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Hi and welcome to another episode and another great guest full of wisdom to share.
If you’re a person born with ovaries in or heading towards midlife, you won’t want to miss this episode. We want to be inclusive of those people born with ovaries, but for ease of this discussion, we will refer to women. This can be such a challenging, confusing and disruptive time, and my next guest is going to shed some light on aspects of this life transition and help you see, in her words, how you can embrace both the madness and magic of this transformative journey.
Let me introduce you to Kirstin Bouse. Kirstin is a clinical and forensic psychologist with nearly 30 years experience supporting women through life’s big transitions, navigating motherhood, divorce and perimenopause herself, including a late ADHD diagnosis and burnout. She understands the challenges of midlife, frustrated by how little perimenopause is acknowledged. Kirstin now champions women’s holistic well being. In March 2024 she launched all about her, a platform dedicated to empowering women with accurate information, support and a celebration of the hormonal, neurobiological and social shifts that define midlife. It’s my absolute pleasure to welcome Kirstin to the podcast, hi Kirstin, and thank you so much for coming on look. Um, it doesn’t take much to to get me to talk about this topic, usually just an invitation of come on my podcast and talk about the thing that you’re most excited to talk about. I’m like, hell yes, count me in so thank you for having me that is so wonderful. I know for me, I went through menopause quite a number of years ago now, and I can remember growing up with this kind of narrative that, you know, once you get into your late 40s or your early 50s, you’ll stop menstruating, and you’ll go through menopause, and that was kind of about it. And I look back now, and I was navigating chronic illness, I was navigating lots of inquiries into why my health was so bad. And I look back now and go, Oh my gosh, because nobody was talking about it.
Perimenopause wasn’t being spoken about. I’d never heard of it. Menopause, really, wasn’t it was all very taboo, wasn’t it? It’s like, oh, you’re just going to age as a woman. And woman, and then nobody really wants to know about you. You’ll become invisible, which, of course, is not true, and this information just wasn’t out there. So I’m really excited for you to be on and really kind of sharing your wisdom and understanding of this life transition, because it’s such a tricky one, right? It is such a tricky one for so many reasons, I think, and probably the biggest reason, I think, at this point in time, is that while the information that’s getting out into the world is increasing and it’s more accurate and all the press.
Kirstin Bouse 05:00
For sure, it’s still very, very new. It’s still not reaching all women, by any means. And in terms of it being new, it means that there’s whole bunch, particularly Gen X’s, who are in the thick of perimenopause who probably have no idea, and unfortunately, seeing health professionals that also have no idea, which definitely has to change. I speak with a lot of boomers, for one of you know, if we’re kind of looking at different generational groups and things, and you know, they’re hearing about this now and quite frustrated that this information wasn’t available to them. So it’s a good thing that it’s becoming talked about. It can only be a good thing.
But I do realize that many women didn’t get the information when they needed it. Are coming to the party late because information is only available now and still, though not necessarily, sitting in front of menopause informed health practitioners and so they’re still in the dark. Yeah. So, so could you tell us a little bit about, like, how did you get to be in this space, and what inspired starting all about her? Yeah, well, like, I think many things that we do in life at the inspiration comes from our own experience. And I turned 50 in December last year, and have been very, very excited to turn 50. And so far, it’s proving to be fabulous. I would agree with that, yeah, but at age 42 I had a hysterectomy, and I kept my ovaries, and typically, most of the time, if you have everything removed, including your ovaries, and had that have happened to me, you know, eight years ago, I would have been told you’re going to go straight into menopause, because that knowledge was available, yeah, and I likely would have received appropriate treatment for menopause at that point.
That wasn’t that new, but I did. I did keep my ovaries. I had everything else removed, and that was just to solve, you know, kind of frustrations with gynecological kind of stuff had all my kids by then, so I felt very comfortable with that decision. But at that point, nobody told me that I’m likely to begin perimenopause far sooner, and I’m likely to hit menopause far sooner than the average. And so when I started experiencing a whole bunch of you know, kind of challenging symptoms, I didn’t know what they were. And my doctor, and even my gynecologist who performed the surgery, who I was referred back to, didn’t, didn’t mention it to me at all. And I know that it was complicated, yes, by what ended up being burnout, not necessarily at that time, but that’s certainly where I was heading divorce, which was a very big surprise, or separation at that point, and extremely emotionally taxing that that life experience. So there was quite a lot of complicating factors. I appreciate that.
