FFPLP_Premiere_The Mental Load of Being a Woman in 2024: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

FFPLP_Premiere_The Mental Load of Being a Woman in 2024: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Hi, I'm Kristyn Hodgdon, an IVF mom, proud women's health advocate, and co-founder of Rescripted. Welcome to From First Period to Last Period, a science-backed health and wellness podcast dedicated to shining a light on all of the women's health topics that have long been considered taboo. From UTIs to endometriosis, we're amplifying women's needs and voices because we know there's so much more to the female experience than what happens at the doctor's office. With From First Period to Last Period, we're doing the legwork on your whole body so you can be the expert in you. Now, let's dive in.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us. This is the very first episode of From First Period to Last Period, and it's called The Mental Load of Being a Woman in 2024. Joined by my guest, honored to have you, Doctor Thai Alonso. She is a famous TikTok therapist and just so happy to have you here to talk all about what it's like to carry the burden of being a woman with health and wellness goals in 2024.

Thai Alonso:
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
So I wrote something up that kind of encompasses, like what this whole episode is going to be about, but so I'll read it here. As women in 2024, we are constantly bombarded with messages on the internet telling us what we can do better to improve our health: drink green juice daily, exercise regularly, but not too much.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Heal your hormones. Reverse your chronic illness. Eat to reduce inflammation. It's enough to make your head spin. In reality, women's bodies are not one size fits all, and nothing is black and white when it comes to our health and wellness. In fact, so much of the female experience happens not at the doctor's office or on social media but somewhere in between. Women need less of: you need to be perfect to be healthy and more of everything in moderation. Because, at the end of the day, humanity lies somewhere in the messy middle. We're going to talk today all about how we can get back our humanity, how self-care is so much more than a bubble bath and a glass of wine, how to navigate the constant flow of information and misinformation on social, how to show up as our most authentic selves, and how to find joy in a world that constantly tells us what we need to do to be healthy and well. So that's my spiel. Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit before we get started?

Thai Alonso:
My name is Thai Alonzo. I go by Dr. T on social media; I'm on Instagram. I'm on TikTok. But primarily, I have a private practice where I work with families, and I work with adults. I do a lot of generational trauma sort of work. So either I'm working with young adults who are coming to see me because they're having problems in their relationships, or I'm working with parents who are saying things like, I thought I did all this work, and now I had kids, and I don't recognize what's happening to me, and I'm a little bit afraid to repeat the same patterns. What do I do? And then I also work with some younger kids and the family as well, but mostly surrounding trauma and like mood disorders and stuff like that.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Doing the good work that we all need, right? So, just jumping right in, I wanted to ask, how can women even begin to navigate a health and wellness landscape that constantly sends them messages about what they should or shouldn't be doing to improve their health?

Thai Alonso:
It's really difficult because we get it from everywhere, not just the internet and not just social media, but our friends, from our family, from our medical providers as well. So it's constant. I don't know that I have a solution, but I think that the first step really is to just acknowledge that this is a thing. Yeah, that it's happening, that not all sources are reliable. It's really easy to get swept away by someone's story on social media or reading an article that we feel like we really relate to. And then again, even if the source is credible, even if the data is trustworthy, it doesn't always apply to us and our experience and where we are in our life, and I think sometimes we forget that it's important to hold on to it.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
So, do you recommend taking everything with a grain of salt? How do you know what's truthful advice and what isn't, or what you should actually give weight to and what you shouldn't?

Thai Alonso:
I do think that I recommend that I think it's important to proceed with caution, especially online, where opinion pieces are perceived as expert opinions and, a lot of time, is just somebody sharing maybe their unique story and their unique experience, or just their opinion on something, but maybe don't have all the facts. So, absolutely. And then how do we deal with that? We do the best that we can. We try to get information from different sources that are reliable and put them together, and think critically about it.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
You hit the nail on the head with reliable sources because I think I see it all the time working in women's health and fertility. So many influencers online; their bio says I'm a health coach, and it's okay. What's your training? What's your education? What are your credentials? What makes you be able to give other women advice about their bodies and their health and literally chronic conditions? I have PCOS and Hashimoto's, which is a thyroid autoimmune condition, and I'm constantly seeing on social media how I can, if I do XYZ, I can cure my PCOS and get pregnant naturally. I've been dealing with infertility for literally six years, on and off. I can't get pregnant naturally, that boat has sailed. It's hard not to internalize that messaging. My body is broken. I can't do what my body can't do, what so many other women's bodies or what it's literally created to do. And that can feel really bad even when you know it's, even when you know that you have to take things with a grain of salt. How do you deal with that just feeling of shame?

