“Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.” Anne Wilson Schaef
What do you do when your life looks perfect on the outside, but inside you’re miserable and even depressed?
It’s an issue that impacts millions of women at midlife. In fact, midlife women have the highest rate of depression for any group based on age and gender. According to the CDC about 1 in 8 women between 40 and 59 have depression.
Perimenopause plus stressors at midlife such as a health crisis, divorce, empty nest, elderly parents, and striving for work-life balance create a perfect storm which can trigger depression.
Rather than then dealing with our painful emotions or asking for help many women survive by creating and hiding behind a perfect-looking life. This strategy can backfire leaving you feeling trapped and alone rather than free and connected. Today’s show will help you stop hiding and starting healing.
You’ll discover:
• How trauma can create a survival strategy that results in a perfect-looking life
• The core traits of the syndrome of perfectly hidden, trauma-based depression
• How classic depression differs from perfectly hidden depression
The five stages of healing that can lead to greater self-acceptance and self-compassion.
• How to love your perfectly imperfect self
• How to know your Spiritual Divinity
• How to find and follow your second calling
More About My Guests

Ruth Anderson
Dr. Ruth Anderson is an award-winning, international best-selling author and founder of Enlightened World Network. Retired after a satisfying and worthwhile career in special education and public school administration, Ruth embraced her second calling, that of a spiritual counselor, promoter, and producer for light workers. Enlightened World Network provides a safe spiritual community for speakers to share their messages and participants to learn and experience transformational growth.

Ruth Anderson

Margaret Rutherford, PhD
Margaret Robinson Rutherford, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice with more than twenty-five years of experience treating individuals and couples for depression, anxiety, and relationship issues. She also offers her compassionate and commonsense therapeutic style to the general public through her popular blog and podcasts, with the goal of decreasing the stigma around psychological treatment. Her podcasts and shows on perfectly hidden depression (PHD) have reached thousands, as she sheds light on this overlooked presentation of the disease.