Anyway, I bumbled along for a couple of years, really having some challenging symptoms. And it was, I mean, essentially, it was me that worked it out. And how I worked it out is I was saying to my kids one day, I’m so sick of whinging to you kids about this absolute fatigue that I’m experiencing. Yes, I haven’t I’m not sleeping well, but even even a week’s worth of great sleep wouldn’t solve the enormous fatigue that I was experienced. And then I said, I sound just like Nan when she was my aide, and my mum was, I mean, she’s 82 now, so she’s of a certain generation. And while that generation didn’t talk widely about such things as a nurse, she was very matter of fact about all these kinds of things in our family system. So I knew about menopause when she was going through it, and I knew some of the very traditional signs because she was experiencing them. And so when I said that to my kids, it was a light bulb. It was like, Oh my God. But then it was like, this has been going on since I was 42 that’s really young, yeah.
And at the same time, though, what the other thing that I kind of put together is I have a lot of friends that are a good 10 years older than me, and I was also working in the perinatal space, where, because women were having babies later, I was often working with clients who were trying to conceive their second or third child. And they, some of them, would come to me and say, we’re seeing a fertility specialist, and the reason I’m having problems is because I’m perimenopausal. So I started to get a little bit of information about what that was because of my clients and my friends. So all of this kind of collided on that one morning. I can still see myself in the kitchen with my kids, and I was like. But that’s what’s going on for me. Yeah, deep dive into it, as I do. Thank you, ADHD, because that’s, that’s the gift that it gives me, is that hyper focus session, and really realize that that’s what was happening. It took. I couldn’t really get my GP on board with it, though, because I was still young, and eventually, though, in my research and reading and just being obsessed with this, I stumbled across welfare, which is one of the menopause informed GP services that’s national.
And at that point, I got the support that I need. By that stage, I was about 46 Yeah, so it was a long time, and what I really realized is how few health professionals across disciplines were menopause informed. And I thought, I’m persistent. I’m educated. You know, I can read research material and make sense of it. I think the persistence is probably another one to reiterate, is I’m persistent. And I thought, if you’re not those things and you’re struggling, you’re going to give up trying to find something to help you, because it’s just too bloody hard. Absolutely, aid was someone for me around I’ve got to make it easier for women to find menopause informed support. And that kind of the very first, yeah, germination, yeah, where we’re all about her began. So, yeah, my story became the foundation for something that I’m I’m building now.
Oh, that’s fantastic. And what a wonderful service to have out there for other people. So can you kind of speak a little bit to what are the sort of things people might look out for that are perhaps starting to happen for them, because I know a lot of these things. I know for me, when I look back at the kind of list of or of symptoms that I was experiencing, they can have such a disruptive effect here on on your daily functioning, let alone if you’re raising a family or you’re running a business, absolutely, and they did really impact me in both those domains. So, I mean, people often do, I guess I’ll do a bit of a quick and dirty so the average woman will hit the day of menopause at 51 Australian woman, that’s kind of the stats.
What we know is that perimenopause, which is typically kind of the time leading up to and just after menopause, that can be anywhere from three years to kind of 12 years. You’re thinking, 51 is the average day age of menopause. And then you bring that forward 13 years, you could be in your late 30s, more likely that you’re in your early 40s, hitting menopause anywhere between 45 and 55 is considered kind of normal, then can hit that stage earlier. And there’s a number of reasons for that, perhaps a bit too much to go into here, but essentially, you know, your 40s are going to be typically characterized by this experience of perimenopause, and often people associate menopause with hot flushes, night sweats, that kind of thing. Interestingly, they tend to show up close to menopause.
