Perimenopause - with guest host, Jayne Sanders

In this lively and laughter-filled episode, I’m joined by my good friend Jayne Sanders, a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience. We dive into a candid chat—not a therapy session—about life, menopause, and everything in between. From the realities of brain fog, memory loss, and migraines to the chaos of balancing family life, we share our personal experiences with perimenopause and how it shows up for other women we work with.

Jayne and I bring our unique blend of humour, warmth, and straight-talking honesty, so expect plenty of laughs, a few tangents, and yes—fair warning—a bit of swearing! We discuss the complexities of being a woman in different stages of life, how the pressures of modern life impact us, and the importance of setting boundaries, saying ‘no’, and caring for ourselves. We also touch on the intersection of perimenopause, ADHD, and mental health challenges.

Whether you’re navigating your 20's, 30s, 40s, or 50s, this conversation will resonate with anyone feeling the weight of life’s transitions. So, grab a cuppa, get comfortable, and join us for a frank and funny chat that feels like sitting down with your best mates.

Disclaimer: If you’re easily offended by Women forgetting things, this might not be the episode for you!

Key Topics:

• The realities of perimenopause
• Navigating hormonal changes while juggling work and life
• How menopause symptoms affect women personally and professionally
• Embracing the ‘bag of mashings’ phase of life with humour and compassion

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Transcript

So hello and welcome to this episode where I'm going to be joined by my good friends and my clinical supervisor and all round awesome person, Jane Sanders, . Hi  . So we are going to be doing a few episodes like this where we are going to be talking about different topics and Jane is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist as well.

And, but we're doing this not from a perspective of.  therapy, we're going to infuse some of the therapy that we have and use our knowledge, but also just generally a chat, chat between two women in different.  Coming from different places in their lives. And we are very similar but also very different.

You'll definitely get the fact that we have a very similar sense of humour. There's going to be lots of laughing today. And also, just so you know, probably a lot of swearing. So it'll probably be a bit different. Yeah, you need that disclaimer. I think for people, if people are easily offended, maybe this isn't the podcast for them. 

Exactly. Jane, do you want to say a little hello of just, what you do, who you are, please. Yeah. Hi everyone. I'm Jane. As Natalie said, we've known each other for a long time in various different environments. I think working in different places, but yeah, essentially I've been a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist for about 20 odd years now. 

So I'm currently working in the NHS, but also do some private work. And at the moment specializing quite a lot in trauma. So worked a lot with anxiety and depression. But yeah my, my kind of current practice is complex trauma. And so  thank you. And so Jane is joining us from where she lives up north.

North! North! We're going to try and get together for a couple of episodes just so we can have some fun together. As well as giving you some really good episodes, hopefully.  Yeah, we can do a bit of a north south divide as well, can't we? Bringing the unity of the country through.  Through our clinical practice, I like that.

I just, yeah, we did live together in London, didn't we, for quite a while. Yeah, it's now in the wilds of the Peak District, which I can't complain. I know, and I'm in lovely South West London. Yeah, the contrasting environments. Very contrasting. And also, I love the fact that you are at the top of my screen at the moment, so you're, it is literally north south.

Oh, it is? That's it. The demographic there, isn't it? It's up at the top.  Oh I don't think that the north is up at the top. No. No, I know that.  Okay, so today we're going to be talking about  things that affect women and specifically we're going to be talking about menopause and perimenopause. 

So  we're going to be sharing some of our own experiences of things that, how,  There we go. Literally a perimenopause moment. You can remember what I said then.  Yeah. Yeah. How it affects us and also how it shows up in other women that we have contact with and that we spend time with. I'm 39 years old.

I have two children and I am currently in perimenopause. My main symptoms that I have are brain fog, memory loss.  Migraines. Oh yeah. Night sweats. Lovely. Insomnia. Yeah. Yeah. All of the deliciously lovely ones. Yeah. Yeah. Which one of interest is the work? Which one are you finding most difficult do you think on day to day?

