Latest / Dots and Dreams / Episode 5: The Midlife Crisis Women Aren't Allowed to Have

Transcript

Episode 5: The Midlife Crisis Women Aren't Allowed to Have · Dots and Dreams

• 0:00
  Have you ever wanted to stuff your face into clean laundry to
• 0:04
  hide your crying?
• 0:06
  I'm embarrassed to admit that that need and reality has existed
• 0:11
  several times for
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: me in the last few years.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can even recall a specific moment of walking into the house,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: putting baby Lana down,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: who was probably nine months at the time,
• 0:23
  and literally sprinting into the laundry room grabbing a clean
• 0:28
  sheet that was on
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: top of the pile and just sinking my face and tears into it.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Dots and Dreams,
• 0:40
  a podcast about the real vulnerable and my sometimes in the
• 0:44
  moment stories of life
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: transitions.
• 0:47
  I'm Jenny Sidorova and I've been an immigrant,
• 0:50
  marketer,
• 0:51
  a mother and a serial reinventor.
• 0:53
  And today I want to talk about the midlife crisis women are not
• 0:58
  allowed to have.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is just five years ago in the summer of 2021.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: We had just come back from standing around on our local beach,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: walking distance from our house,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: where we spent a few hours chatting with friends,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: ocean view in sight,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: and an atmosphere that one would never imagine to produce tears.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, the need to sink my face was real.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had a house that I loved and renovated and designed with my husband,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: My very first owned property,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: a beautiful baby I could have only dreamt of,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: a partner that I love,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: and a beach moment with friends.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I felt very unpleasant in my body and in my life.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it then,
• 1:47
  but I was just at the start of what would be an ongoing
• 1:51
  rollercoaster of emotional
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: highs and lows.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: What is a midlife crisis?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Where does this term even come from?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And why is it we picture a man?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't usually dive deep into history,
• 2:06
  but bear with me because I think the origins are important to
• 2:10
  understand here.
• 2:11
  The term midlife was actually coined in 1965 by a Canadian
• 2:17
  psychologist,
• 2:18
  Elliot Jack.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: He was studying, wait for it, men!
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Male creative artists, to be exact.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this term is really built around men from the start.
• 2:31
  The 70s and 80s,
• 2:33
  of course,
• 2:33
  didn't help because they turned it into a cultural image.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've got the image in mind.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: A man in his 50s,
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: salt and pepper hair,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes having an affair,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: usually wearing a leather jacket,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: sitting in a nice car,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: reinforced by every movie and TV show that followed.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Without going back to the 50s,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: though,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I can think of a few that have marked me and my generation.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And granted, these are films and TV shows I've enjoyed.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not even putting them down right now.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe right now I am.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But while I was watching them, I wasn't because I didn't have...
• 3:15
  So a few examples that come to my mind immediately are
• 3:19
  essentially every Woody
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Allen film I've ever seen,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: but specifically his earlier work from the 80s and 90s.
• 3:26
  They all have a younger woman trope,
• 3:28
  and Woody Allen himself is a perfect image of this.
• 3:33
  His films are entertaining,
• 3:35
  and I loved studying especially his earlier work in film class.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't neglect the way they molded our society.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Also,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: the film American Beauty with Kevin Spacey comes to mind,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: where he,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: emblematically quits his job,
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: buys a muscle car,
• 3:54
  drools over his daughter's high school-age girlfriend—a typical
• 3:58
  midlife crisis for
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: a male personified—
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: like any other millennial of my time,
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was hooked on Mad Men,
• 4:07
  where Jon Hamm's character is basically the patron saint of the
• 4:12
  male midlife
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: crisis.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: New identity, affairs, drinking, running away.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: The examples are endless, and honestly, they're damaging.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Women's midlife transitions,
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: on the other hand,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: were either medicalized as menopause,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: something to be managed or ignored entirely.
• 4:33
  The idea that a woman might be having an identity crisis in her
• 4:37
  40s that isn't
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: purely hormonal is still not mainstream.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: With women,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: we kind of always need to have a term for it,
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: but men get to really do their own thing.
