These stories were collected as part of my project “Honouring the Stories of Menopause” with much appreciated support from Tasgadh the Traditional Arts fund.
Rachael
A significant thing about Rachael’s journey into the second half of life and menopause was making the decision to not dye her hair.
She has beautiful long dark wavy hair and she had already being dying it for a while.
She decided to go for a more natural look with less environmental impact than using chemical dyes.
She knew this decision would be a controversial one not least because her mother has always been determined to look as young and glamorous as she possibly could.
For her daughter to be aging visibly has been challenging to her and she has been quite vocal about that. Never-the- less Rachael persisted.
She suspected other people might also have some kind of reaction to her decision to embrace aging the way she chose to. For her it was a deliberate choice to work with her body as it was and not cover up what was happening to look better, younger, more put together.
She went so far as to put a manifesto on her Facebook page.
On it she explained that she would no longer dye her hair and her reasons.
She actually asked people not to comment about this decision when they encountered her.
However they still do. Sometimes it can be quite hurtful
Rachael is definitely now in perimenopause but also has a number of existing health conditions.
One of the challenges of this time in her life is that it is so hard to separate out what is menopause and what is not.
Her long list of symptoms include chronic fatigue, muscle pain, tinnitus, arthritis, brain fog bloating, acid reflux and more.
Her job is very stressful and now with all these symptoms life feels challenging.
She often wonders how she is supposed to manage it all and where to turn for help…..
Babs
Babs is 57 now.
25 years ago in her early 30s she had a job in a big contact centre and was very busy and stressed.
She wasn’t feeling too good. Because it was a medical insurance company she was entitled to free health care.
One day her boss asked her to lunch and started asking some questions that Babs thought were a bit intrusive.
He asked her how she was. At one point he asked what age her mother was when she had her menopause.
She was taken aback. It turned out that her boss recognised aspects of Bab’s health that were similar to that of his wife who had experienced menopause unexpectedly early.
After that converstion Babs went for a check up and some hormone tests.
Her symptoms included acne, a rash on her upper shoulder and neck, aches and pains, bad sleep and nightmares. She also experienced irregular and painful periods
When the doctor gave Babs her results the he appearded a bit shocked. He said he’d never seen hormone levels like it. She was referred to a female gynaecologist who informed her that her chances of conceiving a child were less than 5%. To have any chance of having a child she would need to take drugs and start right away. But she didn’t have a partner. It was not a possibility for her at that time.
She still had periods at that time.
When Babs visited her mother, with whom she had a difficult relationship, Bab’s mother noticed her acne and said “What’s wrong with you? You are a mess.” When Babs explained her mother went on to say that she had also had an early menopause. She also added. “But if God wants you to have children you will have children”.
Babs found this very unhelpful.
What Babs did next was to throw herself even more into her career. She tried taking hormone treatment but she reacted badly to it and she had to come off it.
She continued to have sporadic, periods without ovulation for the next 7 years.
Babs didn’t have anyone to talk to about it . She didn’t know anyone who she thought would understand.
Her career took off but looking back she sees now that she made some poor relationship decisions during that time. She was desperate to feel something and in the process lost a friend of 20 years.
Working in a mostly male environment and being a successful career woman it was assumed that she had chosen not to have children. Sometimes she found herself in some conflict with women who needed time off at Christmas, because they had families.
For 23 years she never spoke about it. In her words she bottled up her grief all that time until she she found herself doing a counselling course.
It was only then she realised how deeply she had buried her feelings about the end of her fertility.
Babs wants women to ask their mothers and families about their menopause experience so they don’t make assumptions or take their own fertility for granted.
She wants more women to be better informed to make choices about having children or not in a way that she could not.
She had a partial menopause at 32 . It was complete by 38.
She is not ashamed of her story rather she is proud that she has made a good life for herself .
She really wishes rather that other women be spared the sense of loss she has experienced.
Babs has asked me to communicate that you never know someone’s story about menopause or having children or anything else. That being the case so she asks us all to bear that in mind and tp be gentle with each other always.
Jess
Jess is 47 and is currently training to become an allied health professional, doing a course she loves.
Recently she had to take a year out of her training though because her health has been so affected by the symptoms peri-menopause.
For four and a half years she has experienced : heavy bleeding, hot flushes, anxiety, and sleep issues.
She also suffers from fibromyalgia which causes her to have severe pain and fatigue.
She has tried many times to get help to resolve these issues.
When she asked for a test to see how close she might be to the Menopause she was refused.
The GP kept saying her symptoms were due to her mental health.
Later she was told that tests for women over 45 are unreliable and so she still isn’t sure how near she is to Menopause and how long her symptoms might continue..
