Menopause: W.T.F?!?!  ## Metadata - Author: [[We Can Do Hard Things]] - Full Title: Menopause: W.T.F?!?! - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/17ae6d11-906e-42be-a669-ffb9d9c6bfe2 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Nighttime Bee Hive And Fire Ants** - Glennon describes nights of buzzing thoughts, uncontrollable itching, and waking in pools of sweat during perimenopause. - She compares her brain to a beehive and skin sensations to armed fire ants to convey the intensity of symptoms. Transcript: Glennon Doyle We are gathered here today to bitch about this thing called perimenopause. Yeah. I have been very looking forward to this hour, maybe four months, because I don't hear anyone discussing this the way I am experiencing this, which is I feel as if my mind and my heart and My body and my life and my relationships and my planet are all on fire. And when I try to express that, someone says, have you tried some hematomaglobin? What? Like some word that is some sort of supplement and I need like a fire hose. A rescue crew. Abby Wambach We are beyond supplements, people. Glennon Doyle And that is how I feel. And so I just need – I just ask for a little bit of time to try to express what the hell is going on. Abby Wambach It's a service to the people, Glennon. It's a service to the people. If you're able to put in words this godforsaken thing that everyone's going through, it would be I I thank you for your service. Melani Sanders Yeah. And I also think if you're listening, maybe maybe include your your male friends in on this podcast just so that they could learn a little bit about either what to expect or what might Be going on in their households. Glennon Doyle Yeah. Melani Sanders This is, we have no answers, but this is a public service announcement. Glennon Doyle But boy, do I have a question. About what is. Is it like what to expect when you're expecting menopause? Yeah. Abby Wambach Maybe. Glennon Doyle I mean, I'd like to start with a self-portrait that my team has, Allison and Audrey, have created. It's a self-portrait of me right now. And so I want you to look at this. It's just, it's a Venn diagram is what it is. And this is menopause and this is, this is menopause and this is fascism and this is me. This flaming hot fire is my self-portrait right now. So if any of you are also living at this intersection, welcome. What's at the bottom? What's the picture at the bottom? Oh, we'll get there. Okay. We're not there yet, people. No. Now- Do you want me to keep this up? I I don't care. Like, let's see about it. Melani Sanders How did you do that? Okay. Glennon Doyle So I want to tell you when this journey began. I think it began at night. Okay? Night for me has become a slice of solitary loneliness. Don't hell, which honestly is not that much different than the slice of lonesome, ragey hell that is the day. But the night is darker. Okay? Now, what started happening to me in the night is that I would lay my head down and then some things would start happening. Okay? One of the things that would start happening is that my mind, you know, it's not a calm, quiet, relaxing, ordered place to be ever. I lay my head down and it's like, okay, well, I imagine it, you know, have you ever seen a beehive? And then you see them on the, I've never seen one in real life, who has, but on the nature channels and like, maybe someone brings some poison and then – or smoke. And then the whole beehive goes crazy and comes alive and there's buzzing everywhere and it's just chaos. Yes. That is what night started happening in my brain, okay? So there was no – there's no order to the thoughts. There's no escape from the thoughts. There's no logic to the thoughts. It's just a million bees activate the second I lay my head down. And I try all the tricks. I count to a million. I do letters and think of words. No, the bees keep going. Now, if somehow the bees calm enough, don't worry because then another thing happens, which is that I started getting these unbelievable skin itches. Do you remember this time? Now, when I call it an itch, it's more like a colony of fire ants. Okay? I don't know what fire ants are. I don't even know if they're real, but this is, it feels like I'm being stung and bitten or stabbed. Nope. Abby Wambach It's a colony of fire ants with tiny daggers. Tiny dagger wielding fire ants descending upon the hive of bees. Yes. Glennon Doyle Yes. Bees. And now I've got the bees and the ants. I've got the fire ants on the skin. Armed. Armed ants. The smoking bees in the head. Okay. Melani Sanders Armed ants smoking bees. Okay. Glennon Doyle Good title. And so I wake up. It's like a band name. Yeah. And the fire ants are happening and the skin is on fire and the only relief that could possibly be brought for one second is the scratching. But then if you scratch, the fire ants come back double, double, double, stabby, stabby, stabby. Okay? All night. Now. I'm only laughing because this is exactly what's happening. Melani Sanders Yes. Glennon Doyle Then nature provides, I don't know, liquid. Maybe to help with the bees, maybe to help with the fire ants. But what happens next is I wake up in pools of sweat. I sweat through my clothes. I take off my clothes. I sweat into the sheets. ([Time 0:00:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/21c650c3-b65c-4d69-97ef-20b82ee51520)) - **New Motion Sensitivity** - Glennon recounts developing motion sensitivity that made cars, planes, and even TV with camera