have a new baby whether you're the mum or the dad, it's vital that you spend time with that new baby to form that secure bond that then enables the baby to go on to be a secure human being. So the critical 1001 days from conception to the age of two has always been something I've campaigned for. But very specifically, in answer to your question, Jenny, we were racing against time. I think we had four very heavily pregnant female MPs and several dads whose partners were about to give birth. So I was really keen that we introduced that before we had the awful scene of Tulip Sadiq, who came into Parliament to vote in a wheelchair, very heavily pregnant. That was totally unacceptable. So there was no doubt in my mind it was the right time.

Sarah, how important would you say this reform was? I think it was absolutely critical. I mean, we were one of a sort of quarter of all the world's parliaments that didn't have any provisions. We dealt with it informally. It was arrangements between individuals and their whips. And I felt it informally. It was arrangements between individuals and their whips. And I felt it was really risky for women that they risked criticism in their constituency, that perhaps party electorates might not want to select women of childbearing age. So I think it really was part of a huge package of reforms that I think our parliament and also parliaments around the world really need to take seriously. We've got to change our political

institutions so that diverse people, including women and men who are going to have children, can participate equally in politics. Andrea, how worried are you now that the arrangement may lapse at the end of this month? a great success. At the time when I introduced it, you say there was great cross-party consensus. There was, but equally there were a number of people either who thought it wasn't broad enough, it should include, for example, bereavement or illness. There were those who were absolutely opposed to it, saying, you know, where will it end? It's the thin end of the wedge. You'll end up where MPs don't have to be here anymore. So there wasn't the unanimity. However, I think over the last year, people have come to agree that it's a good thing. So I don't fear it being lapsing.

What I do hope, however, is that it will be increased to include issues around an MP who's perhaps having cancer treatment or an MP who has been recently bereaved. I think that would be very important. And I think it will really help to encourage many more people to consider a life in politics, because at the moment, it is pretty harsh. You know, if you have any of life's normal problems, suddenly, the only recourse that you have is to being paired, which means your constituency voice is snuffed out. Sarah, how confident are you that it will continue? Well, there were some nice words in yesterday's Procedure Committee hearing, so I'm hopeful,

but I think we just need to make it permanent, because I think this sense of, at the moment, lots of things are changing in Parliament, and parliament can and has been very rapid and progressive in some of its responses but I think we need some security once it's you know it has been agreed we've had the pilot we've had to have the extensions but let's just make this permanent so that we can be sure that we don't have to keep revisiting because I am concerned more broadly that there are those in parliament who don't like some of what i would call the more sort of modernizing or progressive changes and i'm worried that perhaps they can be very vocal so i think andrew is probably right that this you know it should be unthinkable that

this provision is is not made permanent but i think it's we've got to think of it as part of a larger set of provisions and i think some of those are under criticism. And Andrea, we are in difficult times at the moment, and we know the government is keen to get MPs back into the House during the crisis. And isn't it to some degree true that something is lost if MPs are not physically in the House? Yes, it is very true. You know, I completely agree that for the proper scrutiny of government activity, for the proper contribution of MPs and to be able to properly represent their constituents issues, you've got to be able to be in the chamber and intervene on a minister to raise something that comes up on the spur of the moment. And the problem with the remote parliament, the hybrid parliament, as it was called, is that you can't do that. There isn't the facility to

just say, hang on a minute, what about this? So yes, we have lost something for sure. But at the same time, parliament has to be a role model for the rest of the country. So in my view, proxy voting was the solution to that. And I was very pleased that the Speaker decided to temporarily allow those who are shielding or who can't be in Parliament because they're looking after somebody with coronavirus or whatever, they are now able to proxy vote. So that already has been a slight increase in the scope of proxy voting. It's just a very useful tool. And so without wanting to remove any of the presence

or the importance of being physically in Parliament, I do think some of these measures can take us into the 21st century and enable us to have a better balance for those who can't be there and those who need to be there. Sarah, how strong is the argument for keeping it going for anyone who might need it, whether they're shielding, disabled, undergoing cancer treatment, not just if you've just had a baby, but for maybe an awful lot of people to need to have proxy voting? I mean, I'm very much in favour of its extension.