Thai Alonso:
First, the videos that you talk about here are three steps to get rid of Hashimoto's. I hate those videos, and those videos exist for everything, and I feel like they feed off this fantasy that we have and this hope that we could just undo the things that have happened to us. And the truth is that, man, sometimes this stuff, it just sucks, and it is. And I think that it brings you some hope, but then it brings you some disappointment, and it leaves you feeling deflated and unfulfilled because we would really like to find that answer, and I don't know if it exists. How do you deal with the shame? I think talking about it helps talking about it to the right people. So just as we distinguish between reliable sources and unreliable sources, we also need to distinguish between who are the people that we can go to talk about these things; who are our people to approach about this?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
And shame might not even be the best word. I would say self-blame because it can be like it worked for that person, but it's not working for me. And it's the same goes for diet and exercise. Any woman that grew up in diet culture, 90s cosmopolitan era, knows what it's like to feel like your body isn't thin enough or healthy enough. And I actually have been saying to my colleagues that it almost feels like wellness culture is diet culture in disguise, like it feels like we went from not feeling like we were skinny enough to. Now it's like we're not feeling like we're healthy enough if we don't give up gluten or, you know, walk instead of do HIIT or what if I like HIIT? But that's going to increase your cortisol. Like it's just, wait, what can I do? It's just so frustrating. So yeah, I think like taking the self-blame out of it is so important, but when people are constantly like putting it in your face, it's really tough.

Thai Alonso:
It's really tough. And I think that we need to be proactive when we realize that's what's happening for us about what content we're consuming. It's okay to unfollow or to block something that every time that you see, it's making you go into a spiral. After, I'll share a short personal story. After I had my second child, I had a blood clot, and she was a couple of days old, and I went into this existential spiral. I'm like, oh my gosh, what will happen to my baby if something happens to me? And every physical symptom was a sign that something was wrong. And so I would go online looking for answers, but at a certain point, I had to realize that's not helping, and so I need to stop doing that, and then that helped, and therapy.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, and therapy, obviously. I know we always say at Rescripted that we provide the science-backed information that women need, but at the end of the day, it's up to them to take that information and come up with questions, or we can help them come up with questions to actually go back to their healthcare providers or their therapists, to work through it and make an educated decision for themselves. Like we're not trying to give them black and white concrete answers, but because we know that so much of the female experience lives somewhere in those shades of gray. Oh, I really loved what you said on a call that we had a couple weeks ago about how we're always trying to go cold turkey, and it's so true because it's, oh, you can do this to cure your PCOS. So if I'm not doing that, I'm not doing the right thing. But like, maybe one of those tips could be something that I enjoy. Like, why does it always have to be like so extreme? You either give up gluten, or you don't, or have to ice plunge every day. Like why does it have to be this insane thing that is not attainable for most people, especially if you have a chronic illness and you don't have, I don't know. My friend Talia always says the spoon theory, if you don't have enough spoons to go around all the time, you don't have the energy. Someone that might be healthy and well all the time. Not everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.

Thai Alonso:
It's true. And I think we're talking about it at the right time. So we're in January, so many people created resolutions. Some of us rebelled against it and were like, we're not doing that this year. And then I saw a video earlier today where they were talking about how this is the time where people give up on those resolutions this time of the month. And I think that a lot of times people are choosing resolutions that are really big, like, I'm going to lose 50lbs, I am going to make 20,000 more dollars this year. I'm going to start this or that. And those are hard goals to attain because they're big, it's a binary. Did I complete it? Did I not complete it? Am I successful? Am I not successful? And I think a way to be more successful with staying on track with those goals is to first pick something that is really connected to something we value. So maybe losing weight can be the byproduct of having a healthier lifestyle. I'm going to be more mindful of the things that are healthier for me and for my body, and that will be a plus, but the goal really isn't to lose the weight; it's to be healthier. And so then, every time that you do something that's aligned with that, it feels like a success, right?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Small wins.