movement nauseating. - She says walking and other people's movement later triggered the same queasy response. Transcript: Glennon Doyle I don't wake up. I stand up. And then more things happen. Okay. So first it was just a night experience. And then I started noticing the situation where airplanes, airplanes, if I get in a car, first it was just airplanes and cars that suddenly made me motion sick. Okay. Then it became walking. Any motion whatsoever, including with your feet. Then it became other people walking. Then I kid you not. There are many TV shows I can't watch anymore. I get sick to my stomach watching TV. Am I lying? Melani Sanders Yeah. Like, you know, the ones like The Office where they do like, they do a lot of like TV, like camera movement. Right. Abby Wambach And it's like to, they like pan really quickly to, she's like, can't do it. Can't do it. I've noticed that with Google Docs. Like if we're in a meeting looking at Google Docs, you're like, I can't watch that screen while it moves. Nope. Okay. Glennon Doyle So then. Melani Sanders That was fun last year when we were on the road for Tisha's tour. It was fun. Glennon Doyle Remember, I couldn't even rewatch Friday Night Lights. Yep. Okay. Then. Some interesting things started happening, which is that I – well, my hair, it turned a completely different category. I don't think it's – I don't think it's the texture of hair. I don't know what it is. It's wire sticking out. This will last about – it'll last this show. And then it will just start spiraling out. ([Time 0:06:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f272caba-2d27-42f3-b672-0bd02e354fa7)) - **Shrunken Apple Self-Portrait** - Glennon shares surprising physical changes: wiry hair, rosacea-like redness, and feeling shrunken like a dried apple doll. - She ties these changes to loss of moisture and a shifted self-image during perimenopause. Transcript: Glennon Doyle I don't think it's – I don't think it's the texture of hair. I don't know what it is. It's wire sticking out. This will last about – it'll last this show. And then it will just start spiraling out. Do you know Miss Fizzle from the magic school bus yes okay so that's the vibe it's a book yeah it's a kid's book nobody read to me is it a book then no and then my one of my favorite parts of this Is that I started getting this like little weird red situation on my cheeks. And I was like, what? This is new. The cool thing about this paramenopause thing is for the first several months, you don't connect any of these things. You just think all of these different weird things are happening to me, right? Mm-hmm. I started getting this red mask of what I now know is some sort of rosacea that comes with perimenopause, but I didn't know that for six months. So I just look like Santa Claus. That's what I look like now. I have like 16 pounds of shellac over my cheeks. Actually, I should have just not done that for this episode. I'll show you guys. I love your cheeks. Thank you, baby. For real. Melani Sanders The redness? Glennon Doyle Yes. I think it's so cute. Thank you. It is. Melani Sanders It looks like she's been like sun-kissed. Sun-kissed by plaster by the devil. I've been satan-kissed. That's what menopause feels like. Glennon Doyle So it's like the opposite of a fairy godmother. It's like, ding. It's like, ding. It's like you've been Satan has touched your... So I... And then we're moving, you know, we moved Tish into school the other day and we... I was carrying all this shit and I passed a mirror, a big mirror in the hallway. And I looked into it and I realized I've been trying to figure out what I remind myself of during this six-month period. And I looked in the mirror and I realized I know exactly what I remind myself of. This is who I am now. When I was in elementary school, we lived in Virginia. And so we used to go, our big field trip each year was to Colonial Williamsburg. Okay. You know, they'd like churn butter. It's like one of those places they pretend it's in olden days and it's like a village, a colony. Like we really used to celebrate colonialism in big ways. We would send kids to celebrate it. Anyway, they would have us, they would have a craft table. And at the craft table, there would be these apples. And the apples had been shrunken, okay? They had been laid out for a very long time. And so all the moisture from the apple, it had gone away. So it just become this little shrunken thing, like kind of like a grape becomes a raisin. This apple became this other like shrunken, shriveled thing. Make a dress out of and you put little eyeballs on the apple and you would make a doll, a dried apple doll. Abby Wambach A dried colonial apple doll. Glennon Doyle Yeah. I am dried apple colonial shrunken head. Barbie, that's what I – oh, yes. My team found this is the shrunken. This is who I am now. Okay. I'm a shrunken. This is menopause. This is all of us. We are a group of shrunken apple. All the moisture has been taken. ([Time 0:08:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c6fddb9e-52b7-47cc-8b80-5eb71c77dc43)) - **Emotional Numbing Beyond Physical Symptoms** - Glennon says perimenopause can drain joy and the capacity to feel, not just cause physical symptoms. - She describes an emotional numbness where irritation dominates while other feelings fade. Transcript: Glennon Doyle We don't fucking know. We don't know anything. Because nobody tells us shit. We don't know anything. I'm so furious. Okay? So the physical situation