Over the last 4 and half years Jess has been on many different combinations of hormone treatment.
For instance she was given the coil but in her words “that was a disaster” She experienced dizzy spells which were said to be due to the fibroids- but they only started after the coil had been fitted.
She also tried oestrogen patches but that was awful.
Last year she had the coil removed so she could more easily keep track of what her cycles were doing- it did help, but she has experienced erratic bleeding since.
During the time Jess was on the coil she also began using estrogen patches.
These had a huge impact of these on her whole system. So much so that sometimes she felt so raw it was like having no skin covering her body.
It was a similar experience when she tried any form of progesterone with estrogen spray.
She says that when she had the oestrogen spray on its own it was great, but when she had to take the progesterone with it it felt as if her whole personality changed.
She’s been pleading for body identical hormones because she hopes that they may offer a solution but the waiting list is so long.
She hoped that by taking progesterone vaginally she might be able to tolerate it better.
Her GP was not keen to prescribe it so she ended up getting into debt to pay for a private menopause consultation. Unfortunately she still found she had a strong adverse reaction to it. She found herself £230 and still no further forward in restoring her health and wellbeing.
Jess’s experience of menopause difficult as it already is, is also being affected by a lifetime of struggling with mental health issues.
She has done so much work over the years and achieved so much to become as well as she is.
Now she is aware that somehow her history of suffering from mental ill health is actually working against her at this time of her life.
She feels as if her physical symptoms are not being taken seriously.
Many times instead of receiving the understanding she needs she feels like she is being gaslit.
Working as much as she can with her doctor she has now had to make the decision to take her health into her own hands.
She does own research online, experiments with dosages, and finds useful help in Facebook groups because the medical help she can access is simply not enough.
Between the impact of her symptoms and the time involved making calls trying to resolve her situation she has had times where she has barely gone out.
Now she has now stopped the Hormone therapy she was on and although she still experiences debilitating symptoms when there are big fluctuations in her natural hormones, she has learned to recognise them for what they are, which helps manage them.
Jess says if had the resources to get private health care to help with her symptoms she would but simply can’t afford it.
What she would really like is for someone with the right expertise to look at her overall health history and assess what is going on now.
She would love to understand the role her hormones are playing in both her physical and mental health. Not only now but throughout her life.
For example she started having hot flushes at the age of 13. All her adult life.
What was going on there? She knows her height has become shorter by a total of 5cm.
Could that be something that’s related to the symptoms she is experiencing?
She knows her granny, her mum and her sister all had a really hard time with the menopause, struggling for years without getting the help they needed.
She also knows that her class and family background, her lack of privilege has had an impact on her life experience, her health and her ability to access the health care she needs.
Even the cost of getting to wellbeing classes in Edinburgh such as yoga and meditation group is prohibitive. To go regularly enough to really make a big difference costs more money than most people can afford.
A major effect of Jess’s perimenopause symptoms on her life is that after many years of working to heal from past experiences and to stabilise her mental health that progress now feels under threat.
When she had to stop her studies as a trainee health practitioner she felt like everything was being taken away from her.
At one point she felt she had to even step back from healthy relationships in her life just so she could focus on sorting out her health.
This proved to be socially isolating and wasn’t good for her mental health.
At times it has felt like life is just too hard, even not worth living, but she keeps going.
She loves her work and she wants to get back to it. She knows she has the skills to help others.
She has tried many ways over a long period of time to regain her wellbeing.
This is the main priority in her life now.
She wants to regain her physical health and strengthen her mental health.
And she wants that for other women too.
She wants help to be available that deals with the whole experience any woman is having at Menopause.
For women who have experienced mental health issues she feels they should be treated more gently and sympathetically.
With a holistic approach.
What she wishes for herself and for women like her is to have practitioners available who can take these complex and debilitating physical and emotional symptoms seriously, and help women find the solutions they need.
She feels strongly that it’s important that it is understood more generally that people can and do recover from long term mental health conditions, and this needs to be acknowledged by health professionals.
Having worked so hard to be well after so many years of living with mental illness, Jess finally feels her adult life is really just beginning in many ways.
The frustration she has experienced from being constantly dismissed has enabled her to stop a lifetime of people-pleasing and allowed her to experience the appropriate anger she feels.
Coming to terms with her feelings through this process has helped her to better understand and accept these emotions as a normal part of being human.
She continues to become more assertive and to work on putting healthy boundaries in place in different aspects of her life.
A book that she found really helpful with her thinking about all this and which might be helpful to other women is “Women Who Run with the Wolves – Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman.” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
She looks forward to coming out the other end into a new, hopeful and exciting phase of her life.
