Between Rooms: The Change Nobody Properly Warned Us About.

In this solo episode of Between Rooms, Elizabeth takes on the midlife topic nobody properly warned us about: perimenopause, menopause, and the full-body shitshow women were expected to endure politely.

Born in 1973, Elizabeth grew up hearing older women refer vaguely to “the change,” but nobody handed over the real survival guide: hot flashes that can make you nauseous, sleepless nights, mood swings, hair loss, frozen shoulder, bladder betrayal, skin changes, lost libido, alcohol intolerance, and the strange grief of not always recognizing the body you still have to live in.

With humor, honesty, and grace, this episode asks why generations of women were taught to stay quiet about their bodies — and what happens when we decide that silence stops with us.

This is not medical advice. It is one woman telling the truth from the messy, sweaty, hilarious threshold between who she was and who she is becoming.

Plus, Elizabeth shares excitement about the upcoming first guest interview with Dr. Janie Pyle, who will soon join Between Rooms for an in-person conversation.

Transcript

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Welcome to Between Rooms. I'm Elizabeth McCracken. And today we're going to talk about something deeply personal, wildly underdiscussed, medically underserved, and apparently designed by a committee of people who've never had to sleep in a wet nightgown while wondering if they're dying or just becoming wise. Today, we're talking about menopause. Or perimenopause, or the change, as the older women in my life used to call it, which by the way is such a polite little phrase, the change. Like you switched laundry detergent, like you decided to wear more linen, like you took up birdwatching. No. This is not the change. This is your body walking into your life with a clipboard and saying, we're gonna need to make some restructuring of the entire organization. And then it sets the building on fire. I was born in 1973, which means I grew up around women who absolutely went through menopause, but almost no one talked about it in any meaningful way. They would just mention pieces of it, hot flashes, moodiness, being done, putting up with people, maybe a joke about finally speaking your mind. There was this idea that menopause made women wise, direct, liberated, maybe even a little bit dangerous at Thanksgiving. Well, I like that part. I want that part. I'm fully available for the earned the right to speak my mind portion of this program. But nobody gave me the brochure that said you may also get frozen shoulder, you may start losing hair, you may sleep like a raccoon in a dumpster behind a sonic, your eyelashes may begin quietly resigning. Your skin may bruise if someone looks at you too hard, your bladder may forget its training, your face may develop rosacea like it's auditioning for a weather map. You may love your people deeply and still want to fake your own death because someone chewed too loudly near you. There was no anti-counsel, no ceremony, no practical advice. No one sat me down and said, Honey, one day you will be standing in Target, minding your own business, and heat will rise from your chest into your face with the force of a Baptist revival, and you will wonder whether you're having a medical emergency or simply becoming a dragon. No one told us, and I would like to file a formal complaint. Now, you may be wondering, Elizabeth, how does menopause fit into between rooms? My answer, perfectly, because this podcast is about the rooms women live in, the rooms we survive, the rooms we outgrow, the rooms we're expected to manage, the rooms where everyone else's needs are stacked neatly on a table, and ours are somewhere under that pile with a coffee stain on them. And menopause is one of those rooms. It's physical, yes. It's also emotional. It is identity, it is grief, it is rage, it is humor, it is embarrassment, it is power, it is waking up one day and realizing that the body that has carried you through caregiving, marriage, divorce, parenting, ambition, grief, work, and survival is now standing in the doorway saying, I have been with you this whole time and you have ignored several of my emails. And honestly, fair. Because many of us have spent decades trying to be the strong one. We pushed through, we worked through, we mothered through, we smiled through, we led through, we packed lunches, wrote lesson plans, chaired meetings, sat with dying parents, managed impossible relationships, answered emails at midnight, held children while they cried, went to work after heartbreak, went to work after funerals, went to work after betrayal, went to work when our bodies were begging us to just lie down. And then menopause arrives and says, you know what? We're not doing that anymore. Not politely, not gently, not with a shared Google Doc. It just started flipping switches. Let me be clear, I am grateful for my body. I am. I know this body has carried me through a lot. This body has held a child. This body has survived grief. This