that I just described is the least of it. It doesn't matter. That's true. Does not matter. It is not just that I am an apple shrunken doll physically. It is that I am like the reverse Grinch. Like the paramenopause has shrunk my heart three sizes. I don't think that that's the right cloud. Melani Sanders You might feel that way. Abby Wambach Does, Abby. She does feel that way. Melani Sanders I'm not experiencing you that way. Really? Yeah, I'm not experiencing. I'm experiencing lots of confusion and frustration, but you're not the Grinch. You're sad. It's a sad time. It's confusing because we don't have any answers and, know, everybody's different. Right. So like you go, you talk to this one doctor and they say one thing and you talk to another doctor because there's no real like steady solid information for you. Cause like your body is different and how your estrogen and progesterone are dropping is different than let's say somebody else, you might be in a different phase of your menopause Cycle. Well, yeah. Glennon Doyle It's just emotionally what I would describe it as is like if this menopause thing has taken the moisture from my body, it's like also like taken out like the joy and the will to love and Live. Like, you know, things will happen that I know a few months ago would have made me feel a certain way. It would have brought me peace and brought me joy. ([Time 0:13:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/25b4cab2-8f6f-4233-9b7d-19fb71665b2c)) - **Seek Specialized Midlife Care** - Abby recommends Midi Health as a telehealth option that personalizes midlife care and connects patients with trained clinicians. - She highlights that Midi accepts major insurance and offers holistic plans including hormonal and non-hormonal options. Transcript: Abby Wambach And I think this is true for perimenopause and menopause, which is why I'm grateful that we are talking so openly about it today. And I'm happy to share about the important work that our partner, MidiHealth, is doing. Too many of us are struggling out here on our own with perimenopause and menopause without access to informed healthcare, languishing on waiting lists, meeting with doctors who dismiss Our symptoms, telling us just to suck it up, or worse yet, saying that it's all in our head. It's outrageous that 75% of women never get any treatment at all for their perimenopause or menopause symptoms. Glennon Doyle Well, you both and the pod squad knows that I am in perimenopause right now, but I didn't know that for a long while. I just thought that I was losing my mind. I don't know that anyone had ever really said the word perimenopause to me before. And I had no idea that it was coming and no idea what to expect once it was there. And I was struggling mentally, emotionally, physically, all of that. I went from doctor to doctor saying something feels off and they just kept telling me I was fine. I was not fine. Abby knows that. Abby Wambach None of us were fine. The narrator reports she was not fine. Glennon Doyle For so many of us, it's when we're doing everything. It's when we're parenting. It's when we're working. It's when we're caring for everyone. Many of us in that sandwich place where we're caring for parents, caring for children, and we cannot find a way to care for ourselves, even though our bodies are begging for support. So I tried everything. I kept trying to optimize my health, but the truth was my body didn't need hacks. It needed care, attention, real information, and someone who understood what was actually happening to me. Yeah. Melani Sanders The healthcare system is failing women in midlife, and doctors are uneducated, and the guidelines are outdated. And that's why Midi founders resolved to build a company to step into this care gap and provide. I mean, honestly, this has been missing. Midi is providing it, and it isn't just like hormones. They offer holistic care plans tailored to each patient's needs that may include hormonal medication, non-hormonal medication, supplements, and recommendations for alternative Therapies. Treatments work, and quickly. More than 90% of MIDI patients report symptom improvement within 60 days of their first visit. Abby Wambach I use MIDI and I tell all my friends about the ease of my experience and to try it too. No more waiting months to get an appointment. You just go to MIDI, get an online telehealth appointment right away from the comfort of your own home. You meet one-on with a healthcare professional who takes the time to tailor a plan for your specific needs, and they send prescriptions to your local pharmacy. Also, Mitty is the only women's telehealth brand covered by major insurance companies, making it high-quality, expert care accessible and affordable. Mitty's mission is to help all women thrive in midlife, giving them access to the healthcare they deserve. ([Time 0:17:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4f143a97-5cfb-416f-bc4e-1ddb62179e04)) - **Noise Negotiation And Emergency Doctor Visits** - Glennon tells a story of arguing with Abby about everyday noises and both seeking urgent doctor visits to stop hurting each other's feelings. - They each made emergency appointments with the same doctor as a desperate attempt to fix relationship strain caused by symptoms. Transcript: Glennon Doyle I mean, the other day I decided. Fascism and Abby are my first two priorities. Once I get those locked down, I'm coming for the rest of you. Yeah. Beware. I mean, I'll tell you this story