Society often draws on the potency and power of “women’s intuition”. An innate instinct of others’ moods, intentions, motivations. But I believe we come up short with said intuition when it comes to what’s going on inside of our own bodies. I was confronted with this reality when I was diagnosed with a brain tumour last December. 

After the biggest shock of my life and over six months of perspective, I now realise that my body was trying to tell me something for a long time. Something incredibly urgent. Something that could’ve been life or death. And there were a few reasons why it took so long for me to get the message and find the help that I needed. Some were structural, down to the way medical professionals interacted with me. But one huge factor was the way in which I reacted to my own body being in crisis. In pain. Looking back now, I think I’d grown disturbingly accustomed to my body being in fight or flight mode. I work as a journalist under tight deadlines, interviewing famous people, dealing with demanding publicists. I’m tasked with spinning a couple of minutes of interviewing into a viral video, a killer headline. I thrive off the challenge and discomfort that comes with doing this. 

So, when my body was putting me in extra discomfort, with a racing pulse tearing through its entire right side – a medical symptom that ended up being seizures from a brain tumour – I initially pushed it aside. The accelerated life I was living was so intense, that an intense reaction from my body felt easy to dismiss. Jet lag from a trip to Australia. Work stress from sky-high expectations and mounting pressure I put on myself. Exhaustion from it all.  

That was at first. Then, the messages my body was sending me started to become louder, more disturbing. A birthday celebration ended in an A&E cubicle with doctors examining my heart. My thoughts became ever more scrambled due to debilitating brain fog as I clung onto work assignments and my social life by the tips of my fingernails. I felt like I was losing control, losing sight of myself, but kept plugging away at what I thought was most important.  

I – like so many modern working women – have prided myself in my efficiency, capability and composure. Women have entered the workplace late in the game – with the system already built for men – and we have everything to prove. But I see now that these characteristics I prided in myself were in direct opposition to my body’s own needs. My determination to interview Kate Winslet on the same day as my second MRI to ascertain what kind of brain tumour I had, my impulse to flee to the bathroom on a film set after an interview with Michelle Keegan, to hide a seizure that I knew was coming. I see now that while my body was screaming for help, for treatment, for respite, two things were standing in the way: my own ambition, and society’s complete normalisation of women’s pain. As a result, we’ve – and I’ve – internalised a million reasons to live with the pain, instead of listening to it. 

The news that I needed surgery – a craniotomy, look it up – to remove my tumour finally forced me to listen. To confront the pain and discomfort that had been compounding inside me for nine months. Doctors told me I could delay the procedure by a matter of months, but eventually what was inside my head had to come out.  

I felt truly feral anger and fear as I slowly accepted what had to happen. There was an initial obligation to communicate my news to those who loved me, those who would be hurt, concerned, devastated by this diagnosis. Then, I retreated. I spent time with close friends and family, all the while reckoning with what was to come. At times, sobs of terror would escape me as I tried to imagine and accept my fate. Why this had happened to me. I was forced to reconcile myself with the ways in which I felt my body had failed me and reconnect with it. Not how I wanted it to handle my work schedule or travel plans. But what it needed from me to weather the storm that was headed my way, as I was hustled from blood tests to pre-op appointments in preparation for the surgery. Ultimately, I reckoned with how perhaps I’d failed my own body by not listening to it. Like so many women before me, I’d pushed through, normalised and minimised signals from my body telling me that something was more than amiss. 

I have no platitudes to offer that fully encapsulate the complexity and pain of what happened to me, and how I dealt with it and continue to deal with it everyday. My lack of physical energy at the beginning of my recovery quickly dictated how much I socialised – as I prioritised the friends who were patient enough to work around my fatigue – as well as my attitude towards work. What started out as a pragmatic way of living, prioritising certain social events or work projects according to how much energy I had day to day, I have carried this analytical way of thinking into all seven months of my recovery so far. Who are the family members and loved ones who have seen me through this ordeal, and therefore are deserving of my (still limited) energy? It’s forced me to be more discerning with how I spend my time and who I spend it with. I still care about my work as much as I ever have, but I also have this new perspective that reminds me daily that connection with both myself and those who love me is more important and nourishing than the next professional success I chase.  

Honestly, I should’ve done this years ago. It shouldn’t have taken brain surgery for me to make these changes. While there are many traumatic memories and thoughts I’ve had to deal with, I’m weirdly thankful for this reminder to be selective with my energy. A message that women don’t often receive. We are much more often told to spread ourselves thin. To optimise. To girlboss. To power through. So very often at the expense of our own mental and physical health. 

I also know very acutely, to my bone, both the fragility of the lives we build – and how quickly they can be blown apart by a medical diagnosis like mine – and the strength that lies within us to withstand even the most testing and terrifying of life events. I’d call myself and my recovery a work in progress, bolstered with a clarity I wouldn’t give back for the world.  

For 33 years, I viewed my body through the lens of how it could serve me: through work, exercise, socialising, whatever I needed it for. Now, due to the lessons I’ve learnt from ignoring what it was trying to tell me, I’m trying with each day – with mixed levels of success so far – to work out how best I can serve my body. To give back for everything it does for me everyday, and to listen next time it tries to send a message for rest or help. 

Charley's story is exactly the conversation Live Well exists to have, what happens when women override their own bodies for years, and what it takes to finally listen. Live Well is theALLBRIGHT's annual festival for women ready to stop ignoring their own signals. Join us on 25 September at Old Sessions House. Book your tickets here.