Orla Beaton “Shedding Skins”
Initiating into the realm of menopause Is not unlike our teenage years
We look forward into the unknown With wide eyes, curiosity, and trepidation What will the landscape look like? Who will I become?
Instead of letting go of childhood We are shedding skins
Grown over half a century
Perhaps our nest is emptying
Or suddenly we feel our mortality Cutting through our blind fold
Perhaps that great calling is no longer A quiet whispering but a great
Thundering whack at the front door Perhaps the great obstacles are
No longer mountains to climb but Overgrown plants to gracefully push aside To reveal a vast open space
As wide as your eyes can see
Full of unknowns yes
But also, plentiful possibility
Alight in the glistening ocean
The dart of the dragonfly
The haunting seal cry
And the arms of connection
Around every corner
Holding you until you land
Securely someplace new
On your own two feet
Ready to begin again
© orlabeaton
Kirsty McNeil Celebrating my Menopause!
In my mid-thirties when Docs started mentioning the menopause, I thought och that’s a long, long way off! I’d more than enough going on with my health to have to deal with that too! Yip my menopause could wait a couple of decades. But, as usual, the Universe and my body had other plans and at the age of 46 I found out I was menopausal! Was I upset or horrified? Yes, I was angry that Docs had failed to realise that several my health issues were because I was peri menopausal. Mostly thought I thought hurrah, sweet, sweet hurrah! I was able to join a lot of dots about my health and was lucky to reach the menopause and be very, very relieved.
With a bit of time to learn about it I’m now at the stage of celebrating my menopause. We don’t do in Western culture instead relegating menopausal and post-menopausal women to the categories of wrinkly, old and invisible. Some cultures celebrate this respecting and honour menopausal and postmenopausal women’s wisdom and experience. In the UK we are starting to talk more openly about the menopause, but the focus is often on the down sides of it: hot flushes, weight gain, mood swings etc. Yes, I’ve symptoms, which are a downright pain in the arse but there are a lot of positives. We need to talk about and engage with these rather than see it as a time to dread and suffer. For me the menopause is liberating.
It is liberating first and obviously because there are no more bloody periods! This was a big, big bonus for me! After five years of horrendous and unpredictable periods I was happy to kiss goodbye to these bad boys. There is a freedom when you are not tied down by the monthly curse. Honestly throw away your Moon cups, sanitary towels and painkillers. I feel emotionally lighter and physically lighter from not having to carry supplies all times in case of a surprise visit. No more do I have to plan my life around my period. No more worrying about cramp or blood arriving during a social event, an important exam or more importantly on a hot date! What a relief!
Next up is the big bad loss of oestrogen! For me this is another thing to kiss goodbye to. Known as the nurturing or caring hormone when it decreases it is an eye-opener. My life is changing! I am learning, at long last, to put myself first. It’s not that I’ve stopped caring, I’m just rebalancing! Reducing the amount of care and effort I put into others and increasing how much I put into me. Realising you don’t need to respond to others needs first is, quite frankly, amazing! Why on earth wasn’t I brought up to live my life like this? I’ve cut down on how much I worry about everyone else first and the amount of crap I take from folk. This is also known as no longer giving a fuck! There is a reason many menopausal women start to rethink their relationships and alter their dynamics within them; we no longer give a sweet fuck!
No longer giving a fuck has translated into my clothes tastes too. I now celebrate colour and (mostly) whatever I want to wear (somethings are a work in progress). Now it’s pretty much anything but the black I used to hide in. If it clashes, who cares (gives a fuck)? Why did I stop wearing dungarees after the age of 8? So comfy! And patchwork which I’d have not been seen dead in a decade ago, all over it now, love it. Mainly this comes from stopping worrying and bending to society’s (and by that, I mean patriarchal) expectations on how we should look.
This can also involve shaving and hair removal which I’ve stopped! I wonder now why I ever started it! It’s all natural and freeing. The time I wasted plucking my eyebrows when it turns out there was nothing wrong with them! There’s no need to worry about hairy legs in the brief Scottish summer, or if someone suggests a swim. My legs, bikini area and eyebrows look glorious. I’ve saved time and money without the need for razors, creams and gels.
Another benefit from being menopausal is longer requiring a supply of sanitary products, painkillers, iron supplements and let’s be honest toilet roll. The amount of bog roll I went through each month because of bleeding and the upset stomach that came with it (we never talk about that). I’ve cut down my time, in shops and on the loo, and my spending, bonuses!