And maybe it’s worthwhile me mentioning that menopause, you are menopausal when you haven’t had a period for 12 months. That’s how we define it. Once you’ve hit that anniversary of I haven’t had a period for 12 months, your your menopausal thereafter. That’s how referred to. Some people will talk about post menopausal, but it’s really a bit of a redundant word. It’s essentially your menopausal thereafter. So in the lead up to that day of menopause, we’re more likely to have the hot flushes and night sweats, which most a lot of people do know about that, and it’s often the thing that takes them off to the doctor. What tends to show up earlier, which is not well known, are the mood changes, the brain fog, the word finding challenges, memory issues, those are far more present early on.
And if you think about the average 40 last year old woman, she is likely to be experiencing those a yes, because of perimenopause, but it’s very likely they’re attributable also to a very busy life, potentially burnout. There’s not any midlife women that I’ve met, personally and professionally who aren’t already burnout or definitely on their way to it, because life demands a lot of us. Yeah, so the common thing is for that to be attributed to stress, to burn out, rest more. So they’re they’re told to do more yoga, do more meditation, delegate more you know, try and get some sleep that maybe. Let’s throw in some things to help them sleep, some medication or antidepressants. That’s the other really cool one. I’m being sucked. Fantastic when I say that. So those are the symptoms that we need to be looking out for. And particularly, as I said, it can happen earlier. But if you’re in your 40s and that’s going on, you know, have a query about perimenopause. They aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be burnt out and perimenopause.
But yeah, the perimenopause thing is has been long overlooked, and that really needs to change. Now, if you imagine what it’s like to have memory issues, word finding challenges, feeling as though you’re trying to think through cotton wool or your cogs are turning really slowly, normally, maybe you’re quite an even killed person. Generally, you can juggle a lot of things as well, and now suddenly you’re cranky, biting people’s heads off, you’re teary easily, you’re feeling overwhelmed. That’s one of the biggest words that I hear. Often is overwhelmed, and often just let summing all of that up with a statement of, I don’t feel like myself. I don’t know who I am anymore. This version of me is not me, and that’s definitely what I hear all the time. And so that does impact our parenting, our romantic relationships, our friendships, our capacity to enjoy life, our you know, how we engage in business, I know for me, I mean, I was a court expert in family court, very, very often, really kind of accountable, highly accountable, stressful role, going to court, testifying important things, And not that I did cartwheels even before this stage of life. About, about, you know, I just like to get to know people and make sense of people. And then it would be like, Do I really have to write that 60 page report? Do I really have to go to court? But nonetheless, I could do those tasks pretty much, okay, yeah.
And then I started to hit my kind of 40s, and certainly, you know, into my early 40s and things. And I was like, my brain just works way too slowly. This is not efficient for me, you know. I I just can’t continue to do this because I’m too slow. Now. I can’t as quickly. It’s all messy in my head, on the stand, not being able to find words, you know, and I’m usually pretty articulate, and I’ve feel as though that’s a lot of that’s returned, maybe not when I was, like, at 35 but it’s definitely better than it was. Um, constantly fatigued. How do I how do I see that many clients where you’re requiring such presence and focus when you’re fatigued, really.
So all of these things definitely impacted me. And for you know, I owned a practice. I sold it last year. I had it for 18 years of group practice. I had, at various times, up to 16 sites and two or three admin and things, and all the things that you’re required to do as a practice owner, both in terms of the governance around being a Psych and then the governance of a small business owner, ATO, employment law, contract law, bloody, cyber policies and stuff. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t and the other thing that’s often not talked about, which I think is hugely significant, I did not want to anymore,
Hayley Quinn 18:26
I was gonna say, and was it also that you didn’t want to because it didn’t actually suit the season of life you’re in anymore. And I think that is a really key point, because we feel like we have to find ways of being able to do the thing that we could do before, whereas, you know, for me, I’ve transitioned out of the career as a psychologist because I want to do something different. I’m in a different season of my life. And so I think you make really good points, and I think, you know, it speaks to as well that it’s okay to have extra support at this time in your life as well. Like it’s important to reach out and have extra support with things.
