Christie Watson on menopause, midlife and mischief

The Shift with Sam Baker

Sam Baker Ltd

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 525 Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause but, to date, none of them actually had medical training. Todays guest changes all that. Before she was an award winning writer, Christie watson was a nurse. She spent 20 years on children’s intensive care before her debut won the Costa first novel award and altered the trajectory of her life. Since then Christie has written two bestselling nursing memoirs, including the wonderful The Language of Kindness, and a second novel. Then, aged 42, perimenopause totally floored her. A single mum of two teenagers, she suddenly found herself a “blubbering snot crying wreck” in Sainsburys car park - a stranger, inside and out. Sound familiar?! I met Christie to talk about her memoir about that experience, Quilt On Fire, in a no-man’s land opposite the US embassy. As you do. We discussed being blindsided by menopause, grey pubic hairs, biblical bleeding, and the impact of unresolved trauma. Plus Being single in midlife and braving the dating shark tank, her own personal menopause club (lucky woman), having a vulva the size of Brazil, the joy of becoming visible to older women and why nobody really has their shit together. Oh and an unexpected use for frozen fish fingers. You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including QUILT ON FIRE by Christie Watson, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me! And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jamie Lang and Sophie Haboo have arrived on Disney Plus.
0:04.5	We're having a baby.
0:05.5	We're having a baby.
0:07.2	I've always wanted to be mom.
0:09.4	And we're bringing you on our journey through everything.
0:12.4	I have no idea what we're doing.
0:13.6	Thank you. I have more of an idea.
0:15.6	I think of it like a Tamagocchi.
0:17.8	At the end of all of this...
0:20.0	We're going to have a little baby. Raising Chelsea, a Hulu
0:23.7	original series streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required T's and T supply.
0:30.2	Hello, it's me, Sam Baker. And before we go on with the show, I want to tell you about an
0:35.1	exciting new initiative coming from The Shift.
0:42.2	Many of you have asked how you can support the podcast further and get more shift into the bargain.
0:46.4	Well, now you have the opportunity to do just that by joining the Shift community.
0:52.2	You can go to study.media forward slash The Shift and become a member of the Shift. In return for supporting the podcast, you'll receive
0:55.2	exclusive weekly newsletters, community membership and plenty of other perks aimed at bringing us
1:00.2	all closer together. That's steady.media forward slash the shift.
1:09.9	Hello and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds-bar truth about being a woman post-40,
1:16.3	created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. I've lost count of the number of women I've
1:21.8	spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause. But to date, none of them actually had medical training.
1:29.3	Today's guest changes all that. Before she's an award-winning writer, Christy Watson was a nurse.
	...

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