Welcome to “The Pause!” Every Wednesday (if I can find women of a certain age who are willing to share their experience with me and you) there will be a new post.
Why am I doing this? Well, I’m almost 50 and I would REALLY like to feel less alone in this new chapter of my life. I feel like our culture doesn’t want to talk about menopause. It’s like if you admit that your period has stopped, you are admitting to something shameful or unnatural. Like death, menopause is both inevitable (if you’re lucky enough to grow older) and pretty darn natural. I used to think it was hard to get people to talk about death, but you can double that hesitancy when it comes to chatting about “THE CHANGE!”
If you read the first post, I am now on a quest to find media representations of a menopausal woman. Here’s this week’s clip. It’s from That 70’s Show. If you know of any story lines in movies or television shows that address this major transition in a woman’s life without making it a punchline, leave it in the comments!
So, before we begin our chat, let’s define perimenopause and menopause from Merriam Webster’s online dictionary.
Definition of menopause
1: the natural cessation of menstruation that usually occurs between the ages of 45 and 55 also : the period during which such cessation occurs
— called also climacteric
— compare PERIMENOPAUSE
2: cessation of menstruation from other than natural causes
Definition of perimenopause
: the period around the onset of menopause that is often marked by various physical signs (such as hot flashes and menstrual irregularity)
So now that that’s clear, here’s my next willing participant who has chosen to remain anonymous AND THAT’S OKAY! (I feel like Stuart Smalley.) And you can too! She is 60.
1. Do you remember your mother or an older woman in your family going through “the change of life?” If so, what was that like?
I do not remember my mother going through menopause or perimenopause. I was married and did not live close to her then, so that’s probably why.
2. Was perimenopause/menopause ever discussed with you by your mother, sister, friend, or a doctor? If so, what did that discussion entail?
My mother told me that her periods had started getting erratic around age 49. She was in menopause by age 52 or 53. I talked to my doctor about perimenopause when I was in my mid-40’s and my periods started being strange. They were either short or long, heavier or lighter, starting and stopping to start again in two or three days. I was using the Nuvaring for birth control. I stopped using it around the age of 48 and that’s when the real trouble started. (See #4)
3. Was menopause something you feared or something you looked forward to? (Yay, no more periods! Boo, I’m drowning in my own sweat!)
I really didn’t think about it. I had a 10 year old at the time and was pretty busy. I think because my child was young, in my mind I felt younger than my body was so it all kind of hit me like a brick wall.
4. What was your experience like? Did you burst into flames? Grow a mustache? Gain a ton of weight? Lose your hair? Lose your mind? Or was it easy peasy, Tampax can kiss my vageasy?
I did not experience hot flashes except for maybe 2 times. I was grateful for that. I had what I referred to a cold flashes. It would feel like someone was pouring ice water into the top of my head. I could feel it flowing down the inside of me. It was a strange feeling that after menopause I never felt again. I will say though that after stopping the Nuvaring I went thru a terrible time that I can only explain as a deep, debilitating depression. I had many symptoms which neither I nor my doctor could explain...gastro difficulty, extreme tiredness, deep sadness, and the erratic periods. At that point after literally crying in his office begging him to figure out what was wrong with me, he put me on continuous birth control. Within a week I was feeling so much better. I did not have a period at all while on the regimen. I took it every day, skipping the placebo pills from the age of 48.5 to 52. At 52, I went off the pills for 2 months so that he could do a hormone test to determine if I was in menopause. The tests showed that I indeed was, and I never had another period. Now, at age 60, I have noticed that dryness can be a problem as well as weight gain in my mid-section where I never gained weight before. I was always proud of my flat stomach. Now, I have a fluffy muffin.
5. When did you first notice perimenopausal symptoms? Or did you not know what they were?
I think my symptoms were much different than what I expected. The erratic periods were expected, but not the emotional and physical symptoms I experienced.
6. Is there anything you wish you had known before you went through perimenopause/menopause?Anything you would have done differently?
I wish I had understood what my body was going through. I really thought I was losing my mind and my health. I have never been more sick, more depressed or more tired than I was when my hormones started changing. It took my doctor and me about 3 months to figure out what was going on. We were targeting the issues I was having and trying to straighten those out, when the real problem was hormones. If we had realized that earlier, my journey to menopause would have been a lot less traumatic.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. And you can too! Just reach out via my contact page. If you want me to reach out to you and help me do my little part to help save the USPS. I bought a TON of stamps and if you sign up for my newsletter, I will send you some swag (stickers, bookmarks and if you pre-order my book, I’ll send you a cute little button!!) from my debut novel Forever 51. (It’s about an eternally menopausal vampire.) You will also get EXCLUSIVE content., like that Barbie reenactment of the first scene of my book. Vampire at a tanning salon. It didn’t go well. So, what are you waiting for?