Apparently This Is How We’re Coping 🔥

If you’re new here, welcome to Girlhood — the group chat we should have had all along, where we talk openly about our bodies, the questions we whisper about, and the everyday moments that make us pause, laugh, or rethink life. This week’s issue is about how we cope when the world feels heavy, and how much of that coping is quieter, more bodily, and more ordinary than we tend to give credit for. Let’s dive in!

Hi friend,

On Rescripted’s weekly standup this week, we acknowledged what everyone’s been feeling: things are heavy right now. With everything happening in Minnesota, layered on top of the general state of the world, it’s hard not to walk around with a quiet, background sadness — the kind you don’t always have language for, but definitely feel.

Then, in that same meeting, we pulled up analytics, which is where things took a (kind of hilarious) turn.

Our top articles right now are about orgasms, vibrators, ultra-thin condoms, and peeing during sex. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry — and yes, we did laugh, partly because it felt absurd and partly because it felt painfully accurate.

At first, the contrast was jarring. But the longer I sat with it, the more it made sense. When everything feels overwhelming, abstract, and wildly out of our control, we reach for what’s closest and most immediate: the body, sensation, and questions that start with is this normal? and end with please tell me I’m not alone.

Sexual health content, it turns out, isn’t just about sex. It’s reassurance. It’s grounding. It’s a way of checking back in with ourselves when the world feels chaotic and unrecognizable: proof that even in hard moments, our bodies still exist and still want connection, comfort, and maybe five minutes of relief from the constant dread.

I don’t think people are reading these articles because they don’t care about what’s happening. I think they’re reading them because they care so much and need somewhere personal and human to land, even briefly.

Sometimes coping looks like grief or rage, and sometimes it looks like Googling why you pee when you orgasm and feeling deeply, embarrassingly relieved by the answer.

That’s not unserious; it’s human nature.

🔍 Ask Clara: How to cope when the world is on fire

🍒 What Else Are Our Mammograms Trying to Tell Us?

If you’ve been here a while, you know I’ve spent my fair share of time staring at patient portals, waiting for test results to populate: fertility labs, hormone panels, bloodwork that was supposed to explain why something felt off. It's that specific kind of waiting (you know the type) where you’re still functioning, parenting, answering emails, but also mentally preparing for every possible outcome, all at once. When the word normal finally appears, there’s relief, sure, followed quickly by exhaustion — because if everything’s normal, then why does it feel like it took this much effort to get there?

Being proactive about your health, especially as a woman, is rarely just one test. It’s usually a series of them, spaced out over time, and they rarely tell the full story on their own.

Which is why a recent study stopped me in my tracks. Researchers found that routine mammograms may also reveal early signs of cardiovascular disease — specifically, calcium buildup in the arteries of the breast, something radiologists can see but don’t typically report because it isn’t linked to breast cancer. (Of course. Because women’s bodies are nothing if not efficient multitaskers.)

Here’s the part that feels both fascinating and infuriating: heart disease is still the number one killer of women, yet women are more likely to be diagnosed later and have worse outcomes. Not because we don’t show up for care (we do), but because the tools used to assess risk often underestimate us. Our symptoms are messier, our timelines don’t match the studies, and our bodies don’t follow the script.

But this new research suggests that information we’re already generating — from mammograms we’re already getting! — could help flag risk earlier, without another appointment or another scan, just a fuller picture using data that already exists. Which makes the real question less about what women should be doing, and more about whether the system is ready to connect the dots it already has… and maybe, finally, pay attention.

🔍 Ask Clara: How do heart attacks present in women?

⛔ The Best Postpartum Advice I Didn’t Expect

Don’t @ me for this, but the best thing that happened to me this most recent postpartum wasn’t a supplement, a system, or a “game-changing” routine I would later forget to keep up with. It was something my Italian, no-bullshit aunt said to me while I was very much postpartum — tired, hormonal, and trying to be responsible about my mental health.

At some point, almost casually, I floated the thought: What if I get postpartum anxiety again? I wasn’t panicking. I was just mentally opening the tab, the way so many of us do when we’re trying to stay one step ahead of our own bodies.

She didn’t flinch or ask follow-up questions or suggest we keep an eye on it. She just looked at me and said, “Stop thinking about that. You don’t have that.” And somehow, that was the end of it. No checklist. No monitoring. No circling back later. Just certainty.

And honestly, it worked. I didn’t get postpartum anxiety — or maybe I did briefly, in a way that passed before it could turn into a storyline I carried around with me. Either way, it didn’t become something I worried myself into.

I thought about this again recently while watching Marcello Hernandez’s new Netflix special, where he jokes that he has ADHD, except his mom told him he didn’t, so he didn’t. End of discussion. No label spiral. Life just kept moving.

It made me wonder if, in our very real and necessary effort to name and normalize mental health, we’ve also lost a bit of trust in ourselves — the ability to feel off without assuming it’s permanent, to have a hard week without forecasting a hard year, to let certain things pass through us instead of defining us.

This isn’t anti-therapy or anti-awareness. It’s just a simpler question about balance: whether everything needs a name right away, or whether some things need time, rest, and maybe a little less attention. In this case, it was someone I trust looking at me, completely unfazed, saying, “You’re fine,” and me choosing not to argue.

🔍 Ask Clara: What’s normal postpartum anxiety, and when should you get help?

🙆🏻‍♀️ The Best Workout Is Still the One You’ll Actually Do

Speaking of arguing… Like everyone else at the peak of COVID, my husband and I bought a Peloton bike with the purest of intentions. We’d ride every day from the comfort of our own home, it would pay for itself in less than a year, and we’d become the kind of people who casually referenced our ride streaks in conversation. 

Five years later, the bike has technically paid for itself — thanks entirely to my cardio-loving husband — while I’ve mostly used it as a very expensive coat hanger. Meanwhile, I exercise at least four days a week, rotating between Pilates, strength training, and walking, just not on the piece of equipment that once symbolized my fitness aspirations.

For a long time, I framed this as some kind of personal failure, as if not loving cardio meant I wasn’t doing exercise right. Which is why two recent studies felt unexpectedly reassuring. One found that even a brief burst of intense exercise (as little as ten minutes!) releases molecules into the bloodstream that help switch on DNA repair and shut down cancer growth signals. Another showed that exercise variety, not just volume, is linked to a lower risk of premature death. 

Translation: your body doesn’t actually care how you move, only that you do.

There’s something deeply freeing about that. Permission, maybe, to stop forcing ourselves into workout identities that don’t fit, or chasing whatever form of movement happens to be most optimized, viral, or aesthetically pleasing at the moment. Consistency, it turns out, doesn’t come from discipline alone; it comes from enjoyment, from choosing movement that feels sustainable rather than aspirational.

We already spend so much energy trying to “hack” our health. Maybe this is one place we can ease up. If you love running, run. If you hate it, don’t. If Pilates feels grounding and walking clears your head, that counts — apparently, it all does.

It makes me wonder if the healthiest shift isn’t actually exercising more, but judging ourselves a little less.

xo,
Kristyn

🔍 Ask Clara: What are the long-term health benefits of exercise?