• 4:50
  So just to recap,
• 4:51
  this term was basically invented by a man studying men in 1965.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we're still in a lot of ways living inside that frame.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: In my case, it didn't come with a sports car.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It came with clean laundry and hidden tears.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And not knowing why.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what my roller coaster has been.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much since the age of 36, so for the last six years.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, everything changed at once.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I moved to a small town while I've always been a city girl.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Of course there was COVID.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all had some form of crisis over COVID.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had a baby.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was living in a new place.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know how to fit in.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had no community beyond my husband.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everything changed.
• 5:39
  We also bought a house and just being a homeowner felt like
• 5:44
  suddenly I became an
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: adult overnight,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: even though obviously I was 36.
• 5:49
  Also that specific summer night I was describing when I
• 5:52
  couldn't hold it in anymore.
• 5:53
  My face was deep in the laundry and I was just feeling like I
• 6:00
  was somewhere in
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: between an anxiety attack and
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Just wanting to run out of my house, but I don't know where.
• 6:10
  My partner Max is really good at getting me to share my
• 6:14
  feelings about what is
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: going on,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: probably because I'm someone whose face can never hide anything.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And after hiding my crying in clean laundry and walking around the house
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: hyperventilating,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: he finally managed to get me to share what was going on.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is,
• 6:34
  is I didn't know what was going on So I blamed it all on all
• 6:38
  the change I had And
• 6:40
  the fact that I didn't have community And we had just spent an
• 6:43
  afternoon with
• 6:44
  friends And I could not have felt less comfortable around those
• 6:47
  people And I
• 6:48
  couldn't understand why Some of them are actually close friends
• 6:52
  today So it has
• 6:53
  nothing to do with them It was clearly all of me and everything
• 6:58
  that I was going
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: through Granted,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't even a year out of postpartum
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was intense and overwhelming,
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: and Max was able to very clearly see that and kind of tell me,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lena isn't even one.
• 7:14
  You haven't even lived here for more than a year,
• 7:17
  and we've moved multiple times.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Give it time.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And just hearing that from him kind of made me feel like I wasn't crazy,
• 7:27
  but I also still knew that there was something bigger going on
• 7:31
  than just I moved to
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: a new house.
• 7:34
  I didn't really start to suspect that something bigger was
• 7:40
  happening and it wasn't
• 7:42
  just circumstances probably until I had Victor in 2024 three
• 7:48
  years later when I had
• 7:49
  Victor suddenly my hormones were even worse but I already kind
• 7:54
  of had community and
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: some footing and yet I was still
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: and Dreams
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I am not someone who ever lost things.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I am not someone who ever lost things.
• 8:42
  I'm a Type A Capricorn I'm very responsible I'm extremely
• 8:46
  organized and since I've
• 8:48
  had two kids I have literally lost my phone twice and in both
• 8:53
  circumstances I am
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: completely incapable of telling you where I could have lost it
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of stuff just never happened to me before.
• 9:04
  Moments like wanting to throw a carrot at the wall because my
• 9:08
  kids weren't
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: listening to me and it was just boiling inside.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: True story.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: That carrot was thrown.
• 9:15
  There is literally a dent in the wall so I couldn't even hide
• 9:19
  that from Max.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: My brain just sometimes feels less sharp
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: But when I look at myself from the outside during all of these moments,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I just think,
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: have I lost my mind?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I haven't.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a major shift.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think what I'm going through,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm going to coin my own term,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Canadian Psychologist,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jacques,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I am going through perimenopause.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know this was a thing.
• 9:56
  I honestly had never even heard of perimenopause the same way I
• 9:59
  had never heard of
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: postpartum before having a baby.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I will come back to that.
• 10:05
  Perimenopause,
• 10:06
  I literally had to do a little bit of research a few months ago
• 10:10
  on this topic.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I even attended a webinar.
• 10:13
  What led me to attend that webinar is that when I asked my
• 10:16
  gynecologist about
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: perimenopause,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: thanks to my American friends who are a
• 10:24
  So I asked my gynecologist a little bit of information and I
• 10:28
  literally got the
• 10:28
  response that perimenopause happens four months before
• 10:32
  menopause and I have nothing
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: to worry about.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not true.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Try four years or more.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 10:40
  I learned that perimenopause can begin in your mid to late 30s
• 10:43
  and last up to 10
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: years,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: and 85% of women didn't feel informed about it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I also,
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: as I said,
• 10:51
  had never heard of perimenopause until I saw my closest friends
• 10:56
  in San Francisco,
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: who I'm regularly in touch with,
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Using it kind of jokingly a lot like,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so tired and my brain is so this and must be perimenopause.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: But then I actually asked them like,
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: is this something you guys are actively reading about talking about?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it depends on the person.
