Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein: The Truth About the Pill

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

Mayim breaks down how the neurochemical basis of women's hormones and the impacts of the menstrual cycle on their bodies and minds. Mayim also covers how our understanding of women's health has changed over time, including a brief overview of what Freud got wrong. Activists Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein discuss their most recent project tackling the misperceptions about women's mental health related to increasing rates of overprescription of the birth control pill. And Mayim shares about her experience on the pill and the differential access to reproductive health in under-serviced communities and what we can do about it.  BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know, there's that whole story, I think, where an Apple came out with their, like, health, you know, app and they didn't put the menstrual cycle in because it's, like, not considered a vital sign. Yeah, did I deal with depression? Did I deal with, I don't even remember. I didn't even question how I felt. I assumed it was just me being me. Let's give some real information around this. And also, let's present alternatives. There are no alternatives. I'm I'm Bialik, and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break down the things that make you break down. It's my and be all this breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two.

And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down. Today, we're going to be breaking down the patriarchy. I'm just kidding. But not really. We're going to be talking about the pill. And by the pill, I mean the birth control pill.

We have really, really, really exciting guests. We have Ricky Lake and Abby Epstein joining us to break down the pill and its impact on women's mental health. Very, very exciting. I'm very excited. I can tell that Jonathan Cohen is excited. Please say hello to Jonathan Cohen. Hello, my name. The man who's wearing a Henley and shouldn't be.

If you're only listening to the audio version of this podcast, consider checking out My Ambialy's YouTube channel, and you'll see that she has rips in her shirt. That's a look. What's your excuse? On purpose, it's a look. You pay extra for the rips, which I hear is very trendy. I don't know why putting more clothing on your frame makes you look more lanky. I'm basically a toddler with a hat on. You're a skinny toddler with a hat on. My toddlers were very plump. You're the other kind of toddlers.

I'm the other kind. Just the long limbs, small head, but I guess that's backwards for toddlers because usually they have big heads. This is not a good metaphor. No. I'm going to end here and encourage people to subscribe to the podcast. Give us a review and share with a friend because one in five people struggle with mental health or addiction. We all know someone who is struggling or has struggled. And there is really good helpful advice here.

Maim has a lot of information, and our guests today have been breaking down women's health for quite some time. Well, really, the health of our world through the lens of women's health, which impacts all of us. The industrial medical complex? Correct. I think one of my criticisms for you, Jonathan Cohen, is that you don't sound excited enough. It could be because you're Canadian. I generally don't like to get too excited because that's followed with disappointment. Like you also could be reading like stock numbers. Let's start off with the word of the day. Word of the day.

The word of the day today is self-medicating. Oh. The word of the day is self-medicating. And one of the goals of word of the day is for me not to speak for an excessively long amount of time. Let's do it. Let's try. Tell us what it. Well, it's pretty broad.

Yeah. This is not a long one. Okay. So self-medicate. is a term that we use to describe people who have found ways to specifically support their mental health on their own. And one of the most common ways that people self-medicate, I think these days, is with marijuana. And that's not to say that there are not many medical uses for marijuana, or that people who are using marijuana are not using them for very specific reasons. But

what often happens with something like marijuana is that people self-medicate for other things that simply aren't being dealt with, either in a clinical setting or a therapeutic setting, meaning instead of going to therapy or instead of figuring out why you have panic attacks, and instead of figuring out why relationships terrify you or you can't sleep, you smoke a lot of weed. That's self-medicating. A lot of times people who have mental mental. health challenges who are non-medication compliant. A lot of times people who are bipolar in particular do not like to take medication. So they often find other ways to cope. Marijuana can be one of those because it keeps the mania a little bit at bay also can help the depression and that's self-medicating. And alcohol also is used very commonly to self-medicate for social anxiety. I would say I think many people who need to have a couple drinks to be comfortable at a part. I'm not saying you shouldn't have a couple drinks to go to a party, but technically that's, it's self-medicating for figuring out what is it about the situation? Yes, it's much quicker to

self-medicate, but it can also mask other more complicated problems. So that's typically what we talk about with self-medicating. So it's not a bad word, it's not a good word. Let's just call it a neutral word of the day. One question. Is self-medicating always taking something? Or is sometimes self-medicating a behavior? I mean, I think because I'm a neuroscientic, everything we do causes a chain of, you know, hormonal and chemical reactions, you know, you can self-medicate with sex, you can self-medicate with work, you can self-medicate with sugar, obviously nicotine, caffeine, those are typically self-medicating things as well. But I think for the vernacular, we typically think of self-medicating as things like pot or alcohol

instead of or in place of also seeking other help, which is not to say that those things don't help and I'm not saying you have a problem if you're self-medicating, but that's the word of the day. All right, let's break down women's health and the pill. I'm going to say something that sounds very, very possibly an oversimplification. Women's health and men's health are different. Are they? Tell us how. They are. And I'm going to say this with a caveat that I am a progressive person. I'm a liberal person. I'm a person supportive of the entire gender spectrum. I am an LGBTQIA plus ally. Some of my favorite people are one of those letters or several.

But that being said, women's health and men's health are generally different. There are certain things that are the same, but there are certain things that are very different. The nature of the last, like, 200 years or so of medicine has been biased in the medical world the way our culture is biased. And it's been biased towards men. what does that look like? A lot of people are like, she's just, that's not true. She's just a feminist. This really comes down to a disproportionate amount in many cases of funding for men's health in many areas of medicine. And a lot of that is because the medical field has been open to men in ways that it has not been open to women for the same amount of time. And there's an unequal

distribution of interest, you know, I think in certain arenas of health, you know, Sigmund Freud did many incredible things for the field of medicine and psychology in particular. But one of the things where he missed the mark was he examined women who were having very, very complex problems. And, you know, he was part of a movement of dismissing women really as essentially hysterical. You know, his analysis of women was possibly a little more elaborate. But essentially it was the same kind of notion that we don't know how to deal with women. But one of the areas of women's health that I think has been the most misunderstood is psychiatry and mood disorders. And, you know, I've heard it joke that, like, you know, women, we've been battling breast cancer on a very, very public level and ovarian cancer for a very long time. And then prostate cancer came around. And men were like, wait a second, what happens to what part of my body? And like, instantly cured. You know, like? And obviously those are different cancers. I'm saying that with the, Grain of salt, very tongue-in-cheek.

The notion that women having strong emotions is a sign of insanity is very outdated and unacceptable and should have been. And the expression of women's behavior has been limited by a culture that really for all of our history in this iteration kept women in the home close to, you know, berry-picking and basket weaving and children. My grandmother, on my mother's side, we don't even think she finished elementary. school. She was raised in a village without electricity at the Czech-Hungary border. She was a tailor. Her parents were cigarette peddlers. They peddled cigarettes on the street. You know, she came to this country as an

orphaned teenager, separated from all of her siblings during the war. You know, she met my grandfather in night school, and she was very, very sad her entire life. She had chronic, chronic depression and psychosis. My father's mother was a housewife because that's what you were supposed to be in the 1950s. Everything was instant. All of the time she had been spending doing housework was replaced by the microwave and, you know, plastic and all those things. And she was not a happy woman at all. She was not a happy woman. You know, my grandfather worked six days a week and my grandmother was stuck in long eye. Like these were, this was how a lot of women's lives were. And what both of my grandmothers needed, you know, was a community of other women. And my mom's mother worked in a

sweatshop, you know, the bunch of other women sitting at sewing machines. She didn't speak English. And my dad's mom, you know, abused painkillers because that's what you also did in the 1950s. So especially during World War II and post-World War II, women were really expected to be satisfied with that kind of being their life because that's how it's supposed to be. And enter the women's movement, which my grandmothers were not a part of. But the women's movement was a slow simmering that over time had acknowledged that even when black men were granted the right to vote, women still could not. Women wanted to be able to get an education if they wanted to. The notion was that women should be given the opportunity to decide their fate, as it were.