Perhaps you might have people doing things you’ve never had to have done for you before. But why would we not do that if absolutely make things easier? Obviously, that comes from a privileged position of being able to do that. But you know, where can we actually look for not only the medical support for understanding, but maybe some of the practical support. How can I delegate some of the things that are that are not enjoyable for me, or I don’t feel like I’ve got the capacity to do it in the way I want, or I just don’t want to do that thing anymore, so someone else to do?
Kirstin Bouse 19:43
Yep, exactly. And I think this is the thing. There’s a couple of things I want to say about that, I guess so. So one is that I think as women, we can feel guilty when we can’t do all the things anymore, but somehow it’s still a smidge more acceptable to say I don’t. Have the capacity to do the many more than it is to say I don’t want to. And yet, both of those things often exist together again, for me, absolutely, for my friends, colleagues, clients, I see it all the time, can’t juggle what they used to. So the capacity is reduced because it just, it’s a whole bunch of reasons for it, but that’s that’s at the end result, and they don’t want to, and actually much harder for them to own that I don’t want to than it is the reduced capacity. So that’s the first thing that I wanted to say. But I guess to provide some explanation around that we do have a bit of a sense that the the hormone of estrogen is often referred to as the date make procreate, kind of hormone. Or the other phrase, which I think is very relevant, is it’s often referred to as the hormone of servitude and accommodation, the hormone that keeps us invested in caring for others.
Yeah, so it really should come as no surprise if we know this information that we want to accommodate and serve less when that hormone starts declining, and you know, and it really explains this lack of want, like I don’t want to be doing everything for everyone anymore. I don’t want to be doing the thinking for them anymore. I want to reclaim some of my headspace, my energy, my time, my money. I want to bring that back and pursue the things and nourish the parts of myself that I’ve probably had to shelve for the last couple of decades in order to very willingly care for others.
Because when you’ve got that estrogen, you do want to prioritize the caring for others. I mean, there’s definitely times we all want to hit pause on kids and for sure, but nonetheless, that’s our priority at certain stages of our life, is to care, and even if you don’t have children, I can bet your boots. Women in those age ranges without children are still having a caring role somewhere, yeah, within their working lives, in their extended family in some shape or form. That’s the drive that we have. It changes. It changes when we navigate this midlife transition and we want to, we still care about people, and we want to care, but we want to do it in care, care in a different way, mentoring, guidance, not so much to hands on, doing, doing, doing, thinking for everyone. I have a phrase that we get a bit, we get a bit fed up with actualizing everyone else’s potential. Actual line their own.
Hayley Quinn 22:45
And I think if we can honor this on it, and I think you’re right, I think people really do, you know, particularly women, really do struggle with, I want what I want, and I’m going to create a life that gives me what I want. And it can be, oh, it’s selfish, or I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t feel that way. I think if we can honor that, and we can create a life and a business that honors what we want and how we want to be in the season we’re in, it benefits everybody anyway.
Yeah, absolutely, and, and I think that really our role is, is to do that, because at that point, it frees us, in a way, to really move into a mentoring role, a role model role, because while we’re kind of loaded up with all the things and all the tasks that largely benefit others and really become the responsibility, you know, the other people’s responsibilities, but we take,
Kirstin Bouse 23:40
We can’t expand, you know, we we just are too overloaded. So I think, and there’s a lot of conversation around the Orca whale and the role and the role that elderly female orca whales play, and it is very much a guiding, mentoring, not a doing so much. And if you look in indigenous communities where older women are revered, they’re revered because of the wisdom they can pass on, not so much all the things they can actually physically do, that makes sense, um, and you know, it would be really, I think, the biggest support beyond education and information that we but the biggest support that we could provide, in addition to that, is as a society, really recognize these parts of this particular stage of life and and celebrate them and acknowledge them and support women to do What we’re supposed to do. I truly believe that this is what we’re supposed to be doing at this stage. Yeah, I’d agree. It just feels intuitive. I think you know that as I’ve got older, I’ve certainly changed the way I want to be and and how I see my role in the world as well. Can you speak a little bit about, you know.
