Trigger warning: body image, heartbreak, betrayal

I don’t remember exactly when I heard of the Scummy Mummies, a comedy duo who aim to show motherhood in all its messy glory through their podcast and stand-up shows but I knew they were the antidote to the perfect instagram mumfluencers that have flooded the social media platform in recent years. The latter have the ability to put me off motherhood for life quite frankly so it’s refreshing to get a different perspective from less-than-perfect parents.

In the last year, one of my best friends shared an Instagram post from one of the pair. Helen Thorn had recently become divorced and had posted something about the joys of being single. I added her to my mental list of people to interview for this newsletter but was finally prompted to contact her PR when the same friend shared that she was bringing out a book entitled ‘Get Divorced, Be Happy: How becoming single turned out to be my happily ever after’. With a title like that I knew I had to get her on ASAP and I’m thrilled to say she agreed.

We had such a wide-ranging chat discussing everything from heartbreak, being a single mum, the importance of friendship, being single after a very long time, divorce, why you can be lonelier in a relationship than out of one, dating and learning to have much more honest conversations with ourselves and other people. As usual I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts on what my interviewee said and then will share the full Q&A with paying subscribers in a separate email. As a special treat, I’ve set up a FREE seven day trial to the paid subscription so you can see what it’s all about or just enjoy for the week. I’ll be sending out the Q&A with Helen and an agony aunt column this week and you can also read the back catalogue.

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I could have picked anything Helen said to delve into in this email but one of the things we discussed jumped out at me in particular and that was the impact of heartbreak on our bodies and how our body image is affected by our relationship status. I thought it would be a good way to follow up my last newsletter on body image, which so many of you related to.

One of the chapters in Helen’s book is called Getting Stronger and it focuses on the impact the trauma of betrayal and the heartbreak of separation had on her body and how she built things back as she began to heal.

She told me: “I devoted a whole chapter to that because I think heartbreak is such a physical thing. We punish it in so many ways when we are going through something. I didn't sleep very well for a long time, I punished myself with lots of booze and fags. I just felt heavy and my body felt bruised because of the betrayal that happened within my relationship. My body felt rejected and like it wasn't good enough. There were a lot of physical ramifications to the heartbreak.”

There was also the “awfulness” of knowing the person she loved and had been with since the age of 19 had had sex with someone else and then come back and had sex with her. “That's disgusting. I wondered who he had been thinking about,” she says. “I didn't want to shy away from those feelings because that is the reality that so many women go through. So I decided to talk very openly about having a massive crash physically and ending up in hospital.”

What Helen said reminded of a book I am reading (very slowly…it’s one of several I have on the go at the moment). Pioneering psychiatrist and PTSD researcher Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma explores the impact that trauma can have on our bodies. For those who haven’t read it, he writes:

Traumatised people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.

He also says that victims of trauma cannot recover until they “become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies”. A few years ago I did a yoga retreat that included group therapy and coaching. One of the things we were encouraged to do was explain where in our bodies we felt emotion and what the emotion actually was. It was a really powerful activity.

Kolk continues:

Being frightened means that you live in a body that is always on guard. Angry people live in angry bodies. The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past … The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch. Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves.

This is essentially the process Helen went through. She says: “While is is obvious to say that my body belonged to me, and only me, being in a couple meant that I shared it intimately with another person. And now he was out of the picture, it was just mine to enjoy and feel good about … There were moments when I was recovering from the separation, when I suddenly realised I was free to do anything I wanted with it. Absolutely anything. And that me and my body were free from comments, judgement or disapproval, and free to be whatever version of me I cared to be. I could pierce it, pluck it, sculpt it and learn to love it, even get a big tattoo of Dawn French on my arse if I wanted to. It was an exciting feeling to be so in control.”

After the physical crash, which led her to have an auto-immune response which caused a lump behind her eye which required surgery, she cut out booze, fags, unhealthy takeaways and coffee for three weeks to “detox” and then threw herself into moving her body, regaining balance with her more unhealthy habits and learning to accept and even love her body. “I got into strength training and power lifting and running again. And that completely transformed me and I think exercise is incredibly important when it comes to healing your heart, but also just feeling good. I say that in the book ‘get out at least once a day that the fresh air even that if, even if it is just a walk to Sainsbury’s to buy fags’. I also do yoga and pilates and I do them every week without fail now. I know if I don’t do it, I won’t feel great.”

The mother of two says growing up in Australia, which is sports mad, she always felt much bigger than everyone else and like she didn’t belong when doing exercise. “We have all these preconceived ideas about ourselves and they can be really damaging but once you’re out there it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re slow or your thighs rub together, you get those amazing highs. It’s really important as well as the therapy and drinking kale juice,” she says.

Helen, whose instagram handle is @helenwearsasize18, has often talked openly about being a curvy woman and in the book she raises this when discussing dating apps and one night stands in a way that I found really empowering. In one chapter she is talking about her first sexual encounter after her shock divorce.