And many women want to stay home and have children. They should be allowed to do that. And for those that don't, they should be given the opportunity to not do that. So one of the most significant outcomes of the women's movement was the widespread use and acceptance of a birth control pill. And this pill allowed women to control their fertility and decide when they wanted to get pregnant or if they wanted to get pregnant at all. The birth control pills had many different iterations and people love to point out like there's so many different ones. It's so gentle. Okay, but essentially what a birth control pill is is it is you take every day hormones, pack, into little pills, and every day you take one. And those pills give you hormones that make your body think

that it's pregnant. And what happens when you're pregnant is you don't produce an egg. So there's no egg. You can't get pregnant. And for a week of the month, you either take sugar pills or a lower dose. I mean, I think it's fascinating, but we don't need to get into the details. And you have essentially like a simulated period. But technically it's not an egg. There wasn't an egg produced. There's a lot we still also don't always know, but about this kind of choreography. But there's a lot that we do know. So the introduction of the pill caused a tremendous social shift. Now, women have been preventing themselves from getting pregnant for all of human history.

And we have some really fascinating, you know, ancient evidence of how women would not get pregnant. Tell us about those women. No, I don't really want to get into it. But there's ways. And midwives and shamans and those kinds of ways. women have long known ways to introduce certain herbs and chemicals, you know, into the body to prevent pregnancy. Breastfeeding for extended periods of time for some women?

Breastfeeding can, as a lactation educator counselor, I have to say. Breastfeeding can serve as birth control, as it were. But let's pretend like you don't want to have a baby in order to not have a baby. Like, it's kind of, you know. So the introduction to the pill caused a tremendous shift. So unmarried women were able to have sex without getting pregnant, which is enormously significant because you didn't have to get married to have sex or you didn't have to risk an abortion, which is still illegal, many places. And when we make abortion illegal, it hurts women because,

in my opinion, you cannot force a woman to have a child if, for whatever reason, she is not prepared to have that child. So women will go to any lengths to not have that impact their lives, and that often is very, very tragic. The question of abortion rights, kind of, kind of became intermixed with this issue of the pill when actually those are separate issues. You had a question, Jonathan, about kind of how our cycles actually connect to our emotional worlds. I do have a question. I know a lot of hippies in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

And they hold women's circles, ceremonies, monthly groups, all related to the cycle of the moon and the full moon. Okay. My question is, from a neuroscience perspective, what is your understanding of the female cycle and its relationship to the moon and the tides? Well, this is, I think, less of a neuroscience question and more of a what's your perspective on being female? So for thousands of years, Jewish women have honored the moon. It is called Rushchhodesh. And it is a holiday, to this day, religious schools take off for Rushchhred.

It is a women's holiday because, yes, women's bodies are on a monthly cycle. And in many creation myths, you know, the sun rules by day. And that's the masculine kind of notion of like, I'm in charge of all the things that are high. The private and shadowy aspects of our existence are governed by the moon. And women's cycles do mimic the moon. And I know there's a lot of people out there are like, I'm not regular. I don't know what she's talking about.

Totally fine. but the cycle of our body is such that we produce an egg once a month. That egg grows and changes, and especially when you get pregnant, it does mimic the, you know, nature is very redundant. She's very redundant. And so we have, you know, our body grows the way a moon grows and waxes and wanes. I actually started a Roshchrodesh group in college with another friend of mine. And we did.

We did something that most of us had never done before. We got together with a group of women. and we talked about our feelings once a month. And many of these women were not even, like, religiously inclined, but it can be a beautiful way to honor what historically has been a very well-preserved time of the month and the notion of like, oh, the Red Tent and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, there are many, many cultures who really despise menstrual blood, fear it and fear the changes that come with it.

However, as Anita Diamond in her book, The Red Tent, you know, kind of revolutionized, like the sacred time that women spend with each other when we are together because we're separated from, you know, other aspects of our masculine culture is also very special. And, you know, one of the concepts, again, in traditional Judaism is that the loss of an egg is a time to retreat from your partner, you know, specifically your husband or, yeah, because you've experienced death, right? Every time you shed the lining of your uterus, you, that could have been a baby, right? Like, that's really what it means. That could have been a baby. And that time is a time. And, of emotional complexity.

And yes, you're dealing with physical aspects of your body that are kind of crazy. When my children were very little, they called it bloody weirdness because they were small people with small words. And I said, that bloody weirdness is why you're here. So that's the longer answer to our connection with the moon.

My Ambialx breakdown is supported by superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine. Drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan. This has happened to me many, many times, especially on the perimenopause journey. That's why we're fascinated by what superpower is doing. They send a licensed professional to your home or you can visit a nearby lab. One simple blood draw with over 100 biomarkers. That's way more than you usually get. It unlocks a true understanding of your body. Their app has detailed

information on heart, liver, thyroid hormones, metabolism, vitamin and mineral levels, even environmental toxins. From disease prevention to treating that annoying brain fog or simply optimizing your gym game, superpower is the most comprehensive and advanced system out there. I've been super tired of constantly guessing or just trying to read articles online about what to do for health. Superpower gives you an actionable health plan based on personal results. It's a real game changer. Plus, they have an on-demand clinician team to answer questions. Supplement or prescription suggestions can be directly bought through Superpower, so you don't have to go anywhere else. They also have nutritional guidance, tips for lifestyle and behavioral adjustments. You even

get your true biological age that you can track over time. Superpower used to cost $499. Right now, it's $199 for the full experience, which is much more affordable than anything else out there. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. And in terms of our kind of emotional health, the cycle of the month, again, you got a lot of people who are going to be like, I don't know when it's my period. I don't care.

It doesn't matter. Like, I just take the injections and I never know. Totally fine. If that's how you want to do it, great. Our guests will have something to say about that and I have something to say about that too. The rhythm of a woman's body is designed like that of an animal. And I don't mean that women are animals, like in a bad way. All humans are animals. All humans are animals. But in particular, here it is, folks, when women have an egg available in their body, it only happens once a month for us. Once a month, you get an egg. And our brains have not evolved to the point where they know. I'm living my best life. I don't think I want to have kids. I can be like men. I can have as much sex as I want. It doesn't matter. Sure, you can absolutely be like men, have as much sex as you want.

It doesn't matter. But what your hormones are primed to do is to find a desirable situation for that egg. And eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap. And the reason we say that is that men produce sperm every day, all day. men do not have a there are cycles to men don't you know i don't want you to feel bad you have them too that's another episode that's another episode but men can be fertile every day all day and women are fertile for a very very small window of the month human animals are fertile for a very small window of the month so during that time that you are ovulating when that egg is waiting and available your body and your emotions are primed towards finding the person who can make that egg happiest. And your body is primed to make the environment happiest to get that egg happy.

There's even been studies that... You're not going to let that sit for a second? Well, sure, yeah, let's let it sit. But sometimes I have to jump in or you just keep going. there have been studies which maybe our intern Tiffany will find for us where women who are ovulating are attracted to a different type of man than when they're not ovulating and there have been studies where women who are on birth control versus women who are not on birth control are attracted to a different type of pheromone when they smell a potential mate's t-shirt

than when they are so not just a t-shirt but yes Anything with that sense? I think the experiment was with T-shirts so that the participants weren't going around smelling our bits. The T-shirt sex experiment. Which T-shirt makes you want to have sex with that person more? The point of this was that... Or what about a Henley?

