Menopause Mixtape
Menopause Mixtape is the unfiltered conversations about the challenges, messy realities and addresses the things no one thought to mention about (peri)menopause. Erin & Michelle bring the laughs, real stories, and audience participation! Because these conversations are better when we're all in it!
Menopause Mixtape
Everything is "Fine" Episode
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Everything is FINE. Except when it isn't.
This episode dives into the exhausting reality of masking perimenopause symptoms, pushing through the brain fog, emotions, physical symptoms and uncertainty, but still showing up for work, family, relationships and life... sometimes in our most vulnerable state. Because sometimes "I'm fine" is the biggest lie we tell, not only to the people who depend on us, but to ourselves.
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Original Art: Ori Desormeaux
Music composed by : Christian McFadden
Welcome to Menopause Mixtape. Life got weird, and we hit record. Hi, this is Aaron and Michelle.
SPEAKER_01And this is Menopause Mix Day. Okay, hi everybody out there in podcast land. Um, I'm just gonna like start, if you don't mind, Michelle. Um, I did some fact checking from some of the stuff we discussed in our last uh episode. And uh two things. It is 12 months plus a day, right? Let's be clear plus a day that you are officially menopausal. Okay, or what they're calling now post-menopause, which is uh we can discuss semantics another time, but um and then uh the other thing is you were not wrong that there is absolutely a lifetime of symptoms that you can experience.
SPEAKER_02Isn't it exciting? Isn't it so exciting? I I had the break between episode one and here we are, episode two, where I could wonder to myself, I'm just gonna let it lie. And and maybe there is a world where 10 months plus a day after my last menstrual period, I will be gone with all of these symptoms. And turns out no, it really can go on for like a decade after your last menstrual period.
SPEAKER_01Right. So, and and like when you say it can go on, I mean all of it. Right. So it's like, but it's not the period. So oh god, we don't ever have to invest in a menstrual, like you know, period product again. Cool. But we will still have to probably and maybe possibly invest in like say a what are those called? The P pads, uh the incontinence products, yes, incontinence products.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, those are my favorite thing, actually.
SPEAKER_01A lot more of like a deodorant.
SPEAKER_02Um I feel like ibuprofen's gonna make the list, yeah. Absolutely, yeah, and just even like melatonin. It could be that, and then on the flip side, an energy drink or a coffee, because not only can I not sleep at night, I can't wake up in the morning. Uh it's so I all of the sleep disturbance issues, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's what I mean. Like, so we're not investing any more of our life in period products, a period product adjacent, because I still wear and like I'm we're not sponsored by anything, but like I'm a big NYX underwear fan.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Cause like you just don't, you don't, you can't yeah, I'm I'm still on the the path of discovery with my uh what are we wearing for the leaky basement control as mentioned in the previous episode, go back and check it out. But I, you know, I'm still exploring options. I and so there are the leak-proof underwear, I think is what we're calling them these days, and then we have the disposable options, and there's there's a lot out there to go into. Uh so I'm yeah, still in the in the ex exploration phase of that part. So instead of buying period products, I'm buying post-period products, right? As mentioned, all all things included. And I'm sitting here thinking like the bra situation, and it is getting less sexier but more expensive. Um, there's like we could go on and on, honestly, and maybe we will in another episode regarding post-menopausal survival kits.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I think that we should yes, absolutely spend uh an entire maybe episode on talking about surviving. The uh, because it's interesting, and we can again address this maybe later on down the line, but I read something that I found very interesting. Uh again, I'm just using the word a lot because it's super interesting. Uh, that um, and and I also have very limited access to language in my my perimenopausal brain, but um a lot of people how they experience their perimenopause life is how their pregnancy looked.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I whoa, I know. No, thank you. Well, this is the yeah, like I if if I mean my side profile looks like my pregnancy side profile.
SPEAKER_01That's a whole other blood pressure looks a lot like my pregnancy uh blood pressure. Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_02My feet, the feet swelling, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes, definitely resembles my hair loss, yes, absolutely, yeah, on my head, but growth on the rest of my body definitely uh very parallel to my pregnancy. So I'm describing myself to be so hot and the incontinence, really. But anyway, the point is that they're I guess they're all hormonal based.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So your body's going through changes based on elevations and de-escalations of estrogens and and progesterones and all the fun stuff. So yeah, pregnancy is a roller coaster of hormones, which turns you into I don't know, a low-key goddess, honestly. But like it doesn't feel awesome, let's be honest. There's there's parts of it that were not fun. And now here we are in perimenopause, another hormonal roller coaster. I feel less goddess-like. But do I feel goddess-like? Let me wait, I might. Well, right. We I don't even want to unpack that. I want to just leave, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna put a put a what we're gonna put a pin in it, put a pin in it. Yeah, there you go. And come back to am I a perimetapolisal goddess?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so like stay tuned for like episode four.
SPEAKER_02Sure, right?
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. Because I can't count. Yeah, so uh, but our discussion that we did want to touch on today, yeah, is a recurring phrase, theme, right, that we've been hearing a lot and using a lot, let's be real. Yeah, uh, the term I'm fine, fine, or just that fine. I think I'm fine. I'm fine. How are you?
SPEAKER_02Fine, I'm fine, yeah, and let's talk about how and we'll dig in the octave at which you say I'm fine, yes, can be very telling, right? So this is going to be a piece of this, is because am I fine? Am I I'm fine? Or I'm fine, I'm fine, right? Am I fine? I'm fine, and then it becomes dog whistle where no one actually with human ears can hear it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02So why for starters? Why do we feel the need to answer everyone's, hey, how are you doing? With I'm fine, it's I'm good. It's fine.
