Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Overview Of Female Biology Across The Lifespan

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Overview Of Female Biology Across The Lifespan · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody. Welcome to the doctor psych mom,
• 0:08
  show. Today, we're going to be talking
• 0:09
  about female biology across the lifespan putting together, a
• 0:12
  whole bunch of things I've already talked about and adding
• 0:16
  some more in, but a lot of guys kind of want this in one place.
• 0:20
  So they could really understand the impact of biology on
• 0:22
  hormones, on their wife psyche and her responsibilities and,
• 0:27
  you know, obviously her sexual desire or lack thereof, Etc.
• 0:31
  And you should definitely subscribe because tomorrow, I'm
• 0:33
  going to be talking about male. A g across the lifespan and
• 0:37
  that's a subscriber only episode.
• 0:39
  So you got to subscribe to hear about that.
• 0:43
  And if you are a guy that can also help, you understand what
• 0:46
  I've seen in my practice comes up at different stages in life.
• 0:50
  And also, to articulate, better things about yourself to your
• 0:54
  wife, like a lot of guys have, you know, really used my stuff,
• 0:58
  as a way to help fully understand and frame things that
• 1:02
  they've already kind of thought. But some guys, I don't know guy
• 1:06
  talks as much as me not some guys know guy does and probably
• 1:11
  and so the way that I can verbalize, things helps them to
• 1:15
  understand more about themselves things that they've only felt or
• 1:20
  maybe try to say to their wives, but they didn't have the
• 1:22
  language that their wife would understand.
• 1:24
  So anyway, subscribe to hear that.
• 1:27
  But today, we're focusing on female biology across the
• 1:30
  lifespan. So I'll tell you what, it's like
• 1:32
  to be a female, okay? You know, when a woman starts to
• 1:36
  get her period. So menarche, the first period
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  that's around 12 could be like anywhere in your adolescence,
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  but I think average age is 12. So that's one of the sex
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  hormones turn on and the woman has estrogen progesterone and
• 1:51
  testosterone. A lot of people think women
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  don't have testosterone. Of course, they do, that is the
• 1:56
  sex drive and, you know, being proactive and aggressive type of
• 1:59
  hormone and everybody has it when we just have a lot less of
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  it than men do, but they still, Of it, it Peaks at 6, a.m.
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  during the day and the other ones though, they don't change.
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  Over the day, they change over the course of the month.
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  The average monthly cycle of menstruation is 28 days with
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  ovulation coming at the 14th day a lot of women when they start
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  off when they're young. So your daughter if you have
• 2:23
  one, she doesn't maybe have a regular cycle, but but many
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  women do, and if they don't, if it's really not a regular cycle,
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  there may be other things at play, like polycystic, ovarian,
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  syndrome, or endometriosis. Wife has either of those but
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  overall women have regular monthly Cycles.
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  However, now comes a big thing. A lot of women starting in
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  adolescents or young 20s, start to go on hormonal birth control,
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  you know, particularly oral contraceptives.
• 2:52
  So the pill, so if your wife is on the pill or if she was always
• 2:56
  on the pill and I say why would she always on the pill?
• 2:59
  She said she only slept with me, okay?
• 3:02
  But a like, yeah. Okay.
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  I find that could be the truth, but also it's not just for
• 3:08
  contraception. It's also to regulate hormones.
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  Because basically what it does is it makes your body think
• 3:14
  you're like in the early stages of pregnancy all the time, you
• 3:16
  don't ovulate anymore. So this can clear up some of
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  skin problems, a lot of women in their adolescence, they have
• 3:24
  acne and that's because like, the hormones are not the.
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  I mean, the hormones might be fine but they're just not in a
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  good place for the skin. Maybe there's like too much
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  testosterone to little estrogen. Whatever.
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  So then they end up with with the oral contraceptives
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  regulated so that the woman has the clear glowing skin of early
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  pregnancy but she's not really pregnant.
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  Just the body is tricked into not not ovulating and therefore
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  not menstruating because if you don't ovulate, you know, so
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  ovulation happens. I don't know how was like
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  regular we need to get here but anyway, she doesn't menstruate.
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  When she's on the pill. You may say yes, she does.