Thai Alonso:
Small wins.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, that was actually going to be my next question. What are some actionable things people can do to recognize what might actually work for them? What are those small changes that can even make?

Thai Alonso:
I'm trying to think because there's so many endless possibilities.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Some of them, one of the ones that you mentioned to me, was build a practice of noticing what things are like for you, like what was draining versus what invigorated you.

Thai Alonso:
Yeah. People often say, why do I have to feel my feelings? I don't want to feel my feelings. I have to get through the day. I have to take care of my kids. I have to get through the workday, and I get it. I don't think therapists want people to feel their feelings all the time. We're not supposed to. We would really be unable to do what we had to do. But there is a place for noticing what's coming up for you because that's information, right? Being angry usually means you feel like an injustice has happened. Somebody has crossed the boundary. If you feel sad, it means you feel like you've lost something, and each feeling has a different meaning. So doing things like noticing what energizes me, what invigorates me, what drains me, whether it's an activity or it's a relationship, right? I've been friends with this person for a long time, but every time that we hang out, I feel so depleted afterwards. What does that say about maybe how you approach that relationship and how much of it, how much time you spend there?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, for sure. No, asking yourself those questions is so important and there can be everything in moderation. It doesn't have to be so black or white. And those small things of just even like gratitude. Journaling has been really a great practice for me. My therapist actually recommended it, but it's three things that would make your day great. But, and then, at the end of the day, like three things that were great about your day, and it brings things up to the surface that you ended up having a better day than you thought you did. Yeah, because even those small moments can make a big difference.

Thai Alonso:
Absolutely. They've done a ton of research, especially people that have anxiety, right? They scan their environment to look for threats and tend to dismiss other things. So, if you're someone who's looking for the negative in your day to prepare yourself for it, you're going to miss the positive. Something like that could be helpful.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Absolutely. Love that. What about like writing your feelings down just in general getting? Is that compartmentalizing, or how does?

Thai Alonso:
No, I think some people love it. Some people are like, it's not for me. And that's okay. You have to find what works for you. But I think it can be really helpful for someone who has a lot of doesn't know how to express it, and it's all pent up. Just write it whatever comes out, and then do what you want with it. You can throw it away, you can keep it in a notebook, but it feels then some of it is outside of you.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
And to that point, my next thought was about like setting boundaries because some of it is outside of you, right? It's not always in your control, so to speak. So how what what's your opinion on setting boundaries with whether it's like friends, family, or sometimes it's really out of your control? If it's like your kids, what do you typically say when someone when that's really affecting their mental health and like overall well-being?

Thai Alonso:
Yeah, I think there's a lot of factors to consider, especially with family. Sometimes there's that big cultural piece, but I think boundaries are something that people have talked about a lot. It's become part of that therapy speak, but people struggle with understanding exactly what it means and what how to implement it. Let's say with the health anxiety situation, a personal boundary might be like, I'm not going to Google the symptom because I know what it's like when I do, or it could be with a friend or with a relative. I don't like it when you talk about my body. The next time that you talk about my body, I'm just going to end the conversation. And that comes after having politely asked them to stop doing that, and they've not listened to you. You create the boundary to create a space that feels safe for you. It's not a threat. You're not trying to manipulate anybody. It's really about doing something that is going to protect your mental health.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
And I actually had a thought before that it slipped my mind. But something that I wanted to bring up was just like the importance of going with your gut. Abby and I were having this conversation yesterday about how we're constantly told all the time what we should and shouldn't be doing, or even by friends and family members that might be stepping over boundaries. But then that, and then I think we're like internalizing all those messages. But then, at the end of the day, we have to remember that our instincts are important too, and no one can tell us what to do next, like what the next right thing is, and, except us. I don't know, as a parent, I feel very instinctual. So like, why can't I feel instinctual and like my health and wellness journey, it's just interesting. But I think social media plays a big part because you're, like, those messages are constantly being driven home to you. That's why accounts like yours are so important, because it's like the positive messages that we all need to see.