body has gotten me through long days, hard seasons, bad marriages, professional pressure, heartbreak, parenting, moving, rebuilding, and whatever emotional triathlon women are apparently entered into at birth without consent. But lately, I've had moments where I look at my body and I think, ma'am, what are we doing? Because things are happening that nobody prepared me for. I had frozen shoulder. Frozen shoulder, which sounds like something pioneer women got from churning butter in February. I must have missed that stage in the Oregon trail game we used to play. But no, apparently, this is a thing. It can happen, and it did. My shoulder just decided it was no longer participating in the team sport of being a body. I could not move it correctly, I could not sleep comfortably, I could not reach behind me, I couldn't even take my bra off. I had to get a lidocaine and cortisone shot. And there is something very humbling about needing a medical professional to inject your shoulder because your hormones have apparently declared war on the connective tissue. I walked in like a functioning adult and left thinking, well, this is how it begins. Soon I'm going to start yelling at the neighborhood children and comparing orthopedic shoes online. And the thing is, I can laugh about it now, but when it is happening, it is not funny. It is scary. It is painful. It makes you feel old before you are ready to feel old. And that is one of the quiet cruelties of this season. It's not just that your body changes, it's that it's changing in ways that make you feel like you have been removed from the version of yourself you still feel like on the inside. Inside, I'm still funny, still smart, still sensual, still capable, still the woman who has lived a whole life and can tell a good story and read a room and lead a meeting and love fiercely and survive almost anything. But then I bend over and I make a noise like a haunted barn door. And I think, who is this? Let's talk about hot flashes. Because again, older women did mention the hot flashes, but they did not provide enough detail. They made it sound like you get a little warm. You fan yourself, you say things like, maybe you stand near an open window. That is not what this is. A real hot flash can feel like your internal organs are hosting a luau. It starts in your chest or your neck or your face, and then suddenly your whole body is like, emergency, everyone evacuate the pores. And sometimes I get so hot I get nauseous. Not cute hot, not perspiring, not glowing, not glistening, or all the other cute little words men use for women who sweat. It is not the I should take off my cardigan hot. What I mean is I need to lie down in the kitchen tile and explain to my family that I love them, but I cannot speak right now because I'm being broiled from within. And then of course, five minutes later, I'm freezing. Because menopause is not content to make you hot. No. It wants range, it wants drama, it wants to remind you that your thermostat is now being managed by a raccoon with a hammer. Then there's the mood changes. And I want to be careful here. Because women have been dismissed for centuries with the idea that our feelings are just hormones. So let me say this clearly: women are not irrational because we have hormones. Women are often having very rational responses to deeply ridiculous situations. However, there are times in perimenopause when the hormone surges, drops, fluctuates, whatever witchcraft is happening in there, it can make me feel like my emotional dashboard is blinking every light at once. One minute I'm fine, the next minute I'm deeply moved by a dog food commercial. The next minute I'm angry because someone moved the scissors. And not normal angry, not where are the scissors? Angry. I mean, I have given my whole life to this family and no one respects my office supplies, angry. And while I know I'm being ridiculous, I'm also fully inside the ridiculousness. I can see myself from a distance, like a woman in a nature documentary. Here we observe the midlife female in her kitchen habitat. She has discovered that the scissors are not in the drawer. Her breathing has changed. The family should retreat slowly and avoid direct eye contact. And later, when the wave passes, I do feel embarrassed because I don't want to be unkind. I don't want to be reactive. I don't want the people I love to feel like they're living with a live grenade in yoga pants. But I also want someone to understand that I am not simply in a bad mood. I am navigating an internal weather system that apparently does not believe in Doppler radar. Sleep has also become a whole situation. And this is offensive to me because I love sleep. Sleep used to be one of my gifts. I could work hard all day, crawl into bed, and be gone. Now? Now my body treats bedtime like an invitation to review every decision I have ever made. Or I wake up hot, I wake up cold, I wake up because I have to pee, I wake up because my shoulder hurts, I wake up because my brain has decided at 3.17 a.m. this is the perfect time to remember