SPEAKER_01Or when you get like handed, say, even in like your quest again for diagnosis and or a title or something that's going on in your body, and they say, This is what we think it is, say stress like, because you're you're being a mom's stressful. Of course, you're gonna be a little bit whatever, whatever. And it's like, that's fine, fine, okay. That's fine. I'm fine. That's fine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's very it's an accepting and doctors, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. Write it out, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. Fine. It's a little rageful. How do we unpack that word and that that phrase? And and I mean, it is used in the everyday vernacular uh a hundred times a day, two hundred times a day. Yes. I if I'm very, very angry at a situation, I'm fine, it's fine. If I'm really uncomfortable with a situation, I'm I'm it's fine. You know what? It's fine, it's gonna be fine. I think if the octaves go from high to low, it's an uncomfortable situation. If they start low and go high, maybe it's an anger situation. I don't know, but it is an answer to every instead of just saying, actually, I'm so not fine.
SPEAKER_01Right. But I think that leads into I mean, I might be like getting a little deep here, but I think it really has a lot to do with like our culture, like as a human, like in Western society. This women's, I know like I'm again feminist so books, but I feel that like having so much historical context around women not being fine and then having it weaponized, being fine is like that blanket statement.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because like I'm not I'm not free to tell you how I actually feel, exactly, and that that being a societal construct, exactly, where we're not allowed to just go around saying I'm actually miserable, I'm confused, I'm lost, I'm I feel great. Yeah, I feel like even that end of the the swing of the pendulum is not even acceptable for as an answer to be like, actually, I'm amazing right now. Right. People don't actually really jive with hearing you say how miserable you are or how great you are.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, and that's why I'm saying, like, could you imagine walking up to like you're like sitting down in the dental chair and you're hygienist, and you're like, How are you? like niceties. And she's like, um, well, actually, uh, my period, like I've been bleeding through a pattern hour, and I can I'm feeling a little dizzy. Also, I keep getting hot flashes, yeah, and my cramps are crippling, right? And I don't actually remember what I'm supposed to be like doing in my life, but no, like that would be terrifying and risky, yeah. Right, there's job, I think job risk, and yet women do it all the time, and that's what like we never know, and that's what I think this like acknowledgement of like using fine, yeah, as this blanket term, but it's protective as well as placating.
SPEAKER_02For sure, I think that there is you know a place where we're we're not comfortable or we're not, whether it's at work or within our relationships or with our children. I'm as I'm saying this, I'm realizing every situation is uncomfortable to just tell the truth about how you're actually feeling. So you just insert fine here. And um the other one that comes to mind for me is no, I'm I'm good. It's good, right? So it's it's very much the same, you know. I might I might not admit to being, like I said, angry, confused, hot, whatever it is, I might actually say, No, I'm fine. I'm good.
SPEAKER_01I'm it's good. It's gonna be good.
unknownIt's gonna be great.
SPEAKER_01It's gonna be great. Everything's fine.
SPEAKER_02And so do you think that like the question I would have around that is like if we were to tap into a generation ahead of us, so our parents, and we would say to them, like, are you aware that we don't share emotions? Are you aware that we don't like I don't know that my my mom or the women in my mom's friendship circle or the women I work with that are closer to my mom's age, I don't know that they feel that they're even recognizing that they're not expressing those emotions. So, and you're saying it's coming back, it coming from a historical societal expectation. And I'm kind of looking at it going, are we the first generation to crack the lid on like let's just tell it like it is?
SPEAKER_01I think that maybe your elder Gen Xers are still very boomery, like boomers in in in in like by definition, are the pull yourself up by your bootstraps, sure, sure? Like the yeah, children should be seen, not heard, yeah, generation. And so some of us were raised like that, and and some of us have used that as like a starting off point of what they don't want to be, so they've gone like fully the other way, or have like basically brought in other parts that they're like, no, actually, talking's not terrible. Um, but I think the elder like millennial like generation, I think that you might be elder millennial, actually. Yeah, you know, because I'm like your younger, like I'm your cuspy Gen X, I'm a Xennial, apparently.
SPEAKER_02But like so, I'm so lost when it comes to all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's only because there is like very in my job, like there's culturally significant, like generationally significant, I want to say traits that are like are kind of like it's very general, right? But there is like you're like, that's kind of a like a boomer thing to say, or Gen X or whatever, right? Okay. Um, so that's why, like, absolutely. Do I think Gen X is one of the first uh generations to be like, mm, actually growing up without an emotional safety net kind of sucked? So how can I be different? Which then, when we're reflecting on those kind of things, even raising our children, we are telling our children, like, be expressive, find your emotions, like talk about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes. Which then leads us into our safety of doing that as well, and actually acknowledging, okay, I'm actually, I'm like actually feeling shit.
SPEAKER_02I'm the farthest thing from fine. Yes. This is I mean, I think another pressure, and I hope I'm not taking us down a wayward path here, but like I think another pressure is like so much of the time in perimenopause and even during full-on hormonal fluctuations of being just in my full menstrual cycle, so much of the time I'm not fine. But I don't want to be perceived as being negative all the time.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And so what I've replaced that with is I'm fine.
SPEAKER_01No, I'm good. I'm fine. Thanks for asking. And some of that is very historically patriarchal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I not we're not gonna deal with women's issues, right?
