3/Put on your oxygen mask … so that you can breathe
One of the things that you will hear a lot during your menopause transition is to take time for self-care. And while this is true, your stress level and sense of agency have a lot to do with your symptoms, it irritates me every time I hear it. Often it is because it is followed by a suggestion that a spa day is in order. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for spa days, and especially the water therapy kind. An escape to a hamam is a beautiful thing. The problem is that you float out of there right back into everything you were juggling plus the extra that you missed while you were relaxing. The spa does nothing to take things off your plate, address your symptoms or improve your station.
Dr Pooja Lakshmin has written about just this type of “faux self-care” that is marketed to women as if will resolve the tension between the responsibility of home and work, duty to other and self. “Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included” (2023) points to the social systems that demand that women do it all as the source of our stress; and that the remedy is an internal, self-reflective process that changes how we conduct ourselves and that will trump the spa or a green juice cleanse any day in terms of bringing balance to life. Lucky for us, the menopause transition is ripe with opportunity for just this type of process.
One of my grandmothers emerged from her transition with a fabulous cigarette holder, kitten heels and an announcement that her kitchen was closed, permanently. I always found this puzzling, but now I absolutely get that it was her version of self-care. In “The Upgrade: How the Female Brain Gets Stronger and Better in Midlife and Beyond” (2022), Dr Louann Brizendine outlines how our caretaker wiring diminishes through the transition. It is not that the drive disappears, but that it just begins to feel less compelling.
I did some Olympic level caretaking in my forties and was frequently offered the advice to “put on your own oxygen mask first, so then you can assist others”. This advice irritates me even more as self-care advice; as if self-care is really in the service of caretaking and you’ll be a better mother, or spouse, or employee, or fill-in-the blank. The problem was that after I had dealt with all the emergencies, organized all the daily events and tasks, done all the things, I was tired. I was tired and I was just one more thing on my own to-do list. I couldn’t take care of another person, even if it was me or maybe because it was me. I couldn’t put on my “oxygen mask” for myself or anyone else because I had nothing left to give.
I’m on the other side of caretaker burnout now, but I am deep in my menopausal transition. I do engage in self-care — a partially closed kitchen, not responding to “Mom” after 9pm, but more importntly joyful, juicy things like dancing and laughter. But these acts of self-care are not so that I am a better anything to anyone. It is because I felt like my life was not being lived for me, and it made me sad. It is so that I have a life in which I dance and laugh. I put on my oxygen mask so that I can breathe. If you need it, I’d love to help you figure out how to do the same.