Brain fog. Yeah. That's the one that I went to my GP with and sat down and cried. I feel like.  Because of the brain fog, it then affects my ability to sometimes do therapy as well as I want to. After being a therapist for 15 years, when I couldn't find the word cognition, being a cognitive behavioral therapist, it really got to me because I'm trying to do the best that I can and I'm feeling like someone, it's almost like someone comes in and just scoops out a word or scoops out what it is it's doing and takes it away.

It's amazing.  And you're just left with fuck, what was I doing? What was I saying? And what did this person just say to me? And obviously we work with people who are vulnerable and when they come in and you want to be able to hold that space for them and  for it to be their space. But actually I sometimes feel like my perimenopause then intrudes in  their space as well.

Cause I have to own it now. I have to be like, I'm really sorry.  I've just had a blank. And. So yeah that's probably the worst one for me and the migraines as well, because the migraines can physically stop me and I've had to cancel whole clinics because I cannot, I physically can't open my eyes.

I have to just lie down, dark room, go to sleep and wait for it to go.  Yeah, I know it's interesting because I think, yeah, I find the brain fog, I think with the job that we do, I find them super frustrating, I think sometimes. But like you, I'm just just thinking, oh God, what was I going to say?

It was on the tip of my tongue and I just can't find the word. So I'm like, what feels like an eternity? And this session, just trying to, what's the word? What's the word? Oh,  And and I'll just make a bit of a joke a bit sometimes. I'll just go, Oh, sorry, menopause. And LAUGHS Great joke. Yeah. So it's naming it.

But it's a bit of a running theme at work now. So I'll be like, excuse me menopause. If people are like, I'm doing things too quickly, I'm trying to multitask. It's my brain. like you were saying, just cannot just do those things that it used to do. Just to say I'm slightly older, I'm 52, 51. I always do that, I always add on, I prepare for the year ahead.

Oh no, I've got one month left before I'm 40 and I am like adamant, I'm 39. I will not prepare. I'm not 40 until I'm 40. Yeah. But I suppose like now in this day, people are embracing their kind of 40s and 50s a little bit. I think there's a, there's something like this is, we can't stop the aging process.

And why would you want to be 20 and, the nice, I know I'm going to love my 40s when I get there, but there is something about me at this age, because my mum had me when she was very young. So when I was 18, my mum was 40. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm  just thinking, calculating. Yeah. She was 22.

Yeah. I remember thinking like, she's so old. I have kids who are three and six, but I just remember feeling yeah oh my goodness, mom and her friends and stuff. They're so old. But there is something that, and I know, and I do, I feel like everyone's saying, where it's a privilege to age.

And I understand that so much, but there's something for me that just feels like it's tripping me up over being 40. And I'm like,  I don't know. I, yeah. And I've loved my thirties. I've grown so much. I'm like, yeah, I'm this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's going to get even better.  Yeah. It's tripping me up a little bit.

I think there's always those pressures, isn't there, direct or indirect as a woman. I don't want to be sexist. I think men do as well have those kind of pressures more so than we used to. But I think, yeah, you read things, watch things, and there's always a spotlight on how you look,  isn't there. 

And you only have to watch films, isn't it? Hollywood actors and women, and I think there is a little bit of a pushback, which is good, but I know what you mean. It's still, there's still, it's still there. It's still perhaps this idea that we've got to be this, I'm going gray and I've struggled.

I don't get me wrong. I've struggled going backwards and forwards with it going, Oh God, it ages me, but I'm old. And maybe that's okay but shit, I don't wanna, it's conflicting.  And also, just thinking about menopause as well, there is, it's a new stage, isn't it? It's another stage. 

I started my periods when I was nine years old. I was so young when I started them.  Excuse me. And  Excuse me. So I started them when I was nine years old. My, my mum completed menopause by the time she was 37. I knew that I was going to go through this phase, perhaps a bit younger than some other people. I know perimenopause, the symptoms start quite early for a lot of people, but  knew that was going to happen as well.