I'll put a rip on the side so that the pheromones can exit better. But I think the point here is that women's natural biological perception and mate selection was altered both by the time of the month and if they were on birth control or not. And we'll talk about this more with Ricky and Abby because a lot of people say, who cares? Why are y'all even talking about this? I don't want to think about a period. I don't want to know about it. I want to have sex when I want. I know when I want it. Hush up. Completely acceptable. What I would like to offer is the option to get educated about what some of those kind of like natural rhythms are.

what hormonal birth control, and not just the pill, but IUDs that give off hormones, the shots that they give you, all of those things are hormonal manipulations of a natural system, which often is not even allowed to find its rhythm because girls are told so young, you need to be on the pill, even if they're not sexually active. There was the S&L sketch where the woman started taking the pill that totally removed the period, and so you, like, had a period once every four months, and then they, dramatized what the emotional roller coaster of that period would be. Yeah. And also, you know, I can speak as someone who's, you know, I've had two human children. Some non-human children.

No, I've had two children. I do not believe in hormonal birth control, really. I mean, I believe that it exists. I do feel that it is overused, overprescribed, and misunderstood. And do believe that there are many other ways that people can control their fertility. But one of my favorite ways is actually learning what your body does. And I wrote a book called Girling Up about the process by which girls become women. It's a book about puberty and the neuroscience behind puberty. We'll link to it on the website. I can't tell you how many grown women on my editorial team emailed me privately to say, I literally didn't know. I didn't know what ovulation was. I didn't know what happened the two weeks before, the two weeks after. I didn't understand,

thank you. The notion of premenstrual syndrome also is one of those things that for me growing up in the 80s and 90s, whenever a male, didn't like your behavior. He said, you're PMSing. I did not get my period until I was almost 18 years old. So I had years of being in a terrible mood and annoyed with many, many boys who were wrong. And I said, I don't even have a period. I'm just angry at you. And that felt so empowering, you know, I had many years of not being premenstrual, just angry. What, you can't believe I didn't get my periods until I was 18? That's a very, very long premenstrual cycle. I was premenstru for 18 years.

Anyone who's listening or watching on YouTube right now, if you do want Maim to go into all the ways that ancient civilizations prevented pregnancy, please submit that as a question on the website under Ask Maim Anything. You can Google. The Egyptians knew what they were doing. But if you don't want to Google, because Maim has all this information that she's just not sharing with us,

there's a ton in that brain of hers. if we get enough responses, we'll make her do an episode on it. Great. It will be amazing. Happy to talk about it. Now I'm actually excited. Our guests today are women who've dedicated a significant portion, really, of their adult lives, to educate and in many cases re-educate women and men, and men, all people about critical

issues facing women, which also affect men. I can vouch for this. I have seen the business of being bored. love talking about this. You feel like you deserve an award because you watched their documentary. Before my son was born, I watched that documentary,

and I didn't know any of that before I watched it, and I was really blown away. Ricky Lake is a film actress and a television host. She did have her own show. She was in the original, in Hairspray. She was Tracy. In Hairspray. That's where a lot of people know

Ricky when she was quite young. She also had a daytime talk show. And Abby Epstein, who is her business partner, is a director and producer, known for Until the Violence Stops and Weed the People. Together, they produce the business of being born. This is the documentary that Jonathan would like an award for watching. It is very important that he watched it. And the business of being born is a documentary about medicated versus unmedicated birth and the enormous implications for how the medicalization of the birth process has a significant impact, not only on the health of women and their babies, but on our society, our economy and really our perception of what it means to form a family.

The film really rocked a generation of parents. The U.S. has the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the Western world. And that's what the business of being born examined. I'm going to say that again. The United States has the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the Western world. And I'll talk about this with Abby and Ricky. it was one of the films which really secured and confirmed my decision to have my home birth, maybe. And what Ricky Lake and Abby Epstein are doing, what we're talking about today,

is that they've gone on a mission to conquer more and more aspects of women's health. And they are currently working on sweetening the pill, which is a documentary that is investigating our current and future choices for contraception. This project focuses on the incredibly troubling statistics surrounding the prescription of the pill, the overuse of the pill, specifically when it is used in brown and black populations to curtail the the natural emotional processes of puberty and women's development. I'm going to save my pill story for when we talk to them. I'm very excited for this interview. Oh, I thought you were just excited to hear my pill story. I am excited to hear your pill story. I'm also... You're excited to tell them,

I saw the documentary and we had a home birth. I am not going to mention that just out of spite. but I am going to encourage the audience to ask Maim to share her birth story because that could be a whole episode too. It's phenomenal. It is a very special and mental health challenging birth story. I've heard it more than once. If we get enough requests, maybe she'll do it for us. That's your lullaby every night. Wherever you are, I'm like, are you ready?

Ready to hear my birth story again? Can't go to sleep without it. That's weird. All right, let's welcome Ricky and Abby. Hello, Ricky and Abby. Thank you for being here. Oh, it's great. Any excuse to talk to you, Maya, I'm so thrilled. Thank you. Really, really excited to have you here. And I figured that we would start our conversation with me talking about my pill story because it feels like if ever there's a place to do that, it's right here. It's not very long. And then you'll get to tell yours if you want.

So as I said in the introduction to gasps from the Jonathan Cohen corner, I didn't get my period until I was almost 18. That's just the way I was made. And I went to my primary care doctor right around that time because I was having a lot of, I'd call it emotional upset. I mean, I had essentially been anxious my whole life and probably depressed my whole life as well. But when I was 16, 17 is when it started feeling really, really intense. And I was put on the pill. I was put on the pill. I was not having the sex. That's not what was happening. But I was put on the pill. And what I was told is like, well, you have a boyfriend. It's probably going to be necessary for you to be on the pill. And at that time, I was like, the last thing I, last thing anybody

wants to get pregnant when they're 17 or 18 years old. So what I discovered, and what many women have discovered and what the two of you have devoted a tremendous amount of time and thought and love and research into is that the pill is a hormonal manipulation of your body's natural cycles, and we take medications all the time that manipulate our bodies. That's not the issue per se. But it is a powerful drug with a lot of side effects, and it is not a mood regulator, although it is prescribed in many, many cases as a mood regulator. Many women who are given the pill don't even have basic information about what's going on in their bodies or what is normal. Many girls are put on the pill because they're told it will regulate their menstrual cycle

before their body has even had enough of a menstrual cycle to regulate. Meaning a lot of girls will go in in the first, you know, two months, three months, and say, I'm not a clock like they tell me I should be. Well, let's put you on the pill. And then you'll be regular. And many women experience staggering depression, emotional what we call emotional lability, that kind of up and down, you know, that kind of cycling back and forth. And something I'm concerned about is that the stereotyping of women in their moods and even our notion of PMS might actually be reflecting the hormonal manipulation of a system.

And as I was saying, boys loved when I was a teenager being like, you're such a bitch. Are you PMSing? And I would say to boys, I don't even have a period. I'm just angry, you know? And just the notion that women, I mean, it's another form of hysteria, really, that diagnosis of like she's PMSing. You know, business of being born, which I have to mention. I mean, talked about it. You know, Jonathan and I both talked about it in the intro.

Jonathan and I are both, you know, homebirth advocates and hippies. And Jonathan, what would you like to tell the ladies? I think I said I wasn't going to mention it. But I did see the business of being born when my ex was. was pregnant with our son, who is now 12, and it had a huge impact. We were a part of the Los Angeles home birthing community, and we met a ton of midwives who were advocates of homebirth, and we were a part of that community.