something embarrassing I said in 1998. And then of course morning comes and women are still expected to function. Nobody says, Oh, you were awake from 2 to 4:30 because your endocrine system is performing experimental jazz. Please take the day off. No. The day begins, there's coffee, there are responsibilities, there are children and partners, and appointments and work, and laundry and pets, and bills and texts, and the eternal question of, so what's for dinner? And you're expected to be pleasant, which feels ambitious. And now let's talk about vanity. And I know some people don't like that word, but I'm gonna use it because there is a specific kind of grief that comes in watching your appearance change faster than your sense of self can adjust. I do not think we should shame women for caring about that. I do not think we should have to pretend that we're above it. I am a grown-ass woman. I have survived real things. I know beauty is not the rent I pay to exist in the world. And also, I do not enjoy watching gravity have its way with me like it has a personal vendetta. Both things can be true. My skin is getting softer, my muscles are softer, things are moving south in ways that feel logistically unnecessary. My hair is thinning, my eyelashes are falling out, my skin bruises like a banana. I have rosacea now because apparently my face wanted a hobby. And I can say aging is a privilege because it is. It absolutely is. Not everyone gets to grow older. I know that. I respect that. I feel it deeply. But aging can be both a privilege and a bit of a shit show. We're allowed to tell the truth. We're allowed to say, I'm grateful to be alive, and also, why is my neck doing that thing? We're allowed to love ourselves and still feel self-conscious. We're allowed to be wise and still buy the serum. We're allowed to be feminists with good lighting. There is no moral failure in wanting to recognize yourself in the mirror. And now because I am fully committed to this public service, let's discuss paying ourselves. Why not? We're all friends here, or we will be after this episode. There is a particularly indignant piece of life in being a grown woman who has managed children, careers, mortgages, marriages, grief, leadership, and life itself. And one day I sneeze and my bladder says, Surprise! No, absolutely not. I did not lead meetings and raise a child and survive heartbreak to be taken down by a cough. And here's the thing: it is common, but common does not mean emotionally easy. It can mess with your confidence, it can make you cautious, it can make you feel embarrassed in your own body. You start thinking strategically in ways you didn't have to before. Where is the nearest bathroom? Can I jump? Can I laugh? Am I about to laugh too hard? Should I cross my legs before I sneeze? I can feel a sneeze coming on. This is not the freedom brochure we were promised. Where's the chapter in the midlife wisdom book called How to Maintain Your Dignity While Your Pelvic Floor Quietly Leaves the Workforce? I would have read that chapter. I would have highlighted it. I would have hosted the book club that week. And because we're already here, let's talk about sex. This is one of the parts women are often expected to whisper about. And I'm not going to get graphic because that's not the purpose of this show, but I do want to be honest. Menopause can change desire. It can change comfort. It can change response. It can change how connected you feel to your own sensuality. And when you have been a woman in the world, your relationship with your body is already complicated. Your body has been commented on, evaluated, desired, criticized, compared, hidden, displayed, used, praised, and misunderstood. Then midlife arrives and suddenly your own body may not respond the way it used to. And that can feel like another loss. Not just physically, emotionally. Because intimacy isn't just about sex. It's about feeling alive in your own skin. It's about feeling wanted, yes, but also feeling present. It's about not having to apologize for the body you're in. And when things change, it can create shame and silence and distance. And women are often left thinking, is it just me? Nope, it is not just you. And I think one of the kindest things we can do for each other is say that out loud. Not everything needs to become a crisis. Not everything needs to be solved on a podcast, but some things do need to be named because shame thrives in silence. And women have had enough silence. Another thing no one prepared me for alcohol. I used to be able to have a glass of wine with dinner and feel like a civilized woman in a Nancy Myers kitchen. Now I look at a glass of wine and my body says, Are you trying to ruin tomorrow? I cannot metabolize alcohol the way I used to. A glass of wine can mean poor sleep, headaches, hot flashes, anxiety, and a next day feeling that is less relaxed evening and giving off more. I have been poisoned by a vineyard. And I resent this. I do, because there is a whole cultural fantasy about midlife women and wine. The funny wine glass, the