When it was first introduced, it was defined very narrowly, but precisely because we were very concerned about critics and opponents rejecting it as we introduced it, because they felt it was the thin edge of the wedge. So it was very important to keep it narrow so that we reduce the opposition, if you like, because we weren't sure at the time that it would be accepted. But I suppose what I also think is really important is we have to be careful in this current climate that we don't create what I'm calling the good parliamentarian, the one who's present, physically present, who is defying the virus. And we've had lots of war metaphors.

And that then gets contrasted I think with the sort of work shy or the person who's voting whilst on a walk and I do worry that we're at risk of creating two kinds of MPs both in how they're talked about but also for those who are shielding and or not present for other reasons not being able to fully participate so I think we have to be flexible in how an institution works. And in lots of ways, that's what businesses are doing. And I think sometimes Parliament should be leading. And I think in this instance, rather than Parliament leading

by bringing everybody back as soon as possible, they should be leading by recognising the opportunities that technology can provide, particularly because over time, I think that more interactive participation that Andrea and others really value can be feasible with technology. It'd be really interesting to see what happens in the House of Lords on that front. But Sarah, the UN Women has expressed concern that gender equality has slipped down the agenda around the world. How inevitable is that as the pandemic occupies absolutely everybody?

I think it is inevitable at the moment because of the extent to which most parliaments are under representative women. I think it's inevitable because in many places there are too few gender experts as part of the staff of a parliament. Access to sex disaggregated and other intersectionally disaggregated data is not always on board. I think parliaments need to have a focus. I think one of the things that explains some of the changes on gender and diversity within the UK parliament was the fact that in the previous parliament, there was an organisation, the Commons Reference Group, that really drove this agenda. And I think one of the things that the UN Women's Primer for Parliament said it's produced on COVID-19 is really about getting parliaments to think about their structures, their capacities, their personnel on both the elected and the administrative side to make sure that when those decisions have to be taken very quickly, the people in the room,

both include men and women, but also the kind of expertise and data that you need to make the right kind of policies to address the extent to which the pandemic does affect different groups of people in different ways. But Andrea, how easy is it to focus on involving women in good governance when so many women and men have lost their jobs this week. Yeah, I mean, this is the key issue. You know, you have Parliament as a role model to demonstrate to the country that we can get back to work socially, distancing and so on. And you also have Parliament as a role model wanting to see more female voices to say to women, you know, you can start a business, you don't have to be treated in this way or that way. So Parliament has a number of roles and you're right that therefore our ability

to spend time focusing on our own gender diversity is impacted by the need to be focusing on what's going on in the country. But those are two sides of the same coin. And what I can say from my 10 years now in Parliament is that I've seen a huge increase, not just in the number of female MPs, but in their willingness to speak up and say, look, my voice counts exactly as much as yours. And I insist on being heard. And I would also say that there are some fantastic mutual support groups amongst women MPs in Parliament. And that also, I think, has really changed things where perhaps some women felt they couldn't come forward on a particular issue. They now do have the confidence to do so.

So I think we're making great strides forward. I think proxy voting for baby leave was vital. I think it should be expanded. We know that very often women are the principal carers and therefore proxy voting can be a real tool to support women in representing their constituents better. But Andrea, I remember before you were reshuffled from Cabinet, sorry to mention that, you wrote that equality should be the absolute norm in business. And I wonder what needs to happen now to recruit and retain really talented women as MPs, I do believe proxy voting is good. I also am very proud of the harassment and bullying complaints procedure that I introduced. It's still got a way to go before it's really functioning well, mainly because it's too slow in finding conclusions. But in the country, I think what we need to fight for as women MPs is flexible working as standard. And when I was business secretary with our employment rights bill coming forward, I was advocating that people should be able to bid to apply for a job on the terms that suit them,

whether that is on a job share, on working perhaps four days, longer hours, on whether it was flexible working, working from home and so on. And that will be a win win. And I think what the pandemic has shown us is people are capable of being totally productive whilst working from home or flexibly. I think many more employers are saying they hadn't realised how much they could get done whilst sat in their pyjamas in their dining room with the kids running around. So I think we've shown that we can do that and flexible working as standard will enable many more people who otherwise couldn't have done it

to take on a much more challenging role and that gives employers access to a more diverse range of talents which will help women in the workplace. Andrea Leadsom and Professor Sarah Childs, thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning. Now, a new novel,

