Woman's Hour - Rural domestic abuse, Endometriosis, making fun of your mum

Episode Date: August 1, 2019

Women in rural areas are half as likely to report domestic abuse as those in urban ones. Judith, who moved to the Scottish Highlands from London, tells reporter Kathleen Garragher about the culture of privacy and keeping yourself to yourself. When her husband became abusive she didn’t feel able to ask for help. Endometriosis is a serious and lifelong disease which affects as many as 1 in 10 women. But it often goes undiagnosed. Karen Havelin has turned her experience of the disease into a novel, 'Please Read This Leaflet Carefully'. And Eleanor Thom has written a manual aimed at her fellow sufferers, as well as their friends and family, 'Private Parts: How to Really Live with Endometriosis'. Iranian women have been taking pictures of themselves out in public and without their headscarves as part of the #WhiteWednesdays protests. The head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court has said that they now risk up to ten years in prison for sharing their pictures and videos. We talk to Masih Alinejad, the activist behind the campaign. And, is it ever ok to use your mother as source material for your comedy whatever your relationship history? Jenni speaks to Anoushka Warden, writer and performer of ‘My Mum’s A Twat’ at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and comedian, Sindhu Vee, ahead of her new show ‘Sandhog’ on tour in September.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast for Thursday the 1st of August. I'm Jenny Murray. Endometriosis is a serious and debilitating disease which is suffered by as many as 1 in 10 women. Why is it often misdiagnosed and how do you live with it? The National Rural Crime Network reports that women in the countryside are half as likely to report domestic abuse as those in towns and cities.

In the first of two reports, we talked to a woman who thought it was a private matter and she should keep herself to herself. And the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is imminent. One young woman will be delivering her monologue called My Mum's a Twat. Is a mother fair game as material for comedy? Now, you may remember earlier this year we discussed a campaign in Iran which has been called White Wednesdays. It aimed to encourage women to protest at the requirement to cover their heads

and leave no hair visible by taking pictures of themselves outdoors without their headscarves. Already some have faced fines and prison sentences for making their protests, but this week we discovered the head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court has announced that any woman sharing a picture of herself without her hijab could face a 10-year prison sentence. Masih Al-Inajad is the Iranian activist who prompted the campaign. She now lives in New York and she joins us from there. Masih, it was reported that yesterday three of the women who've taken part in the campaign have been sentenced to a total of 55 years between them. What do you know of the women who are involved?

Yes, it is beyond sad to hear that these women are being sentenced to altogether 55 years jail sentence just because of a peaceful, you know, civil disobedience. One of them is the youngest activist in Iran who is in jail. Yasaman Aryani, she's only 22 years old. And her mother, Monira Arab Shahi, joined her as well. These two, mother and daughter, were part of the campaign. Both of them got arrested before as well to protest against corruption. And instead of, you know, leaving the country or keeping silent, they kept, continued their protest against compulsory hijab. And another woman, Moshgan Keshavarz,

she's a mother, a mother of nine years old girl. She joined them. Three of them went to the Metro in Iran, in International Women's Day, and they were just protesting against compulsory hijab by handing out flowers to other women who wear hijab and telling them that, let's be together, Iran is for all of us. Now, some women we know are perfectly happy to wear compulsory head coverings. What did they make of your campaign? That's a very good question.

This is, you know, the government want to divide the society and put these women who wear hijab against those who don't want to wear hijab. Just yesterday, when Yasaman Moshgan and Monira got arrested and got sentenced, a mother in Iran sent me a video who wears full hijab, a black chador. And she's a religious woman. She said that this is the Islamic Republic, which has cropped it and they want to crop the society as well. She said, I wear hijab by choice and I respect the women, you know, who protest against compulsory hijab and who want to free

from compulsory veiling. And let me be honest with you. You know, my mother wears hijab. My mother never forced you to wear hijab. But Islamic Republic, if you as non-Iranian go to my country, they will kick you out from the airport if you say that I don't want to wear hijab. They took our bodies hostage for 14 years. And if you don't wear hijab, you won't be able to go to school. You won't be able to get a job. You won't be able to live in your own country. This is the real face of the Islamic Republic. Marzi, the head of the Revolutionary Court singled you out and described you as this woman to whom the protesters send their photos. You've been cast by the Iranian government as a U.S. agent. What have you made of that? You know, it's very, very obvious that the government of Iran is scared of one of the most prominent civil disobedience.

