Former first lady Michelle Obama’s experience going through menopause has recently been highlighted during a new podcast episode and many are elated about the way Barack Obama handled the entire experience.
The podcast touched upon these hormonal dips with a doctor on board and is titled, What Your Mother Never Told You About Health with Dr. Sharon Malone.
In the latest episode, Micelle was quoted telling Dr. Sharon, "I have a very healthy baseline, and also, well, I was experiencing hormone shifts because of infertility, having to take shots and all that. I experienced the night sweats, even in my 30s, and when you think of the other symptoms that come along, just hot flashes, I mean, I had a few before I started taking hormones.”
During the course of one of her most brutal heat flash episodes, the former first lady said, "I remember having one on Marine One. I'm dressed, I need to get out, walk into an event, and, literally, it was like somebody put a furnace in my core and turned it on high, and then everything started melting. And I thought, 'Well, this is crazy. I can't, I can't, I can't do this.”
However, throughout the course of it all, her husband, Barack Obama, was extremely understanding towards her plight. Mostly because "Barack was surrounded by women in his cabinet, many going through menopause, and he could see it, he could see it in somebody, 'cause sweat would start pouring.”
She added, “And he's like, 'Well, what's going on?' And it's like, 'No, this is just how we live,' you know. He didn't fall apart because he found out there were several women in his staff that were going through menopause. It was just sort of like, 'Oh, well, turn the air conditioner on.'"
During the course of the podcast, Michelle admitted that she does not believe many men understand how to handle this situation. Especially since it "literally feels like a knife being stabbed and turned, and then released. And then turned! And then released.”
She went on to say, “You got to do that, and you got to get up and keep going [snaps]. It's like, go to work, go to school, go play on the basketball court. Every woman who's playing a sport now is doing it through all those circumstances. And I don't know any men who could possibly conceive of what that feels like.”
"When you think of all that a woman's body has to do over the course of her lifetime, going from being prepared to give birth to actually giving birth, and then having that whole reproductive system shut down in menopause, right? The changes, the highs and lows, and the hormonal shifts, there is power in that.”
Yet, "We were taught to be ashamed of it and to not even seek to understand it or explore it for our own edification, let alone to help the next generation."