Wednesday 1 February 2023

Shame thrives on secrecy, silence, and judgment. Shame can’t survive being spoken. Brene Brown

Trigger warning on Miscarriage. Please consider if this will cause you distress. It's not anything personal nor particular interesting.


The Guardian Full Story had a feature this week called  "Medical misogyny and the government's plan to tackle it". This problem in medicine was also covered in depth in Dr Jen Gunter's The Menopause Manifesto, as a global and historical issue. 


When I was discussing some menopause problems with my GP, he said "I can recommend my colleague [a female GP] for you to see if you want to look at treatments". I pointed out that he was my doctor and I didn't want to have to see anyone else so he better get up to speed. He explained that she had better expertise and understanding. While I admired his honesty in his shortfall in knowledge and perhaps this is an improvement to the brush off women have experienced for years when they seek advice for perfectly natural complaints, I wonder how so many male doctors can historically be the care provider for pregnancy but not menopause? 




I am very late to the party but am listening to Clementine Ford's Fight Like a Girl on Audible. She raises the query as to why we are advised not to tell people we are pregnant before the 12 week mark. If a lot of us will experience miscarriage in that early stage, why expected to go through that on our own? It had never occurred to me before. This concept is putting shame on the miscarriage. A perfectly natural complication is something we 'should' keep secret. Surely this upsetting time is a time when our good friends should rally around and help us through? Not necessarily talking about it, but being there when we need it. Yes, your partner is there for you, and you for them, but they are going through the loss too. They may not be equipped to support you the way you need it while grappling with their own grief. And vice versa. Why, as women, have we gone along with this for centuries. I didn't tell people for 12 weeks, I thought you wouldn't want to have to tell everyone if you miscarried. It is what I'd been told to do. I never questioned it. If you did tell friends, surely in the process of showering you with love in your painful time, one of them would get on the blower and get everyone up to speed. The same way when you lose a parent, everyone gets told, not necessarily by you.

I have daughters, and I have decided I am not passing on this antiquated rule. Should they miscarry, I want them to be supported in the best way possible, not struggling alone. And I certainly don't want them to feel any shame on top of the grief.

I am old and I've had three children. It never occurred to me to question how illogical this 'advice' is. I am not wondering what else I've taken on without thinking. This stuff is wired into us from an early age and we just roll with it. It took me to reach perimenopause before I even realised that is a natural part of life that is shrouded in shame and secrecy. And just like 12 week rule, I don't think it's a good thing. 

However, the tide is shifting. My then primary school daughter talked freely about periods at the dinner table in front of the males. This is a far cry from my teens in a girls boarding school where we skulked around trying to hide the fact we were menstruating from each other every single month (which is ridiculous when I think probably all the girls in the dorm were synced with each other). I am talking openly  about menopause with anyone (should the need arise) regardless of gender, and definitely using the word, instead of those weird 'The big M' or other such nicknames it has. I am embarrassed to say it’s often because I’m astounded at hope little I knew about it as an educated, adult woman (I find it genuinely perplexing)....and I am very glad to see governments are becoming aware of the problem and trying to do something about it. 

This great educator, Mr Pink (well worth following) put this up on twitter. I was perplexed that he was embarrassed by his lack of knowledge when I didn't know anything until I started going through it!


I like this quote but I wish the book had a different title. These medical issues are just natural diversity rather than imperfection. 

“Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it- it can't survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.” 

 Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection 

Linking wiht #FriendshipFriday


loopyloulaura

12 comments:

  1. As a family doctor I delivered many babies and never gave much thought to the accepted practice of not divulging early pregnancy outside the immediate family. My wife kept her first pregnancy secret as the company she worked for had a policy of terminating a woman when she began to obviously "show." Your mention of synchronized menses reminded me of when I was working in hurricane shelters in New Orleans following Hurricane Camille back in 1969. We had over 1000 evacuees housed in school buildings for up to 3 months. Many women on birth control pills forgot to bring them and our makeshift dispensaries never stocked them, so many women had withdrawal menstruation and there was a sudden unanticipated need for sanitary napkins. Four weeks later we were better prepared!

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    1. That's very interesting on the Hurricane shelter. In the bush fires I always sent them to the evacuees when filling trucks with pasta and tinned tomatos. I always thought how awful to have lost everything and then have to go around asking strangers for tampons and have that extra panic of having to deal with a period you're not prepared for.
      As for the 12 week rule, I followed it. I don't know why I cared about telling people. I think I just did it because you did it. If I'd lost a baby I'd be telling everyone anyway. I got pulled over for speeding on the wqay to the hospital with a bleed and I just yelled at the policeman who was starting his big "Do you know hoe fast you're going?' speech. I yelled "Just give me the tickets, I'm losing my baby!" and waved the drs referral at him. You've never seen a man so awkward in your life. He let me go with a 'just drive carefully' and the baby was fine (one of those 'normal thing' I knew nothing about) and I got a parking ticket the next day because I'm even stevens.

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  2. Interesting read. I will admit that as someone who had been through a miscarriage in the past with an ex I was guilty of telling my daughter's mother not to tell anyone when we first found out. Needless to say I kind of ruined the moment for her. Another dad blogger, Aaron Gouveia actually wrote a book about the need to address how hard it can be on us as well and that story is in there. Its called Men and Miscarriage. I don't have a stake in it so please don't think I'm being spammy #dreamteam

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  3. I never read either of these books. It is interesting to know that your GY couldn't handle the menopause stage of life.

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  4. I am also guilty of keeping pregnancy quiet until 12 weeks scan. I lost a baby at 11 weeks once and as it was my husband's first he'd told everybody and it was harder for me to face people afterwards. I'll admit I felt shame at losing the baby like it was my fault. Other pregnancies were kept quiet after that. I did belong to a very understanding group of women online who were all trying for babies at the same time which helped a lot. I found them shortly after my miscarriage and I'm still friends with many of them 19 years later!

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    1. I am glad you found those women and their support is what you needed, so we really need to normailse all this stuff, so people do get the supprt and care when they need it (ecause not everyone will look and find it)

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  5. I love this post so much. I'm also pretty open about menopause, because even though I'm (according to medical definitions) on the other side of it, I still have symptoms. The first time I mentioned it at work--to a female colleague roughly my own age, no less--she was startled and said something about how she didn't think we were supposed to talk about it. Something that happens to half the population--and we aren't supposed to talk about it. No, ma'am. I'm glad to hear your girls are comfortable talking openly about periods--another thing that impacts half the population, in some cases pretty significantly.

    I'd never thought about how cruel the don't disclose pregnancy till 12 weeks rule is--nor how rooted in shame it is. I was fortunate to never miscarry, but I can imagine how hard it would be to go through that pain alone because no one around you even knew you were pregnant. And you're right--we don't apply that rule to anything else. We tell people other good news even though something could happen to mess it up. Why not tell people about one of the biggest events of our lives?

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    1. It's weird, right? And weird people our age never even thought about it.

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  6. I definitely think that women's problems are treated less seriously. I have agonising periods and no medication has helped. I saw a locum doctor (male) who was incredulous that I have been in so much pain for half of my life but everytime I see my own doctor they dismiss it. Put up and shut up. Keeping my fingers crossed that the menopause goes smoothly when it finally happens... Thanks for linking up with #DreamTeam

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  7. It's funny that you mention menopause, as I've literally just downloaded the audible book Menopausing by Davina McCall. I think certain elements of women's health is absolutely brushed under the carpet, leaving us to guess what could be wrong and how to deal with it. Thank goodness for high profile women like Davina, bringing much more awareness in general. Thank you for joining us for the #DreamTeam :-)

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