And when that film came out, had a huge impact on everyone, and everyone was talking about it, and put a lot of stats and context around what many people had intuited, but couldn't really articulate and didn't have the justification. This is an issue about women that's for everyone. meaning the notion of kind of segregating health care by sex, by gender, is a fallacy because, as you showed in the business of being born, this is not something we talk about behind closed doors about women and their vaginas. This is about what impacts our lives, the lives of our children,

the lives of our family, community, and the world. And I absolutely believe that that is such a tremendous gift that you have given. And what you introduced is this concept which people are terrified of, terrified. What if everything that you've been told is not true? And not everything, but what if many things you've been told are not true? And that's how many of us felt about business of being born, because we intuitively felt that we had a natural organic right to our existence as parents, as feminists, as, you know, people who had feminists as partners. And what I think is so beautiful about you continuing this with sweetening the pill is that you're taking that same radical notion of trying to bring information to people because what if everything we've been

told is not the whole story. So I guess I would like to know maybe, and, you know, maybe you can start your, either of you or both of you are welcome. Did the sweetening the pill come kind of as an extension of business of being born? Was it more about a philosophy of how to approach health? How did we get, you know, from the way you changed our lives and the lives of so many men and women, how did we get from there to hear? Addie, you went, Sweetin the Pill was the book that Holly Griggs-Ball wrote and the movie we're calling the business of birth control. So we kind of like changed the title.

But it's just like a natural curiosity. I mean, with the business of being born, that stemmed from my experiences. And, you know, I love in the trailer of that film, it's like you will never look at giving birth the same way again. You know, it's like, it's just opening your eyes to like, the way that we thought things were and to a new paradigm, a new way of thinking. And so with Holly Griggs-Ball coming to Abby with the galley of this book, you know, Abby just like, she read it and she's like, oh, my God, this is so in our wheelhouse. This feels like the natural progression. You know,

we made a film in between about cannabis, about medicinal cannabis with children with pediatric cancer called weed the people. But this niche that we have, this credibility that we built with the business of being born, you know, and I come from a place of like, I'm not a doctor. I'm neuroscientists. I'm not someone who finished college, but I'm someone that had a platform for a long time, and I'm naturally really curious about why things are the way they are. And I was so profoundly impacted by my experiences of the births of my two children. And the movie wasn't about me, per se, but it stemmed from that experience. And yeah, I mean, that was one of those magical movies. I mean, just the way it unfolded, the way Abby came on board. Abby and I met, you know,

we met, she directed me in the vagina monologues. So it's like so apropos, but that's how we met and became friends. And so when I had this idea of wanting to explore, you know, and it was all after 9-11. I don't know if you know that, Maya, but like, you know, I was doing my talk show for so many years and I was just so disenchanted by what I was doing as my day job when, you know, the world seemed upside down. You know, 9-11 happened before my eyes. And I was like, okay, this, like, if I thought I was going to die that day.

And I'm like, if I died, this is my legacy. I really, if I live through this day, I want it to be about something else. I want to leave a mark where I feel like I've made a difference. And so the business of being born was that passion project that I didn't know what it was going to turn into. We certainly didn't expect Abby to get pregnant with her first child and have what happened to her. But, you know, it all was so serendipitous and a beautiful thing to leave behind.

And the fact that it still has this life in it, it's still as evergreen today. And as, especially with COVID, you know, this information that mothers, and fathers to be have access to this information of what to know and going into a hospital about your choices and your options. I mean, it's so relevant. And so, yeah, with the business of birth control, I mean, it's the same kind of thing. And more women are trying probably to keep from getting pregnant than to get pregnant. So I think it's just as potentially as impactful and as groundbreaking. At least that is my hope. Since I shared my pill story, do either of you like to talk about your experience? I know, Ricky, you have talked about it and not sure.

Yeah, if you feel like sharing, I'm very curious. The more women I talk to, the more I hear like, oh, no one even asked me. They just put me on it. Or, oh, well, I wasn't regular, so I had to go on. Or my moods were so terrible. Or like, I was bleeding too much. So what are your, what are you, what's the framework for you personally? Okay, Abby, you want to go since I was hogging the mic.

You go. You never hugged the mic, baby. You were born with a mic in your mouth. But, yeah, I mean, my story, I think, is sort of typical in that same way of where it wasn't, you know, I was sort of quote unquote put on the pill not for birth control, but because I had gone to college and had basically stopped getting my period. And, you know, my gynecologist didn't think that was a good thing and was kind of like, well, I think you should go on the pill because that would like regulate it. Now, knowing what I know now about how women's brains work, I 100% know that that was actually probably a protective thing. My body was doing my freshman year of college. There were like a lot of rapes going on on campus. It was just an uncomfortable environment for me, you know, to be in this dorm and sharing

a room with a stranger and sharing a bathroom and, you know, kind of being around boys and alcohol and like things I had never been around. I think there was actually a threat. And so I think that, you know, your hypothalamus, am I saying that right? I think it's your hypothalamus that controls, right, these functions. So there was actually something very smart probably happening in my body. But, you know, I was told, oh, no, no, no, you need to have that bleed every four weeks. We've got to medicate this.

And of course, I'm sure they're thinking, oh, and even though I wasn't sexually active at the time, because I was also a super late bloomer, they're thinking, oh, well, we'll just cover that. You know, it's like the pill, it like becomes this like catchall. You know, it's like, we'll just take care of that. Take care of that. It's like this one stop shop. And then, oh, and then she won't be able to get pregnant and everybody's happy. You know, it's just that kind of catch all type of thing.

And I think that, you know, going back to what your first, your previous question was my. I'm like, I think, you know, the link that I see like between our two movies and what we're doing is that I think there are rights. passage that we experience as girls and as mothers and as women, even in menopause that are being medicated away. And I think that when we were making the business of being born, you know, that was a new concept for me. The fact that Ricky, as my friend, could tell me that birth healed my body, that birth experience, changed my life, it got me through my divorce, you know, it healed my past of like sexual traumas and other things I've experienced. Like that was like really newsbreaking for me, you know.

And I think the same way it's like approaching this movie, I think when you're put on that first pill at 12, 13, 14, you're not thinking or no one's telling you that you're kind of losing or not losing, but you're changing who you are, that your hormones make you who you are. and that you cannot be the same version of yourself when you're on these products because, whether it's a pill or an IUD or whatever, because you're not making your own hormones anymore. And for some people, that can be a medical relief. And I totally understand that.

And I think there are a lot of people that really suffer and really, you know, are grateful to have synthetic hormones. You know, but generally for like all the things you were saying, like, oh, it's put on it for bleeding or cramps, you know, this is like this other half of the story that we're just never being told. So I think it's like in the same way in these movies, you know, we're just pulling back the curtain to say, you know, let's look at this from another angle that we haven't really thought about, you know, let's look at what's being taken away, you know, in terms of this convenience factor or this medical advancement.

Mm-hmm. Ricky, what about you? Regarding my pill story. Yeah, your pill story. I was also a late bloomer. So I was not sexually active until I was almost 21 and I didn't have acne as a kid. Like I didn't for the reasons that women would be. I got my period at 14, I remember.

I wasn't educated. You know, when I first went to my gyno, it was like this easy thing. Here you go. And they handed me a stack of, you know. And for me, it saved me a trip of going to the pharmacy. And it didn't matter. Like every time I'd go once a year, I'd get a new brand. but I was like, all right, I'll just switch brands.

I didn't question it because to me, doctor knows best. And I remember even in my, I'm trying to remember, it's hard the timing, but I remember where you could actually skip your period altogether. You could keep taking it and not bleed. And, oh, I'm going to Italy on my whatever. I can just keep, like, the idea of manipulating my body in that way was never something I thought would be, there'd be a con to. Like, I just thought, oh, you know, the magic of medicine.