I'm outside Iran, but the movement is inside Iran. If the women stopped sending videos to me, that would be the day that I would give up my activities outside Iran as well. My dream is to be in Iran. This is the government who kicked me out, who took my family hostage, who brought my family on Iranian TV

to disown me publicly. And now they're saying that because Masih is outside Iran, then, you know, this is a crime to send videos to her. And they call me a hostile government. I'm a freelancer. And I work for Voice of America TV. I work for Manitou TV, which is a Persian broadcasting in London. So I'm a freelancer who works for New York Times, who writes for New York Times, who writes for Washington Post. That doesn't mean, you know, because I live in America, so I'm hostile government. I am a journalist and a campaigner and a proud Iranian who wants to be in my own country. And this is their crime who kick out us and do not give us freedom of expression.

I know the United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has praised you. But how concerned are you that the focus politically is on Iran's nuclear program and that maybe women's rights may have slipped down the agenda? You know, when the nuclear deal happened, people took to the street and they were dancing and celebrating and saying that the next deal should be human rights deal. Guess what happened? A lot of, you know, protesters took to the street in Iran protest, and they were asking for the benefit of the deal. They were asking for their salaries, which, you know, they haven't been paid for month and month, workers, miners, teachers, nurses. They took to the street to celebrate against the government and asking about their salaries and money. So the government actually, according to Amnesty

International, arrested more than 7,000 of the protesters in one year. And they killed 20 people in one year, more than 20 people in one year. And Javad Zarif, our foreign minister, used the Twitter, which is filtered for the Iranian people itself, and saying that Iran is a free country and people can freely protest because we have free election. So first of all, the election is not free. We don't have a free election. Second of all, people get killed if they protest.

So you see, this is the Islamic Republic, which, first of all, should sit and have negotiation with their own people or must be gone. So this deal is not going to benefit the people when these governments are in power and kicking out a seven-year-old girl from a school because of not wearing hijab and putting a 70-year-old mother in prison just because of a peaceful protest. That is what I want to say. Marcy El-Inijad, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. Thank you. Now, two new books have been published this week, which explore the disease known as endometriosis thought to be suffered by around one in ten women. Karen Haviland has turned her experiences into a novel called Please Read This Leaflet Carefully and Eleanor Tom who's had it since she was 11 years old has written private parts how to really Live with Endometriosis.

Eleanor, how would you describe endometriosis? It's the lining of the womb, the endometrium, grows in and around the organs of the peritoneal cavity, so around your ovaries, your bowel, your bladder. Sometimes it's tiny deposits that bleed and cause pain and inflammation. Sometimes they stick organs together or cause cysts. It's very painful. It causes nausea and diarrhoea and all sorts of other symptoms.

Now, Hilary Mantel, who's a very well-known sufferer, she's been very open about it. She once said it used to be described as the career woman's disease. Why might that have been the case? I think for a long time people were getting diagnosed in their 30s and 40s because it was usually diagnosed after they had issues with fertility. What we now know is that it's nothing to do with whether you put your career first or whether you had children late. It can be as early as 11. It can be as early as 8 for some people that get symptoms.

I was diagnosed at 17, so I hadn't even started my career. So it can't be that. I know you started with it at the age of 11. Now, lots of women and girls have period pains. What pain would make you think this is something serious? I think if it's stopping you doing anything. I think if you can't attend school, if you can't stand up, if you can't go to social functions, if you're bleeding very heavily,

if you have other symptoms like diarrhoea, vomiting, fainting, extraordinary pain that isn't covered by paracetamol, basically, I think. Now, a number of women told us, we mentioned on Instagram yesterday that we would be discussing it, that they had terrible pain and were continually misdiagnosed. How was yours picked up? Because it was quite a while after you'd realised you had something wrong. I went when I was 12 with my mum and I was told I just had bad periods. Sorry. Hopefully they'll settle down. So I didn't go back because I thought they'd just tell me the same thing so I struggled for quite a long time.

