Don’t underestimate the power of hormones. From puberty to pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond through menopause. Hormones can absolutely impact women’s mental health.
“She’s just, like, crazy hormonal. And it’s still used to sort of belittle women to not take them seriously. But what researchers tell me is that women going through these sort of stages of life and times when they are under the influence of hormones that might be affecting their mood, the problem is that they’re way too tough and resilient, that they’re so used to dealing with so many of these big changes throughout their lives, they’re always trying to sort of tough it out and not take care of themselves, not pay attention to whatever symptoms they’re experiencing. And on top of that, take the stigma, societal stigma around mental illness in general. And that prevents women from sort of speaking up or even acknowledging to themselves that, hey, I’m not doing that well. And if I don’t take care of myself, I’m not going to be able to take care of all the other people in our lives, which is what, a lot of times, women are way too busy doing.”