And now I've just forgotten, I've got, I've lost my train of thought. Welcome to the Perimenopole.

Yeah, and here's the reality of sometimes what it is and you have to laugh at it a little bit, isn't it? Otherwise you would be like, because you're putting pressure on yourself otherwise, I think.  It is a lot of pressure. It's a, it is very difficult for us to be able to continue. Oh, this new phase of life.

Yeah.  There we go. We got that.  It's different phase. So it does feel like a rebirthing as well. Actually, I'm coming to the end of these kind of fertile years. And I've got two children. Absolutely not. They are hard work and they contribute a lot. But it is that fact of just going, yeah I'm entering this new phase and I'm entering my string, all these new things.

And I think  I'm trying my best to embrace it, but I do feel like with the support of HRT, which is what I'm waiting for at the moment. Yeah. I'm making sure that they're like rigorously taking me through lots of blood tests and those kinds of things. Yeah. Sure.  even though there's a lot of research that says  blood tests won't show anything.

I think the GPs, they're just being trying to, I'd be doing, are they taking it serious events? I just yeah, it was interesting when you went to the GP,  what they yeah, we're like, okay, let's get something.  Yeah, I think it was my family history. So my mom  by 37, so her period. 

Not she, done it by 37. I think they start  becoming intermittent around 27. She literally, no, I think it was, yeah, I think it was about 27. So she, yeah, had the periods had lots of symptoms and then they totally stopped had been a year stopped by 37. Yeah. Because of that.

And also my Nan,  And my auntie as well, they had also had to have hysterectomies very young because they'd had different cancer cells, those kinds of things.  So they did take it seriously, but also I think it's because I went in and burst into tears. I think when someone is that opposite you and they're crying and they're saying I got to the end of my tether and I was holding my son at the time and just be like,  I'm so stressed.

And this is  much, but I think this is what a lot of us do. We wait until we get to that point. I  can't stand it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And then you go in and then and I think also I was very lucky. I saw a junior doctor and I think they, they give you a bit more time. They've also got a lot more up to date information.

I actually prefer to see someone who's reading the book. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because it is getting more, I think, talked about, isn't it now? It's more in the mainstream is the menopause and HRT and getting on HRT. I think kind of people have talked about it a lot in the media, but Yeah.

That's good then, that they've yeah, that they've got all that information, because I was surprised I went, and there's the fatigue as well for me, I'm like, oh, but I do have long COVID as well, just to say, so it's like it could be, it's probably a big, bag of mashins of everything.

But it's like bag of mashins. Bag of mashins! Bag of mashins! That's my diagnosis. I've got mashins of everything.  Where do you stop? But you do feel like, I feel like, shit, I'm falling apart, man. But yeah, so they did, yeah, same, take me seriously. I'm putting them like, I've got an estrogel. 

You haven't got it prescribed anything yet.  No, pop tip to anyone because I was putting it on wrong. So it's this kind of, it's the gel that you squeeze on your skin and it just, so you're a bit of a greased up eel for yeah, a couple of pumps.  But  he just has to drive. I was putting it on the top of my arms and  apparently  the absorption is probably not as good if you put it on the inside of your arms or inside leg.

So I didn't know that. So I've been putting it. I know so this is these are the little things that. You have to know, don't you, that someone needs to tell you that, who's specialised in administrating HRT. But yeah that's better since I've been putting it on a different part of my body.

But you just stood like that waiting for it to dry in the morning, it is a little bit like  And I try and precariously put my jumper on and try and I'm like, shit, and it just  wraps it all.  So I'm like, I ain't got time for it to dry. I've got like stuff to do. Yeah, this is the thing. I've got a million things to do.

I don't have enough time.  Yeah I'm looking forward to getting something, but then I'm saying to you before we started the call as well that I am seeking an assessment for ADHD and I think also this is also going to massively affect my hormones. And it's going to be really difficult to pick apart what is what.