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  When she's on the pill. Yes, she does.
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  But it's a fake period. It's not like a real period.
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  It's just it's when there's sugar pills in the pack so she
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  doesn't have to menstruate when she's on the pill.
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  This was just more common. In fact years ago that you would
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  have your kind of fake period where you don't take the pills
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  to the uterine lining that has built up for the baby.
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  The baby that isn't there because she's not really
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  pregnant, so that uterine lining builds up and up.
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  And then you don't take the pill Like five days and then we're a
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  week or whatever and then the uterine lining comes out so
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  that's the period but it's not like a period in the natural
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  sense that her body is deciding, when there's a period, it's made
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  by the hormones that she's ingesting.
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  So she doesn't have to have the period.
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  So other types of pills, like they just don't do that week in
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  the woman takes the same pill every day and so she never gets
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  her period, and that's more common.
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  Now, there's other types of hormonal birth control to, but
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  the entire Higher. Point of why?
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  I'm saying this is hormonal birth control, gets rid of the
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  ovulation phase so therefore she may not have the same sex drive
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  as she would have had. Otherwise this is a super big
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  thing and I have friends that are in the situation and many
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  client that they go off hormonal birth control that they were on
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  from the early 20s or even before for their skin or what
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  have you or to regulate their periods and Because as I just
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  said, periods are super regular because they're not natural
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  anymore. They just come when the pill
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  tells them to come. And therefore, they could be
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  predicted, which is important for young girls.
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  But anyhow. So it doesn't allow you to
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  ovulate that entire two-week window that I'm always talking
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  about about when the body naturally wants to make a baby
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  ramping, right up until usually the 14th day that isn't there.
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  So the woman when she goes off, hormonal birth control
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  frequently to make a baby. Maybe once she's married, she
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  has a higher sex drive than she ever had before.
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  And so a lot of women feel also their mood changes because
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  there's a lot of mood effects of the different hormones in the
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  pill. So a lot of women felt very
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  moody and quote crazy when they took the birth control pill.
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  I did myself when I try to many years ago.
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  Really didn't like it felt bloated and Moody because again,
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  it's like early pregnancy. So when women go Off of it.
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  It's interesting. And this is something that you
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  probably don't know. It's a guy if you're listening,
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  maybe not as a woman, but a lot of women at that point, very
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  much regret having been on the pill and they get mad and some
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  of them get mad at the guy, which is really stupid kind of
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  because he didn't know, I never heard of a man be, like, I'm not
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  going to be with you unless you get on the pill and a woman not
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  understanding at the very least that that's a big fucking red
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  flag, you know. But most guys are just like, oh
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  like Don't use condoms. Like do you, are you going on
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  the pill? And that also happens by the
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  way, that men say I will use condoms but she says, no, I'll
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  go on the pill because many women don't trust condoms or
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  what have you either way the couple decides because it seems
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  like there's no side effects. It seems like okay, we'll just
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  she'll just go on the pill and then we'll be able to be close.
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  I could come inside her and, you know, don't have to use a condom
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  but there are side effects. The side effects are just not
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  frequently discussed and women have varying.
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  Levels of these side effects. So many women have no idea what
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  their sex drive would have been in there earlier life without
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  the pill and so they regret it once they go off and they don't
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  want to go back on it and then the man who then has to use
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  condoms is annoyed because he thinks like what's the damn
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  difference and she's trying to explain it and they don't
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  remember any difference anyway. But I'm telling you, the
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  difference. The differences that of course
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  you feel many, many different things when your body isn't
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  ordered a Officially in this state where you don't ovulate,
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  you don't menstruate, then you feel more sometimes clear-headed
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  less Moody and also you feel more sexual desire.
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  So when I work with young women and they say they have no sexual
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  desire, I frequently asked about birth control, and in, at least
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  a few cases, when they've gone off, birth control, and they've
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  done other methods of contraception, their sex, drive
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  is a lot higher and sometimes, interestingly, their depression
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  goes away. So, so that is interesting
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  something to think about, even, You have a daughter and it's not
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  just talking about you or your wife depending on who's
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  listening to this. So, anyway, that's the period of
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  a woman's life when she decides about birth control sex drive
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  is, obviously I say obviously because to me, it's obvious but
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  it's a lot of misinformation about this.