even though I think Pod Squad might get mad at me and I'm just asking for some grace because I know you love Abby and I promise you I love Abby more than you. Okay? But relationships can be a challenge during this time. And I decided recently that the real problem was not menopause or fascism or the fall of democracy or the empty nesting or the whatever. It was that Abby makes too many noises. Okay. This is a true story. Abby Wambach Two things can be true at once. Glennon Doyle So I had like a C I sat her down with my apple shrunken head and said explained why all the noises were the real problem and how my sensitivity to noise is just is. Yeah. Melani Sanders So you have a real that's a real thing that's happening. And that's something I'm really trying to honor because I hear you. Abby Wambach Can we just dig into when you say noises? Let's just put a little color on that. Is this the sneezing thing? No. Well, there's a thing that happens in the morning. I call it the elephant sanctuary. Oh, yeah. Glennon Doyle It's like, right. It's just a lot of like honking and she really clears the decks in the morning and it's like a. It's just it's un-fucking is what it is it's also her body her choice all right i understand please don't team abby team glennon just have some grapes yeah because here's the thing this Melani Sanders Is the thing that i've come to accept that some of the things about living with somebody are harder than others and and when we all go through this time, some of those irritations that You might be able to manage on, on, in a normal way, like, Oh, that's silly, you know, whatever. That's just her, you know, just woke up. She wants to clear her throat, whatever. But like times such as these are a little bit more sensitive. You're feeling I really know that you're feeling more sensitive. And so you sat me down the other day and you said, so can we just do some negotiations on the sounds? Glennon Doyle I listed all the sounds and I said, can you tell me which ones are most important to you? This is for real. No joke. Can you tell me elephant sanctuary feels important to you? When we are doing a lot, a lot of sneezing, how do we feel about like 20% of the time muffling the sneeze instead of scream sneezing, right? Like how do we feel about – there's a lot of throat clearing during the day. Anyway, we just had a long list and we talked about which ones were most important. I understand that this is not my best self. But we are not in a time such as that. No, we are not in best self time. Melani Sanders No, I just don't think that that's a thing. So like, why would I hold you to that account? Like, it is my job to roll with these times. And I think that, of course, my feelings do – I do have feelings. Glennon Doyle You do have feelings. Melani Sanders I do have feelings. Glennon Doyle Are they important to you though? Melani Sanders I'm not important to you or your feelings. But I do think – and you did mention and I think it's really important that like I need and we need to be considering each other. Right. And you are going through a tougher time than I'm going through right this moment. I am I am on menopause's doorstep. I know. So I want to try to give you as much fucking grace as I possibly can. And I'm not always perfect. And that's the thing that I struggle with is because when we have these conversations and we negotiate it, this is where we go move on from here. Glennon Doyle I like to have we've decided something and then we're going to move on from the conflict with a new plan. And Abby worries that if the plan doesn't go perfectly, I will say, but we started from a new place. Yeah. Whoopsies. Sorry. We had a plan. Right. Abby Wambach Can I say something about the unreasonableness too? Yes. Because I feel like what is so interesting is that, of course, that's not reasonable to monitor her sounds. No. And also unreasonable times call for unreasonable measures. That's fair. Exactly. And this is like in when you're pregnant and your hormones are insane, people understand that they're like that chicken can't be in this house. Yes. Because that smell is making me absolutely insane. But we don't have the physical representation besides the apple smush face and everything. We don't really have a thing that we can point to and be like, that person needs special accommodation during this time because it's, oh, I'm sorry, 15 years of your life. But it is the same kind of aversions and sensitivities that we will excuse in some cases or even expect in some cases where your hormones are clearly going insane. But this is so invisible that everything looks like you're crazy. Glennon Doyle And I think it's also because culture values that pregnancy in a woman because we think of women as just baby makers. And so they're doing their holy duty during that time. So we honor the chicken, but we don't give a shit about women who are going through menopause because they are becoming useless to culture in terms of our culture. So why would we care about making this part, this transition easier for them? Melani Sanders And I think it's a test to, for me, being the partner who's not technically going through menopause in like the active physical symptoms phase, but I'm getting there. It is a test for all of, all of people in my position. So for anybody out there who, who has a wife that is going through this, for me, I like to think about this, like, this is, this is like ultimate love that I can give you. And and one of the