When I actually said to my husband, so obviously we're both therapists as well. And when I said to my husband do you think I might have ADHD? Yeah. And he's yes.  He's I've been waiting for you to come to it yourself.  But I think it's helped me throughout my life. Like the fact that I have, I'm able to, I think I've adapted so well with it. 

I've had to, but the more I'm learning about it, the more I'm like, okay, yeah, I very much fall into certain categories. But something I'm also learning is that it massively affects women around perimenopause and menopause, huge shift in hormones.  And with women, we're never the same. In any one day anyway and all of the research has been all research.

It's medically done is basically on men because we're too complicated because we, cause our bodies are always hormonally shifting. We're always in a different phase. So yeah, so it's,  there, there's a lot of things that kind of then compound.  what's going on for me. And it's which bit is menopause, which bit is the fact that I've got two young children who don't like sleep. 

And so therefore I'm awake a lot of the time and, and all of the other stuff, juggling work, juggling juggling the kids, juggling the household, bills, those kinds of things.  Seems to be going up and up and then we have to work more and just there's just so many different moving, showering, washing your hair, things like that.

I've done it today.  I think.  It's a bag of mashings, isn't it? It should be a diagnosis, something that we can put in the DSM. What have you come with today? A bag of mashings.  Must be a woman that's got a bag of mashings. I'm at the bag of mashings stage of my life, thanks.  I think I need to start micro dosing.

We were talking about that, weren't we? Before the call about psychedelics, I've been reading, I've been watching and reading a lot. I mean it's been around for a long time, like shamanic traditions in South America and Asia have been doing it for a long time, but it's been coming into more mainstream kind of medical arenas.

Psilocybin is a big  thing, but I wouldn't recommend it just doing it. On your own entooting.  You're just about to get a  voice.  I'm gonna go for some micro tasting.  Yeah. No, I don't think I'll be doing that. But but no it's. It's interesting because I think the more you read widely, we look at things from a holistic approach all  the time.

I'm thinking about what's going on for this person, where are they, in their menstrual phases? What's going to be impacting them? Are they on HRT? Are they actually within perimenopause? Is this just a huge amount of stress that they're under at work at home, all these pressures,  also caring pressures for.

So for instance, like my mom has been very poorly recently. I've been driving up and down to Cornwall miles away. And it's a lot that I'm doing, but because I'm now at that age where parents are older, the caring often falls within  women,  there is literally just so much this bag of mashings that just keep, so  I guess what for you would be your things, your kind of top tips that you work with  women with or for yourself, things that have with your symptoms.

Well, a big again, it all fits in, with kind of just like you were saying, I think you, you literally when you're dealing with these, I don't want to call it conditions, but these phases by the mashings you can't expect yourself to have, Same standard, to do things in the same way as when you were 22, or your neighbor Leslie, down the street or something.

So there is something about managing those expectations of yourself. So there's a little bit of  compassion and understanding to what you're dealing with.  Some of the, like we said, the impact of brain fog, fatigue, all of those things. It's a real thing and you have to adapt  and accept that's where things are.

So it's a bit of acceptance and compassion around your situation.  And pacing. I think pacing as well. I, there's no, no way can I multitask now. Brain fog. Not a chance. I used to be like that, doing one thing on that computer, getting dinner ready. Like you say, I ain't got kids, but sorting the dog out, 

sausages,  flipping sausages for the dog. But now I will get lost in all of that. There's just no way. So I have to pace.  They know, we're talking about assertiveness before and the difficulty. And again, I think there's a big expectation on women, on mums, on women to be able to do all these things and just to absorb it all.

So actually setting those boundaries for yourself and being able to. say, not comfortably because I don't think it ever feels comfortable, but just to be practiced and say no and compartmentalize some time.  Yeah, I think that setting boundaries is something that we could all at any time in our lives and being able to say no.

Like you said, it probably doesn't feel comfortable to say no, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.  So then people then change their expectations of you. If you're a person, they will always ask you because they'll assume that you'll just say yes. And it's the easiest route for them.  And when you start saying no, and you're consistent about it, people will then maybe not ask as often because they're like,  no. 