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  Sex Drive is higher when you're most fertile.
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  Whoa, like a fucking of course but there's this whole like
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  media thing that some women have their sexual prime in their 40s.
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  This different. This was women have feel more
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  open more confident and for some women they're finally off the
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  fucking birth control. As I just said, many times the
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  husband's had a vasectomy or they themselves have just
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  decided that they are never gonna have the baby.
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  So maybe they have, you know, a different IUD that doesn't have
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  hormones or whatever and they're more confident.
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  They've done a lot more reading and thinking about what they
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  want in bed, they've done a lot more you know, Psychotherapy and
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  they are more confident. And finally, able to verbalize
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  what they need and that is a mental switch that can make
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  women feel like they are in their sexual prime, but your
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  body. Isn't it sexual prime when
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  you're younger child, of course, because evolutionarily, you're
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  supposed to have a baby when you're younger as we know from
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  rates of, you know, how successful pregnancies are at
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  different ages, right to birth defect etcetera.
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  So we're supposed to have babies.
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  Obviously, when we were younger and that is when Both genders
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  are more sexually responsive literally physically sexually
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  responsive and a higher levels of Desire.
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  But if Society has told a given, you know, gender women that it
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  is slutty or bad to, you know, want sex.
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  Then you're going to take in more of those messages and take
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  them more to heart when you're younger.
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  And when you're older, you may have slept off some of those
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  societal constrictions. So you feel more sexually open.
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  Mentally to is why many women initiate the Like open marriages
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  or exploring kinks in their 40s. Another reason is because their
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  physical sex drive has gone down.
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  So they're trying to kind of wet the whistle there, by by trying
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  new things. So, anyway, so let's go back to
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  the Life Span. So we've got enough to the 20s.
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  Women have high sex drive. They also don't want to have a
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  baby, in many of them, start to have a baby when you're
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  pregnant. Some women have a high sex
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  drive, some women have a low sex drive, either way, you feel
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  Moody and You feel, you know, fact and years a life inside of
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  you. This can go either way, some
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  women feel sexy when they're pregnant.
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  Some women don't, this is also when a lot of women start to,
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  you know, think about their body, as some strong life-giving
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  machine and have for the first time their life good body image
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  when they're pregnant. I've seen that too, not just bad
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  body, image. Good body image the nursing
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  time. However, when you're
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  breastfeeding that's menopause for your body, you have the same
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  sex drive as you doing, man. Pause because your body is
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  saying don't have sex, don't make a new baby, you're already
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  feeding a baby. Don't make a new baby, you
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  already have a baby and that is a good lesson from your body
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  because it is hard to have two babies, very close together,
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  obviously. And in, you know, earlier times
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  would really lower the chances of both of them survive it.
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  Nowadays, you know, there's different kind of medical care
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  and most babies survive. But when it was You know, back
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  in the day before all of our technological advances, it would
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  be much likelier to not have to baby survive if they came very
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  close together. So while you're breastfeeding,
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  many women don't even menstruate, but as soon as you
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  stop breastfeeding through the night, then your body, no longer
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  things, you have a small baby. So then your period comes back
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  and your fertile again. So this is, it is totally normal
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  to not want sex when you're breastfeeding.
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  However, for the sake of your marriage, It's not totally
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  normal if you breastfeed for two years which the American Academy
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  of Pediatrics I believe now recommends to be celibate for
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  two years. So that's one of those times
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  where you want to kind of work on other ways to get your libido
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  up or at least to be open to the idea of responsive desire.
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  As a woman gets into her 30s, her 40s.
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  So, so menopause happens a 52. I've tried to tell this a
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  million times, that's the average age of menopause 10
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  years before that you're looking at, 42 is perimenopause but
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  things aren't like you know, things don't just happen one day
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  and then ever before and Ever After.
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  So from the minute you're born, you're dying the same with your
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  hormones pretty much. So they turn on and puberty and
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  then they go down. Until menopause, right?
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  And then they kind of shut off in various ways.