And my dad is a pharmacist. So I grew up taking Tylenol codeine like it was nothing, you know, with a headache. I mean, honestly, I was so statins were nothing to me. And now I've gone the other way completely. My main side effect that to this day is traumatizing was the hair loss that I went through with being on and off these pills, you know, and being on the, I was on the copper IUD. I mean, I just, I just would manipulate my system in such a way that it did take its toll, you know, know, with my vanity, you know, and I know a lot of women, a lot, a lot of women. I've joined support

groups for dealing with, with hair loss, and so many women accredit the pill, the hormonal birth control as being the main, main reason why they're losing their hair or their hair never grew back, it never recovered. And so had I known then, had I known that, you know, it does shut down your hormonal system and it does change who you are. I mean, the things, you know, all the, like, the things I learned from making the business of being born, too, it's like the film, I wish I'd had available to me when I was first family planning for my daughters. I don't have daughters, but my grandchildren or whatever. You know, you want to have access to this information and you want everyone to have access to all the options, including the pills if they want it, but we want

them to know what they're taking and what it can do to you. So who are the populations, you know, that are kind of being most mistreated in terms of overprescription and misuse? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because look, the fact is, a lot of of doctors, they often are seeing populations that they may not get for follow-ups. You know, I grew up in the Kaiser system. My parents were public, my dad was a public school teacher in Los Angeles. And so our insurance was through Kaiser, whereas, you know, you wouldn't always get the same doctor. You didn't get an appointment when you want. So it was a lot like, you got 15 minutes with me, fix as many things as you can, and I may never see that person again. So what about kind of the system of medicine as we know it is

affecting which populations most? I think in general, the way. that OBGYNs are trained is, I mean, we have this cultural fear around pregnancy, right? So let's say, for example, like when we're interviewing doctors in Denmark, they would say, well, you know, one of the main differences is that here early abortions are completely unstigmatized. And terminating a pregnancy in the first six weeks is like covered. So I think that also takes some of the stress, right, off like being on something and you cannot get pregnant. It is like a disease that will ruin your life. That is like how it's treated, right? And so I think there are populations that you call at risk, right? Populations that they call, right? Low income or uneducated. And

those populations, I think, you know, are particularly vulnerable. I think women of color are particularly vulnerable. They have been historically given much more of Depot Praveras and Norplants and the more really toxic, toxic, long-acting types of contraception because they're not to be trusted. You know, right? Poor women are not to be trusted and they need to be on something. And in fact, Ricky, you should tell this story, but we had a really interesting debate when we started the movie when Ricky was on the board of a nonprofit. And will you tell the story, Ricky? Because I think that was like one of their biggest concerns. Yeah. So I was working with a group called the National Campaign to prevent teen pregnancy. I'm not sure if you're aware of them. I'm there out of D.C.

And, you know, my show, my old talk show was we did a ton of work with teenage pregnancy and prevention and awareness. And I was, you know, I worked with them regularly. I did PSAs for them. This was right when we were just starting the film. We put out a one, like two sentence. blurb about our new project. And they immediately dumped me off the board without asking any questions about the film. The idea that we were, you know, challenging these drugs, they could not have any involvement whatsoever. And it was just a shocking, I mean, no phone call, nothing. You know, yeah, it just said a lot. It said a lot. It's like, you know, there isn't room or there hasn't been room to be able to be a feminist and challenge these, you know, obviously we appreciate

and are grateful to have had access, but we want more options. We want there to be options for men, you know, we want, you know. And I think also when we, when we spoke to her, because remember, we called the woman the president of the board, we had like a really long conversation with her, and she just said, you don't understand. We are on the hill fighting, every. day. We are fighting the right. We are fighting to protect this access and reproductive rights. And if you are going to tell women that there's a negative, you know, impact to taking these products that they already don't want to take, you know, they're going to go off them. And we were kind of trying to explain to her that, you know, we didn't think that any woman, any kind of women, any kind of women,

I don't care what their demographic is. If they are on something that makes them feel terrible, you know, 60% of women go off the pill in the first year because of side effects, right? So how is that good birth control, right? If you're just going to do nothing then, you're just going to stop taking it because you feel terrible on it or all your hair falls out. So, you know, we understood like her point from a different generation of feminism, but I think that at this point, yes, I do believe that, you know, it is your right to have informed consent and access and that every, you know, menstruating person, there may be a time in your

life where the pill or the IUD is a good thing, you know, maybe you are in med school for five years or you're in the army or whatever it is and you're like, I just don't want to think about it. I just can't take any risk. You know, I just going to go on this fantastic. But the whole point is that when you're making those choices, you should understand that if you then slide into, to a depression or suddenly have, you know, panic attacks that you've never had before. You should at least understand that, oh, my God, that could be because of this pill that I started taking a few months ago. You know, and that's, I think, where we get frustrated where there is no connecting of the dots at all to the symptoms and the side effects. And some of the side

effects are like crazy, like crazy, like things that I'd never heard of until I made this film. Like crazy, like your ovaries and your clitoris shrinking up to 25%. I'm sorry, what? Yeah. Yeah. That's a real side effect. Ovarian shrinkage and clitoral shrinkage. Like that's something your mom never told you.

I mean, there are so many side effects and you hear all these different stories and it's all anecdotal, right? And then when women bring these side effects into the doctor's office, they get gaslighted, they get told, you know, well, it's all in your head. And, you know, so I think that it's like so much about, you know, we're not saying, oh, you know, take away hormonal birth control from at risk populations or from anybody who freely wants to use it. It's just like, let's give some real information around this. You know what I mean? And also, let's present alternatives. There are no alternatives. Obviously, the focus of this podcast is on mental health, and this is a really special episode to be able to give attention to the female experience,

because we are different. We're different from men, and as we've talked about, there are very specific things that our hormonal systems are primed to do. And I guess maybe you could speak a little bit to the, you know, the feeling terrible. I think for me, like as someone who has had mental health challenges, like I said, I didn't, I had them before I even knew that that wasn't normal, you know, as a young child. And the fact is, like, I can't say that if I wasn't on the pill from 19 to 29, that I wouldn't have had challenges. But maybe you can speak a little bit to the specific kind of mental health sort of red flags that that we do see, and neither to acknowledge, even if it's not popular or trendy to do so, and this is not condemning birth control,

but can you talk a little bit about sort of what do you see as the potential on not only the mental health of women, but then the perception of the mental health of women? Oh, God. I mean, Sarah Hill's book, everyone should read that. This is your brain on birth control. I'm just piecing together the dots in the making of this film. Like, I'm just going back, because we're talking 30 years that I started birth control, you know? And I net, you know, Yeah, did I deal with depression? Did I deal with, I don't even remember. But I didn't even question how I felt.

I assumed it was just me being me, you know? But what specifics would you say, Abby, as far as... Yeah, and that... Well, I would say what you said is just so important. And so many people we interviewed for this film said that in the milder cases of, like, mood side effects with birth control, they actually could only identify it in retrospect. So they actually didn't realize it until they went off. Like Sarah Hill, you know, who Ricky just mentioned,

I remember when we were interviewing her, she said it was like my life had been a two-dimensional drawing. And then when I stopped the pill, it went 3D. And she didn't realize, you know. And that's what's so deceptive. It's like your brain does this kind of, your brain is not very good at like seeing itself from the outside. You know, like your brain isn't very good at that. So whatever your reality is, it's like you just believe this is me.

These feelings are real. And I remember that even the week before I was put on the pill in college, she gave me like a week of like crazy, I don't even know what it was. It was like some kind of estrogen crack. I don't even know what it was. But I had to take that like every day to like bring on a period. I remember like riding my bike to class, like weeping, like weaving and weeping on this bicycle, like, just sobbing and like, I don't know, I thought I was like having a nervous breakdown. I was like, I thought like my acting class was too hard. I don't, you know what I mean? I just, the feelings felt like so real to me. I think that's the problem is there's this, it's very hard, you know, to pull back and try to identify what's being caused, you know, by these shifts.