So, I celebrate this liberated, putting me first, menopausal me! With my freedom and extra time and money I am deciding what I want to do next? It’s exciting there’s so much to choose. I am rediscovering my voice and using it a lot less apologetically due to the giving of less fucks. I am connecting with other women and celebrating our power. Of course, sharing our menopause experiences is brilliant too! I also created a menopausal gift list for my friends and family because we all should celebrate menopausal women!
Fiona
Fiona was in her early 30s and two years into a second and very happy marriage with a man she adored and they were trying to have a baby.
When they had hormone tests to explore their fertility they discovered that IVF wasn’t going to be possible and it was unlikely that Fiona would ever conceive.
At the same time as this she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.
It was a huge double whammy both emotionally but physically.
When she spoke to her mum she discovered the her mother, her granny and her cousin had all had an early menopause but not one had told her.
In their family they definitely didn’t talk about those sort of things.
Just as she started to experience menopausal symptoms she was also put on strong steroids for her arthritis.
The combination of those two things led to blinding 5 hour headaches and what she describes as flat out psychosis.
She was in chronic pain and she experienced terrible flooding.
She travelled around with a bag full of clothes and towels and tampons.
She didn’t think to speak to the doctor about it.
Her work was affected, her relationship with her husband was affected.
It was nightmare.
She had to completely readjust her sense of self.
She was not going to be a mother and she had a long term life changing health condition
She couldn’t say how long it all went on for but at a certain point she asked her GP for help and got HRT.
It made a huge difference.
In terms of her arthritis she decided that she could no longer just be miserable.
She made a decision that she had to make life bearable so she help in the house with things she found difficult like ironing
She decided that she would no longer do things she didn’t want to do.
She focussed her energy on things that ere most important to her.
She stayed on HRT until she was in her mid 50s- around the time she would have expected to go through menopause. She came off it with no ill effects.
She still has arthritis and is still in pain but is a different woman now.
She is a great supporter of the arts and a well loved figure in her neighbourhood.
Bronagh
Love this project and I hope to create a space for those going through the Menopause where I live in Caithness.
I am proud to be going through the Menopause and will talk about it frequently in most settings.
I talk openly about it to my boys in the hope that if one day their partner goes through it, they can show kindness and understanding.
I was raised in a family that didn’t communicate at all, and as an energetic young girl,
I was made to feel ashamed about talking at all.
It hasn’t stopped me! I also want to create a safe space for people to talk and be heard.
Marie Louise
My menopause journey started when I was in my 40s .
As someone who had always gotten quite depressed when I was pre-menstrual I started to experience an alarming rage so intense that I feared I was going to stab my husband.
The strange thing was though it was just him.
After assuming it was my changing hormones I saw the doctor who prescribed me prozac.
It didn’t seem the solution I was looking for so I got a book on cognitive behavioural therapy and decided I need to make some changes to the my life.
It turned out I wasn’t hormonally out of control. I was legitimately angry with my husband and it just came out when I was premenstrual.
It took me a few more years but what was required was for me was to end the relationship.
I also read a book called Grow Your Own HRT by Sally J Duffell.
This led me to start growing and eating Red Clover sprouts and this helped me enormously. My headaches and PMS improved, my periods became more regular again.
A few years later my periods got very heavy with lots of clots. I asked a few women I knew about this and many said it was normal as your menstruation comes to an enf.
So I just adapted as you do. Took changes of clothing with me everywhere, carried enormous towels just in case I needed them.
The bleeding got heavier, the clots bigger. The menopause never came .
It wasn’t until I saw the doctor who identified anaemia due to fibroids that I realised it wasn’t menopause. I had been dealing with this for at least 7 years.
So now I’m 55 . My hormones are definitely changing.
But it’s not what I would have expected.
When I was 50 I met a new partner.
My sex life became the best it had ever been and the thing I was most afraid of was difficulties in having sex due to my hormones changing.
Fortunately I’ve discovered amazing women working to support other women in midlife.
I’d like to mention a few who have really helped me: Angie Garton menopause coach,
By having chats with them and other women about sex and midlife I learned so much.
I discovered there were options like topical oestrogen to help me navigate those issues. Happily I found the soulution that worked for me just in time for my honeymoon.
Like many women I’ve spoken to who have told me how hard it can be to separate symptoms of menopause form other health issues, I’ve made many misinterpretations about what is happening.
I am very grateful for the work of everyone running Menopause Cafés, and incredible women like Angie Garton Menopause Coach and Dr Claire Macaulay, Rose Matthews, Katherine Crawley, Dr Claire Macaulay, and Kim Holmes to mention a few.
Thanks to them and so many other remarkable women I know, I feel hopeful about navigating the way ahead.
My journey is not over but I know I am not on my own.
Red Velvet Revelry 