In this series, we will utilize female wisdom from cultures and other intersectionalities and the wisdom from female issues to discuss finding your version of healthy and claiming your power during perimenopause. We will discuss topics such as hobbies, health, nutrition, and so much more. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist, trained in systemic thinking, and I am here to promote empowered thinking toward perimenopause and females as well as insight into how systems have played into what we think we know about females. Because of my education, this podcast will be different from other podcasts about perimenopause. While other podcasts will focus on medications, hormones, and other medical terms, this podcast will stay focused on the systemic lens. I hope you will join me on this journey and add your insights to the comments.

Note: This series will cater toward females (trans women, biological females, women of all ethnicities, disabled women, cisgender women, single/in a relationship) and people in their circles seeking to be a support.

Transcript:

Hello and welcome back to the What To Do During Perimenopause podcast. I am Katherine Linscott and today we will explore self-silencing.

Nearly every female adult client I have ever worked with self-silenced at least a handful of times in their life. When I point it out, it is usually a shocking discovery for them. The effects of self-silencing are potent and affect women more because of how girls are conditioned and women are pushed to conform.

The closest definition I can get to describe self-silencing is fawning and here’s why.

Self-silencing comes from a need to preserve a relationship, prevent contention, or make someone else happy. The person doing it is usually focused on the here-and-now, without realizing the long-term consequences coming.

A Quick Look at The Brain

The human brain is honestly the coolest thing ever. It’s a huge reason why I chose the career I chose. I can be a brain professional without seeing any blood!

We see our prefrontal cortex which differentiates us from animals and gives us our logic. We see our mammalian brain which helps us connect to our social groups like an orca whale can do. Then we get our reptilian brain - I know, this idea is way too simplified but, nonetheless, focuses on our instincts like hunger and reproduction like we see crocodiles do (no connection, just survival). As humans, our brains are wired to connect and our highly evolved minds can connect in complex ways. However, when trauma happens, our brains get rewired to protect.

I’m going to be utilizing the Polyvagal Theory, which is a fascinating theory all about our responses to stress. When we perceive danger (a raging boss, disconnect from friends, etc.), our sympathetic nervous system, which is controlled by the hypothalamus, responds. This can be flight or fight. This gets us out of danger so our parasympathetic nervous system can calm us down and we’ll be okay again.

However, some of our responses come from an older survival mode, according to the Polyvagal Theory, like freezing. Freezing happens because of dorsal vagal shutdown. This is shutdown or immobilization. In this theory, fawning is a mix of both an activated sympathetic nervous system and dorsal vagal shutdown. Fawning tends to happen when fight or flight cannot be safe options (like in an abusive relationship) and fawning is the only safe response to have. However, this can become a habit.

In working with adult survivors of childhood trauma and neglect, fawning is commonly a coping technique they still use. They are super aware of others’ emotions, anticipating others’ needs, and maintaining connection. They are also usually gurus at reading facial expressions. But the long-term consequences of using fawning as a response are devastating. Usually, these survivors have no sense of self and have a hard time setting boundaries. This can lead to broken relationships and even physical health problems.

Diving deeper, we see how, historically, girls have been taught to push down any natural human need or personality in order to become gentle, conforming, submissive, ladylike robots that never pass gas, swear, or have an indecent thought. They are the pure definition of fawning: fawning over a society that deemed them as useless in order to not be drowned, punished, or raped. No wonder why women self-silence more.

Perimenopause and Self-silencing

As an advocate of women, I cannot stress enough how important it is to do things differently during perimenopause. Were you once a self-silencer? Is self-silencing how you kept things moving forward with your children and partner? Perimenopause is your body actively working to stop fertility. It is a time where you can actively work to stop self-silencing.

What does that look like? Well, I get that question all the time. It’s the reason I started this podcast. While many perimenopause podcasts focus on hormones and medications and medical terms, I focus on what makes us human. Our needs, our habits, our patterns, our history, our relationships. Yes, medications can be vital during perimenopause. But so is changing our habits around what being female means. No more self-silencing. No more putting others before ourselves and our hobbies. No more embodying our bodies in dissociative ways. No more doing more than we can do.

Not self-silencing is denying yourself no more. It looks like setting healthy boundaries, finding the people and resources to help you thrive in healthy relationships, trying new foods, doing the Fair Play cards with your partner so you are not in charge of everything, and telling yourself you did the best you could with what you had in the moment.

During perimenopause, embrace what perimenopause means. It is a transformation from creating life to being life. What can this life give you that you have not found yet? Find those hobbies, those boundaries, those people, those things that light you up and unapologetically embrace them.

Need help knowing how to set a healthy boundary? Stuck in fawning and don’t know how to get out? Worried your family will not support you? A well-trained marriage and family therapist will be able to help you figure this out. Look for a perimenopause professional near you. Not all of them are listed here but this list can be a good place to start in finding a professional near you.

Thank you for joining me today. Next week we will dive into relationships, which will be the first of a string of topics related to symptoms and common experiences during perimenopause. Until then.

What to do during perimenopause: Part Five (Self-Silencing)

Transcript:

What to do during perimenopause: Part Four (Embodiment)