things that I have to work on not doing is locking myself in a room somewhere else because I think that that would actually make you happier. No, seriously, because alone. Glennon Doyle Yeah. Melani Sanders Like to just take myself like the irritate the thing that I think is probably irritating her the most out of the actual equation. Like I have to I have to force myself like, OK, no, like even if you are making noises and if even if you are irritating her, we still need to figure out how to connect during this time. Yeah. So it's like it's like getting in there and like taking some hits. Right. Glennon Doyle The sweetest thing is the next. OK, so the next morning we have this conversation where I bring the list of noises and I say, can we just negotiate which noises ([Time 0:21:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5b338b94-5433-4bdb-b67b-9e567571c564)) - **Medical Spaces That Betray Trust** - Glennon criticizes gynecologist offices that prioritize cosmetic marketing over meaningful menopausal care. - She describes leaving providers who betray trust and treating that as part of a spiritual culling. Transcript: Glennon Doyle And I did, I'll tell it kindly. And I did talk to them directly about it. So I feel okay. But I can't go there anymore because I go to the gynecologist and I'm going there for my health and to be for a safe place to talk about my body and my health and my experience in the world As a human being. And in the gynecologist office, it's covered with posters, advertisements for weight loss drugs, for Botox, for fillers, for 7 million different things that don't have anything To do with my experience of the world. I feel like I'm in there. I have my perimenopause fire and I feel like I want to be fucking Jesus and I want to start flipping tables and be like, this is a den of thieves. And I talk to them about it. Also, there's like one bathroom in this gynecologist and in the bathroom, there's one poster, one picture, and it's like six feet tall. It's huge. And it's a woman who has just been on a bender and she's like sitting on the toilet with her underwear pulled down and her legs crossed over and she's holding a bottle of vodka and a cigarette. What? I swear to God to you. I say to the doctor- What is the point of the poster? What does it say? I don't know. I say to the doctor months ago, I say, do you think that that is the message that you want to send women who, like one of the number one leading causes of women's death is addiction and alcoholism And smoking? And what are you doing? Like what – anyway. What did they say to that? Okay. Oh, I hear you. Well, the first thing she said is no one's ever said that before. Like that's because people fucking trust you when they come in here and they don't know – they feel bad. They feel confused about that, I promise you, but they don't know what to say. I don't think it's because they trust them. Abby Wambach I think it's because that we've been taught to think of doctors as unquestioned authorities and we are supposed to listen and not ask and not push back on anything that they say. And also it's a deep vulnerability. If you're relying on doctors to get what you need and you start questioning them, then it's your fault for not getting what you need. Like it's a very deeply problematic. I left my OB for the same reason. I walked in six weeks postpartum where people are experiencing depression, body dysmorphia, everything adjusting to all of the things in the world. And there were giant blow up body sculpt images offering body sculpt services at my OB who had delivered my baby six weeks before. And I was like, what is this doing here? Like these services should be available to people who seek them out. These services do not belong in a place where people are coming, trying to adjust to their brand new bodies for the first time and you're offering them, hey, are you having some body confusion? How about we go back and instead of determining whether you might have postpartum depression, which a large portion of your people in the waiting room will have, we're going to tell You're probably depressed because your body is fat and we have body sculpting for that. Like it is such bullshit. And I was like, give me my file. I'm out of here in front of the whole place. Cause I was like, this is absolute horseshit. You're not doing your job first. ([Time 0:30:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cbd4877c-a38e-4847-9121-226cff404dc5)) - **Systemic Care Gap And Training Shortfall** - Abby and Glennon point out systemic neglect: most women get menopause info from peers, not doctors, and training is scarce. - They note only one third of OBGYN residencies have standardized menopause training, causing a care gap. Transcript: Abby Wambach Best mechanic, the best dentist, the best whatever are baffled about what to do about this. Well, they don't teach it. They don't like, this is something. So one more than a billion people, B billion are menopausal women by 2030. OK, that's one billion people. Half. So half of the population. This is what blows my freaking mind. Half of the population will spend one third of their lives. This is not a brief period. Like perimenopause and menopause and the entire period of time that you're adjusting to that is a third of the average lifespan. And we are just like, they'll accommodate it. They'll swallow it. Oh, 40% of you are going to experience depression. 