SPEAKER_01And instead, let's like weaponize it, medicalize it, treat them, and often not euthanize. What what's the one my god, Aaron? Okay, no, but like not, no, but what's the like where you like um drug them up so they're so like lot lot like little pacify? Pacify them. Yeah, we will use I know, but like to be fair, historically there it was some like euthanization, but I'm not we're not gonna get into it. Um but that's why I'm saying like some of that internalized patriarchy, like it's almost like self-policing. When you live in a culture that it's not safe to be like, I'm not okay because it's weaponized or medicalized or pathologized, then you tend to police yourself.
SPEAKER_02And that's what I'm doing for sure.
SPEAKER_01And then that by then we've now the universal, the universal stopping point is I'm fine. I'm I'm fine. It's fine. Everything is fine.
SPEAKER_02Everything is fine. Yeah. When in fact, I don't remember the last time I had a moment in myself that I thought, actually, everything is fine. I mean, I I will tell myself that. Interesting, because it's not just an outer narrative, it's also an inner narrative. You're you're very much saying to yourself, no, no, no, you're fine. You're fine, it's fine, it's gonna be fine. And it's like fighting off the panic, the anxiety, or whatever, the catastrophizing that could go on in one's head. But I mean, I I'm just realizing I don't just tell people I'm fine, I tell myself.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Because we all, and that's what I mean by self-policing. Like, we all know there's a consequence. So if you went like went to your job and you were like, I don't, and you were like, I am a ball of anxiety today. Like, I I am like, I am not like I'm really truly like I haven't slept. Yeah, I can't stop crying. Yeah, I'm a ball of anxiety.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I actually can't remember how to put one foot in front of the other at this moment, right?
SPEAKER_01Like, and I have like just this like crippling feeling of doom.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Because I guess the overall sentiment in that is no, no, show up. Show up.
SPEAKER_01Because you you're at work, yes. You that's what I'm saying. Like, there's no space, there's a lot of conversation now around, and I think it's shifting, especially I think in the states, believe it or not, there's a whole menopause um shift at work. So they're they're making more like menopause friendly. I'm using air quotes every time. Yeah, yeah, friendly or safe, yeah. Um like workspaces, so they have like sort of like temperature-controlled rooms, like so silly, but they have like for migraines, like some women with hormonal flux fluctuations with like extreme migraines. So there's like dark rooms where they can lay down, like instead of like basically being like push through.
SPEAKER_02I was just gonna say that. Yeah, instead of the push through, now we can say, I'm not, I you know what, I'm not fine. I need five minutes, I need 10 minutes, and it doesn't risk your livelihood. Yeah, it's just an acceptable. We're sort of working towards normalizing that nobody is in fact fine all the time. Yeah, it's impossible. You can't some people work 12-hour shifts, 14-hour shifts, 10-hour, I don't, whatever. You're not fine that entire time. And you can't wait for your scheduled lunch break or the break that you never get uh to work out that headache, that hot flash, that back pain, that brain fog, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01Right, hot flashes do not wait for no one. No, they wait for nothing, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can remember actually, I was one of my perimenopausal symptoms was when I would get a hot flash, um, I would have vertigo with it. Oh, okay. And the one of the very first times it happened, I was in a work situation uh where I'm expected to be a stand-up individual who can handle the room and do multiple things at a time at once. And I found myself holding on to an edge, standing next to a male colleague saying, uh, I feel like I'm gonna fall to the floor. I don't know, I'm gonna fall down. Are you okay? No, I'm I'm fine. Right, right. But meanwhile, I was 10,000 degrees filled with hot lava, spinning uncontrollably. And I think it was just the shock on my body of like what is happening? And yeah, I for a long time I had, I don't can we? I'm gonna look into that. I feel like that's something I want to fact check, research, whatever we're calling it.
SPEAKER_01Is vertigo a thing in perimenopause? I would think it like, well, it may be, but uh yes, it probably is because I know a lot of women have it. There's a lot of causes too. Like it could be a drop in blood pressure, it can be a draw, it can be like, you know, in the you're you're gonna know the word for this, but the cochlear part of your ear.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, your inner ear just deteriorated or whatever, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Your mast cell activation is so much like your histamine tolerance is so low when your um perimenopausal that allergies also cause vertigo. Because I have seasonal vertigo when it comes like to seasonal allergies, and so if I take an Allegra, I don't have vertigo, or not again, an allergy medication, um, I don't have vertigo. But so that's what I'm saying. Like it can be any of these things that can cause the vertigo, but it can be absolutely associated because when our estrogen drops, our histamine tolerance uh lessens.
SPEAKER_02So, really what we're what we've uncanned here is just one more awesome piece of information that we can link to perimenopause. I I'm really having a bit of an eye-opening moment where I'm going, you know, I think I'm having day-to-day life, quality of life issues that I hadn't even put in the perimenopause bucket. Right. And now I'm going, wait, yeah, I had a hot flash. And at the same time, I had vertigo. And I've never had vertigo in my life until I started having hot flashes.
SPEAKER_01Which could be associated with the hot flash or it could be like a separate thing, but associated with a hormone. Issue.
SPEAKER_02They just decided to like jump together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. And like have a dance.
SPEAKER_02Let's let's see. Oh, she's working. She's trying to concentrate. She's trying to be effective and get her job done. No, no, ma'am. Right. Sit down.
SPEAKER_01Well, and circling back to sort of like working, I like in my job have this like expectation to be like, for all intents and purposes, the authority in the room on certain things. And I can't find words a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. And so I will be very open with the people that I'm working with about like, I don't know the word for that, or I'll have to email you that concept or blah blah blah bloop, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. But then you have to actually remember to send that email.