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  You really do not have a lot of estrogen and progesterone after
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  menopause. So, in perimenopause, that's the
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  in the 40s, a lot of women, feel a big decrease in biological
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  desire, although maybe they may be more open-minded.
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  As I just told you about because their hormones are beginning
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  that steep decline, which they were beginning in the 30s to,
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  but it wasn't as obvious for some people.
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  It is obvious for some people, it's not So and also remember,
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  women don't respect a lot about their levels of sexual desire
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  until they feel like a big change like men you know like if
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  they somehow don't get an erection, they're thinking about
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  it for the next three weeks for women.
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  It's like if you miss having an orgasm once it just means.
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  Oh, that's called being female and, you know, that that's it,
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  like a lot of women do not even work out some regularly enough
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  to know if there's some sort of steep decline or certainly not
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  an incremental declined and desire levels.
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  So, in about the 40s, the women are going to feel more of these
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  perimenopause symptoms ramping up, which means moodiness sex.
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  Drive changes body changes changes in where your weight is
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  stored around, you know, and your body or post menopause.
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  It's more around the abdomen because you don't have as much
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  of that estrogen making you into an hourglass anymore with a
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  small waist and this stuff happens, you know, throughout
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  the lifespan and many women who have prided themselves on being
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  very fit and in shape And everything, they hit their 40s
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  and their 50s. They're like, what the fuck, you
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  know, I'm eating even less, like, exercising, even more.
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  And the way it is just, I just looked different and yeah, Time
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  Marches On like that is what happens.
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  And this is when self-acceptance is really important and, and
• 15:07
  acceptance of your wife, is very important.
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  If you're a guy listening to this because, you know, as I've
• 15:13
  tried to elucidate time is real. We are none of us Immortal and
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  so, therefore, things are going to change Over the course of the
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  Life Span. Now also in the 40s is very
• 15:26
  stressful time because you have all these kids usually and
• 15:29
  they're getting older, they're hitting preteen years 50s, 40s,
• 15:33
  50s, they hit teenage years for some people teen aging teen
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  aging Parenting teenagers is considered the most stressful
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  time of parenting according to any surveys and even more
• 15:45
  stressful than having toddlers or babies or anything.
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  So, frequently women are Super stressed when they have
• 15:52
  teenagers but then when the teenagers leave the house,
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  contrary to popular belief when women are empty, nesters and the
• 15:59
  data shows they actually get happier because day-to-day,
• 16:01
  they're not in conflict with somebody as so many people are
• 16:04
  with their teenagers. This is why many people do have
• 16:07
  some sort of small Renaissance of their sex life or their
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  romantic life when their kids leave the house.
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  Although again, this is going up against the very real decrease
• 16:16
  in female desire due to the attenuation of her hormones and
• 16:19
  any marital problems. Have been there underneath all
• 16:22
  these years, when the kids are out of the house and the 50s and
• 16:26
  Beyond, it's kind of hard to to continue to tell yourself that
• 16:31
  things are okay. Or we'll just deal with it
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  later. When it's just you guys and
• 16:34
  there's no kids for distraction. So this is a time that many
• 16:38
  people come into counseling, is their late 40s or early 50s.
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  Late 50s, you know. Etc, now menopause itself, I
• 16:47
  have a whole podcast on it, some women, you know, continue to
• 16:50
  want sex. Sometimes some women don't ever
• 16:53
  want sex again and I've discussed that in the menopause
• 16:55
  one. So we don't really need to get
• 16:57
  that into that big of, you know, don't need to dive too deep on
• 17:01
  that. But there are certainly
• 17:02
  variation and the couples that are more loving and accepting of
• 17:09
  one, another and themselves can be really very happy in their
• 17:14
  later years despite the fact that their bodies really work.
• 17:17
  Very little like they used to and I And I've talked about this
• 17:22
  before seeing a lot of times where the man wants to take
• 17:25
  Viagra so that he can in his mind, keep on having erections
• 17:28
  that are the same as he did when he was a younger man, but her
• 17:31
  vagina doesn't work the same. There's vaginal atrophy because
• 17:35
  of, you know estrogen going away which means that the thin skit
• 17:40
  the vaginas the skin the tickets thinner so it hurts you you know
• 17:44
  it's not plump like it used to be.
