'I had a heart attack at 24'
Plus: đ° Bridget Jones đ€ż badass 60+ divers 𫶠be your own best friend
At some point, a health crisis will upend everything in your life. It may have already happened.
Whether it touches you, a family member, or a friend, an emergency can shatter your plans and knock you off course. But it also prompts a re-evaluation of what matters.
Raquel Hutt didnât expect to have a heart attack in August, aged 24. Her case was so atypical that ambulance staff didnât even believe her when she told them what she thought was happening. Not only was she young, she was active and health-conscious. And, she told us, she was âliving my life the way a 24-year-old can and shouldâ.
Read her story below.
Today in Take The Lead, The Female Leadâs newsletter, weâre also talking about Emma Watson backing a fertility company, how to be your own best friend, and the âreal-life mermaidsâ in their 60s, 70s and 80s, who dive to the ocean floor without oxygen to harvest seafood in South Korea.
Please let us know what you think by commenting below, and if you like it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our charity work in schools and groundbreaking research on women.
The Female Lead Team
Weâre talking aboutâŠ
âïž Rosy reviews: Women are less keen than men to share negative thoughts in online reviews on sites like TripAdvisor and IMDb, a study has found. Rather than women being more satisfied, the researchers said itâs because they are more concerned about âpotential social consequences when expressing dissatisfaction".
đŽ Iron-clad data: Triathlon competition Ironman effectively doubled its number of places for women, leading to claims it âwatered downâ the competition with sub-par athletes. Triathlete magazineâs analysis showed no such thing: a similar percentage of racers finish, and it isnât ushering in unprepared competitors.
đ° Wingardium Labiosa: Actress Emma Watson has invested in health company Hertility, which offers services like fertility testing and egg freezing. Thereâs been increasing investment in FemTech, although it was just revealed that companies are less likely to get funding if they have a woman on their founding team.
đ Bridget Jones and Gen Z: Author Helen Fielding says Bridget Jones has a new audience in Gen Z. She sees links between the 90s heroine and teens today, saying, "With Bridget, it was about the gap between how you feel you're expected to be and how you actually are... for them, it's a million times worse because they go on TikTok.â
đ» Online images: 81% of girls and young women now say boys think girls should look like images they see online, up from 62% in 2018. Girlguidingâs latest Girlsâ Attitudes Survey made the finding and said we should ârelieve the pressure on girls to be perfect.â
Inspire meâŠ
âThereâs nothing inherently deficit or lacking in women⊠itâs more about, what fences have we created to keep women out of certain roles and levels? We give them ladders and weâre like âcarry this heavy ladder,â which is more draining, instead of just saying, âWhat are the fences that weâve put up? We need to take those away.ââ
Prerana Issar, chief people officer at Sainsburyâs
âI had a heart attack at 24. Hereâs what I learned.â
By Raquel Hutt
I describe it like someone setting me on fire, but like a âwhooshâ. It felt like a whoosh, going down my arm.Â
It was Friday August 9th, and until that day Iâd been living my life the way a 24-year-old can and should.
I was working from my momâs home in Long Island, in my job at a media marketing agency. I donât always stay with her on Fridays, but that week Iâd just had a feeling I wanted to be home.
After work, I had my weekly therapy online. Then I walked to the bathroom. I pulled my pants down, and as I was about to sit on the toilet, I got the craziest sharp shooting pain in my arm. All I could do was squeeze it. And then I was overcome by sensory issues and cold sweats. My mom said I turned green. I was ripping my clothes off. I had to get out of my own body, if that makes sense. All I could say was, âmy arm, my arm, my armâ.
My mom called an ambulance, and when the ambulance team got there, I was screaming F bombs at them - I have a very colourful vocabulary, thatâs just the culture of my home. They said, âYou're panicking, you're not having a heart attackâ. But thereâs a weird mind-body connection thing when something that drastic is happening to your body. Even though I wasn't having crazy chest pain, I knew that this was extremely serious.
Toolbox: Be your own best friend
From Gaby Huddart, presenter, interviewer, writer and former Editor-in-Chief of Good Housekeeping
đ€ Why: So often, women are hugely self-critical and berate themselves for not doing something well enough, not achieving a goal by a certain point, or not being where theyâd like to be in their career. We tell ourselves weâre not pretty enough or sporty enough, or a million other things besides. Our own inner voice can be quite unkind.
đ§ How: Every time you start to hear your negative inner voice, push it away and instead think of how your best friend would speak to you about where you are, or what youâre doing. A best friend will be kind and constructive and will come out with positive comments about all the good things youâve achieved.
For your best friend, you are always good enough. Youâre always trying hard enough and are always beautiful enough. So use that voice with yourself. It makes life so much sweeter.
Watch this week: The Last of the Sea Women
Weâre captivated by the last haenyeo divers: women in their 60s and older who dive to the ocean floor â without oxygen â to harvest seafood off the South Korean island of Jeju. Theyâve been nicknamed âreal life mermaidsâ and âa band of feisty grandmother warriorsâ battling to preserve their traditions and the sea they love.
Their story is the subject of Last of the Sea Women, a new film produced by Malala Yousafzai.
Its director Sue Kim became fascinated with the divers when she visited Jeju aged 8, saying last week: âI saw them, a group of women kitted out in their wetsuits and walking into the water â they looked so tough, so badass, so cool â and I remember instantly just thinking that they were kind of an underwater secret girl gang.
âThey really gave me another option of Korean womanhood, of the kind of Korean womanhood I could try to aspire to be.â
The Last of the Sea Women is on Apple TV+ now
Final thought
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