Balance Is Not a Vibe: What This Docuseries Finally Told Women the Truth About

I recently watched the docuseries Balance: A Perimenopause Journey, and I felt something I wasn’t expecting:

Relief.

Rage.

Grief.

And a bone-deep sense of oh… so it wasn’t just me.

Because once you strip away the wellness noise, the contradictory advice, the shame disguised as “self-care,” and the decades of medical dismissal, one truth becomes painfully clear:

We are not failing perimenopause. The medical system is failing us.

Approximately 1.3 million women in the US enter menopause, every year. And despite the fact that it affects over a billion women worldwide, only 1% of women's health research funding (<$300 million) is dedicated to menopause and perimenopause. Meanwhile, ED research receives around $2.8 billion!

The Problem Isn’t Our Bodies. It’s the Information.

If you’ve ever tried to “research” perimenopause online, you already know the chaos:

• Estrogen is dangerous.

• Estrogen is lifesaving.

• Progesterone fixes everything.

• Progesterone ruins everything.

• Magnesium is a miracle.

• Magnesium is the devil.

And somewhere between PubMed, TikTok, and a gorgeous AI mansplainer discussing hormones to an auditorium full of smiling Barbie's, women are left thinking:

Why can’t I figure this out?

Because the system was never designed to support informed women at midlife.

Confusion isn’t a personal failure. It’s the predictable outcome of underfunded research, outdated medical training, and a healthcare model that treats women as an afterthought.

Perimenopause Is Hormonal Chaos

Let’s clear up one of the biggest lies right now:

Perimenopause is not a gradual hormonal decline.

It is a volatile zone of wild hormonal fluctuations.

Estrogen spikes, then crashes.

Progesterone disappears.

Testosterone drops.

Cortisol (stress hormone) runs the show.

That’s why:

• Symptoms are inconsistent

• Labs look “normal” while you feel unrecognizable

• One solution works one month and fails the next

This isn’t drama. This is biology doing parkour.

And because medicine loves clean lines and fixed markers, this messy middle is minimized, misdiagnosed, or brushed off as anxiety, depression, stress, or burnout.

Menopause Is One Day. ONE.

Menopause itself is one single day:

The one-year anniversary of your last menstruation.

That’s it.

Everything before that is peri-menopause (35-55).

Everything after is post-menopause (55+).

Yet we talk about menopause as if it’s a brief inconvenience - when in reality, a growing and aging female population will spend >30% of their lives in menopause transition.

These figures underline exactly why this topic isn't niche - it's public health scale. One would think that it should terrify big pharma and policymakers. But because we've been trained to "just deal with it", they sleep fine. Do you?

Hormones Affect Your Entire Body - Not Just Hot Flashes

There are estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone receptors throughout your entire body AND brain.

Which means menopause affects:

• Mental health

• Sexual health

• Cognition

• Bones and joints

• Muscles

• Gut

• Bladder and kidneys

• Cardiovascular system

It is not “just hot flashes and night sweats.” STOP LYING TO US!

What Happens After Menopause (If You Don’t Replace Hormones)

Post-menopausal hormone levels:

• Estrogen: <1%

• Progesterone: 0%

• Testosterone: <50% of pre-menopausal levels

FOREVER. Unless replaced.

These losses are associated with:

• Increased anxiety and depression

• Worsening or triggering of bipolar disorders

• Cognitive decline, Dementia and Alzheimer’s

• Osteoporosis and brittle bones

• Cardiovascular disease (the #1 killer of women in the U.S.)

And here’s a stat we should all be screaming about:

The highest suicide rate for women

occurs between ages 45–54.

This is not coincidence. This is physiology meeting neglect.

Follow the Money (and the Silence)

Billions of dollars have been poured into researching erectile dysfunction in men. Prescriptions are handed out easily. There are even mail-order services designed to protect the male ego with discreet packaging and no awkward conversations.

Male sexual performance has been treated as a population-level medical emergency.

But has anyone stopped to ask women about their sexual health?

Vaginal dryness. Thinning tissue. Painful intercourse. Chronic UTIs. Loss of libido.

...........Crickets.

Women are told to use lubricant. To try to relax. To accept that sex is just… different now. Meanwhile, her partner has a magic pill.

This isn’t just a sexual health gap. It’s a relational one. Because intimacy doesn’t disappear in a vacuum - it erodes over time, under pain, dismissal, shame, and silence. When one partner is medically supported to maintain sexual function while the other is expected to endure discomfort or disappear from the equation, the outcome is predictable.

Is it really any wonder that divorce rates in midlife are second only to young, first marriages?