• 17:47
  And so there are many different kinds of sex that you can try.
• 17:51
  You know, involving not as much just straight-up penetration and
• 17:55
  that can be helpful. But again, if a woman literally
• 17:58
  doesn't have any desire at all and frequently I hear the
• 18:02
  phrase. I just feel like a totally
• 18:03
  different person now. I feel like the girl that I used
• 18:06
  to be like it's somebody that I knew it's like just not me
• 18:09
  anymore. If you're in that situation and
• 18:12
  your husband wants sex all the time with Viagra, you're going
• 18:15
  to come to an impasse usually and that would require empathy
• 18:19
  on both sides as I Scott so frequently in my podcast.
• 18:24
  So, layered upon this, by the way is that women struggle a lot
• 18:30
  more with depression. I say that all the time just
• 18:32
  want to make sure everybody knows that and within
• 18:35
  depression, your libido can go away and your general desire for
• 18:39
  romantic connection can go away and depression can always be
• 18:42
  treated. You know there's like real high
• 18:44
  rates of treatment-resistant depression because ironically if
• 18:48
  you're saying okay so depressions are libido.
• 18:50
  Killer what about antidepressants?
• 18:51
  Residents. Well, they're my friend is a
• 18:53
  libido killer because most women can't even orgasm on it that
• 18:56
  depressants and the rates of that have to be like way
• 19:01
  underreported, because it's like pretty much every woman I speak
• 19:06
  to not every but like Ro 3/4 women, I speak to on
• 19:09
  antidepressants, have a sex drive issue, but then it doesn't
• 19:13
  say that in the literature about antidepressants or in the, you
• 19:17
  know, the leaflet that you get, when you take them, it doesn't
• 19:20
  say that it's like up to Five percent.
• 19:21
  But I'm from what I see, the rates are much higher and I
• 19:25
  think why, is because they ask women like how often do you have
• 19:30
  sex? And they may still have sex but
• 19:32
  they're just not really feeling much down there or getting that
• 19:35
  excited or having an orgasm. So whereas like to ask men, how
• 19:40
  often do you have? Sex is a really good indicator
• 19:42
  of their sexual desire because you need to have an erection to
• 19:46
  have sex because what we think of as sex is intercourse.
• 19:49
  And if we expand that definition to be Like can you have an
• 19:53
  orgasm? A lot of males on
• 19:54
  antidepressants can't, by the way have an orgasm, although
• 19:57
  they could still get hard. But women it's like, they're
• 20:00
  like almost like barely there when they're taking
• 20:02
  antidepressants because their desires solo, but they are
• 20:05
  there. So if I have a video camera
• 20:08
  would see them having sex, they may have be having sex like once
• 20:11
  a week still. So if that's what a provider
• 20:14
  asks in a research study about the effect of let's say Zoloft
• 20:17
  on sex drive woman may still say yes and having sex once a week.
• 20:21
  Yes. Time.
• 20:22
  But that may mean I am, you know, basically showing up and
• 20:27
  spreading my legs once a week. And I feel absolutely nothing.
• 20:30
  And I'm not further from having an orgasm, I cannot imagine
• 20:34
  being further from it, unless I was in the middle of a dental
• 20:36
  exam, so, you know, that's just a little psycho Ed on the
• 20:41
  psychoeducation meanings, education about psychological
• 20:44
  things about antidepressants effect on your wife's will be do
• 20:49
  and so that's important information.
• 20:51
  Nation. And that doesn't mean you
• 20:52
  shouldn't try an antidepressant, but you got to know is it's a
• 20:55
  cost-benefit analysis, for many people and something that you
• 20:58
  need to talk about your provider.
• 21:00
  But depression can come at any time, particularly postpartum.
• 21:03
  And also in the premenopausal time when hormones are
• 21:07
  fluctuating a lot and so depression is a major player in
• 21:11
  the biology of many, many more women than people realize.
• 21:16
  All right. So hopefully this was somewhat
• 21:20
  instructive to To you. And you learned at least one new
• 21:23
  nugget of information and I'll talk to you soon.
• 21:25
  Bye.