I eventually collapsed in a school lesson and my white blood cell count was very high and I was hospitalised and shortly after that I came back and did another appointment with them and a very kind female doctor said to me, I think this is something, we need to look into this. So it took seven years for anyone to recognise it was doing anything. And what difference to treatment does early diagnosis make? I think if the disease goes unmanaged, it's going to get worse.

So with hormone treatment or with surgery, you can curb the disease, but you can't cure it. So you can help with the symptoms, particularly with pain, I think. If you let pain signals run amok, they can get worse. Your body becomes more sensitive. It's the symptoms, particularly with pain. I think if you let pain signals run amok, they can get worse. Your body becomes more sensitive. It's sort of oversensitive to pain. So ideally, somebody controls the symptoms early on. It can help you manage it on a monthly basis. I know you advise keeping a diary of your symptoms. Why keep a diary? I think it helps to have evidence of what's going on when

you go to a doctor. I think they can't ignore that if you say, look, I've taken this really seriously. This is when these symptoms happen. These spike with this. It's connected to my menstrual cycle. It's not to do with food or vitamins or stress. This is absolutely connected to my cycle. And I think once you've got that in front of you it's hard to ignore they can send you for a referral at that point. Now Karen your novel draws on your experience obviously but it's fiction why did you decide to tell the story in that way make it happen to somebody else? It's kind of it's hard to write about the stuff. It's pretty touchy and painful and sensitive. And I found it hard enough to write about it even as fiction. I needed to have the room to make things up

and stretch and shape the story. But I based the physical things that the main character, Laura, goes through on my own experience. So like Eleanor, I had a delayed diagnosis. I was diagnosed at 29, and I had to have some very extensive surgery then, and it was a big, big deal. But if you were diagnosed at 29, for how long had you suspected there was something very wrong? I had kind of other mixed health issues,

and I always had a lot of stomach aches and allergies and stuff. So it was always sort of written off as to do with that, and also as IBS, which I think happens to a lot of women. Irritable bowels. Yeah, an anxious stomach. So I had been going to doctors for that forever, basically, since I was a teenager. Curiously, in the novel, you write things in reverse order.

When we first meet Laura, she's very ill. And then it goes back to when she was healthy. Why did you decide to structure it like that? Someone who read it said that this way the novel takes a sort of aesthetic revenge on the illness which i wish i'd thought of but i really love that thought because the illness shrinks the further you go into the book but um basically it was important to me because chronic illness is different than other illness and when I was little, um, looking for stories and books that reflected my own, um, experience as a sick little kid, um, all I ever found, uh, was stories about people who had cancer

and, uh, sometimes they were injured and stuff, but they were like a normal person who, who had an illness and then they were cured or they died and there was like a neat bow to the end of it and everyone was had learned a valuable lesson about something and um whereas chronic illness is different you have to keep doing the work of maintaining yourself and your body and your mental health you have to go over the same issues again and again and you have to learn the same lessons many times and you have to learn them with different people and it's quite different when you're 14 or when you're 29 for example and elena your treatment has gone on and on i mean endless surgeries hormone treatment what have you actually gone through i've had nine surgeries um and i've done two pseudomenopause treatments, one when I was 20, another one when I was 30. Pseudomenopause? Pseudomenopause. So they do this,

it's an injection called GnRH and it's sort of like a gel that goes into your bottom and it spreads through your body over the month and it creates a pseudomenopause. So you're not, it reverses once you're not taking the drug anymore. But it creates a menopausal symptoms almost instantly. So I was pseudo-menopause at 20 and then again at 30, which is strange when you then have to contend with the symptoms that the treatments cause. Now, one of our correspondents has found herself

unable to have children children but two of them have had children. How often is fertility threatened? I think it's really important that we recognise this is different for every single woman that has it. The symptoms can be different, the treatments can affect people differently, they can sometimes be wonderful, they can sometimes be really damaging. So the same for fertility, infertility is not a blanket symptom of endometriosis some women have no issues with it at all some people need help some people can't um but i think it's an important thing that we recognize that it's different for everybody so it's not you shouldn't assume that if you're diagnosed with this that's the end of that that particular dream um it's