• 11:16
  One of my closest friends has actively like sought out a lot of
• 11:20
  information and
• 11:21
  I think she's very knowledgeable on the topic but some of my
• 11:25
  other friends they say
• 11:27
  well we haven't really read up about it but people talk about
• 11:30
  it in all of our
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: circles all of our social engagements every time we are at a party with
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Friends and the women end up in a circle, someone brings it up.
• 11:40
  And that just made me realize how different my social life is
• 11:45
  from theirs.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I am not in perimenopause yet.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: At least I don't have the formal medical symptoms.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But there must be a periperimenopause.
• 11:54
  And I think it's the female midlife crisis that a lot of women
• 11:57
  I know are going
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: through in their early 40s right now.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to postpartum like I promised,
• 12:04
  it just really pisses me off and it really makes me spiral that
• 12:09
  I've never heard of
• 12:10
  postpartum in the workplace when I think about it because I
• 12:14
  have been to a dozen,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: if not more,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: going on maternity leave parties.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have planned some of them for my bosses.
• 12:26
  I was always in my mid or late 20s so yeah I never thought
• 12:31
  about it and I'm not
• 12:32
  saying we should all be experts on postpartum but we should
• 12:38
  know what women coming
• 12:40
  back from maternity leave go through because there are a lot of
• 12:45
  us that that
• 12:46
  happens to the thing is is I'm someone who navigates by living
• 12:51
  and not reading
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: which makes it a little bit
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love to read fiction.
• 13:12
  a vortex of feeling like I was going to do everything wrong and
• 13:15
  then when she was
• 13:16
  there every single Instagram post that I was being targeted by
• 13:21
  I was just thinking
• 13:22
  oh my god this is making me feel like a horrible mother so when
• 13:26
  it comes to
• 13:28
  specific topics that I want to learn information about I just
• 13:32
  do a much better job
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: by living the experience and talking to a few trusted friends rather than
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Starek
• 13:55
  so why don't we name it why don't we call my last six years a
• 14:00
  female midlife crisis
• 14:01
  like jokingly we would say that about any man acting like this
• 14:07
  or should I say
• 14:08
  acting the male midlife crisis cliche we would just say oh he's
• 14:12
  having a midlife
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: crisis haha but with women you know I'm just crazy I'm just losing it
• 14:19
  I think it's for the same reason that postpartum doesn't get
• 14:22
  mentioned at work.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: We separate personal from professional lives.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And women pay the price because we go through most of the shit.
• 14:33
  I'm not saying men don't because I think men actually change
• 14:37
  too when they have
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: kids,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: when they are midlife,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 14:41
  But society really makes that distinction My ethos has been we
• 14:47
  do not separate our
• 14:48
  professional selves from our personal selves We show up as
• 14:52
  whole humans in life And
• 14:53
  so I'm always going to be talking about things related to work
• 14:57
  and things related
• 14:58
  to my kids And that is just who I am Women returning from
• 15:03
  maternity leave expect to
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: just be slotted back in
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine if employers understood postpartum,
• 15:11
  women would be so much more motivated to come back and
• 15:16
  employers would have less
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: stressed employees.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Also,
• 15:20
  I'm not even going to go down the rabbit hole of explaining the
• 15:25
  LinkedIn cringe
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: that happens when people do share honest posts about hard things.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Post Restack Jenny
• 15:59
  We celebrate the wins We don't really talk about the struggle
• 16:04
  Struggle stays
• 16:05
  invisible But I think the struggle is so much more interesting
• 16:10
  and raw and what
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: makes us human and what makes us relate to one another
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So really,
• 16:17
  the result of all of this is that I'm a millennial woman in one
• 16:21
  of the biggest
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: shifts of my life,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: and there's no name for it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's no permission to say it out loud.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can't walk around saying I'm having a midlife crisis.