Hayley Quinn 24:59
How people can embrace the madness and the magic I love that talk to that a little bit. Please.
Kirstin Bouse 25:07
Sure. Again, I, you know, I, let me just be really clear. I don’t want women to suffer, and I want them to be able to access whatever the support looks like that will alleviate suffering. But I think you and I both know that change tends to only occur when we’re at least a little uncomfortable.
Hayley Quinn 25:27
I would agree with that.
Kirstin Bouse 25:30
Sadly, that seems to be how humans operate, which is why it’s so important, isn’t it, for us to practice being with discomfort, because that allows us to change, which, I guess is my point around the madness. Now, madness can be, obviously, of varying kinds, and for women who are really, really struggling, they may need kind of quite mental health support. For sure, that might involve pharmacology. It might involve mental health, you know, professionals supporting them, and things like that, for sure. But madness doesn’t also always have to kind of present as a mental health issue, a diagnosable mental health issue.
The madness can come from just what I said before. You know, I don’t know who I am anymore, and I feel like this at 10 o’clock in the morning, I feel pretty steady at 10, but at 12, I feel completely overwhelmed. And there’s a part that I mean, I’ve always said one of the key things, of key responsibilities I have as a psychologist working with people is to help them learn how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, because being uncomfortable is part of the human condition. It is unavoidable. And you know that the more we resist it, the more we stay stuck, right? So when I’m talking about embracing the madness, I guess what I’m talking about is having a framework of understanding that the purpose of the madness is to disrupt us is to make us uncomfortable, so that we are kind of forced to really use this stage to work out how we want to be, how we want to live, and set a solid foundation for our older years. Now I there’s a lot of similarities between what women wrestle with in midlife and what adolescents wrestle with, what kind of developmental stages and the psychology we find in the literature around midlife women, they’re wrestling with things like their identity, their values, their priorities. They have a stronger drive for autonomy. They have a strong drive to live from who they are as a person, not the role they have.
So I’m not a mother first or a wife first or whatever. I’m actually a woman first. They’re navigating changes in their sexual selves and their sexuality. They have a strong need to be about around women also going through the same thing. These are all what adolescents experience in an adult way. We know adolescence is tricky. We accept it, and we look at, how can we best support adolescents to navigate this stuff? Because we know the better they do that longer, that foundation they have to launch into young adulthood. And for me, this part isn’t spoken about, but I truly believe that the more we’re supported to navigate these tricky things in this stage, the stronger foundation we’re going to have moving into this next part of our lives. Yeah, absolutely. I’d love to see some research on what happens if you don’t navigate these things. What is your older life like from a well being perspective, if you aren’t able to, for whatever reason, navigate these psychological experiences?
I mean, these are the things that make us who we are? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, there’s, there’s a lot to do, but yeah, that’s, for me, what embracing the madness is, and the magic that comes from that is this self assurance and sense of being on the right path in the, you know, and I’m living in a really, I know it’s a bit of the buzzword authentic, but you know, and in a way that aligns absolutely who I actually am now, which is not necessarily the complete opposite of who you’ve been previously, but it’s that shedding, shedding, process of shedding what doesn’t fit for us. I often say, I mean, if there’s any time in life where we need to try on a new type of jeans, because the old, the old jeans that used to fit don’t tend to fit anymore, we can still go and buy jeans, right?