something that is told to women by doctors rather flippantly. Well, that means, you know, you won't have children now. And that's not necessarily true at all. You just need to see the right people that will be able to help you and look at your disease, your body. Both of you write about how hard it is for friends and family to observe what's going on and cope with it. Your book is very much aimed at friends and family to observe what's going on and cope with it. Your book is very much aimed

at friends and family as well as sufferers, Eleanor. What do you advise friends and family? I think try and remember that your loved one hasn't become the disease. This is just something they're trying to contend with. It is an ongoing thing. If they do things that seem reckless, let them do it. Don't blame them if they feel worse for the things that they try. Encourage them, love them, talk to them. Research, I think an hour of research. If you can do good research on something, it's worth a lifetime. You'll understand it more than anyone can ever explain it to you if you get the right information about it. Ellen, Karen, would you agree with that? Yeah, I think that's really good advice.

And we also talked about the other night how it can be very helpful to bring someone to doctor's appointments so if for a partner to get involved and be informed that can be really decisively helpful Karen Havlin and Eleanor Tom thank you both very much indeed and of course we would still like to hear from you let us know the kind of experiences you have had with endometriosis thank you both very much indeed. And of course, we would still like to hear from you. Let us know the kind of experiences you have had with endometriosis.

Thank you both. Now, still to come in today's programme, two women have created comedy performances where their mothers are the source material. Is it fair to their mothers? And the serial, the fourth episode of Flying Visits. Now, the National Rural Crime Network, which covers England and Wales, has revealed that women who live in the countryside

are half as likely to report domestic abuse as women who live in towns and cities. The abuse continues, on average, 25% longer. In Scotland, Scottish Women's Aid has launched a pilot scheme in two areas of the Highlands to try to address the problem, which is clearly similarly serious there. It's called Ask Me, and it's spreading to other parts of the UK. Volunteers are trained to look out for people who show signs of suffering domestic abuse and are ready to point them in the direction of professional help. Kathleen Carraher has spoken to Judith, who was a headteacher in a London school,

before deciding to retire to a Highland village. Her husband came too. Sorry about that, I was expecting you round the back way. Hello Judith, I'm Kathleen, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, come on through. I've got some coffee through there. So how long have you lived here for then? 14 years. We moved in with my husband and my mother.

I was 82 when she came to live with us. Now it's just me. My name is Judith. I was involved in an abusive marriage for over 30 years. What happened when you moved here? I would say things became worse. When we lived in London, we had a car, but he didn't need to drive it. He could walk to the pub or, you know, jump on a bus or two.

But here he had to drive places, and within weeks he was banned from driving. And that happened twice. The second time he was banned permanently from driving. He felt more closed in as well, so the drinking took place in the home much more. It was different also because I had had a very demanding job, and I would be out at 7 o'clock in the morning and home maybe 10 o'clock at night,

and now we were here every day. So things really took a turn for the worse. Can you describe for me what was a typical day like here then? In the morning times, because I was caring for my mother, we would have breakfast together. My husband was never up early. And there was always that tension waiting for him to get up because the first hour you just couldn't speak to him.

I mean, he would, well, he'd be very hungover and just incredibly nasty. And then I would watch him and he would go to the garage where he used to keep all his booze. He'd have the first drink of the day and then for about an hour or so he would become pleasant and charming and but as the day got on his mood would change so there was this constant walking on eggshells waiting for him to explode and there'd be at some point that you'd have a kind of Jekyll and Hyde moment when he'd be quite pleasant and you'd be having a conversation he'd go to the garage come out and

he would be raging about something and then as he continued to drink he would get more and more unreasonable and the threats would get more and more strong and frightening. Was he violent? He was. He never hit me. I mean, he would pin me up against the wall. He never slapped me or anything like that. But it was the constant threat of violence especially when we were here he had a fascination with fire and he would build up the fire we have a big two-sided fireplace and his threat was always I will burn this house down with you and your mother in it and it was so real because I would see him when he was really drunk. He would even put petrol and things on the fire and that whole place. So I couldn't really sleep because I was always checking that, you know, the fire was okay.