But I think, yeah, it's that it's knowing, like even as women. The reason, one of the reasons that we find it so difficult to say no, it's because of fear of confrontation. Yeah. So we have adapted to be passive, to be more, what's the word, meek and mild,  trying to constantly have this balance of just let's not tip anyone else over the edge.

And it's not fair. And this is what we're socialized to do because.  That could come with actually saying no with being strong.  It can be there. But I think the easier it becomes. Yeah. Yeah. What's the worst that can, what's the worst that can happen as we say in CBT, a big  phrase, which isn't on, there isn't always, is there something where people say, Oh no, I don't know.

Nothing bad will happen, but I just feel uncomfortable. Like you say, with the fight or flight, the conflict, isn't it? You just have that physiological.  response to it. And that, yeah you become you can freeze, can't you? You'll become passive as a way of, and it's from an evolutionary point of view, that's brilliant.

You're a survivor. No problem. But, in, like you say it's managing that uncomfortability and going in knowing that you need to have that time a little bit more, don't you? So I don't know what I'm rambling on about now, but I do. I think I was thinking about people that had come to see me that to coin a phrase that is used a lot by people is people pleasery.

 Yeah, and they're just so used to people pleasing to go, saying yes to everyone.  Yeah, it's  horrible because you burn out. The problem is that, like you say, you get to your 40s and you forget your 50s and you can probably manage it and traverse it and then you get to your 40s and you just can't do it anymore.

So people are like, I'm done, but I don't know how to you  And you can do things like you can say, you can acknowledge their feeling whilst also maintaining boundaries. So you can say,  whilst I understand that you need to get this work done, or you need to get that done, I do not have the time at the moment.

And I cannot do this. I cannot help you. So you're acknowledging. Yep. This is how you feel about it, but this is what I can't do. You can even then say, if you can think of it and if it's available to you, say, how about you ask so and so to do that? Don't always have to do that. Sometimes you can just say no.

A lot of people feel really uncomfortable with just no explanation. So I think it's a nice sort of  sidestep into it. But I think, yeah, there's people pleasing. We're so used to doing it. And I think what I've learned, especially from working in London, working in corporate work, is that there's this fear that you could lose your job at any moment.

And that you,  there's people waiting for your job.  So you have to work until 2am. You have to say yes to your boss at all times and you never want to push back and you never want to do things because there's fear mongering all the time. Yeah. Collectively, if we all said no together, then we haven't got a fucking leg to stand on.

Yeah.  They, the actual people at the top then have to go, Oh, everyone is saying no,  I'll do it. Maybe we need more bodies on the ground. Yes.  But this is an ideal world and ideal scenario.  Half of your workforce are women and they are the ones who are doing more people pleasing, which it's shown time and time again, but that's what happens.

Other ones are picking up all the rest of the work  and likely to be the ones that are doing more of the caring at home. Yeah. Those kind of things. No wonder we feel like we're cracking. And we find it's us. Like it's our problem and we're going through hormonal changes. There are so many different places like where we can actually intervene.

So  yes, it might feel like a very small thing for you to say no, but actually in the bigger picture, if we were all doing it, if we were all setting our boundaries, saying no, saying, actually, that's not possible. I can't do that. I can't take that on. And actually my quality of work will suffer if I take on more.

Yeah, and it's doing that you say it's experimenting with doing that isn't it and seeing taking that risk a little bit, and I think people have,  and I do, you look at your history don't you about your, what you've your beliefs about, say, what you learned from your parents, or where you were growing up, and maybe you weren't allowed to, and good girls work hard, and they don't question things, and all these kinds of different messages.

That they're rolling around impact on us. But normally when I ask people about what do you think of someone, a colleague or a person that's been assertive and said, no, they're like yeah. Have they been fired? Have they been? And actually they're, more often than not, they always, there's a respect there  for them setting their boundaries.

