Triona McCarthy believes menopause is “puberty’s big evil sister”, but that doesn’t stop her from facing its challenges head on.
To mark Menopause Awareness Month with the Always Discreet campaign, we spoke with beauty expert and journalist Triona McCarthy about her relationship with menopause, in which she had a lot to tell us.
Triona refers to her childhood years in saying that there was no chat of puberty or the “birds and the bees” as she was attending an all-girls Catholic boarding school, leaving her to figure it all out by her own means.
She shared that at the beginning of her journalism career, the discussion of bikini waxes and teeth whitening was unheard of, but now, the mention of such things doesn’t get a second thought, with teeth whitening becoming just as normal as brushing them!
Of course, times have changed when it comes to publicly discussing the inevitable biological changes that happen to women. Triona remarked that back in the day “even with mentioning periods or any feminine hygiene products, [her] editor would have a heart attack and things would be taken out”.
Triona turned many heads, including her own family’s with her open discussion of menopause and bladder leaks on Ireland AM, and she explained that these concerns were exactly why she was doing it – to break the stigma in exploring something that all women go through.
“Let’s not have taboos, let’s be open about things. That’s what empowering women is about, not being afraid,” she tells VIP Magazine.
Becoming so outspoken in the conversation about menopause and all that came with it was not originally on the cards for Triona, considering that she had a band and thought she was never going to experience it! Because of this, she, of course, wasn’t as knowledgeable about the cause as she is now.
“Once I hit menopause, I was actually so bad at ‘knowing’. I always say I work on a need-to-know basis. I have to keep a lot of my brain space because I’m a beauty editor for ‘what’s the blackest mascara and the reddest lipstick’, and so I only keep information or seek out information when I need it or suddenly, when I start experiencing it,” she admits.
In becoming more familiar with the odds and ends of menopause, Triona developed a slight hatred for the terms that came alongside it. To make the experience of menopause lighter and more casual, she refers to bladder leaks as ‘bleaks’ and the common accident of peeing while sneezing as ‘peezing’. We think this casual twist on these common side effects makes all the difference, and are obsessed with this new and improved terminology with the hopes of it catching on!
And where did Trina tell us she had her first experience with these side effects? Only while shopping in Brown Thomas of course!
“I was Ireland AM this morning and they were like ‘of course you were in Brown Thomas, where else would you be’ and we were all laughing at that,” she giggles as she tells us.
When asked about how she faces menopause, she shared: “Well, I’m lucky, because now that I’m armed with the knowledge to know what to do, my top tip would always be to have friends that are older than you, to kind of hear what they’re doing, and what’s coming down the line.
“I’ve been lucky enough to try out the Emsella. It’s like this machine that is good for helping with any kind of leaks. Obviously, you have your Always Discreet, which I hadn’t actually known were different to regular sanitary towels, you have to buy the ones that are for your age group as such.”
She went on to say: “There’s even leggings now as well – I was on the Next website the other day. And there were anti-leak leggings. Very clever. Yeah, they were very expensive for Next, I think they were about €70, but isn’t it marvellous that there’s something there.
While the availability and accessibility of such products aiding in the symptoms of menopause have a long way to go, there are steps being made in the right direction
Through opening up about her experience with menopause, Triona has inherently become a voice for those who might feel alone as they face their menopause journey. By normalising such discussions, especially during Menopause Awareness Month, a space is created for women to feel comfortable in their own experiences.
“When we were talking on TV this morning. Alan said, ‘I think you’re great Triona. When I’m out with my friends at the weekends, all the gals are like “Oh!, I just did a little wee” I thought that was marvellous that he said that in passing.
“One well-known beauty brand owner sent me a DM saying, ‘Oh, my goodness, I love that you were talking about that. How you talked about it, was so relatable.'”
The stigma around periods and puberty was a lot more intense when Triona was growing up, she tells us that she had to work up the courage to share with her mother that she had first gotten her period and how she really had to figure it all out on her own.
She noted that this attitude in relation to female biology is not passed on to her children and that everything that goes on with our hormones is a casual discussion and is not something to be feared.
“I love that my little girl knows about all these things; it’s not like a secret world. I think her generation will be a lot more like that. She has all those phrases and stuff that I wouldn’t even have known the words for. I love that!”
A recent survey conducted on behalf of Always Discreet found that one-third of women would feel embarrassed if they were seen in the store buying products to combat their ‘bleaks’. Triona believes that women are always embarrassed by the silliest things, referring back to her own experience when she was in the early stages of her career, and would go to Boots or the pharmacy to buy haemorrhoid cream to help with undereye bags and face puffiness!
“When you get over 50, you just don’t care anymore. When I was younger, I was obsessed with my eyebrows and kept them absolutely perfect. I had a magnifying mirror the other day, and I looked at my eyebrows properly, it was like I had a second eyebrow growing underneath!
“I was like, wow, I don’t give a hoot! When you get to my age, your eyesight is failing, so you don’t even see what’s going on, and it’s probably just as well!”
She adds: “I actually say that I’m Wonder Woman at the moment. I wonder where my keys are. I wonder why I came upstairs, and I wonder who the hell I’m going to get annoyed with today as well! It’s just the way things are when you get to this age.”
When asked about how she tackles her own personal struggles throughout her journey with menopause, she tells us that back in the day her nickname used to be ‘Party McCarthy’. And don’t we know it!
“I get why people go to the gym, now! I never drink water, I drink more alcohol than water! But now I actually go to Jesse Kavanagh, she’s a personal trainer. I only go to her for 20 minutes two or three times a week, that’s all I can handle, because I have ADHD! I have ADHD and menopause, oh my God!!!”
As we wrap our chat with Triona, we ask her to share one piece of advice she wishes for women to take with them from our discussion, as they face their menopause journey.
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“When you chat with people, that’s when the magic happens,” she sagely tells us.
“Chatting, talking, getting things done, you know, I even say to my children, like, once you talk something out, it’s never as bad as you think. Definitely with social media, you’ve got to realise that it’s just highlights of your life.
“You’re only showing the best bits, and a lot of women my age kind of don’t realise that, and they compare themselves. And as they say, comparison is the thief of joy, and nothing is what it seems like. Everyone is just the same, we’re all going through the same stuff. So just chatting is where the magic happens.”
Always Discreet are encouraging conversation and connection this Menopause Awareness Month as new research reveals 1 in 3 Irish women keep bladder leak experiences private. As the brand that helps women manage bladder leaks, Always Discreet are using this campaign to make bladder leak protection and management a habit that every woman forms.
Interview by Leah Foran