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, has gone into the New York Times bestseller list and has been snapped up for dramatisation. It tells the story of twin sisters who run away from a black community in the South at the age of 16. One of them returns to the town in which they grew up. The other passes for white, withholding a racial identity from her husband. Now there is a long

history of novels and films where mixed-race women pass for white, many of which have offered problematic representations of light-skinned women of colour. Well, I'm joined by Dr Janine Bradbury, a senior lecturer in literature at York St John University. Janine, how exactly would you define passing for white? Thanks for having me, Jenny. I would define passing for white in a specifically American context as any circumstance where somebody with African-American heritage is perceived or read as being white because they are light-skinned or they have other features that we as readers of race and we're all readers of race might think of as being white. Why has it been such a problematic genre? Oh goodness, where to begin? It's problematic certainly in terms of literature because

most passing novels and narratives have been written by white people or men so it's very unusual to find passing novels that have been written by black women or women of colour or mixed race, raced women. And there are examples of those. The Vanishing Half is, you know, a fabulous contemporary example of that. Other examples might be Dan Zissena's book Caucasia or Nella Larson's book Passing. But yeah, mainly these books are written by white people and by men. A second kind of major issue would be that the genre kind of maligns black women, darker skinned black women, who kind of features these hopeless mammies who watch helplessly as their light skinned daughters grow more and more estranged and feel that whiteness is is you know the most important thing to them

um and of course the representation of light-skinned women is offensive um the passing genre is a hotbed for colorism it equates lightness and whiteness with beauty um and that is you know a difficult uh issue and isn't one that i think a lot of light-skinned women are comfortable with. Or, you know, darker-skinned black women, it's not helpful. And additionally, these light-skinned women are always punished. So they might be devastatingly beautiful and celebrated in the genre, but they are always punished in the narrative for transgressing that racial line they often die or they lose somebody close to them um they are depicted as tragic malattas as we kind of refer to them in literary criticism and they never have happy endings what what novels might

be in this genre might actually be worth reading from the past or would you dismiss them all? I wouldn't dismiss them all. There are, I think, you know, one that I would recommend that certainly upholds a lot of these stereotypes and tropes, but is a really good example of a kind of riveting melodramatic read would be something like Charles Chestnut's The House Behind the Cedars, which is a, you know, turn of the century romance novel in many ways that has a passing plot at its heart. It's well written for the time, although, you know, it's quite archaic and dated now, I suppose. But it's a fascinating read, but it upholds a lot of these tropes. But, you know, certainly for anyone who's interested in contemporary writing, The Vanishing Half is brilliant. And then if you use that as a starting point, as I say, Dan Zissena's work is fantastic. But Nella Larson's Passing is, for me, one of the best passing novels, if not the best novel ever written.

But why? Even if it falls into the traps that you were so concerned about, why would you recommend it? Well, I think context is everything. And I think you can't read about passing now without understanding the genre out of which these contemporary works are emerging and responding to. You know, passing doesn't come out of nowhere so in order to understand why something like brit bennett's novel is so brilliant in its handling of the subject i think it's useful to compare it to to um predecessor text and i should add that you know nella larson's book passing was published in 1929 i think and even though there are traces of the kind of stereotypical representations I'm talking about, she's very clever and deft in her treatment of them.

So I personally wouldn't dismiss any writing out of hand. I think context is everything. So if you're interested in passing, you know, read more passing novels. What about films? Well, the most iconic film, I would say say in the genre is Imitation of Life which was adapted not once but twice from a novel by Fanny Hurst who is a white woman writer. Hurst wrote her book or published her book in the 30s and there's a 30s adaptation of it. And there's a really interesting late 1950s adaptation, which is starring Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, Sandra Dee,

and Susan Conner as a passing for white character. It's the passing plot in that film is kind of a subplot, but it is the plot that I think most people remember. And in it, we see a darker skinned black woman named Annie, who has a lighter skinned child, a white skin child, a white child called Sarah Jane. And Sarah Jane is resentful of her heritage. She hates being black or perceived as black historically, which at the time she would have been, regardless of how she looked. Heritage was everything. And she disowns her mother and decides that she wants to pass for white and live her life as a white person.