So this idea that it's gonna be a catastrophe if you say no, and it's all gonna be terrible, I think is a kind of fear.  So actually by the, there are benefits to doing it, so I  think this, yeah, sometimes challenging those beliefs a little bit, isn't it, what we think people are going to think of us, and it's very rarely, if not it's quite the opposite. 

Absolutely.  You have so much compassion to other people that we don't give to ourselves.  From your own perspective, when you're in a narrative is quite negative on yourself and you're quite hard on yourself. But when I like 99 percent of the time, if I say, like you said, what would happen? What would you feel about a colleague or someone close to you?

And what was happening? And they would just be like, Oh yeah, of course I totally understand they've got this and that. And I can see all the things that they're doing because we quite easily give that compassion. Yeah.  Yeah, thinking about things like people pleasing, thinking about saying no, actually putting some boundaries in is really going to help.

On a more practical level, one of the best things that helped me through these symptoms is exercise. Yeah. I'm actually a power lifter and I've got into that in the last year.  And that has helped my, it's helped my symptoms. No end. I also have adenomyosis as well, which is where your uterine lining grows into the walls of your womb and it can grow outside of the womb.

It causes adenomyosis. Really bad pain to the point. Sometimes I can't even walk or I couldn't before.  And doing more exercise  has helped me so much. You're in touch with, I have not had any moments in the past year where I can't walk. Which is amazing because it isn't so bad.  So there's lots of kind of different things.

So exercise obviously impacts the mood, you said yourself you went to yoga this morning and you had that kind of, I do this all the time.  I know we don't though, do we? Yeah, we don't always prioritise things that are good for us. I know, I prioritise that glass of wine, but  I know I've been here being human, isn't it?

Exactly. We are messy. We're human. Don't go for perfectionism. Go for I  say this to people all the time. We are messy. We're messy.  We will be human. We will, but it's about for me, it's about being active when you're doing things. Yeah. Actively eat that slice of cake. And I'll be like, yeah I'm, you were actively eating a cinnamon bun when we started, which I was very impressed about.

Very mindful, very demure. There's a thing on TikTok where there's a woman going around going I'm being very mindful, very demure. And it's this kind of meme of you doing things that aren't mindful and demure as a woman, but that's the thing, I'm very mindful, very demure. Yeah. With anything, if you're doing it mindfully,  Yeah,  then it just changes things rather than being just this is why I always, it's a bugbear of mine, people eating at their desk and working at the same time, get outside, get some eyes in, Get some sunshine in your eyes, get  into a little bit of nature, any sort of green space, those things, these bits will support you.

And actually it's such an act of self care to say, I'm going to stop for a second, I'm going to move away and go and do this myself. I will hold my hands up and say that I will also eat at my desk sometimes, even though it's a bugbear of mine. But then I also make sure I prioritise getting outside.

I prioritise my eyes. I prioritise my exercise routine. So I go five to six times a week to the gym. I absolutely, I love it and I've, and I'm in such a cycle of it as well and I love feeling strong. And yeah, I just try to be mindful of what I'm doing. If I'm going to drink, have a bottle of wine. I know that's not a good thing to say. 

Whilst we're training.  Whilst we're training. A bottle of wine and a muffin. Or go to the gym like Abby. 

It's about being present in the things that you do instead of punishing yourself.  It's not about going, all in and just going crazy, but being kind, being compassionate, being mindful, all those things. But yeah, exercise for me was one of the big things  that really helps. And like you said, cognitive restructuring.

So actually challenging those negative thoughts that you might have reducing perfectionism, being mindful. I think also, yeah, talking to your GP. And also noting that, you can be in your thirties and have some of these symptoms and talk about this.  One of the big things that really helped was talking to my mum.

Like actually asking her, when did you go through the menopause? Because although my mum is quite young, only being 62, she's of that generation that didn't really talk that much about women's problems.  Yeah. If you don't know that information for yourself, it's one of the things that the doctors ask you.