But we had, just have to look at what, what’s going to work for us now. And. Um, this is the stage of life where that happens. But the map is we then find what fits for us, and we get to live from that place healthier, psychologically and emotionally healthier place to live from
Hayley Quinn 30:13
Absolutely I think letting go of that stuff, you start to recognize what really doesn’t serve you. And I know, in my experience, I’ve also become more aware of some of the aspects of myself that I used to ignore that are actually really quite powerful, yeah, and really tune into actually that is me, and I’m going to embrace that version of me, which has been really quite lovely, and I think, like you say, you can build that self assurance and the confidence. I said to somebody the other day, I turned 55 next month, I think the month just before this episode of air. I think, yeah, and I was talking to a woman who was in her 40s, who was sort of like, oh, you know, I’m going into my 40s. And I’d said, I’ve realized turning 50 and being in my 50s has been so much better than I anticipated. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with life’s challenges. I’m a human being. There’s still stuff you deal with, but I’m actually not that. I want to wish my life away, but I’m actually excited to get into my 60s, because I’m like, wow, if this is the 50s, what’s the 60s and later going to be
Kirstin Bouse 31:22
absolutely having that. Yeah, the research already shows that that, you know, as we move through our mid to late 50s onwards, that you know when we look at well being research, and you know who’s content and who’s happy and all that kind of stuff, we know that mid life, this particular stage is the most stressful, trickiest stages where mental health issues arise. This is for men and for women, and where people would would kind of describe life as pretty difficult, and not just because of circumstances, but of you know in terms of where that leaves them within themselves. And we know that the research shows that as we get older, our scores, our ratings of our well being and contentment and joy and all those kinds of things purpose, actually improve. And this is research that’s been done before we’ve had this awareness of perimenopause before we’ve had awareness that it is this foundational stage that sets us up for old age. So I actually think that research is going to be proven even more so because women, you know, Gen X’s and millennial women, are going to be hitting their 60s with a lot more understanding and a much better foundation if we work on this stuff.
Hayley Quinn 32:50
Yeah, I think it really speaks, doesn’t it, to the importance of having the support, whatever that support looks like, so that you can be with the discomfort of it. Because, I mean, gosh, it definitely comes with its challenges, and so that you can navigate it in a way that you can then embrace and, you know, create a life. I work a lot with women around creating a business and life based on who they are, what they want, letting go of the shoulds, of of what that is. And I tend to attract midlife women, funnily enough. So I think the importance of really seeking support, whether that’s for your physical health, your mental health, whether that’s in your business, generally in your life, is just so important, isn’t it, that we come together and support one another with this sort of stuff.
Kirstin Bouse 33:41
Well, for sure, I mean, and the thing that, you know, I guess, can surprise some women who are still perimenopause informed is that they often get shocked of the evolution about the evolution of symptoms. So it’s kind of like you get into perimenopause. You’re struggling with whatever you’re struggling with. You get some support, you work on that, and then all of a sudden, hit with the next round of different crap to deal with. It is a very evolving process, and it’s one of the reasons why all about her kind of includes a range of health disciplines, because what need at different stages of your perimenopause in particular journey differs, you know, from from, you know, a year to year kind of thing. But I guess for me, you know, I’m very aware that privilege does play a role. You know, you’ve got to be able to find people who are menopause, informed, afford their services, afford the treatment that you want, whatever that might be. And that’s the, that’s the really, you know, really, really tricky thing, but at the same time, I mean, I had a rock show of a perimenopause. It really was very, very difficult for me, really, really difficult. And even though I found a menopause, informed GP, you know, by around 4546 I was one of those people that I Gain. It took many years to work out that just doesn’t absorb anything that I put on my skin, yeah, so I tried the gel.
And the way things get tried is you try a certain dose, and you do that for three months. Now it’s not working. So you increase, do it another blah, blah, blah, and you keep going until you reach the maximum. I did that twice, which kind of spanned a two year period. So I tried, you know, I tried the gel. We got to a point where I was at the maximum dose. I wasn’t absorbing it. We could tell, because by this stage, I was menopausal. Then we tried the patches, same problem. So I did my Peri Maples without any hormonal support. Yeah, same. Would I suggest people do that? It’s a personal choice. Some people don’t want to. Some people can’t. Some people like me try, and it still doesn’t work anyway. And I am now an oral estrogen, which is not the first thing they recommend, usually, and it is working. It’s getting into my system now.
But I’m also menopausal, so I couldn’t tell you, am I benefiting from oral estrogen, or is it just because I’m a couple of years into, you know, menopause, and things tend to improve anyway. But what I guess, I really want to, want to mention is it might sound, you know, people might listen to me and think, Well, now she’s, you know, couple years into menopause, and she’s got all the supports, and she’s, you know, got this perspective of, Wow, you can just become the best person that you are and all the rest. What I want people to really understand is I was on my knees. So I share that, because there’s hope if you’re on your knees, if you are really struggling in any area of your life, and you think, I don’t know how the hell I’m going to stand up, is it is possible, but you do need support to be able to do that.