And her mother, Annie, dies of a broken heart. Spoiler alert. And it's a fascinating film at the conclusion of the film. I was going to say, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but it is iconic. I think a lot of people have seen it. But we see kind of at the end of the film, Sarah Jane repents. She shows up at the funeral of her mother. She throws herself dramatically across the casket and kind of repents for what she's done. And that funeral

scene in imitation of life is one of the most iconic in american cinema but certainly is one that is indelibly etched onto the minds of of people of color i would say who have seen this film and mahalia jackson's in it and does this amazing kind of gospel performance so problematic hard to watch if you're a mixed race woman which I am um but um again I think the contextual history makes it really you know useful to see what contemporary writers are doing with the genre how did you become as passionately interested in this subject as you clearly are um I suppose for me um I love literature, and I knew that I wanted to study it really early on. And when I was looking at university courses, which is a while ago now,

a couple of decades ago, the only place that I knew and could be confident that I would definitely read books about people of colour, black people, would be if I studied American literature. That's not the case now, which I think is a very good thing. And so I studied American literature. And of course, I'm constantly looking out for representations of women that look like I do. And I found very quickly that the narrative home of mixed race women in American literature is the passing genre. And that is quite an uncomfortable realization that that is how your experiences are depicted. And to sit, you know, in classrooms with people going, oh, my gosh, this book, the character is so torn, she just doesn't know who she is. And I thought, well, you know what, I know who I am, actually. Let's challenge these

readings. Let's unpack them a little bit more. So, yeah, that's what I do. Well, Dr. Janine Bradbury, very interesting. Thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. Now, still to come in today's programme, Coming Undone, the memoir of Terry White, who's now editor-in-chief of Empire magazine, and, of course, the serial, episode five of six subjects. Now supposing you have a child who will only eat white food. You can only put white pasta and butter on his plate. At Christmas there's no sign of a sprout or cranberry sauce for him, only a bit of chicken, white bread and white mayonnaise. And breakfast, only cornflakes and milk would do.

It's a fussy eater you've got. And a guide for parents about the problem, which has been available for more than 10 years, has recently been evaluated by a group of 25 mothers to see if it's still useful. Well, we're joined by Claire Farrow, who's Professor of Child Eating Behaviour at Aston University in Birmingham, and by Amanda Olsop. Now, Amanda, two daughters, how fussy were they? Hi, well, I've got two daughters aged six and three. My older daughter, we got off to quite a good start with her when she started on solid food she ate quite a range of food but when she hit the toddler years she became a lot fussier and she

only started to like a very limited number of food and some food that she liked when she was younger she just refused refused to eat it um she she didn't like certain textures so she loved cheese but she wouldn't have melted melted cheese she said it was too slimy all the food had to be separated on her plate um so the beans had to be separate from the toast um and yeah I found it quite a kind of stressful and frustrating time. And what about the other one? Was the other one OK? Would she eat whatever you put in front of her? My three year old, we've had similar with her, but I think we've been more I've been more relaxed with my younger daughter from um from sort of what I learned with my older daughter um I think with my older daughter I was getting stressed about was I doing the right thing was she getting enough nutrition and a balanced diet I hated seeing any food waste

and leftovers and mealtimes could become a bit stressful, which I think made the situation worse. Let's just bring Claire in here, Amanda. Why do some children become fussy eaters? If you're making beans on toast, the beans have to be on one side, the toast on the other. I think children, when they're weaned onto solid foods, tend to, on the whole, except quite a wide range of foods. And it's very common what Amanda's described, that around 18 months of age, children go through a phase that's known as neophobia, which is literally fear of new foods. And a child that's previously been a good eater, an easy eater, will suddenly start refusing foods that previously they would have quite happily accepted. And some children will go through this neophobic phase and it will be relatively transient and they'll be happy eaters