Your mind plays tricks on you because you don't think like a normal person. You just think about survival. How can I get through today without making him angry? Some people would find it hard to believe that you were a head teacher, you had a very responsible job and yet this was your home life. Why did you put up with it? Yeah. Well, that's a question I've asked myself many, many times. And there's no one answer. The Highlands are very similar to where I was brought up. I was brought up in a Welsh mining community.

There's a sense of, well, you know, you've made your bed, you're lying in it. I suppose you always hope that things will change. And people who control and manipulate have an ability just every so often to just throw a crumb of something nice and you would think oh this is okay this is okay but it's really just to keep you on that string really was there no one here that you felt you could turn to absolutely no one first of all I didn't know where you would go to for help. The whole issue for me was how do you deal with the shame? I think that's very hard for professional people because you feel, well, I'm so successful in this area. Why am I failing in my marriage? And that's how I felt. I'm failing. It was always my fault fault what have I done wrong

never it was his fault so tell me what happened I volunteered one day a week at the high school my mum was quite poorly by that stage and she had a care package put in so she had a social worker and they arranged for somebody to come in and make her lunch on a Wednesday so that I could have a day at the school. And I came home that day and this room was quiet and I kind of knew something was wrong. My mother being pinned up against the wall and my husband screaming at her and telling her she ought to die and, you know, that nobody wanted her. And she was distraught. And he was a tall, quite big guy. And she was a tiny, tiny little woman. And it was horrific.

I don't know why this happened at that moment, but at that moment, mum's social worker let herself in and walked in and saw everything. And she sort of took control. My husband just went off into another room. She didn't deal with him at all. But she spoke to both of us and said to me you have to get out of this situation and I said I can't because I'm looking after my mother

I mean some people don't leave an abusive situation because they've got children when my mum was like a child she had to be you know she was in a wheelchair and all that kind of thing if we went out. So I couldn't just get up and leave. And so she spoke to my mother and said, well, unless you go into care, Judith's never going to be able to leave him. So my mum did go into care. She went into care back in Wales. So tell me then what did happen with your husband did you go to court? It actually went to court twice the first time it went to

court unfortunately my solicitor was on holiday and so somebody else in the firm had to pick it up he rang me and said I'm sorry they've not granted the exclusion order or the restraining order. And he said, and I quote, the sheriff had said concerning the death threats, oh, well, that's just what drunk people say. And I think of all the hurt and all the trauma I've been through, that was perhaps one of the worst things, that people would not believe me. And that they would say, it's okay, it's acceptable. And I wondered if that's a Highland thing. I don't think that the sheriff would get away with that somewhere else. But there is a culture of drinking and lots of drunkenness. Anyway, very soon after that, my solicitor came back from holiday, resubmitted, and I got the exclusion order.

How easy was it then to rebuild your life here? Not easy at all. The first ten months I had to move out of the house because all the locks had been changed and the windows had been nailed down, but he broke windows and was squatting in the house, so I couldn't come back to the house. Then he was re-arrested. The window was boarded up. But I was too frightened to stay in the area. And that's the difference again. If you live in a small community, the chances of you meeting your abuser are very high. So I was just petrified I wouldn't walk down the main street of Fort William. He saw me once in a shop and came on and made a big scene and I had to just put my food down and run out. After about ten months towards a

year it seemed that he wasn't breaking the order, he wasn't coming up to the house or anything, so I decided to move back in and I got involved or approached by an organization called Lochaber Hope. I had some counseling so it's been a slow process. A little while ago, my husband actually died. So there is freedom from that. And what did your neighbours, when all of this was happening or going on, did they say or talk to you about anything? No, they didn't. But I have to say, when I came back into the house, the one neighbour came to see me and she just said, I'm just so sorry. We really, really wanted to help, but we didn't know how and we didn't know how it would be received.

Again, I think this is very prevalent in small communities, you know, like the Highlands, is that people respect privacy and they think, you know, we have to mind our own business. And also out of fear, I think, you know, what are you going to do if you get involved and he turns violent on you and so on. So do you think if a scheme like Ask Me had been working at the time, would that have helped you? Absolutely. If you went to Women's Aid, there would be people who would say, well, why don't you go and have a coffee with this person? And that would have helped me enormously.