SPEAKER_01Well, I write it down with a pen. But that like I I'm a the queen of notes now. Um, but yeah, but what speaking to I'm fine is then my the people that I am supporting will say to me, don't worry, it's fine. Right, because I'll be like, I'm so sorry, right? And but like they'll be like, it's fine. But if you really break it down, it's it's fine, sure, because I follow it up and they still get support. And it like usually there's silly anti uh here we go, silly side stories that I'm like making a point like helping to illustrate sort of what I'm talking about. But regardless, they're in that room with me for a purpose, yeah. And perimenopause directly impacts how my brain functions, which is my job. And so it's really uh sometimes I find myself being like, oh shit, like am I as effective? Right. So then it brings in a whole other level. And I'm glad that they're they see me as being fine. And it's so nice that like other women, because I support mostly women, have that compassion and empathy and sympathy for me.
SPEAKER_02And outsider looking in here, if I'm with uh someone who's in the middle of their workplace and I feel safe and I feel supported, and they have a momentary lapse or they have they can't work fine or whatever's happening, it is at that is at like just to validate you, like that is actually fine, you know. And I think that's a really great moment of, you know, there's times when we're lying to ourselves and we're and we're putting on the mask, and then there's times when we also need to accept people saying to us, no, no, no, it's fine.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Like as much as we're willing to dole it out, I don't know that we're willing to take it as a huh.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Like I don't if I were to be at work or I any scenario where I feel like I had faux pod in some way or had dropped the ball for a minute, and I maybe would be beating myself up, or I would be, you know, sort of in my head about it, and someone were to say to me, No, no, Michelle, it's fine. I don't know that I would actually take that.
SPEAKER_01No, and that's it, yes, exactly. I like I think that fine, it's like what's that? It's fine, like and it loses all meaning, yeah, except for it masking like negative things.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01So maybe like we need to start a revolution of like of like a word that really truly means like no, we see you. Yeah, like you're good, like, and then that's where that you're good, we're groovy, everything's like.
SPEAKER_02I really love I see you. I would love it if I was in a moment of brain fog and I wasn't able to string a sentence together. And if another woman just leaned over, maybe just you know, gently touched my knee to create a connection point and said, I see you. I feel like I could take a breath in that moment and maybe I would accept this is fine, it's normal, right?
SPEAKER_01But like to bring and like bringing that back to that pregnancy thing. What is the one thing as a new mom you always want to hear too, right? I see you. I see you. And that's what I like. I think that it's a bigger, it's a bigger topic, but we're focusing it obviously on perimenopause, but I think it's a bigger topic of this like sort of invisibility of like like the of struggle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think if women want to be, or are I don't know if we want actually want to be, or we've been constructed to believe that we're sort of on the level at all times. Yes, we've got this. Yeah. The the idea that you would be seen to not have a situation handled.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's whether it's she's so strong. Oh, I want to barf. Like, well, like, even like I remember the shirts like strong like mom. Like I loved it because it was like, okay, we're like shifting the patriarchy a little bit from strong like dad, which love men, that's not the issue. It's the patriarchy that I have such rage against. But at the same time, this focus now on like strong women, again, I feel is a disservice. I think that it needs to be more of a we can't just be only hysterical and only strong, right?
SPEAKER_02It can't just be one extreme or the other, right?
SPEAKER_01Ladies and gentlemen, we are a plethora of states of being of like being okay and sometimes in pairing menopause from one minute to the uh the next. Seconds, seconds, exactly.
SPEAKER_02I would say seconds. I can be strong one second and crippled the next. Yeah. And how do we? I mean, we're creating a dialogue here about it, and maybe that's where it all starts, but how do we say, you know what, it's totally okay? It's it's actually just acceptable and it's just an expected flow of, you know, like I come from home from work, I'm tired. That's where that's allowed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So how about I'm perimenopausal and I just had to emotionally untangle my kid wanting a new pair of shoes. Sounds like no big deal, but okay, there's a lot to it. And oh man, I need a minute, right? And we just need to normalize that there, there's these ebbs and flows.
SPEAKER_01Well, and when you start to like, there's been so much conversation around mental load, emotional labor, like at least that's like like the conversation starting, a lot of it being a lot around motherhood.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So even though what I'm suggesting a little bit is that like the mental load and the emotional labor and all that stuff doesn't get less even as your children grow up, or even if not, you don't have children, even if you have pets, even if you have like aging parents, like friendship, all of the things, friendships, spouses, partners, whatever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, being the default caregiver or carer in the relationship of whatever the relationship looks like, it gets more and more draining and complicated, the higher and more intense the perimenopause symptoms.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I would say that there's like less of a reserve there. Oh, right. So you you're you're trying to drink from an empty cup at this point, is what it feels like, you know, and the you're trying to be okay, be fine in all these relationships, carry this mental load, be the or the all things are organized, all things are planned, all things are going to run smoothly, everyone is going to be supported, everyone is going to be safe, everyone is going to be healthy. I I I'm actually making myself sick as I list this stuff off. Honestly, true, true. I am feeling unwell as I say these things. And we're trying to do all those things, not from a vibrant 25-year-old, 22-year-old whatever body. We're trudging through it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think that that's where that sort of uh narrative of the fuck it era, like where you start to sort of just like you you cut off like thing, like things that don't serve you. You like you get you like dump things that you're just like, why am I investing this much energy? Yeah, like and also like even with say um in my certain like in my you know little family dumping what I don't want anymore and what I don't feel needs to be my responsibility on, say like my older kids and my spouse. And you know, even sometimes I'm just like, you know, I don't have to say brush the dog as religiously as I have because the groomer shade gives me shade, like when I don't, like if my dog shows up with a mat. Um like it sounds so banal and benign, but when you when it's like an hour service that you have to give this stupid animal that's just gonna go, and I love my dogs.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say you don't mean any of that, but okay.