book club wine, the porch wine, the mommy needs wine wine. And I am not here to judge anyone's relationship with alcohol, truly, but I do think it is interesting that just as women enter a season where they might very much enjoy a small socially acceptable escape, the body says, actually no, we'll be processing that as a threat. Thank you. Very cool. So now I'm out here trying to build a life of emotional regulation with herbal tea, which feels supremely unfair. And now let's talk about medicine. And let me say this up front, I am not a doctor, at least not yet. This is not medical advice. This is one woman's lived experience, wrapped in humor, because otherwise I may start throwing things. But I do believe modern medicine has not caught up with the lived reality of women in midlife. And I know there are good doctors. I know there are brilliant researchers. I know there are clinicians who care deeply and are trying to help women navigate this season with better information and better treatment. But too many women still feel dismissed. Too many women are told it's normal. When they're trying to say is this is disrupting my life. Too many women are given vague advice about diet, exercise, stress reduction. Have you drank enough water? As if we're unfamiliar with salad and walking. Too many women are treated like menopause is a minor inconvenience instead of a full body transition that can affect sleep, mood, joints, skin, hair, sex, bladder, metabolism, memory, and your entire identity. And I cannot help but notice that what men, when they have their midlife sexual function issues, there are commercials, medications, discrete packaging, medical pathways, and entire cultural jokes built around helping them continue to have a good time. But when women are sweating through pajamas, peeing when they sneeze, losing their hair, feeling anxious, not sleeping, hurting in joints they did not even know they had, and wondering why sex feels different, the answer is often, well, that just happens. Great. Thank you for that rich clinical insight. Where's our pill? Where's our campaign? Where's our national initiative called Nobody Told Us Our Eyelashes Would Fall Out? I would like some funding. I would like some research. I would like a doctor who does not look at me like I'm being dramatic when I say my body feels like it's being renovated while I still live in it. And I would like women to stop having to become amateur endocrinologists at two in the morning on Google because nobody explained what was coming. Here's the part I keep coming back to. Why didn't anyone tell us? And I do not say that with blame towards the older women in my life. I love them. I admire them deeply. And I think they were surviving inside the language that they had been given. They called it the change because maybe that was the only socially acceptable container they had. Maybe they did not have doctors who listened either. Maybe they were embarrassed. Maybe their mothers did not tell them. Maybe they were taught that good women did not discuss their bodies too specifically. Maybe they had been trained to endure discomfort quietly, to make a casserole, to keep the family moving, to put a cold washcloth on the back of their neck and get on with it. And that is where I feel tenderness because silence is often inherited. Women do not always choose silence. Sometimes silence is handed down like fine china. You don't know whether to use it, display it, or wrap it carefully and keep it passing it along. But at some point, someone has to say, this stops here. We can be gracious and still be specific. We can be funny and still be honest. We can protect dignity without protecting ignorance. We can say vaginal dryness and nobody's going to burst into flames. We can talk about pelvic floors, sleep, rage, hair loss, libido, medication, therapy, hormone treatment, strength training, alcohol, anxiety, and identity without acting like we're doing something scandalous. Because we're not being vulgar. We're being alive. Menopause is a room between rooms. It is not youth. It is not old age. It is not the beginning. It is not the end. It is a threshold. And thresholds are uncomfortable because you cannot fully control them. You are not who you were. You are not yet sure who you are becoming. The old tools don't work the same way. The old rhythms don't hold. The old body has changed the locks. And if you are someone who has built your identity around capability, this can feel especially threatening because suddenly effort does not produce the same results. You can eat the same you always did, and now you're gaining weight. You can be exhausted and still not be allowed to sleep. You can love your partner and not feel desire the same way. You can care about your family and still need some freaking silence. You can be grateful and still be pissed. You can be wise and still feel insecure. And this is where the emotional work comes in. Because menopause asks a question that is bigger than symptoms. Can I listen to my body without treating it like the enemy? Can I care