again soon whereas for other children it can become a quite an ingrained behavior and there are lots of factors that influence that there is a genetic component to fussy eating there are individual differences between children that might make them more or less likely to be a fussy eater. Some children are just more open to new experiences, whereas other children are more anxious and fearful of new experiences, including food. What was your experience, Claire, with your own children? I've also got two children and both of them have been through a stage of being fussy one of them more so probably than the other and they're now 11 and 7 and um they they both have a good diet the seven-year-old is still more fussy than the 11-year-old and there are some

foods that she's still reluctant to to have but we've sort of applied the science to to the behavior with her and tried to build in some of the strategies that i know can be effective to just gradually introduce novel foods into her diet over the years and how did you deal with it amanda um well i came across the um the child feeding guide online and that really kind of helped to shape my attitude towards it so it was i found it really reassuring to know that it was normal toddler behavior um and i kept kind of offering food that that had been refused and kind of not just give up trying to get them to eat certain food like the vegetables and it did improve gradually not overnight but it was it did seem to be a phase at the time. It felt like it was going to go on forever. But in hindsight, it was just a phase they were going through.

Claire, how often is it just a phase which they suddenly come out of? And how often does it persist and the child doesn't grow out of it? I think it depends what literature you look at. But on the whole, the majority of children will go through some phase of fussy eating in young childhood. For a smaller minority of children, it can become quite a severe problem. And there are children who experience what's known as ARFID, which is avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder and those are the children who probably um they might only eat you could probably count the number of foods that they would eat on on two hands and they're very careful about those foods so for example they might eat crisps but they have to be a certain

type of crisps and if the packaging changes they won't eat those crisps for example and those children would require professional attention. And on the Child Feeding Guide, we actually have a screening questionnaire so parents can complete a questionnaire about their child's diet. And from that, they'll get an alert to say this is probably typical food fussiness or this does seem to be a bit more extreme and you should seek professional attention. Because how risky is it to a child's health if this does persist for a long time? Well, on the whole, the majority of sort of typical fussy eaters actually get quite a variety in their diet. They do appear to consume less vitamin C, E, folate.

So there is evidence that they are not getting as many of the vitamins and minerals because often for seaters don't like things like vegetables and fruits which which tend to be better for us but on the whole the majority of for seaters will get enough of what they need from the diet that they they do have um if you have a very for seat today that that can become more of an issue and it's worth um you know, getting, speaking to a dietitian, speaking to the GP to have a look at their diet. Well, Professor Claire Farrow and Amanda Alsop, thank you both very much indeed for being with us.

And if you've had experience of this, you've had to deal with a fussy eater, we'd love to hear from you. You can send us an email or, of course, a tweet. Now, in her early 30s, Terry White moved to New York to edit magazines and was soon winning awards and was named one of Folio's top women in US media. On the outside, she was a huge success, but on the inside, she was heading towards a mental health crisis. She'd grown up in Derbyshire in great poverty and suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a number of her mother's partners. It was only after a time in a locked psychiatric ward and a return to the UK

that she began to put herself back together. She's now editor-in-chief of Empire magazine and has published a memoir, Coming Undone. Terry, you'd had a great job offer. You arrived in New York. What did you hope New York would bring to you? Well, I think like a lot of people, I was kind of raised with this cinematic vision of New York, which I probably gleaned from movies and books and records, that it was this great land of opportunity, really, and was probably the place I thought that I could become the best version of myself. I could become a great success.

And I think it was, you know, the place that I thought I could become the person I was always meant to be. So what was it like when you got your first flat? Oh, God, that flat was awful. Oh, my goodness. On Christopher Street in the West Village. And, you know, I'd watched all these movies. And in my head, I was going to move into some incredible, massive loft apartment. In reality, I paid $2,500 for a very dark sublet. That was one room. There were only two windows in the whole apartment. So it was mostly in darkness. There was a kind of crudely fitted toilet and bathroom in the corner. And while it was, you know, in the middle of the

West Village, which looked amazing, the flat itself was the site of many horrors. And it was, you know, in the middle of the West Village, which looked amazing, the flat itself was the site of many horrors. And it was, you know, probably one of the worst places I've lived. And what did your life consist of apart from the hours that you spent at work? So I was very lonely. I only knew one person in New York when I moved there and I'd kind of left my family and friends back in the UK and so I was already kind of struggling with mental health and had done since I was a little girl and I arrived in the city and I was very quickly drinking a great deal um I was self-harming a great deal and so those hours outside of work um was when kind of I really started to struggle with the memories and the trauma, I suppose, of what I'd experienced earlier in life, which somehow felt easier to contain in London when I had a really active social life. I had a great support structure in friends and family.

