After losing a friend during a “danger zone” depression, the 51-year-old actress is helping to bring a once-taboo subject to the forefront.
It seems high time that menopause became a normal topic of discussion, especially since it affects more than 50% of the population. But for a long time, menopause was forbidden in an often ageist society where women still have to navigate social and professional equity. Instead, women lived various symptoms that menopause can cause— sweats, brain fog, insomnia, major changes in sleep patterns, mood fluctuations and more — in private.
Today, leading figures are speaking out about their personal experiences with menopause in the hope it will encourage more women to voice their questions about managing this phase of life that should arguably celebrate wisdom, confidence and natural beauty with greater authority. .
This week, Gabrielle Union was the latest celebrity to speak out about her experience. The actress, mom and wife of a retired NBA star Dwyane Wade (another friend of The Healthy @Reader’s Digest!) has partnered with Clearblue, the brand classically known for its pregnancy tests. Clearblue has launched the Clearblue Menopause Stage Indicator, an innovative product they say is the only one that combines a woman’s urinary follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) measurements with her age and cycle history to indicate its probable risk. stage of menopause. (We love science!)
With information comes power: Gabrielle spoke with The healthy @Reader’s Digest to help women talk about the “change” that generations before us have politely kept under the radar.
The healthy @Reader’s Digest: We love that you’re here to talk about menopause: we need to have this conversation! How did it go for you ?
Gabrielle Union: Well, it’s been a long time. The first time I had a full blood test, one of the things they revealed was that my FSH level was in the perimenopausal zone. At the time, it didn’t mean much. I was like, I’m not old. I do not know what you’re talking about. I was just dancing on the tables at the club!
It only really started to affect my life when I began my fertility journey. And probably around forty, symptoms: Hot flashes, insomnia, hair loss, hair growing back where you don’t need it, anxiety – I have anxiety as a rape survivorI have PTSD, but it felt more like terror than my usual anxiety.
And I just started feeling sad, and I never had any history of depression or anything like that. So these things were like, OK, wait, something is happening. The brain fog, even trying to talk to the doctor, everything would just kind of clear up. That’s when I really needed help.
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The Healthy: What did you find useful?
Gabrielle Union: I contacted a woman named Alisa Vitti, a hormone specialist, and she suggested I try a anti-inflammatory diet: Gluten-free, dairy-free, alcohol-free, caffeine-free. And after three weeks, everything had sort of calmed down.
Since then, I have followed the same diet. It’s been seven, eight years now. And sometimes things get heated because I’m going on vacation and I feel like (the rules don’t) really matter if you’re in Europe. (Laughs) And then straight away the hot flashes, it’s always the hot flashes first, which come back in force. So it kind of reminds me to get back on track.
Hair loss is an ongoing challenge, and other health conditions also impact this problem. So it’s been a journey. And luckily I have friends who are around my age who talk about things and offer suggestions, and a community who was also able to record my mood swings whereas sometimes you kind of dissociate when you start to feel yourself sort of falling.
I feel like radical transparency has really helped because at least people know what I’m going through, and it’s created this space of empathy and grace.
The Healthy: That’s wonderful. How old were you when you took the blood test to find out?
Gabrielle Union: Thirty-seven years old, but I didn’t get tested for it, I felt like something was wrong medically. So they did all the tests – which I was already thinking of doing when I went for blood work, but they only test what the doctor asks. So to say, “I want a full blood panel where you test everything,” I didn’t know that was a thing.
The Healthy: It’s helpful for women to hear it. What else have you found helpful in terms of supplements, diet, or mental health?
Gabrielle Union: Luckily, I’ve been seeing the same therapist for 25 years and she’s a black woman, she’s also postmenopausal, and so she could kind of time the changes, even the ones I didn’t really notice. She gave me suggestions that had worked for her and that I tried to apply to my life, like exercise. But sometimes when you’re struggling with the blues, depression, or whatever you want to call your sadness, you just don’t have the energy.
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The Healthy: Of course.
Gabrielle Union: You don’t have the energy and it might just get dark. One of our friends in our group committed suicide, and that kind of put me in the hole of discovering women between 45 and 55 years old. This is our danger zone. This is the age at which most women who commit suicide do so.
And I was like, I I know it’s not a coincidence that that’s the age range.. We are going through a massive hormonal shift where we are also trying to get kicked out of our jobs. We also go through changes in home life, (like) you becoming an empty nest relationship, health issues – all of this can happen at the same time when everything seems to be your fault. You are defective, something you are doing is wrong. And when this is the dominant attitude because of patriarchy, misogyny and everything else, we blame ourselves when we are already in a spiral.
And women, we are so easily rejected that, Oh my God, she’s just a slut. She’s just being dramatic. Oh my God, nothing is ever right. It is impossible.
But it’s so dismissive and it’s devastating when you realize you’re like, It is not me. I don’t really know what’s going on. I don’t know why I just lost it. Please believe it’s not me. But for people who are sort of the victims, if no one knows what’s going on, it can only reinforce the desire to isolate or be isolated.
No two people’s menopause journey is the same, but we can all listen and share resources and we can give each other advice on how to get to the doctor, give them all the information so they don’t not just react to a symptom. They look at the issue holistically, completely.
The Healthy: It is important to view healthcare from a holistic perspective, as well as a more Western clinical perspective.
Gabrielle Union: When Clearblue contacted me and I discovered the at-home FSH tests and the app, it was the app that really, really fascinated me because it allows you to record your period, the date of your rules, which is obviously important. But also what was happening at that time: was it extremely heavy? Were there any clots? Because as you get older you’ll be like, It was a golf ball. And you can document all the things you experience.
When does menopause start and when will it start for you?
The Healthy: Is it a bit like finding out you’re pregnant from a pregnancy test, but going to check with your doctor anyway? You are in this phase of menopause, but then you are going to check it?
Gabrielle Union: Yes! This is information you use to defend yourself. Ideally, you do them every other day and it will give you the different readings associated with your age, your cycle history, and they can give you an idea of what stage of perimenopause you are at.
But it must be confirmed by a health professional. And ideally, that’s when you’ll say, “Can I get a complete blood test?” Because if you have autoimmune issues, if you have thyroid issues, if you have PCOS or endometriosis, all of those things can impact your menopausal journey. So you want to have as much information as possible.
The Healthy: How supportive has your husband been as you went through this, and what would be helpful for men to know about how to support their partners through this?
Gabrielle Union: I think for me it was just about being completely honest about what I was going through so that he could be prepared that if I responded to him it wasn’t personal and This is what I experience. These are some of the things I might experience, and I absolutely hate that this could negatively impact you or my family, but I am absolutely going to need your support, grace, and understanding as I figure out how to navigate all this. The more I shared with him, the more empathetic he was, the more he could help the family. As, Okay, let’s give mom a helping hand. Let’s give him time. Or if I was just in a blue state, he would just say, “Yes, stay in bed.” It’s good.”
The Healthy: It’s so awesome. You recently celebrated your 51st birthday and you were beaming. What do you like about getting older?
Gabrielle Union: I think for me it’s clarity. I just feel clear about a lot of things. I’m not as confused and I just don’t have the same attachment to external validation.
The Healthy: Tell us about the self-care routine you never skip.
Gabrielle Union: Therapy.