SPEAKER_01But like I know, but I'm saying that like, but then my lovely doodle that I love more than anything, but is not compliant, I will brush him, and then the first thing he, of course, does is run like rolls in a mud puddle, which mats everything again.
SPEAKER_02So there's no amount of your worrying or your asking the kids to do it, or your planning in your head the dog grooming schedule so that when you get to the groomer, they don't throw shade. Right. There's literally nothing you can do.
SPEAKER_01Because I still feel so bad when I get in trouble. I don't care that I'm like a 49-year-old woman when like the 26-year-old groomer is looking at me like with like, is this dog somehow neglected? And I'm like, girl, I sleep on the head on the nightstand so this dog can like stretch out like a tarp pitch. Like this dog is fine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was actually just gonna say, what what we could use, folks, is how do we teach the dog to say to the groomer, I'm fine. Exactly. I'm fine.
SPEAKER_01Believe me, this dog is fine. Like this, she's she's not mean in any way, right? And even when I brush him, I'm like, oh, I even got like the vacuum one, so like it's so soft, like whatever, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, I'm the worst right then because there I can't.
SPEAKER_01He's a I'm a gentle, but doesn't matter. The point is, right?
SPEAKER_02Like, oh my god, it's the pet care podcast right now.
SPEAKER_01It's actually like honestly, I it's because I just like brought my dog to the groomer and she like threw me uh just a handful of shade. And did I ruminate about it for a solid four days? Meanwhile, I had just brushed that M Effer out, and I like and I thought I had like zinged all the little mats off, and I thought I was like presenting a show dog to just be right updated.
SPEAKER_02You got solid side eye of it. Right.
SPEAKER_01She's like, Did you find this dog on the side of the room? Yeah, and I was like, Whoa, okay.
SPEAKER_02How nice of you to rescue this dog, right?
SPEAKER_01And so, because of my anxiety now is through the roof, and this like weird rejection sensitivity that has developed toot sweet through parimenopause. Yeah, this 20, whatever year old groomer being like, I think that you need to like like Google this and be like, whatever, whatever.
SPEAKER_02I was like, okay, how hard is it not to say to people, thanks, tips? Do you think I don't know that I should be doing 150 more things a day than I actually already am doing? Yes, well aware, feeling terrible about it all the time. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Yes, like I walk around feeling constantly like I am like one step away from like success, but never reaching it.
SPEAKER_02I gave up on that so long ago. I I mean how we measure success is very different, right? Like I look at my friendship with you and us sitting across from each other right now, and I think that is womanhood success.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02Okay, like this is this is peak friendship situation going on here. Congratulations to us for being there's some success. And then I look at like the fact that I still haven't figured out how to get my kids to brush their teeth on a regular basis, and I think failure, you know, failure, and and it's on me somehow. I again the societal construct, uh like girl.
SPEAKER_01Let me tell you what, and like coming from somebody who has been married not once, not twice, but thrice. Uh, you want to talk about though, like a lingering like feeling of like ultimate failure. And now as an older woman, not giving, I actually truly have like uh like um allowed myself to that grace of being like like Dr. Ruth was married three times and she's like one of my heroes, right?
SPEAKER_02Like, I think if we were to go into the celebrity vein of what does it mean to be married three times, the mattering of it come becomes less.
SPEAKER_01I basically am a celebrity as far as in my marriage. I mean, sure. But like, and it but it's not the man, like it's not the fault of the partner uh like the or any sort of like relationship sort of misalignment and like the bravery of actually leaving. No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02No, we're just gonna focus on the failure that you have internalized, absolutely, and then like presented to my children, right?
SPEAKER_01Right, so it's like one of those things. So it's I think within ourselves, there is this this like, and some people we have discussed this a little bit um outside of the podcast, is there is people who actually are walking through life being like, I don't fucking care what you think, and but like actually genuinely mean it.
SPEAKER_02They like folks, they believe so strongly that the world is their oyster, yes, and they are living their best lives with zero sense of anxiety, zero sense of failure, zero insecurity, and they may not even be uh like uh egotistical about it. No, they are cruising, yes, and I'm like, you're an alien, I don't understand how we exist on the same plane, no, because it is a it is a different spectrum completely for me. Like I I was not in my youth in elementary school, in high school, in in uh early post-secondary school, uh it was a grind, it was a grind to be, you know, not feeling like I was letting the world down every step of the way. And then there's people that just are like, no, no, no, you're welcome. Right, yes, and I and congratulations to those people.
SPEAKER_01Let me just say, like, no, this is I am not I am not throwing shade at these people. I am and I am curious and I am envious. I I absolutely, this is uh like this is me like honestly being like, I wish yeah I had an ounce of it, even. I know, and as perimenopause is struck, and I think we touched on a little bit, like the fact that I had like you know, hair loss, hair growth in places that shouldn't be, the weight gain, like it all of it is very much too like not your beauty standard. Like those are not beauty standards, so that that that a men find appealing. And so being on the dating scene two other times in my life with like a decade in between. Um, and then also just like what is going on with my body? I already felt like I didn't fit in when I was like high school fat, like when I really thought I was fat, and I looked at my pictures now and I'm just I was a wave. Wow, Aaron, especially during the 90s when it was heroin she could Kate Moss, like, love you girl, but no, thank you. Yeah, and so like that's what I'm saying is like now perimenopause, it was like, Oh, you thought you were ugly then.