Without all of that in New York, I suddenly felt very isolated and quite consumed with those things and developed these kind of awful self-destructive behaviours. Now the self-destructive behaviour is really disturbing to read about. I've obviously read your book and throughout it as you were talking about cutting yourself, about taking various different pills, sleeping pills, Xanax, drinking, drinking, passing out. How did you manage to conceal what was going on when you were at work? Well, you know, people often talk about high functioning and I think I didn't know what that meant until those years in New York because I was very committed at work.

I was very dedicated. I'd always been consumed by my career. And I became very adept at creating two different people, the me in private and the me in public. And you know, there were practical things, I'd wear certain clothes so that people couldn't see the cuts. And I would use eye drops so that my eyes weren't bloodshot in the morning, there were certain tools I learned to be able to kind of conceal all that stuff. But I think, you know, I'd become skilled over many decades of hiding and I was very well versed in secrets. And I think that stood me in great stead when I was attempting to conceal it in my professional life.

How did you end up in a psychiatric hospital? Well essentially things got very very bad and I was drinking a huge amount taking a lot of pills and one night I woke up after a blackout at this point I was probably blacking out five or six times a week and I woke up and I had two empty pill bottles in my hands and it became apparent quite quickly that after blacking out while drinking I had taken these two bottles of pills and that led to me being admitted quite rightly to a psychiatric ward. What was the diagnosis once you saw specialist psychiatrists um so they um said it was major depression and anxiety and substance induced mood disorder i'd never been diagnosed before i'd gone to one previous doctor in new york who after quite a cursory examination said it was borderline personality disorder

which i wasn't quite sure about um but yeah in the hospital that was the the kind of final and I think more fitting diagnosis that I was given. Now it's not until chapter six that you begin to write about your childhood why did you structure the memoir in that way? Well it's interesting because when I first started writing the book it was called Mad Hatton and it was almost exclusively focused on New York, on my experiences there and on the psychiatric ward. And as I wrote about those things, it became apparent that I couldn't do so. I couldn't even begin to unpick that stuff until I traced it back to the beginning. And the beginning of all of those issues,

I believe, was in my childhood. So this story kind of wrote itself almost, it was demanding to be heard as I was writing. And then it became clear to me that I needed to kind of structure the book in two parts, my childhood and New York. But rather than open on, you know, this kind of catalogue of terrible things that happened to me, I wanted to more start with, you know, what other people had seen and this kind of scene in New York, which on the outside looks successful, to try and show people that contrast between what can outwardly look one way, but privately is completely different. And actually, you never know what somebody's been through in their past and what they're

struggling with. You say it's hard to live when you suspect your life ended at five. What happened, Terry? So I was sexually abused by one of my mum's partners and there were two in total. There was some further abuse that came after that. There had been violence at a very young age as well. And I think I felt like I'd been broken at the age of five and that what had happened to me was so permanent and there was no coming back from it. And that I would always, always be defined by that event, I was convinced of that. And that was one of the biggest things that I had to tackle in the last few years and in the writing of this book, that feeling that I never had a chance and that my life was always doomed, I suppose, in some respects,

because of this event. But how did you get away from it all and get yourself to university, even though nobody thought they could afford to allow you to go to university nobody thought certainly people close to you that you could possibly do that no I mean I had a very supportive nana who you know couldn't help financially but always believed in me thought I was intelligent enough to get an education, encouraged me to get an education. And it was very clear to me from a very young age that my best chance of getting away was through education and then through a career. I mean, in the end, obviously,

