177: "I Don't Feel Like Myself": Hormones, Stress, Perimenopause & the Invisible Load Women Carry

"I don't feel like myself anymore."

Dr. Shawn Tassone hears some version of that sentence from women all the time. But what does it actually mean?

Is it perimenopause? Low estrogen or progesterone? Testosterone? Thyroid dysfunction? Chronic stress? Burnout? Postpartum changes? A struggling relationship? Loss of identity?

Or is it possible that more than one of those things can be true at the same time?

In this episode of Confessions of a Male Gynecologist, Dr. Tassone connects three seemingly unrelated conversations — Dolly Parton, the Lindsay Clancy case, and the recent pastor's wife documentary — to explore one much larger issue:

What happens when a woman spends years carrying things no one else can see?

Women's health is often divided into separate boxes. Hormones go here. Mental health goes there. Libido becomes another problem. Sleep becomes another. Your thyroid gets another doctor. Your relationship is considered completely separate.

But the woman experiencing all of those things is still one person.

Dr. Tassone breaks down why your hormones do not exist in a vacuum and how chronic stress, relationships, caregiving, motherhood, identity, sleep and hormonal changes can interact. He also explores why perimenopause can become the point where all of these worlds collide.

Maybe menopause changed how you feel, but did it create every problem — or did changing hormones, worsening sleep and decreased stress tolerance make an already unsustainable situation harder to tolerate?

In This Episode You Will Learn:

• Why "I don't feel like myself" deserves to be taken seriously
• How estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and thyroid health can affect how women feel
• Chronic stress, cortisol and what social media gets wrong about "hormone imbalance"
• Why relationship stress and emotional safety can affect physical and sexual health
• The invisible mental and logistical load many women carry
• Why low libido is not always simply a testosterone problem
• Motherhood, identity loss and postpartum recovery
• Postpartum depression, anxiety and postpartum psychiatric illness
• Why postpartum healthcare needs to extend beyond a single six-week visit
• How caregiving can gradually push a woman's own needs aside
• Why perimenopause can magnify problems that were already there
• The overlap between hormones, sleep, metabolic health, stress, mental health and relationships
• Why normal-looking labs do not automatically mean a woman feels well
• What holistic women's healthcare should actually mean
• The questions Dr. Tassone believes we should ask when a woman says she no longer feels like herself

The answer isn't that everything is hormones, but it also isn't that your hormones have nothing to do with what you're experiencing.

Good medicine should be capable of holding more than one truth at the same time.

Your estrogen may be low and your relationship may be affecting your nervous system.

Your thyroid may need treatment and you may be profoundly burned out.

You may be experiencing postpartum hormonal changes and need specialized mental-health care.

Your testosterone may be low and increasing testosterone may not repair emotional intimacy.

You are not an estrogen level. You are not a testosterone level. You are not a TSH, BMI or age on a chart.

There is a human being attached to those ovaries.

And sometimes the better question isn't simply: "What symptoms are you having?"

It's: "What have you been carrying?"

If you've found yourself saying, "I haven't felt like myself in years," this conversation is for you.

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Episode Resources:

Work with Dr. Tassone | Tassone Advanced Gynecology

Please contact the clinic directly at (512) 956- 0296 with all scheduling inquiries.

Purchase Dr. Tassone's Best-Selling Book | The Hormone Balance Bible

Dr. Tassone's Integrative Hormonal Archetype Quiz | Discover Your Hormonal Archetype

Medical Disclaimer
This podcast and website represent the opinions of Dr. Shawn Tassone and his guests. The content here should not be taken as medical advice and is for informational purposes only. Because each person is so unique, please consult your health care professional for any medical questions.