Hello, everyone. And welcome to the Sex, Love, and SuperPowers podcast show. I’m your host, Tatiana Berindei, and today I have with me Dr. Allison Willette. And we are going to be discussing her Project Menopause, Unlocking the Secrets to Aging With Grace and Dignity. I’m really excited to be diving into this conversation, this end-of-the-life spectrum that I haven’t walked through yet. And so, I’m grateful to have someone who has journeyed through that and who can support other women who are journeying through that, themselves. Because I will, too, someday. So it’s good to get the information early, to get a head start.
Absolutely.
And I’ll tell you a little bit about Dr. Willette. She graduated from the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon. She is also a registered nurse, and practiced in Maine as a primary healthcare provider prior to moving to Massachusetts, where she now lives. She grew up on a farm in Southern Minnesota, and then earned her Bachelor’s degree in English from the College of St. Benedict. And after taking some time to travel, she later graduated from nursing school in Minneapolis. Dr. Willette worked as a nurse in four states in a variety of specialties. However, after some time, she followed her heart and left nursing to study naturopathic medicine. Dr. Willette enjoys a life in Hadley, Massachusetts, where she has a practice and lives with her husband and two beautiful boys. I am so happy to have you on the show with us today. Thank you for joining us to talk about this topic.
I’m happy to be here.
All right. Before we dive in, because I love what you have shared with me already about Project Menopause, and I’m really looking forward to you being able to share that with our listeners. But before we go into that, I would just love to hear, what are your superpowers?
My superpower is that I know when someone is going to vomit.
Well, this is a difficult moment, because my husband told me that my superpower is that I know when someone is going to vomit. As a nurse and as a mother, that was very, very helpful. I don’t use that skill quite as much now anymore, but yes. And the other one is that I can go a long time without sleep. That’s also from being a nurse and being a mother. I think now as a doctor, the superpower that I feel that I lean on, and that I walk into the office with confidence knowing that I can almost always relate with, to somebody. I feel like I can see where they are. And together we figure out where they’re gonna go or where they want to go. And I have lived a variety of different lives. And so I feel that I can relate. Sometimes I can’t, but most of the time I can. And that makes the doctor-patient relationship very back and forth. I feel good being their doctor, and I feel like I give better care that way.
Beautiful. And so, tell us a little bit about, by the way, I just want to say that you are the first person to come on the show and share that knowing when someone is going to vomit is your superpower, and I love that so very much. That is so bizarre. So, I want to hear more about this Project Menopause, and how it came into being. You were sharing with me before the call, and I would love for you to just share with our listeners this beautiful story of your own journey. I think we have a lot of cultural misconceptions about menopause, and what that’s supposed to look like, and what’s supposed to happen. Or we just don’t talk about it. So, let’s talk about it. Tell us how this Project Menopause came into being.
Project Menopause started as something I called Beautification Project. And it was kind of a joke with myself, really. When you say beautification, you always think of landscaping, and digging holes, and moving mulch around. And that was kind of what I thought I was doing with myself, was, I decided to make some changes because I was feeling inadequate, kind of invisible. I felt like a gray smudge. And that I was kind of losing myself. And I was having these really strange symptoms that weren’t, in my mind, even as a doctor, I was just like, “What is going on?”
Can you tell us, can you actually share with us what some of those symptoms were, just in case there’s someone out there listening who can relate?
Right, because when you same in the past, everybody’s like, “Oh, hot flashes and irritability.” And it’s like, “Yeah.” And insomnia. But achy joints, my hands, I felt like I was 90, with achy joints. I’m like, “Am I getting arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis?” And then my blood sugar was kind of out of control. And I was exercising, and running out of gas, when before I had been. And I was gaining weight in weird places that I hadn’t been. And I was having panic attacks. Not a full-blown nasty panic attack that I know some people suffer with. It was more like just these moments of sheer terror that would pass quickly, and be followed by a hot flash.
And it turns out that that was just part of the hot flash. But I didn’t know that. And it seemed coincidental. And then, “Oh, gosh, maybe these things are related.” And the anxiety and a lot of depression. And these are all things that I had seen in miniature after I’d had my children. And so then, it became apparent that some, and this isn’t for all women, but I do tell women this, “If you have symptoms after you have had your babies, you may revisit those symptoms again. And that may be your menopause.” And so, that’s where the postpartum depression is something to think about, and it’s like, “How do I prepare for that possibility?” It doesn’t have to happen, of course.
And this feeling of grief was very overwhelming.
So here I was, having some of these symptoms and feeling, realizing that I was in menopause. And I hit menopause a little early. I was 45, which to me, just felt too young. And I kept hearing myself saying, “I am too young for this. And I’m too young for that.” And this feeling of grief was very overwhelming. And so, it all kind of came together. I was, “You know what? I’m not the only woman out here who has these atypical symptoms of menopause, with all this emotional stuff. And I got nobody to talk to. Who can I talk to about this?”
So I ended up talking to a naturopathic doctor colleague of mine. And she was incredibly helpful, and helped me name it. She said, “This is your menopause, and menopause is not a disease. And this is a process. And it affects every organ system.” So then I started looking at my own practice as a naturopath and realized that I kind of wanted to create a program for women going through menopause, because it does affect every organ system, and it isn’t a disease. It is something that needs support. And there’s a lot of emotion connected to it that we forget about.
And you can make all the jokes you want about being hot, or whatever phrase you want to use for the hot flash. And after a while, it’s not funny anymore, it just sucks. So, that’s where I am. I have a program that I’ve created to support women going through this, and know that they have a community. They are not alone. And there’s things that you can do.
I love it so much, and I really, I’m all about talking. I think as women, we have a gift of gab. We are able to talk about things. And yet culturally, we’ve sort of fallen into this place where there’s certain topics that we just don’t talk about. And that’s part of why I have this show, and part of why I’m so happy to have you on the show to dive deeper into this, and have more of a conversation about it. Because I think we’ve lost a lot, culturally, in that not only are we, we don’t talk about things, but we are separated out in age groups.
So, it’s so beautiful that you have a program for women going through menopause, where you all can converse together about that process. And yet, part of why I’m excited to have you on the show is because I’m nowhere near menopause yet. And yet, it’s valuable for me, and it’s valuable for our listeners who might not be there yet, to listen in and hear what’s coming for us, and how we can be in relation to that. And just having those cross-generational conversations, I think, is so valuable and so important, too.
Right.
So, we’ve been talking with Allison Willette about Project Menopause, Unlocking the Secret to Aging With Grace and Dignity. And we are going to dive deeper into this topic. It’s a really juicy topic, and I’m really looking forward to going deeper into it after the break. Before we go to break, Dr. Willette, will you know where they can find out more about you and about this project?
My business is called Good Sense Healthcare. My website is goodsensehealthcare.com. On that website, you’ll see a tab for Project Menopause, and it explains it more thoroughly.
Perfect, beautiful. So again, we’ve been talking about Project Menopause, Unlocking the Secret to Aging With Grace and Dignity. And more when we return, so stay tuned.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
Music Credit: All instruments played by Amanda Turk. Engineered and produced by Tatiana Berindei and Daniel Plane reelcello.com
Podcast: Play in new window