Thai Alonso:
Well, thank you, I try.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
What else? Self-care. In addition to boundaries, I think self-care has become this big movement of you should be doing face masks and an eight-step skincare routine, and bubble baths. And what is real self-care? What? How do you? I don't know; as a mom, it's very hard to even find time for that. What do you recommend for a woman who just feels like she has like a burden of the world on her shoulders and needs to just unwind, but it might not look like the media is telling it how it should look?

Thai Alonso:
Yeah. And of course, all the ways that we're told we're being told to do self-care have to do with beauty.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Oh gosh, yeah.

Thai Alonso:
Like why is that? Why is that the thing? I think, to even think that a bath and some wine and some chocolate would undo our stress, I think, speaks to like how constantly dismissed our feelings are. In no way is that helpful for what we're dealing with. And self-care is a mom again, different for everybody. For me, it means waking up early and having an hour to myself when everybody's asleep. I'm a person that needs my alone time, and I know that I'm absolutely going to get it in the morning and I can have a slow start, and it helps me be more patient and more calm when the kids are. And then I feel better about how I start my day and how we get through that really wild morning routine to get the kids to school. For some people, it's about having a conversation with the partner about, I need you to take this on because it's a lie right now.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah.

Thai Alonso:
Right? And setting that boundary or making that request can be a form of self-care. Sometimes giving yourself a break. There's a lot of parents I work with that are very idealistic, and the kids can never be bored, and the kids can never be sad, and it's okay if they're bored and sad sometimes. That's life, right?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Actually, that brings up a really great point of my favorite mantra is rest is productive because I just think that so many of us are so conditioned to go, and we have to be like washing our face at night and doing all of these things that fill every second of our time. And it's sometimes, no, you can be, what's the word like rotting on the couch? You don't have to always be doing something productive. And I do love the movement of walking as exercise because you don't always have to be like going to an intense workout class or so. Those positive messages, I think, do help because it just doesn't always have to be so extreme.

Thai Alonso:
Yeah, doctors prescribe bed rest, right? Sometimes it's necessary, right? And I think in our daily life we do need to rest. And we're so quick to dismiss that. We're quick to dismiss drinking water, going to the bathroom, just get through your entire workday without eating or drinking or going to the bathroom. It's unrealistic.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
I'd be remiss not to bring up, just given what Rescripted is and what we do, we, as women, too, also have these chronic health conditions constantly worried about beauty and upkeep. And just like this mental load that even if we have 50-50 equal partners, it doesn't they don't always have to have that extra mental load on their plate of, oh my gosh, I have to be on XYZ supplements for my PCOS to make sure I ovulate every cycle, and I have to take medication the minute I wake up in the morning before I go take care of the kids because of my thyroid condition or whatever it is. I have 9 million specialists, endocrinologists, OB-GYNs. Keeping up with all that stuff is a second, a third job, and just the mental load of it all. And then on top of that, doctors that don't believe your symptoms sometimes, or you're being medically gaslit, and you're being told that your symptoms are all in your head and it's just a lot.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
And what do you recommend, as a doctor, first, if someone's not listening to you as a healthcare professional, what is your advice there?

Thai Alonso:
It's really tough, but if it's accessible to you, probably to get a different provider to be working with someone who doesn't believe what you're reporting, I don't know that I would trust that person.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, exactly. No, that's great advice. It can be hard to even. You don't know what you don't know, and that's why Rescripted exists. Because we're trying to fill that gap of you might not even know what specialists to even go to for your symptoms or sometimes you're. I was just tired, and I didn't know that my TSH was through the roof and I had a thyroid condition. But you know your body better than anyone else, and if something's off, whether it's mental health, physical health, you have to speak up and get checked out and advocate for yourself continuously. I feel like that's like just what we constantly say at Rescripted is advocate for yourself, whether it's setting boundaries, whether it's for symptoms that you're experiencing at the doctor's office, whatever it may be.

Thai Alonso:
And I think communities like this are so important because in talking about these experiences with other people who also have similar experiences, that's encouraging to help you speak up with your provider or to even know that you should be speaking up with your provider.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
And I always say, the minute I share my story at any point of my journey through health and wellness, someone always says, oh, me too. Oh, I had a miscarriage too, or I went through IVF too, or I have endometriosis. I have PCOS, even like chronic UTIs, a scary childbirth, like whatever it is, women have all these different stories, and when you share your stories, and you open up, even if it's just in a small group or to a friend, you get that support that sometimes it just or a therapist it just gets. You can unleash it. You can remove some of the burden.