for myself without apology? Can I stop making my discomfort convenient for everyone else? Can I tell the truth before my body has to scream it? That's the work. Not becoming a new woman in some glossy inspirational way, not emerging from menopause in white linen, holding a ceramic mug, finally free of all the ego. No. The work is more ordinary and more honest than that. It's learning to say, I need help, I need a different doctor, I need sleep, I need to lift weights, I need to talk about this. I need some lubricant. I need pelvic floor therapy. I need hormone information. I need less alcohol. I need more protein. I need someone else to make dinner. I need you to stop acting like my body is a punchline. I need to not be touched right now. I need to be touched. Differently. I need to feel like I'm still desirable. I need five minutes in a cold room with a fan and no questions. That's not weakness. That's self-advocacy. And for women who were trained to be low maintenance, self-advocacy can feel almost rebellious. Good. Let it. Now, I know this is a lot. And if you're not in this season yet, you may be thinking, well, this sounds terrible. Yeah, at times it is. But it's also funny. It has to be, because if we don't laugh, we'll become dangerous. There is comedy in this stage of life. There is comedy in standing in front of an open freezer like it's a chapel. There is comedy in owning 17 skincare products and still looking in the mirror like, are we sure? There is comedy in trying to have a serious conversation while secretly wondering if your bra is physically trying to kill you. There is comedy in waking up at 3 a.m. sweating, furious, and suddenly convinced you need to reorganize your entire retirement portfolio. There is comedy in Googling symptoms and discovering that every single thing is either menopause, stress, dehydration, or I'm about to die. There is comedy in realizing that your body has become both a mystery and a podcast topic. And humor is not denial. Humor is oxygen. Humor is how women have survived kitchens, carpool lines, bad marriages, staff meetings, family reunions, grief, medical appointments, and the slow betrayal of elastic waistbands. Humor lets us tell the truth without collapsing under it. And grace lets us tell the truth without hating ourselves. That is what I want for this conversation. Humor and grace, not shame, not panic, not fake positivity, just a woman saying, Good Lord, this is a lot. Somebody should have warned us, pull up a chair. I wish someone had told me that perimenopause can start before you think it should. I wish someone had told me it's not just periods getting weird and then stopping. I wish someone had told me it can affect your joints, sleep, mood, skin, hair, bladder, sex life, alcohol tolerance, headaches, and a general will to participate in society. I wish someone had told me that feeling different in your body can bring grief. I wish someone had told me that irritability may be a signal, not a character flaw. I wish someone had told me that if your symptoms are affecting your quality of life, you deserve help. Not a shrug, not a pamphlet, help. I wish someone had told me to track my symptoms, to ask specific questions, to find a provider who understands menopause, to talk about pelvic floral therapy without whispering, to ask about hormone therapy and non-hormonal options and risks and benefits like a grown woman who deserves information. I wish someone had told me that strength training matters, that sleep matters, that protein matters, that stress is not just a mindset issue when your nervous system has been marinating in responsibility for 30 years. I wish someone had told me that the rest is not laziness. I wish someone had told me that my body was not betraying me, it was changing, and change, even when natural, still deserves care. This brings me back to the strong one, because the strong one has usually been rewarded for overriding her body. She works through the pain, she works through exhaustion, she works through sadness, she works through anxiety, she works through sickness, she works through grief, she works through hunger, she works through resentment, she works through needing a break, and everyone says, I don't know how you do it. And she smiles. Because what's she supposed to say? I do it because no one has built a world where I can stop. That's a little heavy for a hallway. So she says, Oh, you know, just doing what has to be done. But menopause did not care what has to be done. Minipause is the body finally taking the microphone. And maybe, in a strange way, that is not only punishment. Maybe it's also information. Maybe it's the body saying, You cannot keep abandoning me and call it strength. That sentence lands hard for me because I've abandoned myself in the name of responsibility. I have ignored signals, I have pushed, I have performed okay, I have taken pride in being able to handle things that maybe I should not have had to handle alone. And now in this season, my body is asking for a different relationship. Not perfection, not a