But with some women, and we have some of these stories in our film, it's extreme, right? So for some, it's very extreme. They develop, you know, severe anxiety disorders or really severe mood disorders. They end up taking medication for those disorders without even sort of looking at what's beneath the soil and sort of understanding what the root problem is. And some women don't have any really. mental health side effects at all. But I think that in general, it's like women's mental health is so, it's so diminished. It's so diminished. It's just like we're just kind of supposed to feel

shitty a lot of the time. And, right? And it's just hormonal and it's PMS or, you know, and that is not, that isn't normal, you know, that really isn't. And I think one of the things that I've also spoken to both of you about, and, you know, which is sort of the, the scientific space that I live in is that the hormones that we are given are the same hormones that have been given to primates and to other mammals for tens of thousands, of hundreds of thousands of millions of years of evolution. My brain doesn't know that I'm a child actor who went to college and like, you know, and like, then wanted to return to acting. I'm like, oh, I got a divorce because like, oh, he wasn't, it wasn't right. Like, whatever.

My brain doesn't know that. My brain knows that we make one egg a month, and it is a very special egg. It is so special. And my body is going to do an elaborate dance to get the right environment to secure the ability to pass on the genetic information that's in those 23 chromosomes. And I want to find someone like big and tough and kind of mean because they're going to look like the kind of person who can fend off all the men who are going to be lining up, you know? Like, I want, exactly. I need, I need a hunter so that I may gather, you know? So like, that's,

that's what my brain thinks. And what my brain knows is that in the week leading up to ovulating, it's like, the party's about to happen because this egg is so special that we're going to create this environment where my insides are very happy. And, And I'm going to be both, you know, chemically receptive and very seductive because I'm going to show my best and most attractive self, right? And when I'm with that person, those hormones may also make me not make great choices by our cultural standards. Right. But I'm going to do the things to secure that situation. And I think that that's something that we wish and hope that the women's movement would take away.

You know, I don't want to be either of my grandmothers. I don't want to be clinically depressed and addicted to painkillers because no one pays attention to me and no one cares. You know, like I don't want that either, but my brain doesn't know that I'm not in the jungle. So that's kind of one part. And the second thing, this podcast has been like, my, I'm having giant revelations. I'm going to tell a story that I've literally only told to my therapist and to my ex-husband. My 20s were a shitstorm. Let's just say it.

My 20s were a shit storm. And what it was like was I was on every medication known to women for anxiety, for panic attacks, for depression, for mania. If anyone's had mania, it's no joke. I was at the position when I wanted to get pregnant that I had to be. be put on, I mean, I had been on medication since before I, you know, well, since right around the time that I was put on the pill. So let's start that story. And my 20s were a total wash emotionally. God bless my now ex-husband for honestly getting me out of bed many, many weeks and months of our relationship. And, you know, I look back at pictures. I remember when we announced our engagement to

my parents and I look at that picture, like, I had been crying for hours. And it was nothing about the relationship. Like, if. That's just where I lived. I lived in this kind of thing. And when I wanted to get pregnant, I was put on a medication that made me gain 30 pounds because it was the only one that was safe because of my complicated psychiatric issues. I had to get consults with two women specialists in psychiatry to even be granted the ability to try and breastfeed because I was deemed so delicate of a human. And I was specifically told you cannot breastfeed. You cannot nurse at night.

you have to get a night nurse. I'm like, I can barely afford organic potatoes. I'm not getting a night nurse. But I was specifically told I was a psychiatric risk. The psychiatrist that I had been seeing, who was a man, and I believe he was trying to do a good job. He told me the only way he would allow me to taper off my medication, which was an SSRI.

I mean, I was on several. The only way was if I maintained contact with him, had to speak to him three times a week with a newborn. I said, I don't think that's happening. he completely like took away even my ability to believe that my therapist and I, who spoke weekly, could monitor my condition. And I swear to you, what I said is after I had that child, something switched in my body. And I was not on a psychotropic or psychiatric medication for over a decade after having my first child. And I remember saying to myself, like, oh, having children,

and it changed me. I haven't had proper mania since, since before, since I had my kid. I haven't had proper mania. I do not even meet the diagnoses that that psychiatrist gave me. I breastfed all night and all day every two hours. I barely slept and I rocked that shit out. Was I depressed and likely could have been helped by an antidepressant? Probably.

But the fact is, I was a functioning competent mother. I was a functioning competent woman. Did I do it perfectly? No. Did I have to get help for the other ways that my brain was rocked by becoming a parent? And every trauma I never knew I had to deal with that I finally was dealing with, of course. But it never occurred to me until this conversation that all those times when I was like, I haven't been on medication since my kid was something flipped in me.

I also couldn't go on roller coasters again, but I don't think that's the same story. But it never occurred to me that that confluence of, my 20s and all of those diagnoses and me being, you know, things in my medical records that I was like, God forbid if this ever got leaked, like, I'm being told I have some very serious conditions that are really scary. And it's just, it's so fascinating to me. Like, I think of my mother who got married at 18. She had to spend her old 20s with my crazy father. They were both crazy. But like, I thought I was doing well as a woman because I was independent. And like, here I was. But I was being pumped with all sorts of chemicals, you know.

Anyway, that's my confessional. Wow. So do you think there was like a rewiring? And you had no postpartum depression. No, I mean, like I kind of operate in dysdhymia. Like I'm sort of always low. But no, all the things that that psychiatrist terrified me about. And my therapist said, he's taking away your ability to even have the confidence that you can monitor your own psychiatric condition. And I did not have postpartum depression.

Was I overwhelmed? Yes. Did my ex-husband sleep later than I wanted him to every bloody day? Of course. But I, and I also was not like a crazy like, oh my baby's so cute. I had trouble breastfeeding. I was bleeding in the breast department. I was bleeding for weeks and months.

Oh, yeah. I had a very, it's why I became a lactation educator counselor. I had a Velcro baby who wouldn't be put down. Like this was not an easy child. And my second was even more difficult. But like I said, and my second was a homebirth where I said, if I could do that, don't you dare tell me you know better than I do how I'm going to be. I'm going to nurse this baby all freaking night because it's the way that my ex-husband will complain less. And I will too.

So, yeah, I really just like, I really, I think that what you're doing is so, it's so critically important not just because of what it does for us in understanding how we view medicine, but it's. is so important in how we view women's autonomy, women's voices, and we can't use that broad brush of liberation to the exclusion of women who believe that part of our empowerment is knowing our bodies. And that's what, you know, the two of you give us a gift. Like, it's really unbelievable. God, well said. I agree. I agree. And for me, the piece of, like, the idea that you're, who you're attracted to is affected by whether you are on these drugs or not was like, the aha moment for me. Let's talk about that for a second. Well, just, well, you as a as a neuroscientist could say it better than me, but I mean, that concept of like partnering, choosing your partner

when you're medicated and it seems to make me want emotionally unavailable men. What's that? Yeah. Or I mean, it's just, it boggles the mind, you know, to think of like who Abby was, you know, chose in her 20s or who I chose and how things might have turned out differently. Now, obviously we wouldn't change anything, but it's just a fascinating concept that I never considered. And, you know, it's scientific. There's a T-shirt test. Jonathan's all about that T-shirt test.

We were talking about this in our intro. If anyone has a link to that, we'll post it on the website. I was teasing Jonathan's Henley. He doesn't usually wear Henley's. And he said, maybe it's better for his pheromones to escape when he's in a T-shirt. He's trying to keep him in that Henley. Bring on the pheromones.