40% of you, 40% of one third of half of the, one third of the lives of half the population are going to experience depression. 75% hot flashes, 60% of women brain fog. And so that like, this is not unusual is what I'm trying to say. 85% of people who go through menopause have very life impacting symptoms. So that is just true. And in only one third of the residency programs in OBGYN. I'm not talking about regular doctors. So I'm training to be a doctor. I am training to be an OBGYN in these United States of America. And one half, a hundred percent of my population will spend a third of their lives in menopause. Only one third of residency programs have a standardized menopause training program. That's fucking insanity. And it's deliberate. There's nothing, there's nothing. Point to one other thing that's going to affect that many people that people who are working as OBGYNs will need to be able to address. I know. Just not being taught. So it's like you. We're not getting information from our doctors because it's not being treated. It is like 60%, 60% of all women don't get their information about menopause from their doctor. They get it from each other. So it's all of us trying to figure out from, and the reason that is the case is because 75% of women never get treatment from their doctor. You go to your doctor and you say, here are my symptoms. And they say, that's normal. We have conflated normal with acceptable. We have said, that's typical, as if that's the end of the story. That's typical should mean, what are we going to do about it? Exactly. ([Time 0:36:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d76f7e62-502b-45a6-bdf2-1805ece5c465)) - **Ask Your Mother About Her Experience** - Melani urges listeners to ask their mothers about menopausal experiences because genetics and family patterns matter. - She encourages normalizing conversation so women can share symptoms and solutions rather than assume aging. Transcript: Melani Sanders Yeah. I think one of the things that I think is really fascinating about this is so many of us women didn't hear about this from our mothers, like their experience with menopause. One of my friends, Katie from from Naples, she's very, very much down like the menopause, which actually we should call her. She knows a lot about this stuff. And she said, one of the most important things you can do is ask your mother about what her process was when she started to go into perimenopause, what were her symptoms, because a lot Of it is genetics. But because we because they had the memo they got was like, this is a thing we don't talk about, we just deal with. I think it is really important that everybody listening to this, um, who may have gone through it or maybe going through it or know somebody who's going through it to normalize the talking About it. Because I think you just having the, this conversation with us where we're just kind of like venting about it, I think is a very important thing. Becoming aware of some of the changes that are going on because so much of, of, of it gets conflated with aging, right? Glennon Doyle Like when, when it's typical, exactly. Melani Sanders You're like, oh, I feel like shit. And, oh, I guess this is what aging feels like. And it is not, right? Like these are all, these symptoms are very separate and it makes, it can make somebody feel like they're crazy. And I just want you to know that I, I think it is very important what you're doing right now, just by really having a good solid bitch session, because I think what you're going to notice A lot of people are going to come around ([Time 0:42:33](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c357dfb6-49eb-4983-80c1-03db154e2892)) - **Declare What You Won't Endure** - Melani and Glennon establish the 'We Do Not Care Club' rules: stop apologizing for memory lapses, noise needs, cellulite, or ditching makeup and stilettos. - They frame these as liberation actions to conserve energy and dignity during midlife changes. Transcript: Melani Sanders Okay. That's good. We do not care if we forget what we are talking about. Just start a new conversation, and if we remember, we'll come back to it. We do not care if we need to turn down the music to bag out of our parking spot. We do not care if we hurt your feelings. We said what we said. And we do not care if we have cellulite on our legs. Legs is legs. That's it. So those are a few of my favorites. We don't care. We just don't care. Glennon Doyle We don't care. Okay. Here are a few of mine. Okay. We don't care if we are not going to wear stilts on our shoes anymore. In retrospect, that was dumb. You're right. Melani Sanders Thank you. Glennon Doyle Thank you, Madam President. We don't care if we're not going to wear makeup anymore. We are not contouring or concealing or highlighting, and we're not concealing anything anymore, not our rage, not our under eyes. If Chad can walk around with his face hanging out, so can we. We are not going to wear hard pants anymore. If the kids can wear pajamas to school, so can we. Absolutely. It's soft pants or maybe no pants. We don't care. We can do soft pants. My last one is this. We don't care if we're not going to laugh anymore at the thing you said that's not funny. We are out of lie laughs. Expect this face from us. We hope you don't care, but if you do care, we don't care. Melani Sanders I love them, love them, love them. You are absolutely a member of this club. Approved. ([Time 0:52:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/86f86741-9ee7-4f1c-bea6-20d01b23e6cb))