SPEAKER_02Hold my beer, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like, I want you to be like humbler now that you have like this, like you said, like I have a soul patch, I have a chin beard, right? I have a chin beard, and I don't like so. This is what I'm saying, like it's chin strap. There's never a point in my life where I've just been like, ah, so that's why when we but is that the game? Is that is that what we're here for?
SPEAKER_02Like, no, like, are we here to just go one challenge after the other with our identity and our self-love or whatever we want to call it? Like, I again I'm saying I'm fine. I you tell me you're fine, I'm fine. Inside, I'm like, you have the ugliest hair, and you I've hated my hair since I since I was gonna say something terrible, I'm not gonna say that for a long time. Yeah, I've really never ever liked my hair ever.
SPEAKER_01And this is coming from also I used to be your hairdresser.
SPEAKER_02Shoot, yeah. I'm not saying I didn't like the haircuts, girl. I know I'm we know the hair that grows out of my head is not satisfactory. It's unruly, but I I love you for so listen. Yes, for the for the listeners who can't actually see me, I am rocking a full mullet right now. Yeah, she looks I'm no longer her hairdresser, but she wouldn't let me do a mullet, there's no way.
SPEAKER_01But she looks on fleek, and you might have to look that up, younger people or older people, because that's a I'm pulling that phrase from that's coming back early 2000s.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. It's been a minute since fleek was a thing for that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I still like to pull it out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I mean I was I was always concerned with my hair game, and then I hit perimenopause, I hit my 40s, you know, the two coincide, and I'm like, oh wait, it's not about a beauty standard. No, it's about what do I want? And I'm trying to have more moments in my life where I can really hold on to that idea of what do I want? I know that you know, society wants me to have pretty girl hair and I want to mull it. No, right, so here we are.
SPEAKER_01So you are in a different place than I think that uh I think I have more grief as I become more calm confident and comfortable in my body now, and more like knowing myself because I'm allowing myself and all the ugly bits, meaning like even some of my like ugly bits being like my thinking sometimes about myself, like in that acceptance piece. I find that I'm grieving the time that I spent hating myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so this perimenopause has given me this like cool, like zero fucks.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because like shit's out of control, meaning like I have no control. It's a runaway trainer. Like what I'm saying, like, so like you either lean in or you're gonna be like honestly like taken out by the wake, right? So I'm just riding the waves.
SPEAKER_02I feel like the lean-in, I I for me personally, the lean-in has been my go-to at this point. And and it's not because I'm some crazy, confident, you know, powerful, well-minded individual. It's because it's easier for me to lean into it than fight it and question it. Right. Right now, I'm not leaning into my chin strap, girl. No, I pluck that, I understand, but I'm gonna lean into the mullet. Right. I'm gonna lean into the ever growing chest size. I can't, what is happening?
SPEAKER_01Well, and like in since I had a c-section, there's like things that happened in my stomach area since the girl.
SPEAKER_02I also had a c-section, and like help me, Jesus. I remember saying to my young self, my young size four self, you'll never, you'll never look well listen, former self, you will have a belly that looks like a shelf. Yeah, what is happening? And how many women have C-sections? And like, we just don't talk about like the fact that your body isn't out of control, like the shape of your abdomen is forever.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it changes everything, it's a mystery, and this is what I mean. Like, and when you're in the fog of new motherhood, you're not just like I will this ever bounce back, but as my weight caught up with me in perimenopause, I'm like, oh now, like this is how my body changed. Like my weight gain has changed even.
SPEAKER_02Like it's yeah, like it's distributed weirdly, it's totally. Coming on differently, and it's because of the C-section scar. Yes. It you're like, I didn't know my belly could do that. Right.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know that I looked like a play-doh mold. Well, and this is what I mean, like going back to sort of a broken play-hough mold, let me be clear. But like that's what I'm saying, going back to that sort of grieving my younger self. I wish I had lived more presently.
SPEAKER_02A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_01Than being in a place of like always trying to change myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, if you're a if you're a listener of this podcast and you're in your 20s, live in the moment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Hear us now. Okay. Not in like a YOLO way. No, we're not gonna do YOLO, FOMO, whatever all the things we're not doing that. Right. Okay. Like we can't. Well, my kids did say to me, you guys have to be cringe. I was like, oh, we can pull that off.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, I think that they're the like today's cringe for them will be tomorrow's sage advice. So yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02I'm telling you, whatever you think you see in the mirror is actually a myth. And just live your best life because you're gonna get a C-section or not, you're gonna hit perimenopause and your body's gonna be like, You thought that was bad. Let me show you.