This isn’t about libido. It’s about equity. It’s about quality of life.

And the inability of the medical system to even consider it, speaks volumes.

The Study That Silenced a Generation

The 2001 Women’s Health Initiative/NIH study changed everything - and not in a good way.

It used:

• Estrogen derived from mare equine urine (not the body-identical estrogen used today)

• Participants with an average age of 62 (all overweight, many smokers, many with pre-existing cardiac episodes and cancer diagnoses)

• A demographic far outside today’s HRT target window (35–50)

And yet, 25 years later, that single study still dictates care.

As a result:

• Less than 4% of women in the U.S. in pre/peri are on HRT

• An entire generation has been medically disadvantaged

We don’t do this with blood pressure. We didn’t freeze cardiology research after one outdated study.

But we did it with women’s hormones. And Boomers across the globe have suffered in silence.

There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Solution

Hormone treatment is an individualized cocktail.

Not a vibe. Not a yoga class. Not a supplement stack.

And let’s be honest about another problem:

Gynecologists are mostly trained to care for ovaries - not brains, bones, hearts, or metabolic systems.

So why are we relying on them as the sole gatekeepers of our midlife health?

Furthermore, on average, medical students receive less than 1 hour of education on menopause, leaving most health-care providers alarmingly ill-equipped to support women during this dangerous transition.

The “Try Harder” Myth Is Violence in Disguise

I despise the lie we sell women: That if we just meditate more, get better rest, lift heavier, eat cleaner, drink less, breathe deeper, take supplements, or try a different antidepressant - everything will be fine.

That narrative isn’t empowering. It’s dismissive. Lifestyle matters, sure, but it cannot override endocrine collapse.

Testosterone: The Forbidden Conversation

There is no FDA-approved testosterone for women.

Yet women taking low doses of testosterone consistently report improvements in:

• Mood

• Energy

• Joint pain

• Sleep

• Libido

• Bone density

So why aren’t we studying it?

Because when doctors say “there’s no data,” what they really mean is:

There’s no funding. There’s no profit. There’s no priority.

Muscle, Frailty, and the Longevity Cliff

During menopause:

• Fat mass increases

• Muscle mass decreases

And muscle is the organ of longevity. Loss of estrogen and testosterone accelerates muscle loss, lowers resting metabolic rate, and pushes women toward bone density issues like osteoporosis and irreparable frailty - unless we intervene early.

So where’s the public health campaign starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon about it?

Truth is: frailty is not destiny. It’s neglect.

The Toolkit (Because Rage Alone Isn’t Enough)

A real menopause toolkit should include:

• Nutrition: bone & muscle support, Vitamin D, magnesium glycinate

• Exercise: ~5 hrs cardio/week, ~3 hrs resistance training

• Stress reduction: joy, laughter, creativity, connection

• Sleep: 7–8 hrs/nightly with limited alcohol

• Pharmacology: hormones and other evidence-based therapies, not instead of hormones - alongside them.

Why This Matters to Me

I saw myself in Heather Badal’s story - the voices telling her she didn’t matter, that everyone would be better off without her. I heard those same lies.

But I refuse to let menopause stack more cards against me while I’m still trying to raise my daughters. No one warned us that the most dangerous period of a woman’s life wouldn’t be adolescence, pregnancy, or even childbirth - but midlife.

And they most certainly did not tell us it could dismantle our mental health, hollow out our bones, break our sleep, steal our muscle, destabilize our hearts, or convince us that the world would be better off without us.

That silence wasn’t accidental. It was systemic.

The One Superpower No One Mentions

Here’s the part they most certainly, will never put in the pamphlets:

Menopause comes with an extraordinary, hard-won superpower - you have zero fucks left to give.

Not in a reckless way. In a clarity way.

You stop contorting yourself to be palatable. You stop apologizing for taking up space in exam rooms. You stop accepting dismissal disguised as empathy.

That loss of tolerance? It’s not bitterness. It’s discernment.

You have lived long enough in your body to know when something is wrong. You have survived enough cycles - puberty, pregnancies, losses, deliveries, recoveries, caregiving - to recognize when you’re being patronized instead of treated.

So let this be your motivation:

• Ask better questions.

• Demand evidence.

• Request referrals.

• Change providers.

• Say no to being told this is “just stress” or “just aging” or “just something you have to live with.”

Because you don’t.

That zero-fucks energy isn’t a personality flaw - it’s your nervous system finally done negotiating with neglect.

And if the medical system hasn’t caught up yet? Good.

Women in midlife are no longer asking nicely.