Yeah, and the support is available, whether it is someone like yourself for business, because that’s a huge part of who we are. Most most women set up businesses and they’re an extension of themselves before everything into it’s like a baby for us. You know, whether it’s your mental health, whether it’s you see a GP, you go, CSI, whatever. I just hope that women can get the support that they need, because it is possible to navigate this without this spring. Can take a while to work out what works, but it is possible and then start to do the really cool stuff, which is okay now that I can stand up, yeah, cool. Let’s do some cool work and build life that I want to build.
Hayley Quinn 37:33
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, same. I would not want to minimize the suffering that people go through. And for me, I had no awareness. I was in perimenopause and had no treatment for that whatsoever, and my life was a bit of a shit show. But now it’s not so. The hope piece, I think, is really important, isn’t it? It’s like we can get through these things. Obviously, the more support you can get to do that, like clone user, it’s going to be for you, but it’s not available to everybody. But I think hopefully there’s more information people could search up. There’s more ways of freely accessing things for people who aren’t able to afford private services, etc.
And one of the things I wanted to just touch on briefly as well is, you know, I mentioned introducing you that you’re late diagnosed, ADHD, and at 52 I was already menopausal. At 52 I identified as autistic and ADHD as well. What? What’s the kind of overlap with that? What’s the you hear about this a lot, but these symptoms start to or these traits become more noticeable. What? What can you say to that?
Kirstin Bouse 38:49
Yeah, well, I guess there’s a couple of reasons why I get asked this question a lot. You know, why are more why is there such an increase in midlife women being diagnosed as neurodivergent. And I think there’s a number of reasons. One, we’ve actually, you know, starting to we’re looking beyond the criteria and the stereotypical versions of how autism presents and how ADHD presents, so we’ve got a far more robust understanding of the expression and experience of neurodivergents. So I think that’s the first thing. I think secondly, people are just more informed. It may come from Tiktok, which is not great but, but I guess what that means is people start hearing about this stuff and then go and seek, you know, more advice around it. You know, we just didn’t have access to that kind of information many decades ago, it’d usually be a teacher that might say, Oh, we think your kid, you know, we don’t have to rely on teachers pointing this out about our children anymore.
So that’s, I think just we have more access to information things. That’s kind of the second thing, I think, as well, because of that, what’s happening is, and it’s a very common story may not be yours, it’s certainly mine. It’s quite common. And that is kids getting diagnosed, and in that process, parents seeing themselves in the, you know, in the, oh, I struggle with that too. I struggle with that too. I struggle with that too, which then starts them thinking, or maybe that’s relevant, and we know there’s kind of very high heritability in kind of neuro divergence, yeah. So that’s the other thing. I think we also know that women can be or, you know, people who are neuro divergent can actually be successful and still neurodivergent. So I think that the myth that you can’t possibly have ADHD if you’ve got a couple of degrees or, you know, successful career and things that’s really starting to be abolished. Although I did hear from a client the other day something completely to the contrary, who the psychiatrist she saw who was assessing her was like, Yeah, but you know, you’ve actually, you completed your masters, and it’s like, oh, my god. I can’t believe, I can’t believe that was said. I can’t believe that’s still the frame of reference anyway.
Hayley Quinn 41:12
Um, there’s still light, like, with a lot of things, particularly with women’s health, I think there’s, there’s a long way to go, isn’t there, in terms of the understanding my mine was I, you know, I was, at the time, working as a psychologist, and I was referring clients for assessments, and then I was working with supervisees and saying, oh, have you thought about neurodivergence for your client? And then I was like, Oh, these are some of the things that I find. But the other thing I think happened as well as you know, obviously, I’ve had this my whole life. I’ve been autistic my whole life. I’ve had ADHD my whole life, and I found lots of really great ways. When I look back now, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I had such creative ways of helping me manage in the world. But I think as I was going through what I now know as perimenopause, my resilience was down, and I wasn’t able to manage the strategies in the same way. So it just, they just became so much more apparent.