SPEAKER_01Right. It's like you have to sit with yourself. Like perimenopause makes you be present because it changes with you have no, you have no past or future because you have no control of your any of it. Like for one minute, I could be like, Oh, this is a really good concert. The next thing I know, I'm 400 degrees, yeah, and I hate dripping down, and people around me are like, Are you okay? And I'm like, I'm having a panic attack. Yeah, because I'm so hot from a hot flash. So, like your body's like, remember when you thought that you felt like you know you didn't have control over your life?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, hold my beer, hold my beer, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So this is why, like, I think the that's where my like I've been sort of wrestling with the grief a little bit around like that poor girl, like that poor, poor girl. Yeah, she she should have been just spent so many hours like not eating the cake, you know, not texting the boy or calling the girl using the quarter and the payphones to be truthful about her vintage here, not taking my bike and riding it to this person that's staying off AOL so that the home landline could still ring. Right exactly, like not putting myself on away on MySpace. Um, so but MySpace is coming back at the time. But yeah, so like yeah, considering Tom was my only friend, no. Um, so but like honestly, it's like that poor girl. And I wonder how many, like that's where this like menopause sort of revolution's coming from, I think, is that we a lot of us in the Gen X and elder millennial generation spent grew up in that sort of like slim fast, get in shape girl. Oh Lord have mercy, even Weight Watchers to be very fair. Like my mom, I think, was on it consecutively my whole life.
SPEAKER_02I'm trying to think of the there was a weight loss product. I guess we don't need to name products, but we went from sort of diet pills being chic in the 50s, I guess it would have been 50s, 60s were what it means then, but yeah, it wasn't that I'm I'm using the word diet pills with with you know big googly eyes here. Like and then in our era, it was like everything was lacking like nutrients, like you just everything was fat free free, right?
SPEAKER_01And like it was so crazy because you'd be like, I take that off the light menu, or I'll just have like it was bonkers, right? Like how because I honestly I remember I think I was like eight when I got get in shape girl. Yeah, I actually so I was all the young people out there. That was a an exercise and weight loss um kind of tape that played music and instructions on how to do these certain aerobic exercises, yeah. And it came with like weights and a headband, they're all pink, and it was so cute, and you had like a ribbon too on a stick, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it was an acceptable, like how fucked is that?
SPEAKER_01It was an acceptable gift for a parent to gift their child, like what but I don't remember it being for boys either, and I was like trying to gender this. But like it was back in the 80s, everything was very gendered and very like binary, and so that's why I say like when they it was get in shape girl, it was it was never like get in shape boy or get in shape kid, yeah, exactly. It wasn't no exactly, so it was like get in shape girl, and then like they had exercise Barbie, they sure did.
SPEAKER_02G.I. Joe was just like he was good to go, right?
SPEAKER_01And like he didn't need to exercise, Summers had the Thigh Master, and like even when you fell asleep on the couch at night, every infomercial was geared towards women, like and but now that I think about it, my mother would have been in perimenopause then.
SPEAKER_02Oh, snap! Exactly. So while Weight Watchers was peddling their wares and numerous other diet brands, and every single product had a low-fat version, and get in shape girl was all the rage at Christmas. Our parents were going through period, our moms were going through perimenopause.
SPEAKER_01Right, and so but they wouldn't not have they would not have had an a label for it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So then they would have just been shamed for being fat, which again, I have no shame in being fat now. I love it, but that's why I'm saying they would have because that was the narrative to sell like what so they could commodify off of yeah, it's always like make people feel ugly so they can sell them the solution.
SPEAKER_02Oh, right. I remember in uh postpartum my uh Facebook feed being inundated with weight loss ideas and weight loss products, and that's just the new age or newer age version of commercials for Get and Shape Girl. Um, like it was literally just constant. And now that I'm in perimenopause, it's not TV commercials for us anymore, it's TikToks, but it's like, and it's 24 hours a day, yes.
SPEAKER_01Like, because everybody like we're not gonna get into a debate about like the GLP ones or any of those kind of things. However, you do see a lot of um natural GLPs, so like and it's like very much peddled to the perimenopause algorithm, yes, 100%.
SPEAKER_02It's there is a lot of uh advertising or in my algorithm, and it is definitely targeted to women in their mid-40s to mid-50s, middle-aged women, right? Um, and to it's I actually oh, I I want to be sick. I actually saw, I kid you not, an advertisement today that was targeted to women about being 54, I believe, and it wasn't too late. Oh good, and I thought, I am exhausted. Are you joking with me right now? Like but there was also an unwell little piece of me that was like, you're right, it's not too late, and it was this like stick figure human just selling whatever product to say, you know, I'm 54 and I got quote unquote back in shape, and it's not too late. So yeah, totally targeted to middle-aged women, totally targeted to perimenopausal women.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I think now because there's more strict sort of like uh supplement restrictions and stuff like that, because like I'm not kidding, like my mom, I think, had like gum that had like speed in it. I don't even know, but like it was insane. Like the stuff that like even wake ups and like high caffeine content. I know monster drinks and stuff exists now, but they're pedaled more towards the 20-year-olds.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're just making sure our teens have heart issues, right? But like what we're doing right now.
SPEAKER_01But what like yeah, the what the endless energy that that generation actually has, but whatever that age group has, but whatever I would kill for that energy. But that's what I mean. Like, it's bonkers the stuff when I think about what my mom like when you think of like people out there might not remember Angela Bauer, but when you think of the waist circumference, or if you've ever watched Fame again, the waist circumference of Debbie, whatever her name is, she was an amazing dancer, but they were like, or even watch dirty dancing when you see Jennifer Gray, yes, who is like just a typical, beautiful, I think she was supposed to be 17 then, which is a whole problematic thing, but whatever. I pretend she's like 25 now, and then but like and penny behind her. So it's baby and penny when they were teaching like her how to dance, like that's that thinness, even though she was like a dancer, yeah. It was like Jennifer Gray. If she were to like have an internalized sort of um like fat shaming voice, right? She would consider herself like enormous I was just gonna say, I don't want to say that, but I you know and she was absolutely skinny, like I would have given my left arm. So that's why I'm saying like it's all perspective, it's all what we've been sold. And so now at perimenopause, I'm just kind of like, I don't want to buy what you're selling though anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm not about the product or or the the the the quick fix.