It's incredible to me. Yeah. And I just think, you know, women, it's just something to know and consider. And you might make a different choice about your health care, you know, and about what is true bot autonomy, true body literacy? Is it relying on a pharmaceutical to tell you exactly when you're going to bleed next month when it's not really a period? Or is it really understanding how your body works and appreciating? Like, you know, for me, I'm 52 and I still get a regular cycle. I still get my period. every 20, 26, 27 days. And I appreciate it. Now, granted, you know, I'm perimenopausal and I'm, you know, waiting for to stop, but every month that I, my body works and that to know that I'm more creative at this time of the month and to embrace that. It's just like flipping and it's on its head. It's like, I used to hate my period.

I used to be like, you know, now I really do appreciate every nuance to it. Well, and I think also, and I talked about this in the intro, you know, as a person who has studied, you know, we call them the laws of family purity is what it's called in Hebrew. But, you know, as someone who's studied that for thousands of years, Jewish women have been tracking our cycles, like, it's in the Old Testament, it's in the Talmud. And yes, the attention to women's sexuality is obscene in many cases. But, you know, what Anita Diamond did, by turning that on its head with the notion of the red tent, like, I was saying that, you know, every egg is a possible life. And that is holy and sacred in its own way. So, for

For me to be able to say that when it's that time of month, and I do call it my moon cycle, when I'm on my moon cycle, like, that's a time of a different kind of reflection. And the notion also, I'm like, I don't mean to go full hippie on you, but I will. We can always edit it out. You know, the notion of the way that we grew up learning about feminine protection, that you had to be protected from something that meant you hide it. You shouldn't know about it. You shouldn't think about it.

I can't tell you how many young women I've spoken to who say, like I don't even know what goes on because I just put a tampon. I would think about it. I'm not arguing for like the free bleed movement. It's not really my thing. But the notion that we don't know what's normal, you know, when I do pregnancy consults for women just about post labor because it does affect, you know, breastfeeding and all those things. Many women don't even know that it's normal to bleed for six weeks, you know, after you give birth. Like we don't even know as women what's normal so that we can know when there's a problem. And that's one of the kind of neat things about the level of tracking that, you know, many religious Jewish women do is we are taught to know our bodies so that we

know very, very clearly when something's not right. And being in touch that way is something that is not for everyone. I totally get it. But we've also been acculturated to believe that it is not something to know about. That it's dirty. We have to hide it. We need protection around it. And that forms the way men treat us. It forms the way we treat ourselves. I mean, the fact that my mother never even mentioned to me a cycle. It's astounding. She was so grateful I was a late bloomer. She was slapped in the face when she started her period because that's what happened then. Right. And it's like, I think if you understand the information you can mine, like you were saying, about understanding your cycle, knowing your cycle, remember the first time, I think it was even

Keith Bell, Ricky, when I was talking to something. Chinese medicine doctor and they were trying to diagnose something and he was like, well, what color is your menstrual blood? And I was like, huh? What do you mean? I just, what do you mean? I just flush that. I mean, I just couldn't believe it. And he was like, well, I mean, is it, you know, is it like dark red? Is it bright red? Does it have a tail at the end? That could be near low on progest. I was like, oh, like, it's so misogynistic that this information is just hidden and suppressed and like it's almost you know there's that whole story I think where an apple came out with their like health you know app and they didn't put the menstrual cycle in because it's like

not considered a vital sign and you know you're missing the boat it's like I wish like now I'm so into like the moon like I listen to all the moon podcast and I like sink my cycle to the moon and I'm like live my life by the moon and what day of my cycle. Hey but who's taking a neurotic um sovereignty anti-class, me. Yes. And if I would be right there with you, sister. I mean, I, you know, and I wish I'm like, I wish I had this in my 20s. But then I think, oh, but in my 20s, I wasn't cycling, right?

So it's like I actually was like on the pill the whole time. So I wouldn't have been having any of these like cycles and connections to the moon. But it's so cool. Like I wish I had this back in my 20s. And I see, you know, these women now. that are that age and I do feel like, you know, this shit is not going to fly with them. They are much more conscious about endocrine disruptors, about food, about environment, about, you know what I mean? Like the same time I'm saying they're freezing their eggs and like, you know what I mean?

At the same time, it's like, you know, everybody wants like they want it all. What's with those young feminists? They want it all. They want it all. And that's that's okay. But, you know, I still think that it's like, I definitely see change on the horizon for sure, absolutely. And I do see even like in the world in terms of like mental health. Like one of the things that a lot of people talked about in the movie is one of the thing that the pill does is it like destroys your microbiome.

Okay. And so that gut health and the inflammation that the pill creates affects. mental health, right? So like that's a connection that nobody talked about, right? Like the gut brain connection, the microbiome connection, the mental health connection. People are waking up to that for sure. But, you know, I do see now even like, I think different approaches to mental health. And I think that people are looking at more of like lifestyle interventions. And lifestyle interventions can also work with reproductive health. And that's the thing. Like, you know, your period, It's not going to be like perfect like clockwork.

It's not going to be like, you know, regular and no cramps. You know, it's like the same thing as your birth. Like everyone's not going to have these like storybook labors, you know, they're going to be. And you need female wisdom. You need wisdom. You need midwifery and you need doulas and birth control doulas and lactation consultants. You need this like wisdom team to kind of navigate us through our physiology. and how to work with it.

That's a perfect place for me to say, like, thank you both for being part, you know, of starting this aspect of this revolution. It's really, really, it's an honor to speak to both of you and just get to know you better through the work that you're doing. And also, you know, Ricky, like I, you know, I grew up watching you. And it's so amazing to see the way you've really transformed yourself. Not that you needed transforming, but like such an amazing extra set of levels to the person. that you are. And it's so, it's so beautiful to see the two of you working together because I know

how important it is to have Jonathan as my partner. Like I'm, I'm only as good as the people who support me. But also, like, it's such an inspiration for me to see someone who's had success and who's been under such public scrutiny as you have, actually being a real person using your platform in such a beautiful way. So thank you so much. And I can only pray to have hair like you one day. So I'll, It looks good. It looks fantastic. It's looking good. Tell us where we can find all the good things.

Oh, God. Well, the only thing we can say we can offer is that we have a body literacy summit and Myam was our opening conversation. That was a really fun conversation. It's great. Really, really good. And that is going to be available on our website. It is 17 hours.

Yeah, it is. It's not even enough. Not even. It's just a different. of the iceberg. You can find that on our website, which is the business of. Dot life.

Awesome. So that we will have out in like a week. And the film we will have out next year. Well, we should hear soon. We cannot wait. We cannot wait. The business of. Dot life for everyone listening or watching,

we'll also link to it on the website under this podcast episode. Yeah. And we'll also link to sweetening the pill because I think it's important also as a resource. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so, so much, ladies. Thank you. It's such a pleasure. I really, I adore you.

Thank you. And I hope we continue these conversations, you know, in the future. Absolutely. Thank you both. That was Ricky and Abby. I have known Ricky since I was in high school because she was dating someone who was in a play called The Real Life Brady Bunch, which was directed by, oh, a little director called Jill Salloway. Oh, wow. Jill and Faith, directed and produced episodes of the Brady Bunch that they would then script and perform at the Geffen Theater, at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood. And I went 29 times because you'd see a different episode every time. And Ricky was dating one of the actors. And so we kind of like hung out, like, because I would go 29 times. And I was like that teenage girl on TV who was obsessed with weird theater.

So Ricky and I have known each other a very long time. And she's a very good person. And I'm very, very pleased that they spoke with us. And obviously the issue of, you know, women's health as it relates to the pill takes us into issues of women's rights and abortion and, you know, socioeconomic privilege. But I think that the impact on mental health of a very large prescription of a drug, which has implications for your mental health, is significant. And I think it deserves attention.

