Christie Watson on menopause, mischief and midlife - THE SHIFT REVISITED

The Shift with Sam Baker

Sam Baker Ltd

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 525 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2022. 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 ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including Quilt on Fire by Christie Watson and her latest thriller, Killing Me Softly, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • 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 exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. 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
0:23.6	original series streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required T's and T supply.
0:34.9	Hello and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds-bar truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker.
0:45.0	I've lost count of the number of women I've spoken to who were taken totally by surprise by perimenopause.
0:50.8	But to date, none of them actually had medical training.
0:55.9	Today's guest changes all that.
1:01.3	Before she's an award-winning writer, Christy 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.
1:07.0	Since then, Christy has written two best-selling nursing memoirs, including the wonderful The Language of Kindness and a second novel.
1:14.1	Then, at the age of 42, perimenopause totally flawed her.
1:18.8	A single mum of two teenagers, she suddenly found herself a blubbering, snot-crying wreck in Sainsbury's Curl Park, a stranger inside and out. Sound familiar? And it was like losing my
1:31.4	mind through losing my sense of self. And I just felt totally unprepared. I met Christia in no
1:37.4	man's land opposite the American embassy, as you do, to talk being blindsided by menopause,
1:42.3	grey pubic hair, biblical bleeding and the impact of
	...

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