Come in, Cool off, and Calm down

Mind over Menopause, dedicated to everything connected with menopause. The straight facts, strictly woman to woman.

My name is Susanna Duffy and I am of a Certain Age. You have to love that description, the only other option is to hate it, and life is far too short for hating the ticking clock. Especially when you’re a certain age.

What I do hate, and got fed up to the back teeth with, was trying to find out some simple information on menopause. How hard can that be? Everything I found was connected with, derived from or funded by some drug company or other. My doctors knew nothing except how to prescribe some estrogen replacement drugs or a calming anti-depressant for me. So I went searching on my own.

When I was younger the drug companies made a lot of money out of me by supplying The Pill. These companies made squillions of dollars from a whole generation of women all round the world and I can just imagine the executives scratching their heads when we all stopped using their products. Someone had to come up with an answer… more drugs to sell to us!

In this way, the concept of menopause as an illness and HRT as a cure was born.

We are not ill. We don’t need a cure. We are merely growing older. Menopause is a natural stage of our lives, just as our puberty was.

I’m not saying that getting older is easy, I hate it. I grieve at times for my lost youth, for my lost beauty, and get furious at the loss of my once formidable physical strength. I hate being ignored in shops and sometimes my own body revolts me.

But what makes me most angry, what drives me to absolute fury, is the constant message that I need drugs to cure my middle age.

The Change of Life : For we middle aged women life is very different than it once was. It’s not just getting older, it’s the edges cracking around our emotional control. Our families wear us down, our work suffers, our temper is on a short leash and tears are just around the corner. Honestly, sometimes it’s like being a schoolgirl again. But we aren’t schoolgirls, we are mature, intelligent woman.

It’s a difficult time for us, and there’s no point in being reminded that our mothers either had it worse, or that they didn’t complain. Our generation is used to better than that. We live longer and more active lives than our foremothers, we can expect about 30 years of life in our third stage, and we certainly aren’t prepared to live it in discomfort.

What to do? : There are all sorts of actions we can take, from hormone replacement (for no more than 6 months please) to meditation, herbal supplements and yoga, to ease any problematic symptoms.

The important point to remember is that the onset of menopause is a time when we can prepare for our senior years, a time to build a better stronger body to face the future. Many of us have neglected, or even abused, our wonderful female body and spirit. Now is the time to rectify those mistakes, to care for ourselves properly and to lavish some love on ourselves.

Remember — menopause is defined by twelve consecutive months without a menstrual cycle so when you reach that stage, you’ve already endured the most symptomatic time. Well done!