I hope that people out there will just want to step in when they see something that's just not right and just say, you know, you're worth more than this. Judith was talking to Kathleen Carraher tomorrow. We'll hear more about the Ask Me project in the Highlands. There will be sources of information and support on the Women's Hour website later today. And of course, if you have experience at this, we would like to hear from you. You can send us an email and you don't have to give us your name if you don't want to. Now, I doubt there are many women who have not at some time

and perhaps frequently said horrible things about their mothers. It can be a complicated relationship, as I know to my cost. Was there ever a time when I saw her when she didn't tell me I had lost too much or gained too much weight before she even said hello. But how far and how publicly should we take this? Here the comedian Sindhu V imitates her mother's response to her daughter being turned down for a job. अरे just be quiet she तो is a total failure she has no husband she has no job and you are saying

oh when you go to sleep at night it's very dark and when you wake up it will be light what a nonsense सिंदू बेटा you listen to me अरे stop crying listen to me

you phone back that lady who called you that Jenny and you tell her सेरा अरे जेनी ंर करें जिस लड़ी को जैनी को बात करें और आपको बताएं जैनी जैक जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनी जैनो जैनी को बता रहा हूं कि नहीं नहीं जाता है। you to not give me a job. Jenny, I will go very high in the sky. You will be one bloody homeless under the bridge. Then you will know, Jenny, why a decision was so difficult for you. Yes. Sindhu V, now tomorrow the Edinburgh Festival begins

and Anushka Borden will be taking her monologue to the fringe. It's called My Mum's a Twat. My mum wasn't always a tea. In the memories I had of her before I was 10, she was a good mum. She woke me with a hot drink every morning. She would make me poached eggs on toast whenever I asked. She took me shopping all the time. She kissed me goodnight every night. She had a good stash of bags and jewellery and make-up. She would buy all of the presents on my birthday and Christmas lists. She drove fast cars. She had a sassy job.

She could sail and horse ride and play tennis. She was slim. She even created the half birthday. She was a super cool mum. Sometime after I was ten, everything changed and she stopped being such a good mum she lost her sassy job she stopped taking me shopping she got a weird pregnant belly even though she wasn't pregnant she had bad taste in boyfriends she withdrew the goodnight kiss she stopped waking me with hot drinks. She regularly forgot my birthday.

She gave all her money away and she got brainwashed by a cult. And Sindhu joins us from Manchester and Anushka from Edinburgh. Anushka, what made you choose to write about your mother? Being honest, I hadn't ever written anything before and I just sat down and just wrote this story that happened to start my mum's a t-word and I just sort of wrote the story of how I felt um how I'd felt about her leaving when I was 12 and it just sort of came out in two weeks and then I just had this story uh and I let a few friends read it who happened to work in theatre. And we were like, I think it could be a monologue.

So I kind of didn't set out with the purpose of it being public. How did she and the rest of your family respond to it once it did become public? So I guess that's two parts of the question. The rest of the family who all live in the UK were really supportive and thought it was very exciting. With my mum she still lives in Canada and still is affiliated with the organisation that she went over there to be with and so she doesn't really engage in the world in the same way that I do. So she doesn't necessarily know what the Royal Court Theatre was or doesn't read newspapers or watch the news.

So I could have just not told her and she might not have found out. But I felt I had a responsibility to at least let her know, not that anything would change, but just to let her know what the title was. And I offered her the chance to read it if she wanted, but she said that she'd rather not, but also wished me lots of luck with it. So, yeah, it's a bit of a weird one. Sindhu, how much of your material makes fun of your mother? I don't make fun of my mother.

I tell stories in which she's being funny. And that's a different thing. Do you see what I mean? I talk a lot about how my mother spoke to me, but about things. And I'm not making fun of her. She's just very funny. And I mean, you heard's always supporting me in some way because I'm calling her to ask her advice or something like that, do you see? And it comes out in this way and then I tell the story like that. And I don't think of it as making fun and I've checked with her and she doesn't think that. She said, no, I did say that, you're right. How do you decide, though, what is OK and what is not OK? First of all, I think as a sensible adult, I've got an instinct. There's a lot of stories about my family that are never going to make it to stage because they're not mine to tell.