• 16:32
  There are a few things though that I have done that have helped
• 16:35
  me stay grounded
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: and not feel like a crazy person.
• 16:47
  just feeling connected to him is key because it makes me not
• 16:51
  feel alone it makes me
• 16:53
  get empathy from him because he is very empathetic to the
• 16:57
  amount of stuff that we
• 16:59
  women have to go through so the more I push myself to
• 17:02
  communicate openly with him
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: about some of these things that I'm feeling the better I feel
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've also been in therapy for the last six years on and off.
• 17:13
  I highly recommend therapy because talking to someone who is
• 17:17
  going to be completely
• 17:18
  objective and who is going to let you speak the way you want to
• 17:23
  speak is really
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: important.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Reading has been an amazing escape.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love good fiction and my aunt
• 17:31
  I have everything to thank for that because she sends me the
• 17:35
  most incredible books
• 17:37
  that save me the time of having to research what to read next
• 17:41
  I'll go ahead and
• 17:42
  throw in the show notes some of my favorites because there are
• 17:45
  too many to mention
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: here right now
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Also talking openly with women going through the same shifts.
• 17:52
  So leaning heavily on my community has been really important
• 17:56
  and not being scared
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: to bring the topics up to my friends.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the non-negotiable yearly friends trip
• 18:05
  Seeing friends without husbands and kids and diving deep into
• 18:09
  these topics and
• 18:11
  hearing the shifts everyone else is going through just makes me
• 18:15
  very much realize
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: that this is all normal and this is clearly a stage in life where
• 18:21
  we're all questioning a lot we're all hormonal some of us are
• 18:25
  actually already in
• 18:26
  perimenopause and so it's a lot and it's really overwhelming
• 18:30
  not to mention the
• 18:31
  state of the world that doesn't help so there really aren't any
• 18:35
  cures these things
• 18:37
  that I'm sharing they're really just my anchors and the last
• 18:40
  one that has been
• 18:41
  really important to me and I would not have thought this is
• 18:45
  something that helps me
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: navigate
• 18:47
  So what I mean by that is there are certain values that I have
• 18:50
  always had but maybe
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: never put a name on.
• 18:52
  When I was interviewing for 16 months for senior marketing
• 18:54
  leadership roles,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Jenny Sidorova
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because again,
• 19:42
  there is no split between this personal and professional self
• 19:46
  that we have We are
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: just human beings,
• 19:49
  one person I am an ambitious woman at home like I am at work I
• 19:53
  get shit done at
• 19:54
  home because of some of the same skills that I actually have at
• 19:58
  work So sorry,
• 19:59
  you only get one Jenny And no one actually was telling me to
• 20:04
  show up without the
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: mother hat on But it was just a vibe I very much sensed that people...
• 20:11
  Didn't care for the human They just wanted to fill an empty
• 20:16
  seat and generate
• 20:18
  results And that was really what led me to exploring podcasting
• 20:23
  and the marketing
• 20:26
  boutique consultancy that I'm launching So I wouldn't be
• 20:30
  sitting in this builder's
• 20:32
  entrepreneurial seat right now if it wasn't for this midlife
• 20:38
  shift that I'm going
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: through
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: We wait until we're through something to talk about,
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: but what if we talked about it while we were in it?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this really is for me.
• 20:49
  I wanted to share all of this because I know there are other
• 20:52
  women out there going
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: through this,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: so I hope that
• 20:56
  you feel seen and you know you're not alone because I very much
• 21:01
  needed to feel like
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't alone in all of this.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is I'm not done yet.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still very much going through this midlife crisis.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's no tidy resolution,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: but at least I kind of have a sense of what's happening,
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: why is it happening,
• 21:22
  And it feels very different right now than that moment six
• 21:26
  years ago when I stuffed
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: my face into clean laundry not knowing why.
• 21:32
  If you want to see photos from the different periods of my life
• 21:35
  that I talk about,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: make sure you're subscribed to the Dots and Dreams substack.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: I share them in the newsletter that goes out with each episode.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can even reply and share your story with me.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a millennial woman going through your own midlife crisis?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a man who has such a woman in your life?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear about it.
• 21:54
  If you enjoyed listening to me and could rate and review this
• 21:58
  episode wherever you're listening,
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That will help others like you and I find this show.