She writes:

“The positives that I took from this first time was how my size 18, stretch-marked, wobbly, hairy, imperfect body was not an issue at all. Having stressed over it, and made a list of all faults before he arrived, once we got kissing, it did not fucking matter. In fact he kept saying things like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so sexy!’, and ‘You’re so beautiful, Helen.’ And look, I know people say all sorts of shit in the moment, but this was extraordinary to me. He was right. I did feel sexy. I am sexy.”

helenwearsasize18

A post shared by @helenwearsasize18

I asked her about this as I know from the emails I got after writing about it that a lot of people are worried about their body image when thinking about either dating or just seeking sex. She told me: “It’s interesting you bring that up because I was feeling apprehensive but then I had a good old feminist chat with myself. I'm really curvy and a good old size 18 but when I had my first date, I thought, ‘I'm not going to worry about anything to do with my looks and just see what happens’. I decided I wasn’t going to apologise for anything. I did have a shower but I didn’t shave my bush.

“I've had dates with 20 different guys, and no one has ever criticised or said one negative sentence about how I look, even though society has told me my body is wrong because I am overweight and I've got skin tags and I've got old breastfeeding boobs and all that stuff but if you're confident your body, they don’t care,” she says. “And I don't care if they've got stretch marks or a hairy chest or whatever. I kind of like that. Bodies are imperfect and funny and weird and awkward. I think we put those hurdles in front of ourselves rather than them actually being there.”

That last line hit me in the chest. I definitely put hurdles in front of myself and make the assumption that they are there when they probably aren’t. Of course, there many be the odd shallow person out there, as Helen says: “I'm not to say that you're not going to have bad experiences but from my experience, it’s all been positive and I’ve had dates men ages 29 to 50. It’s been really good.”

In the book, she offers a good reminder to those of us not feeling very confident:

“Sexy is not a dress size. Sexy is not a number. Sexy is not how much hair you have on your body, or how tiny your pants are. Sexy is how you feel.”

I think that’s a good note to end on. I hope you enjoyed this chat. Do order Helen’s book if you like what she has to say. It’s out on Thursday! Don’t forget to sign up for the free trial so you can read the rest of my conversation with Helen!

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Have a lovely week,

Nicola

Twitter: @Nicola_Slawson | Instagram: @Nicola_Slawson

What made me think

When I was single, smug married people drove me nuts. Then I became one.

Sara Eckel, author of It's Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You're Single, has written about saying the wrong thing to her single friend now she is married herself. She writes: “The problem isn’t just that single people can’t win in our culture; it’s also that married people can’t lose. Unless we lose each other, that is. Happiness is fragile, and no one knows if they’re doing marriage right. If couples act like know-it-alls, that’s partly because we desperately want to believe that our fortress of a relationship cannot be breached. It’s scary to allow that something as unwieldy as luck plays a part — luck can change. Better to attribute your relationship success to your hard work, character and/or hotness.”

Things you should check out

• If Carrie And Big Really Have Split, I’m Glad Because He’s Toxic – For my fellow SATC fans!

• We should celebrate all types of women’s achievements the same way we do their weddings or pregnancies – Say it louder!!

• Young people are the real victims of the loneliness epidemic – One of a series of articles about loneliness that have come out this week

• No, It’s Not Just You. We’re All Lonely – Here’s another one from The Cut.

• Loneliness: coping with the gap where friends used to be – This one is by a married person but is relatable.

• It’s time to rethink what loneliness is – Interesting.

• Flaking after lockdown: why we’re so tempted to cancel our social plans – I always try my hardest not to flake because I find it hard when people do it to me (esp. if I haven’t seen anyone all week!) but I related to feeling anxious and exhausted and panicking about money now socialising is back.

• How We Love – And All The Things We Get Wrong About It – Lovely interview with Natasha Lunn (it is not just about romantic love!)

• Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram if you don’t already!

• Nothing to do with being single but please enjoy this unbridled joy in video form. I have watched it approx. 100 times already.

  Lewis Coombes @LewisCoombes

  THIS is what the @Olympics means!! Friends & family of @ClubMaidenhead swimmer @tomdean00 cheer the new 200m Freestyle #Olympics CHAMPION home! GOLD!!! GOLD!! GOLD!!! #Tokyo2020 @BBCSport #Swimming @BBCSouthNews

  July 27th 2021

  1,842 Retweets11,017 Likes

Words I love

"All around me, friends started having children. Casual couples became marriages, then families, and I felt on the outside. The hated the pity that can come with single motherhood, especially as I felt my life was much more interesting than those of the safe, married couples around me. That pity, and disapproval, only made me wear my skirts shorter and my heels higher…”

– Clover Stroud on being a single mum in her memoir The Wild Other.

About me

For those who don’t know, I’m Nicola Slawson, a freelance journalist who lives in Shropshire, UK. If you would like to support what I do, please consider subscribing to be a paid supporter of The Single Supplement. You can also make a one-off contribution by buying me a coffee here. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter. 

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