Well, OK. So when my husband died… I come from a country – [name of country] is very famous in Latin America because we are a country obsessed with psychotherapy, so everyone has a psychotherapist. OK? WE have I think we have more psychotherapists than, than in New York. OK? So you know it’s like the concentration of psychotherapists. And there’s no stigma. So many conversations start with like, ‘As my therapist says’, and nobody bats an eyelid. So, when, when my husband died – I’m very lucky, you know I have a very very good brother – my husband died and one day I realised that he was supposed to meet up with some people in the US, and you know of course he didn’t go to the meeting because he was dead. And you know I replied… I found out the details of the people with help of and wrote to them to say that you know this is what had happened. My brother phoned you know me after that and he found me like crying my guts out because I didn’t know if I had said the right thing, which you know is ridiculous because you think like your husband died, you said what you could, you know? He was like, ‘You need some help’. And he helped me find a therapist in, in London. And I started therapy and I did therapy for a few years in London. I think it was three overall. I had done therapy in the past because my mum suffered from depression like most of my life. At university I had therapy, it helped me cope. So, I knew that it was going to be good for me. I personally believe that taking therapy is with the right professional is extremely… Okay, personally – and this is my personal opinion – I wouldn’t do cognitive behavioural therapy because personally I don’t feel like you go to the source of the problem, you stay on the symptoms of the problem. So you know I personally like to understand why I am feeling you know in a particular way. I wouldn’t want a doctor to give me you know an aspirin for a headache that might be a tumour.

Are there any messages that you’d like to send out to people that might be experiencing loneliness?

Just that it’s okay. Like feeling lonely is not the end of the world, like it will feel like the end of the world, but sometimes it’s quite, not necessarily nice to feel lonely, but it’s not the worst thing to feel lonely, like it can be a helpful thing to experience, like it will help you as a person eventually. Like, like it might not currently, it might not feel like it, but in a few years after you’ve experienced loneliness you will kind of be almost grateful for the experience.

How was the transition from your home country to the UK?

Very difficult.

Could you talk to me a little bit about that?

It’s just, beside the fact that I did not understand the culture, I mean I think not only like habits, like eating habits, or like I don’t know, it’s just emotionally I found it difficult to understand why people react, their emotions are different. And even in work now when I see people getting emotional I don’t understand why they react like this. I can accept this. I know how to work around it, but I don’t understand it completely.

Sorry, so in your culture people don’t get that emotional, or the other way around?

No. It’s different. Even if they express emotions, it’s a bit different. For example I feel like here, I mean people are very, some people are extremely, I don’t know how to say, they exaggerate their reaction to grief. Like, you know, when you bang your head on the wall. I’m a bit, you know, what, you know, very like screaming, or you know, getting very worked out. I don’t understand that. I think, that’s extreme to me. Or it’s the odd person. I don’t know. But sometimes when you see that you’re a bit, you know, you can hear people screaming or someone just yelling and making a… it doesn’t mean I don’t understand grief, it’s just I don’t understand, an unusual reaction to grief, I don’t understand. People cry and are upset in other countries but they don’t, um… it’s not extreme.

This is what I don’t understand. And another thing that I was very, very, am I’m still struggling with that is I feel like, you know, I need to sugar things up when you say a negative thing you need to… I come from a culture that is straightforward, not you need to sugar things up when you give like a, um, and you need to… yeah, and sometimes I think it’s just cultural to sugar things up and you need to learn how, what to say in a certain situation. I’m getting better at that.

So am I.

Yeah, it’s just sometimes when someone actually is sugaring you up but is saying extremely negative things to you, you’re like.

I can take it.

You’re thinking… I can take it. No, I can take it, it’s just I don’t understand what you, what’s the fuss. I don’t know. And, you now, even,

Was it hard to integrate in the British culture, have you felt?

Yeah, even now I feel like it’s difficult. Um, yes because you… I felt like in certain situations I get upset when people ask me in work, not ask me, let’s say I can, I’m at work and I can hear someone on the… asking in the background, “Oh, from what country is this person coming from? I want to see…” you know, “I would like to see,” you know, uh, um, “another person” or what, you know, “I don’t understand what you’re saying” or this kind of, when in some cases I get…

Really?

You, you,

You get discriminated like that?

It happened to me a few times. Not discriminated, let’s say, that I, not to my face, but I could hear someone asking about outside and I didn’t feel very good. And another thing that happened is people, if someone doesn’t like what you’re saying, when they say they don’t understand what you’re saying.You know, “Oh, I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Although they do understand what I’m saying but they don’t want to accept it because it’s, because they don’t want for any reason. So sometimes it does happen. Not very often, but you can get an odd case like this, you know.

So transitioning into the UK has been a lonely experience?

Yes, I think it’s for everyone I think it is.

And how?

I think for everyone. I mean I don’t know. It’s just from my point of view and my friends and the person that I, yeah, it is because you need to, it takes a couple of years, I would say, to find, you know, to kind of bond with some people, to have some close, to have a routine. Like even a social routine. It takes a couple of years to have a social, and to stay in one place for a while.