When did your parents, when did your mum go through the menopause? Not your parents. Actually. I'm going to stop that there.  But yeah, when did your mum go through the menopause? I don't think anyone's ever asked me that.  Really? Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. And they ask different questions. There's genetics involved in it as well.

It really varies who I think, as your GP.  if they've got that knowledge. And it's, I still think it's an area that needs a more of a specialist worker because the GPs, God love them, they're up to their eyes, aren't they, as well with things. And you only get 10 minutes on one thing.

So I think they haven't always got the time.  Yeah. And also most GP, so they know  over the years of just how you're changing. Yeah.  I've never seen the same GP in my practice.  But like you say, I think if you're going with your own researcher, there's a website, isn't there, Rock My Menopause? That's a good website, actually, that gives you a lot of information, so if you get as much as you can, and you're going with what you want, your GP as well, I think that's  usually okay.

There's a lot about Davina McCall's book as well. Great things about her. Have you read that? Only bits of it so far, I've got like a shelf over there, the stack full of books I've got to read, I've got so much,  my concentration isn't there at the moment. Yeah, that's the thing, I know, I must admit I can't remember, I've started to practice reading a few pages on a night just to build it back up again. 

But yeah, I miss reading. I  do reading on the tube. That's why that's the nice thing about being in London. That's the one nice thing about the Tube for me. So I'm like, my book, I love it. It's great. And I could just sit there and I can read because most of the stations so I'm like, that's fine.

I can just do that instead. But yeah so we've gone through some top tips of the things that you can do. We've talked about also our experiences as well. Is there anything else that we, there's, this is such a huge topic. We could talk about this. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many different variants, isn't there?

If people are listening and going, yes, that's it, but I have this, or I have that, I think it's not a, like you were saying, it's not a catch all, isn't it? It's really important, isn't it, to validate what your experience is with some of these things. But  I think, I think,  I don't know about you, Natalie, but I, and again, it could be my situation, but I feel like I don't, and I've seen this on a few posts in social media, coming a bit withdrawn as well, and just perhaps not feeling like you've got the motivation, you haven't got the mental energy to go and do a social thing, outside work.

And I got into some really bad habits, and it's  counterintuitive because you're tired after your day. But I must admit, if I go and do, and speak to a friend, or go for a coffee, or do something where I'm bringing it out of my head, I find that  good as well. Again, not all the time, because, people are annoying sometimes. 

After, through a day working with people you like just want to just chill a bit and I think that's okay. But I think it's making sure it's not a blanket thing, isn't it? Where you're just getting into kind of regular avoidance.  Yes, absolutely. Because I also noticed anxiety creeping in and I'm not.

Yeah.  I've been probably free from anxiety for quite a few years. Obviously,  times when I'm really stressed, like in a kind of very normal, responsive way,  but I also noticed overall anxiety starting to kick in and that kind of, yeah, wanting to retreat and also low mood. Low mood would then especially with the migraines and stuff like that.

So then I'd be on my own and I also work from home or I work on my own. Yes.  Time, but  that I noticed was like closing in and also we're about to go into winter. So it's going to, even I've noticed my mood change with the weather, which it doesn't usually, I usually really like the winter time.

So I then wonder is this That's also part of it as well.  So mood wise, absolutely. But I think, yeah, for me it's the same. It's making sure that you get that balance. Now I probably tip on the other scale of things, so I go out a lot, I do a lot,  I socialise an awful lot, but then that's because I spent two and a half years breastfeeding my daughter  and I was home every single night, because obviously  those boobs needed to be available for her.

Yes. So when I stopped, I was like, wow, yeah. Come on, like I'm going out. We're going to do it.  My titties are free. They're free, yeah, but they're all over the place because I was hanging off them for two and a half years. I was like, where did they go? Around my belly button. Just all of that lovely collagen and that, it's all gone. 