Thai Alonso:
Yeah, it doesn't fix the problem. But there's something about knowing that there's other people who have a similar experience that lightens the load just a little bit.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Absolutely, absolutely. Was there anything you would add, any advice as a therapist that you would give to a woman who just feels like she's in the thick of it with everything she has on her plate, all the messages she's being given on a daily basis?

Thai Alonso:
I would acknowledge how much of a struggle that is, right? How hard it is, because I think people sometimes want to make us feel better, and they say things like, it's okay, it's not that big of a deal, you're going to be fine. And their intentions are good. But it misses the point, which is this is really hard. So make space for that and really encourage them to find support, right? So I'm glad to be a support, but usually, I see people for like 45 - 50 minutes once a week and you need more than that.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Absolutely. Putting the tools in your tool, like finding the tools for your toolbox. And it's not just therapy, but it can be like therapy and gratitude journaling and therapy or therapy. Getting dinner with a friend.

Thai Alonso:
I really think that relationships and community are so important and often don't get enough attention. Like, I think there's been like this like wave of like mental health content where it's here are these coping skills and like, those are great. And I think if we can learn which ones work for you and when to use them, that's fantastic, but we also need community.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Oh yeah, actually, Jack has endometriosis, and she was saying like the Facebook forums and the communities are like people are just constantly saying, what did you do or what? How did you speak up for yourself at the doctor? Or like, how long did it take you to get diagnosed? And it's just you find invaluable information when you crowdsource, or you just support at the end of the day like some friends that Abby and I literally co-founded a business together after meeting on the internet because we bonded over IVF, twins, etc., having that sense of community is so important. Absolutely. This was amazing. Thank you so much.

Thai Alonso:
Thank you for having me.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, I don't think I have anything else because we covered it all, but actually one more. How can we begin to find joy and be our most authentic selves in a world that constantly tells us what we need to do to be anything but?

Thai Alonso:
These are great questions, and I feel like I had an answer to each one of them. Like all of our problems would be resolved. So how do we find joy? So that's something that people are always doing. Like we're chasing happiness. Like, how do I have a happy life? And I don't think that's the right question, right? I think that if you think about it, we have about six, there's some like debate on how many core emotions we have. Happiness is one of them, that's one-sixth of our experience, assuming that it's equally divided, which is not, right? The rest are also important. So more than like chasing happiness, I think it should be like, how do I accept the things that I have that I can't change? And how do I find comfort for myself in these situations, rather than adding to my suffering? Because I think we don't pay as much attention to that. It's not as sexy, right? We want.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
But you're so right. Because I'm like, I feel as parents you're constantly trying to teach your kids like it's okay to get frustrated. It's okay to get sad, it's okay to be sad.

Thai Alonso:
But not for me, but not for me.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, exactly. So no, that's so important. Like feeling your feelings and being able to recognize it and figure out how to cope.

Thai Alonso:
To know it's okay. There's a lot of times I talk to people and they're like, oh, there we go again, right? Feeling this way. There's a lot of judgment involved with what happens. And so there's a lot of work there to undo that. You're like, it's okay. Like you're, it makes sense that you're disappointed now, that passes, right? It's like a wave. It passes, and then it's the next thing, right? Yeah, and I don't want to minimize it. For some people, it's more complicated, but that's like the general.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
One of my favorite authors, Charles Stratton, said happiness is it's a constant journey. It's not this, is not the exact quote, so don't quote me. But it's happiness is you're constantly trying to get on that boat, and you're falling off, but you're like, you just keep trying to get on because it's like it's not a, it's a journey, not the destination, essentially.

Thai Alonso:
And I think there's another author who says a quote, happiness is finding joy in the mundane. So being apple able to enjoy the small things rather than those big things like your ice plunges, right? And you're talking about not my ice plunges.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
This was amazing. Doctor Thai, so happy to have been able to have this conversation. And thank you everyone for coming and joining us. And mute people on social media that don't make you feel good.

Thai Alonso:
Yes, not us, though.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
If this podcast means something to you, be sure to hit follow or subscribe. This helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. For science-backed women's health content that meets you exactly where you are, head to Rescripted.com or follow us on social @HelloRescripted.

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