I have an instinct. And if sometimes I want to bring something up and I think, oh, you know, are they going to get upset? I might. I don't. I don't. Not might. I will run it past them. You tend to know. And I also think it depends where you're coming from. If you have. There are things about my sister I'd like to say on stage just because she annoys me. But I know that's not a good reason. You know, so I think you have to check where you're coming from when you're telling those stories and why you're telling them. But in my case, I have to say a lot of it is just stuff that has happened. And then the butt of the joke tends to be me, really, because it's how I've absorbed what's happened. But I don't think it's that difficult to walk away. Or rather, it's not that difficult to know that there's material

you should walk away from because it would not be fair to say it on stage. Anushka why the t-word that's a very strong word to apply to your mother. Well honestly like when I'm the youngest of seven and where when I grew up we would just use that word in a sort of like jokey, annoying way. So just for me personally, I don't actually take a huge amount of offense from that word. I have to remind myself that it can be taken offensively. And I think importantly, if someone is a T word, there's maybe hope for them. They could maybe become something else. If someone's the C word, there's maybe hope for them. They could maybe become something else. Less of one.

If someone's the C word, there's no hope. They're gone. Why moron for your father? I mean, that is also rather a strong word. Oh, just correct. No, that character in the play is the stepfather, the person who the mum marries after the dad. Ah, so your dad was OK, yes? Yeah, the dad... so your dad was okay yes yeah the dad my dad

your real dad yeah he doesn't really feature in the story because it is very much about the girls i.e me teenage experience of growing up with a mum who leaves and it and in telling it is very much through her teenage thoughts and stuff so again it's it's her story to tell not someone else's but moron well practically i didn't put people's real names in the play and um he was just a bit of a moron so it just kind of was the right thing to call him but then let's go there what limits would you say there should be on the extent to which a writer of comedy uses close relationships at all? I think, I'd just say writer of comedy. I just wrote this.

It wasn't like trying to necessarily be funny. But a writer using, I think it's sort of impossible not using relationships that you see and know. And I guess the question is, with my type of writing, I think it's very much sort of auto-fiction where it's based in my own experiences. So that means it's all a bit closer. But I suppose if something was really dodgy that I wanted to write about, I'd have to just find a way to remove it a bit because then it's how you disguise it. And if I couldn't disguise it, I feel I would have a responsibility to let that person know that I was going to be doing that.

But that's my own personal choice. Cinder, have you ever misjudged the effect of anything you have delivered on your mother? On my mother? No. Nothing I've ever said about my mother on stage has come back to get me, either because she found out or because someone in the audience said, oh, how could you say that? Nothing like that. I mean, I have said things on stage about my kids.

And then one of them has come to me and said, I can't believe you told that story. What about my consent? And I was like, what are you talking about? It's the most ridiculous story. Oh, this is the world of consent. And I was like, why don't you go do your math homework, man? I mean, honestly, this is your, but then I thought, fine. So I had a talk with them and explained.

And part of the explanation was, I'm going to protect you, but your mother's a stand-up. Like, honestly, there's no getting around that. And have they accepted that? I mean, do you have to say, look, you know, because I'm a stand-up, I earn the money and that's why you get the things that you want? Did they buy that? Well, no, because it's not the truth. My husband has a job. He's much more solvent than I am. So that doesn't even fly. No, I think actually this has been something I've thought a lot about because I think as a child, your parent can be irresponsible in many, many ways.

And I have experienced that myself. And so I think the biggest thing that I try and bring to it is an honest discussion. And I haven't been a stand-up their whole life, so it is novel for them. And I've had a discussion with them, and I've explained that a lot of it is fictionalized. And, you know, for years they didn't care because I was never on TV or anything.

They were like, she's going somewhere in the evening, whatever, we'll watch TV. You know, they didn't care. Now that I'm on TV and their friends and their teachers watch it, the kids are like, why are you talking about this? I'm like, hello, this is my career. This is how I've made it. But I've explained to them and I think they understand that a lot of what I say is fictionalized so that the kernel of what I'm saying is something I've picked up. And what I've done is I've stopped taking stories straight from the dining table onto stage. I've stopped doing that because I do appreciate that, you know,

they can remember when they said that. And because they're not narcissists like my mom, they're not like, oh, yay, we're famous. My mother's always like, oh, that's so funny. I'm so famous in BBC. I'm like, you're right. But she's an older lady and she's also a therapist. So she understands honesty and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And she doesn't care. She's just like, yeah, fine, whatever. I'm 82. You do what you need to do, man. Well, Sindhu V is on a UK tour with Sandhog from the 5th of September and Anushka's play, My Mum's a Tea, is on at the Summerhall Red Lecture Theatre tomorrow through to the 25th of August at half past five in the afternoon.