You get one of those things where they do a fat transfer, where they take fat from one place and then pop it into like your boobs.  Oh God.  Pop it into your boobs. Pop it in to lift them up. Oh tomato, oh god. This is a whole other topic of body, they, I've got, yeah, we'll do that, I think there's, again, we were talking about it's such a diverse thing.

Body image and having work done and all those things, isn't it? I just feel like mine have been stolen  from me. My boobs have been stolen by a child.  I never had boobs to start with you had wonderful boobs. They were fantastic before the kids. Yeah.  Disappeared. And I went, I'm like,  I love the fact that I was able to breastfeed, but my God, yeah, I want it back. 

And also, yeah, so as I was saying about that as well before I went off on that lovely tangent I had, I was in for so long, and I was in this kind of moment, yeah. Also because my daughter has seizures as well. We always have to make sure one of us is always at home with her. Yeah. It's very hard for us to  entrust her care into someone else.

So yeah, it's very difficult in that way. So  I end up wanting to go out a lot, even when I've got no  energy.  Yeah, that's good. I'm the kind of person who gets energy from other people.  And again, that's it's knowing yourself and what you need a bit, isn't it, at different times. I think I have a tendency, especially this age, I don't know if it's again, I don't know if it's to do with menopause age, where I'm living, whatever, just to be a little bit,  Shrinking back into things.

And it's, and I love it when like we chat or we go out or we do something, but yeah I, yeah, I probably do, but I need a little bit of a umph sometimes.  A little bit of a kick up the backside, kick up the hill as we did, but naturally drag me up manta. Oh, that was amazing. That was such a, going up there first thing in the morning.

That was nice actually, just to be on top of that hill and just going, Oh, and before breakfast as well. That was such.  So yeah, that's another thing actually is connecting with your girlfriends. So connect  your friends and other women who are in similar situations to yourself or  Just having that support, because what I know is there's nothing. 

better for me than the support by the women,  because we're just so good at it.  Holding space for one another. It's like our superpowers is actually that sisterhood, that feeling. And now this is something I'm going to talk about a bit more in another podcast as well as actually friendships at this age, because I know And for myself included, so much changed so when I, after I had kids in London, so many of my friends did the same at the same time, and then they left. 

So I have friends, like really close friends living all over the country, all over the world. And  I was left in London with no long term friends.  Like yourself, you've moved up north and it's,  and then actually feeling more and more isolated. So something that I actively do is try to find some new friends and new people to connect with and Yeah.

And so yeah, we'll talk about how to do that more because I,  a lot for women. Yeah. We need this. We are we're, most of us are very social and the power of normalizing really helps and we do as well in groups.  It's survival, isn't it? You need that to survive, really. I don't think you can't, and I think, you can dismiss it, can't you, and just go, I don't need to, I'm too tired.

But it is in our makeup. We need other people. We need to feel connected, don't we, as a group,  space, humanity. Yeah.  in an evolutionary way. Thrive. Yeah, this is where we thrive. So yeah, so all of these things can really support. Yeah. So I think that we have talked a lot today about this and I think this is something that we need to come back to again.

Let's wrap this up.  And yeah, thank you so much everybody for listening and I hope you've enjoyed the podcast with Jane, which is really nice for her to join us. And we're going to be doing lots more podcasts like this. Cause I think this is a really nice way of having this chat between the two of us and from our different perspectives as well and perspectives as therapists. 

Yes. Thank you so much for joining me. You're welcome, any time. And I think, like you say, people kind of comment or post, any specific, if they want to go into any aspect of it in more detail, that just helps us, doesn't it? Just make it more bespoke, what people want to hear about.  Yeah please, post anything  and send them to me.

We will answer as best we can in our own little way. In our bag of mushrooms kind of way. Exactly.  We might end up going over here and over here. We'll come back and we'll get to the point at the end where we remember what the point is. We are menopausal.  Yeah. Thank you so much. If you have been listening and don't forget to send us any comments and press like as well and follow us so then more people can, we can reach more people so they can have a listen to us.

So until next time, thank you. Bye.