full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alexandra Sacks: A new way to think about the transition to motherhood

Unscramble the Blue Letters


This — this is an unrealistic expectation of what the tirtoanisn to motherhood feels like. And it wasn't just her. I was getting calls with qutoneiss like this from hundreds of weomn, all concerned that something was wonrg, because they couldn't measure up. And I didn't know how to help them, because tlielng them that they weren't sick wasn't making them feel better. I wanted to find a way to normalize this transition, to explain that dscomoirft is not always the same thing as disease.

So I set out to learn more about the psychology of mrhteooohd. But there actually wasn't much in the medical textbooks, because doctors mostly write about disease. So I turned to aolhrogontpy. And it took me two years, but in an out-of-print essay written in 1973 by Dana Raphael, I fainlly found a helpful way to frame this conversation: merscanctee. It's not a coincidence that "matrescence" sounds like "adolescence." Both are times when body morphing and hormone shifting lead to an upheaval in how a person feels emotionally and how they fit into the world. And like adolescence, matrescence is not a disease, but since it's not in the medical vocabulary, since doctors aren't educating people about it, it's being confused with a more serious ctioidnon called postpartum depression.

Open Cloze


This — this is an unrealistic expectation of what the __________ to motherhood feels like. And it wasn't just her. I was getting calls with _________ like this from hundreds of _____, all concerned that something was _____, because they couldn't measure up. And I didn't know how to help them, because _______ them that they weren't sick wasn't making them feel better. I wanted to find a way to normalize this transition, to explain that __________ is not always the same thing as disease.

So I set out to learn more about the psychology of __________. But there actually wasn't much in the medical textbooks, because doctors mostly write about disease. So I turned to ____________. And it took me two years, but in an out-of-print essay written in 1973 by Dana Raphael, I _______ found a helpful way to frame this conversation: ___________. It's not a coincidence that "matrescence" sounds like "adolescence." Both are times when body morphing and hormone shifting lead to an upheaval in how a person feels emotionally and how they fit into the world. And like adolescence, matrescence is not a disease, but since it's not in the medical vocabulary, since doctors aren't educating people about it, it's being confused with a more serious _________ called postpartum depression.

Solution


  1. telling
  2. questions
  3. discomfort
  4. condition
  5. wrong
  6. finally
  7. motherhood
  8. anthropology
  9. matrescence
  10. transition
  11. women

Original Text


This — this is an unrealistic expectation of what the transition to motherhood feels like. And it wasn't just her. I was getting calls with questions like this from hundreds of women, all concerned that something was wrong, because they couldn't measure up. And I didn't know how to help them, because telling them that they weren't sick wasn't making them feel better. I wanted to find a way to normalize this transition, to explain that discomfort is not always the same thing as disease.

So I set out to learn more about the psychology of motherhood. But there actually wasn't much in the medical textbooks, because doctors mostly write about disease. So I turned to anthropology. And it took me two years, but in an out-of-print essay written in 1973 by Dana Raphael, I finally found a helpful way to frame this conversation: matrescence. It's not a coincidence that "matrescence" sounds like "adolescence." Both are times when body morphing and hormone shifting lead to an upheaval in how a person feels emotionally and how they fit into the world. And like adolescence, matrescence is not a disease, but since it's not in the medical vocabulary, since doctors aren't educating people about it, it's being confused with a more serious condition called postpartum depression.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
postpartum depression 2


Important Words


  1. adolescence
  2. anthropology
  3. body
  4. called
  5. calls
  6. coincidence
  7. concerned
  8. condition
  9. confused
  10. dana
  11. depression
  12. discomfort
  13. disease
  14. doctors
  15. educating
  16. emotionally
  17. essay
  18. expectation
  19. explain
  20. feel
  21. feels
  22. finally
  23. find
  24. fit
  25. frame
  26. helpful
  27. hormone
  28. hundreds
  29. lead
  30. learn
  31. making
  32. matrescence
  33. measure
  34. medical
  35. morphing
  36. motherhood
  37. normalize
  38. people
  39. person
  40. postpartum
  41. psychology
  42. questions
  43. raphael
  44. set
  45. shifting
  46. sick
  47. sounds
  48. telling
  49. textbooks
  50. times
  51. transition
  52. turned
  53. unrealistic
  54. upheaval
  55. vocabulary
  56. wanted
  57. women
  58. world
  59. write
  60. written
  61. wrong
  62. years