We had an enormous response, as we expected, from you to our discussion about endometriosis, lots of very long emails. One of them was from Fran. She said, it's so great to hear endometriosis discussed. I started going to the doctors with symptoms in my late 30s when I couldn't bear the monthly pain anymore. I was also incredibly constipated, often not being able to go to the loo for a week or more, which caused more terrible pain. I was battered between gynaecology and gastro for years. My GP told me I definitely had IBS and prescribed peppermint oil. About five years ago, I collapsed and was taken into hospital and told I was constipated and should eat more fruit and vegetables. I'm vegetarian and eat up to 10 portions a day as it is. Eventually I had a

laparoscopy and they discovered endometriosis with my ovaries stuck to my colon causing a blockage. When my ovary was released the constipation stopped overnight and I was pain-free. Wretched peppermint oil. I'm now 54 and post-menopausal and couldn't be happier to be rid of my periods, but sad that it took so many years for my pain to be taken seriously. Sarah said, having just listened to your programme about endometriosis, I felt compelled to write this email. Only after having a total hysterectomy at the age of 48 can I say that my health has completely recovered after what's been a lifetime of struggle with endometriosis symptoms. The symptoms became so severe I was often housebound and bedbound at times for months. My life was

crippled by pain. I was lucky to have the kindness and support of my husband and a supportive GP, but I never had a true diagnosis until my total hysterectomy, despite hundreds of doctors and specialist appointments, along with many hospital admittances and endless antibiotics. You can feel like you're going mad as all the results come back clear. My advice to anyone who knows their body is not working, keep going until you find the right

help. Unfortunately for me, this has come at the cost of not having children, but the joy of feeling better after a lifetime of debilitating symptoms is a feeling beyond words. On Twitter, Rose Island said, I suffered from the age of 10. I was finally diagnosed after surgery in my 20s. I was constantly told by male physicians that it would get better once I had children. Not helpful, aged 14. One of the hardest things is not being taken seriously. Even now, doctors question me despite the diagnosis. Ali said, thank you for covering endometriosis. Also, huge thanks to the guests, inspiring endo warriors who are brave enough to share their story. The ignorance of women's pain is linked to a broader societal problem of medical misogyny.

And Jenny Whitman said, Great stuff on Woman's Hour. I've been going round telling folk about Eleanor's book. It's made me laugh, cry and go, Oh, I'd forgotten you could get Volterol suppositories in an excited way. Only a chronic painer would. And then on domestic abuse in rural areas, an email with no name said, thank you for this report. I can relate to it so much. Thankfully, I'm now free from my abuser, but there will be thousands of women still suffering. I found Al-Anon to be a great source

of support and I finally found the strength to leave my abusive alcoholic husband. My life has improved beyond recognition. There is help out there when you're isolated in a rural community. You're completely controlled by your abuser and it is incredibly difficult to escape. And Naomi Dixon said, heartbreaking true story. Neighbours respecting privacy and not knowing how to help. Glad that Women's Aid is running Ask Me Community Ambassador Scheme to counter this. It's also being run by Jewish Women's Aid. Now tomorrow, I'm sure you remember Lyra McKee, the young journalist who was shot dead four months ago in Londonderry. She had written a book which is being published tomorrow. Her sister, Nicola Corner, will join me in tomorrow's programme from Belfast. Do try and join us too. Bye-bye. Hello, I'm John Ronson, the author of So You've Been Publicly Shamed.

This is my journey into the lives of the shamed, people ruined by a badly worded tweet or work faux pas. Along the way, I turned from being a keen shamer myself into somebody unsettled by this new zeal to judge and condemn, often on very weak evidence. That's So You've Been Publicly Shamed, read by me, John Ronson, 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's 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.