Kirstin Bouse 42:12
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, if we kind of then speak to ADHD specifically, which we know Dopamine is a really kind of neurotransmitter. Dopamine loves estrogen. Dopamine works best when we’ve got estrogen in our systems. And so perimenopause is one long, I often say, one long luteal phase, which the luteal phase is when our estrogen drops, true, but nonetheless, the estrogen and so if you’re in this long kind of period of time where there’s this overall decline in your estrogen, then your dopamine is also going to be impacted by that. And we know there’s not much research around that specific stuff.
You know, kind of ADHD midlife. It’s it’s starting to happen, but it’s not yet kind of completed. But what we do know is that women who’ve known that ADHD is prior to perimenopause will often say that their challenges increase prior to their period, and cycle dosing is something that psychiatrists can and have been recommending to those women for some time, which is perhaps increasing their medication In the lead up to their period to kind of account for this increase in challenges. So we already know that dopamine and estrogen are having impact on a cyclical, monthly basis, and we’re using that knowledge to make sense of why it’s happening in midlife. Because when Lou, you know, if we talk about dopamine and estrogen as friends and dopamine plays best when it’s got its friend estrogen. Well, it’s that. That’s another reason why the wheels fall off in perimenopause. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Hayley Quinn 43:56
If you were to give two or three tips to somebody who perhaps is a business owner, woman, busy life, running a business, running a life. What would be some tips at this sort of stage?
Kirstin Bouse 44:11
So one would be really work out the support that you need and do everything that you can to get it. Yeah, and that is probably more from the health perspective. The second thing, though, would be to also do that in your business, so as much as possible, delegate the stuff. And this is not new, and it’s relevant to any stage of life if you’re a business owner, but I think really give yourself the permission to hand tasks to people that aren’t your genius zone, and it’s okay to not want to do things anymore, not just be not capable of doing Yes,
Hayley Quinn 44:50
want what you want.
Kirstin Bouse 44:52
And because of that, you know, I guess the foundation to that is really recognize that this is a very important. Stage of life, and to afford to afford it the significance and the reverie that it deserves, both because of you’re going to live in this stage of life for quite a period of time, but also because it does lay the foundation for the decades to come. And you want those decades to be as good as they possibly can be. There’s a lot of talk about how we can set ourselves up for a physically healthy older age. Lift head if you eat lots of protein, take your hormone. You know, all of those messages are absolutely there, and they’re very relevant and important accurate. It also applies to our psychological and emotional well being too. Put as much energy and invest in investment into that so that you’re also psychologically and emotionally healthy in those decades to come.
Hayley Quinn 45:48
Yeah, fantastic. Thank you so much. And for my final question, I asked this of everybody that comes on my podcast, yeah, if you were to meet your 80 year old self today, what do you think she’d say to you? Good job. Nice.
Kirstin Bouse 46:06
Good job. Yeah, I think the more I and this is, I guess, another tip. But you know, when I feel when I know I’m on the right path, I’m on the right path, and it just feels good, and I’m not going to be an older woman who has the regret of not pursuing those things. It’s the common regret of the dying, isn’t it? Yeah, absolutely yes to the stuff you want to say yes to. Yeah, Oh, fantastic. This has been so wonderful. And again, thank you so much, Kirstin for coming on. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And I’m sure people will get a lot from this. I’ll put links to where people can find you in the show notes and yeah, thanks so much. No, thank you. It was lots of fun. Great conversation, great conversation.
Thanks for sharing this time with me today, I hope it’s been helpful and supportive.
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Links to Kirstin Bouse’s Resources
https://www.allabouthercentre.com.au/blog
https://www.allabouthercentre.com.au/aah-join-the-team1
https://www.allabouthercentre.com.au/find-a-practitioner
Links to Dr Hayley D Quinn Resources
Reclaim Your Time and Energy: 6 Key Boundaries for Women Business Owners
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