wellness influencer life where I rise at dawn, journal beside a lemon water, and never eat anything with cheese. I am from the Midwest, let's be serious. But a more honest relationship, a kinder one, a more attentive one, one where I stop treating my body as the vehicle for everyone else's needs and start treating it like the home I still have to live in. So if you're listening and you're in this season, or approaching it, or wondering why you suddenly feel like a stranger in your own skin, I want to say this. You are not crazy. You're not vain. You're not weak. You're not failing at womanhood. You are not being dramatic because you want to sleep, feel good, have a functioning bladder, enjoy intimacy, recognize yourself and not come bust in a cereal aisle. You're allowed to ask for help. You're allowed to change providers. You're allowed to say, this is affecting my quality of life. You're allowed to bring a list. You're allowed to say words out loud that our mothers and grandmothers maybe felt like they could not say. You're allowed to care about your sex life. You're allowed to care about your hair. You're allowed to care about your mood. You're allowed to care about your face. You're allowed to care about your bones, your heart, your sleep, your strength, your joy. You're allowed to be both grateful and annoyed. You're allowed to age with dignity and still hate that chin hair. All of it belongs. And if you love a woman in this season, listen carefully. Do not make her symptoms the butt of your jokes. Do not tell her she's being hormonal unless you are actively trying to meet Jesus tonight. Do not minimize what she says about her body. Do not assume that because she is still functioning, she's fine. Ask her what she needs. Believe her. Be patient. Turn down the thermostat for her. Learn where the fans are. Understand that desire may need tenderness, not pressure. Understand that irritability may be exhaustion. Understand that she may be grieving a version of herself while trying to become another one. And for the love of all things holy, put the scissors back where they belong. Now, speaking of women, wisdom, truth telling, and the kind of conversations I want this podcast to hold, I'm really excited to share that Dr. Janie Pyle will be joining me soon. We are going to record in person, which feels exactly right for this show. She will be in Blue Springs visiting her son, and we're going to sit down together and have the kind of conversation between rooms was built for. I'm not going to give it all away yet, but I can tell you this. Janie brings depth, experience, heart, and the kind of presence that makes people feel safe telling the truth. And that is what I want this podcast to be: a place where women do not have to perform being fine. A place where we can talk about the rooms we've lived in and the ones we're still trying to leave. A place where stories do not have to be polished to matter. So stay tuned for that conversation. I cannot wait for you to hear it. I started this podcast because I wanted to tell the truth about what happens to women who spend their lives absorbing, carrying, managing, surviving, and then eventually ask, well, what about me? Menipause is part of that question because the body is not separate from the story. The body keeps the receipts. The body remembers stress. The body carries grief. The body holds desire, shame, rage, tenderness, exhaustion, and joy. And sometimes the body becomes the room where the truth finally shows up. So maybe this stage of life is not just an ending. Maybe it's a reckoning, an inconvenience, sweaty, sleepless, emotionally unstable reckoning, but a reckoning nonetheless. Maybe it's the place where we stop being polite about our own suffering. Maybe it's where we stop passing silence down to the next generation of women. Maybe this is where we say, here is what happened to me. Here is what helped. Here is what scared me. Here is what I wish I had known. Here is what I refuse to be ashamed of. Maybe this is where the strong one finally admits that strength was never supposed to mean suffering quietly. Maybe strength now means telling the truth with humor, with grace, with a fan pointed directly in your face. Thank you for being here with me today on Between Rooms. If this episode made you laugh, nod, sweat, cry, or feel slightly less alone in your own personal hormonal circus. I hope you will share it with another woman who needs to hear that she's not crazy and she is not alone. And if you are one of the people who has already downloaded our podcast, thank you. Over 150 downloads already before I've even had my first guest on. That blows me away. It tells me there is a real hunger for women's stories told honestly, warmly, and without pretending everything is prettier than it is. So thank you for helping build this room with me. I'm Elizabeth McCracken. This is Between Rooms. And wherever you're listening from today, may your coffee be strong, your fan be nearby, your bladder be cooperative, and your people know better than to move your goddamn scissors.