that career kind of consumed me in some respects, but it was definitely my path. And, you know, university was hard. I got a grant. I got loans. I worked jobs. I didn't have any financial support. And it was very difficult. But it remains one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. Your book does not have what one might call a happy ending. Why not? why not because I kind of hate those three acts kind of structures where there's a resolution and a redemption at the end because I really don't believe life works like that I really really don't believe trauma works like that you know now I can sit alongside what happened to me I think I can live alongside those memories and that pain but it doesn't mean it's gone away. And rather than kind of wrap it up in this happy ending, which I think is really alienating to a lot of victims and survivors, I just wanted it to be more real,

which is this will be something I grapple with for the rest of my life, but I just feel that these days I'm a little bit more equipped to deal with it in a healthy way. And how are you now? I'm sorry, I don't to to deal with it in a healthy way and how are you now I'm sorry I don't want to press you for the happy ending but I do want to hear a bit of it please well you know so I I got myself into a much healthier place through therapy and through um antidepressants which I'm no longer on but I did take for a while and I returned to the UK I got a job that I have a much healthier work-life balance with and I developed a sense of contentment and

being okay in my own skin which I'd never had for my entire life and I did meet somebody after that and we did have a child four months ago so I'm now a mother something I thought I would never ever be able to be given my past and things are things are okay and things are good I mean I don't know how things will be in a year or in two years but I feel confident for the first time in my life that things can be okay. I was talking to Terry White and there was lots of praise for her on Twitter and in our email. Wendy spoke for lots of you saying please congratulate Terry on her frank discussion. It was hard to listen to but now I must buy the memoir. Very useful indeed to others who have similar crisis and trauma.

And George on Twitter added, What Terry said about the ending, resolution, redemption, etc. resonates hugely with me and, as she said, likely many others. Janine Bradbury's discussion of the history of passing for white in literature was fascinating to a lot of you. Amy Beeson added, I remember seeing Imitation of Life and feeling so uncomfortable as a young mixed-race woman.

Also, though, I love A Hundred Years of Solitude. There were parts about being mixed-race that again made me feel very uncomfortable. Lots and lots of you shared your experiences and tips for dealing with fussy eaters. Sue in Coventry emailed, listening to the fussy eating programme on Woman's Hour brings back awful memories of difficult weaning with my son who's now 13. He would only eat stuffing and plain rice for a long time and strongly rejected most foods. My son still won't eat anything sweet, including all fruit and vegetables with any detectable sweetness.

He also rejects anything with unusual textures. We've managed to settle on a diet that I hope gives him everything he needs, but my heart goes out to anyone struggling with a fussy eater. Gillian says, when my sons were toddlers, they became vegetable averse, so I gave them a fruit salad with their meals and gradually swapped out the fruit, for example, tomatoes and cucumber. They didn't notice. It was over many months and years. This way, I knew they were always getting fresh raw fruit or vegetables in their diet. They both eat anything now. Tony in Tuin in Wales said, Hi, listening to the lady describing her experiences with her daughter,

I was quickly aware that she was telling the story of my own experiences with our daughters. Almost word for word in many aspects. Many years later, both our children are diagnosed with autistic spectrum conditions. Their fussy eating is now seen as a manifestation of that. As adults, they're much less fussy now, but still have issues around strong flavours and texture. And then Alison said, my eldest son was a particularly fussy eater

and although being a special needs teacher and having a good knowledge of fussy eating and strategies to help, I was surprised by the emotional effect this had on me. I felt so guilty that my child wouldn't eat and although mostly I was able to hide this from him, I used to have to go upstairs and vent my frustration on a pillow from time to time. Fortunately the things he would eat included cheese, bananas and fromage frais and he was healthy so I tried to take the view that some of this was my problem as much as his. It took a long time for him to eat more foods until early teens,

but we got there in the end. He's now a psychiatrist. Thank you for all your comments on today's programme. Do join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour when you can hear the actor Roxanne Scrimshaw cutting her new film Lynn and Lucy about the lives of two best friends in a very close-knit community in Essex

whose relationship is tested after a tragedy happens. And we discuss the popularity of the skin-lightening industry despite the dangers and the controversy. So join me tomorrow afternoon, 4 o'clock if you can. Until then, bye-bye. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories

I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.