And that does not mean that people should not take the pill. It doesn't mean that it should not be available to populations that need, access to it. I also don't know about countries that make early abortions, you know, very much part of kind of primary care, as they describe. I don't know about that. What I do know is that women do tend to be on the receiving end, you know, of a lot of medical discussions and medical care in ways that may not always serve our best interests, especially when it relates to our mental health. And part of this is because of the patriarchy. I'm just going to let that sit. Part of it is because we've been left out of medical decision making, specifically for the last several hundred years.

That is changing. It needs to continue to change. But before the last 200 years or so, women's health care was in the hands of women. And yes, women died because people died. And women did not die because of women being in charge of their care. I appreciate men and all the things that they've done. but the advances in medicine and hygiene are extremely significant. What's more important is that we are returning now to an understanding of women's health as often being served well by women. And one of the ways that this continues to change is for you to know more about your body. And this goes for men and women.

My sons know what a period is. Do they love talking about it? No. Do I gross them out about it? I mean, they get grossed out by a lot of things that are not familiar to them. but I do not hide when I have my moon cycle. I do not leave things out for the whole universe, but I'm not ashamed of it.

I'm not ashamed of my moods because the two weeks, and as you get older, it gets harder, the two weeks leading up to my period are often very difficult. They often are. And what I do is I don't add extra stress to myself. I don't demand of myself things that I don't feel prepared. And that doesn't mean I lay in bed, but I get migraines with my cycle.

And my children know when Mommy has a migraine, she sometimes cannot tolerate their voices or anything visual. That's just my story. Do I feel like a fainting lady in the 1800s? Sometimes I get very debilitated by migraines. And yes, they are related to my menstrual cycle. Do I believe in taking birth control to avoid that? No.

Because what it is is my body's way of saying, this is a lot. And here are all the natural lifestyle things that I can do to make that time of the month easier, mostly not interacting with any other humans, specifically people that I might romantically be interested in. That doesn't sound like a fix. That slowing down sounds like the premise of the red tent.

Girlfriends of mine and I, who especially like went through homebirth together and like were part of like the whole parenting. We would love to only interact with each other for that week. Literally, we've said, why do I have to deal with all this people? Absolutely. I see that purpose. And that is not at all to condone. I'm feeling anger, the many, many, many, many places in this world where women's bodies are

denigrated and feared and punished simply for existing, nor is it to condone the policy of many countries to punish women for having bodies. But the notion of a revolution in the way we think about women's health is to try and honor our experience in ways that support, not only our When Mama's happy, everyone's happy. It's what I always used to remind my ex-husband while we were married. That means that the woman's mental health is often what does dictate the terms of a household. That's true because that is our domain. That's the moon.

It's the moon, as it were. Ask my am anything. Yeah. Our Ask My Am Anything question today comes from Erica from Nashville who asks, If I come from a family with mental health issues, does that mean I will have mental health issues? Great question. The short answer is probably, as we have talked about and we'll continue to talk about, mental health challenges are a combination of a genetic predisposition and an environmental set of

pressures or circumstances. And what we do know is that as we get more self-aware as a society, as we reduce the stigma of mental health more, and as we include in our education, of young people, the ability to learn about our bodies and ourselves and to speak freely about our identity, we absolutely are tipping the scales and will continue to tip the scales for those mental health challenges which we might inherit not being as significant for us. And while there are certain mental illnesses that have a stronger genetic component, and I'm not going to go into the, you know, kind of microbiology details of that. We do know that getting people, not even help, but education, you know, earlier rather than later, you know, we didn't even

used to talk about the mental health stuff in my family. It was either whispered or there was a euphemism, you know, for what was going on. And the fact that we don't have to do that anymore, I think is really, really great support for the notion that we do not have to suffer the way our parents or grandparents did. We've got a ways to go. And also, medication is so much more sophisticated than it was for our parents and grandparents. There are a lot of medications with far less side effects than there used to be. So if we do have mental health challenges, we also have the opportunity to live much, much richer and fuller and less problematic lives than our parents or grandparents did. So that hopefully is comforting. I'm no fun at cocktail parties when people are

Like, we have Parkinson's in my family. Am I going to get it? Like, that's a different conversation. But with mental health, much broader spectrum and the more things we do also to understand ourselves, the less likely those mental health kind of predispositions are going to catch up with us. What was the euphemism that your family used to use? Well, I had a great aunt who talked to cars. Did they talk back?

She was schizophrenic, you know. They didn't call it. They didn't know what it was. Like, they rarely spoke English. But, you know, it was always this kind of like, oh, the one who talked to cars. And it's like, that's, it wasn't that they were teasing her. But, like, that's what it was, you know. One of my cousins, his wife died in childbirth and their son was placed in an institution.

There had been oxygen deprivation. And this was the 40s and 50. You know, like, there was no conversation about that or about the impact on the other child who just lost his mother. You know, like, we didn't talk about those things. I mean, when I was a kid, you didn't even talk about cancer, you know. unless you whispered it. So a lot has changed. We just didn't know. I had a cousin who, when he was young, he was always talking to himself while we were playing. And we later realized that he had some challenges. But at that time, when we were eight and nine,

however many years ago that was, we just didn't know. No, we also didn't know about learning disabilities. They just called you dumb if you could understand something. Or the teachers were like, oh, this isn't for you. Let's just avoid that. We'll just go over. We'll send you all the way to high school, even though you don't have a mastery of reading and writing because nobody knew what to call it. Thankfully, that's changed. It's changing. It's changing. So if you want to ask Miami anything, go to Bialicbreakdown.com.

And you can sign up to date me, and then you can ask me anything you want. Not where you were going? Well, that's a different submission form. Hasn't been added to the website yet, but maybe that's a V2 version. the current version, B-I-A-L-I-K, breakdown.com, there is a section where you can submit a question. Also, that's V-3. That's V-3. Ask my anything.

Go to the website. Let's talk about you might need help if. You might need help if you don't know why you're on the pill. Meaning, you were told to go on the pill. The expression we kept using, you were put on the pill. You might want to explore it. And that's the help I'm talking about in this case. You might need help if you don't know how your natural hormone cycle actually works or how birth control alters that.

Now, I'm not telling you you need to be able to draw the curve of estrogen, lutenizing hormone, progesterate. It's a beautiful chart. I might have to post that on the website. It is one of we could also frame it above your head. We could just put it right behind here. I have it tattooed on my body and yours. But you don't have to be able to understand the chart. I'm not asking you to be a neuroscientist about it or an endocrinologist.

What I'm asking for you to know is that there are specific hormonal patterns that do change the way you think, the way your tummy functions, the way your mental health functions. All those things are normal because we are humans. That's what normal is. You might need help if you don't know what other options you have for birth control or mood control. If you don't know either of those things and you've been told the pill is the answer, please learn more. You may need help if you've been given a laundry list by a doctor, and it could be a woman doctor. Don't think just because you go to a woman doctor that everything's going to be okay. They are trained in the same facilities that male doctors are.

You may need help if you've been given a laundry list by a doctor about all of the reasons the pill is the best thing ever to happen, but you feel a little bit unsure. And you may decide that they're right, but if you have that feeling of like, what's really good? Really? you might want to explore that more. You also might need help if you have significant troubling mood swings, either on or off hormonal birth control, which leave you depressed, agitated, hostile, or violent for the weeks preceding your menstrual cycle. There are many people who have specific psychotic depression before their moon cycle starts. That's not PMS. There is a separate diagnosis for women who get a specific kind of psychotic depression. These are things.

you deserve to know about. That's what I have to say about that. Do you have anything else to say? I don't know if I want to know the answer to that. You might need help if you listen to Abby talking about menstrual information, which it sounds like there's a lot of data in there that most people have no idea about. And if you want more information about that data and how to find it, which I have absolutely no idea how to do, you might need help. Seems like Jonathan needs help. That's why I'm here, Maim. From my breakdown to the one that I hope you never have. See you next time.

It's my ambiolyx breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down.