SPEAKER_01Well, even I don't, I'm not even about the narrative anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, really, it should be there's I feel like there's a room or an opportunity for balance. I mean, we could ask again.
SPEAKER_01We talked about sort of being healthy, and that's what I'm saying. I don't care, I don't work out now so that I look skinny. No, it's the functionality, the health piece, so I can walk and my dog, the ungrateful dog that I have. I like the dog who has mats, Aaron. Yeah, I know. Such a bad dog, but like, yes, so yeah, that like yes, so that's why I'm saying like it's functionality, and I think when you're in perimenopause and your body starts like absolutely just like ripping the carpet out from underneath you, yeah, it becomes less about do I like the way these pants fit me right in the mirror.
SPEAKER_02In the mirror, yeah. And leaning more towards can I crouch down into my kitchen cabinet and get the pot I need, right?
SPEAKER_01And like without throwing out my back and having like muscle, because like so much muscle and ligament issues in perimetopause, right? So it's like, no, it becomes humbling.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think if you know what I would rather have is again this the the body that can reach into the back of a cupboard in a crouched position and stand up and and actually be okay. I want that body, I want the body that can do those things and just stand up and walk away.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's what I mean. Like I am grateful that I am able-bodied, yeah. But not but but like I've also been experiencing so many symptoms that has created like instances where I can't get out of bed, and yeah, and so it that's why I'm saying this focus on like weight gain and that the algorithms, the world, like everybody is sort of shoving down our throat when that is not actually it's a healthy be b it's a healthy body, but like also just a healthy sense of who we are. I remember accepting of it.
SPEAKER_02I remember within the last five years, there was a minute where we could say in shape in any shape. Yes, does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And I I totally remember hearing that. I totally remember it being a bit of a banner statement in in shape, in any shape. I loved that, it disappeared so fast from the lexicon. Yes, like I actually am sitting here questioning myself did I make that up or did that actually happen? Because it lasted for such a short period of time, and maybe there's an opportunity to bring some of that into this. Yes, can we please just say in shape, in any shape, and you know, be okay, actually be fine with that?
SPEAKER_01That's what I mean. Like when we say when we show up for other friends or people on the street or clients or patients or whoever the hell we all are doing our things, when we say it's fine as the receiver of that message, internalizing it as being true, yeah.
SPEAKER_02A lot of really grace, things. Right?
SPEAKER_01So grace for ourselves, yes, and then when we say I'm fine, allowing space for the opposite to be true as well. Yeah, yeah, like to say to like your friends if you have to, obviously, your boss, you might it depending on where you work, might be a little bit problematic, but like like with my with my job saying, Ugh, I don't have the words because my brain is not braining today, and them saying, Okay, it's fine, that's fine. That's what I mean, like having that that come self-compassion to also say that I'm not firing on all cylinders today.
SPEAKER_02I think that's a great, I think that's a great space. I know that in my particular area of work, I probably couldn't admit to anybody that I wasn't firing on all cylinders. Um but perhaps to a colleague. Yes, and I think have my have my back and support me today.
SPEAKER_01Though on so many levels, you not even being able to say that, that's a whole other conversation about workplace safety in perimenopause.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So because sometimes with this fake it till you make it shenanigans, you you can't.
SPEAKER_02And I feel like it leads to LTDs, yeah, like long-term disability, time off, more sick calls, things like that. Absolutely. And I think it would for me for sure, because I know that I can't go into my workspace and not be perfect. Right. Ooh, I'm I'm not perfect, folks. Like I'm not saying I am, I'm saying, but like there's this illusion that um you're absolutely at your best at all times. Yes. And if you can't, if you can't attain 100% functionality, you gotta call it, you gotta call in versus turning to a colleague and saying, you know, I've got about 80% today. I've got about 75% today. Listen, can you help me out here? Right. And tomorrow, when you're at 80%, 75%, I'll see if I can chip in. You know, and having that honest really and you know, actually, I think that would apply not just in a workplace scenario, but in a marriage scenario, in a relationship scenario. Even I'm gonna say with kids, I should be able to say, I've got this much to give you today. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna need you to pick up. Now, I'll probably say it till I'm blue in the face and it'll never actually happen. Let's be honest here. But I think there's an opportunity there to have a little honesty. And um here now I'm losing my words, but to be able to preface that I'm fine with a quantifier.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I think that I think yes, I think that this is a a bigger conversation, but I think that we've really, you know, un uncovered some things that are I think it's an it's a kindness too that with through perimetopause that we really need to recognize yeah, that would actually make this whole experience even 10% better to say like that to say like 10% seems like it would be fantastic.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. It's a small ask.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02So here I mean, as your friend, I can agree to you with you. I will take your I'm fine at a 50%. Okay. I want to hear some honesty about it though, right? Let's work on that as a team.
SPEAKER_01Okay, cool. And I'll check in with you about it later.
SPEAKER_02Right on.
SPEAKER_01Um, so I think this is a good place to stop.
SPEAKER_02Agreed.
SPEAKER_01So if everybody wants some homework, we're gonna work on the I'm fine, but also sometimes with a caveat. Yes, allowing ourselves sometimes to not be so fine. Absolutely, and accepting and extending kindness to people when they do tell you I'm not accept the kindness and extend and extend.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Accept and extend. Okay, homework.
SPEAKER_00Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in next time. Absolutely.
