In this episode of Real Lives of TBI Wives, Erika Brouillette sits down with natural health practitioner Kate McDowell of Aligned Natural Health to explore a question many caregivers silently ask themselves: “Is it perimenopause, or is it my husband?”

For women caring for husbands with traumatic brain injuries, life often means living in constant survival mode. The chronic stress, emotional load, and mental exhaustion of caregiving can deeply impact a woman’s nervous system and hormones, making it difficult to know what symptoms are coming from perimenopause and hormonal changes versus the effects of long term stress.

Kate shares her personal health journey after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 22, and how she eventually became symptom-free through holistic health approaches, nutrition, and nervous system work. Now, she helps women navigate issues like perimenopause symptoms, adrenal stress, hormone imbalance, emotional overwhelm, and caregiver burnout using neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and subconscious mindset work.

Together, Erika and Kate unpack how living in fight-or-flight caregiving mode can disrupt hormones, impact adrenal health, and intensify common symptoms like mood swings, rage, fatigue, brain fog, weight gain, irregular cycles, and anxiety.

They also explore how subconscious patterns and emotional stress responses can shape how we react to our environment and how learning to regulate the nervous system can help women reclaim a sense of control, calm, and emotional balance in the midst of caregiving.

If you’re a caregiver wondering whether your hormones, stress, or survival mode are driving the changes in your body and emotions, this episode will help you understand what may be happening beneath the surface and remind you that you’re not alone.

If you’d like to book a consultation with Kate, contact her at [email protected]

Join Kate at Why It’s Easy to Show Up for Others but Hard to Show Up for Yourself https://meetu.ps/e/PQcTm/vvWVw/i