Within all presentations I share the phrase “no one size fits all” and that is never more true than when it comes to talking about the impact menopause can have on an individual.
I also encourage all to continue to look through a variety of lenses to get a real understanding of how our lifestyle, relationships, upbringing, culture etc, can affect our experiences during these years.
I’m honoured to have partnered with this incredible lady, who has agreed to share her story with you. I had the privilege of mentoring her through one of my workplace Inspire and Ignite Programmes and saw first-hand what an inspirational lady she really is.
Now it’s time for you to look through a different lens…
I woke up one morning at the age of 35 with the mattress, quilt cover and everything wet. When I mean wet, it was like someone had poured water over me and I had not realised it. I just thought that maybe it was extremely hot at night and I had not realised it; I just shrugged it off at that. This occurred for the next few weeks and I still paid no attention to it. I left it for a couple of months… just putting up with it.
I never had any idea what perimenopause or menopause was.
I could not turn to my mum because those things were never discussed.
I was born in the UK but remember a time when I was young and we were taken back to live in Nigeria.
I remember one day whilst living in Nigeria as a young girl. I was walking home from my Great Grandmas when my period came. When I got home, I told my mum, since I had no idea what it was, and all she could say was “Who have you slept with, where have you been?” This was the culture, which at that time I did not understand.
So, when it came to perimenopause I decided to continue to ignore the symptoms and just carry on regardless. I never asked my mum or even mentioned it to her. I’m not sure why, but deep down I knew the response would not be supportive.
I realised I was getting tired a lot and I put it down to the constant break in sleep I was having. I also noticed I could not remember anything…what I mean is…that I would forget the smallest thing.
When the sweating started, I did not realise that it was related to hot flushes or anything to do with the menopause. I think it came to the crunch when I was giving a presentation in front of an all-male audience. The worse part was I was wearing an all-white shirt (yup the hot flushes!) and all I could feel was sweat on my back and on my front and it was in front of a room of men. Luckily nothing was coming down my face, but it was at that point I realised I had to get help or even see the doctor.
Not being able to ask anybody was a very sore and difficult point for me. I believe traditional parents within my culture view anything like that as ‘shut up and get on with it’.
With menopause, all the symptoms and the non-stop bleeding, I just knew not to bother to ask cause there is no support. As I write this and take time to look back at my life then, that was such a hard time. Even some closest to me were oblivious to how to support me.
The best thing that happened for me was that a colleague from work (male white) was the one who gave me support cause his wife had been through it and he recognised the symptoms.
The journey with the doctors was not great if I am honest looking back, it was horrendous because they had no idea how to treat me. I think because I was young and black, all they kept on saying was they have never seen it that bad! How do they think I felt? Something was going on and they could not explain it…just saying it’s the menopause. I could hear myself saying “ok”, but I had no idea what they were on about!
I have not had a smooth journey where women’s hormones are involved, but I had a very good consultant who was dealing with my Endometriosis and my fibroids and he could see how bad things were and took it upon himself to write me a referral.
So, this was the beginning of my HRT journey, until they finally got it right. I cannot remember what I was initially put on but it involved patches/tablets at very low doses until they increased the tablet to the highest dosage they could give…then my symptoms started to come under control.
I should actually point out that friends ask me… was I moody/did I put on weight? etc, but I can honestly say I never had any of those symptoms. One thing I did, and this may sound big headed, was that I told myself that I never want to be fat or lose myself.
I was always a gym person and I decided to embrace it more and get a P.T. It also enabled me to put my energy (or lack of) into looking after my body and not let all that was going on affect me mentally. Don’t get me wrong, I did have my down days, but the gym gave me that sense of peace.
I have found out that ethnic minority/Black people do not like to talk about menopause. I think it’s still taboo. In my case, I actually shout about it, because for me it’s not the end of life, it’s the beginning of my life, the next step!
As long as I can carry on doing what I enjoy nothing is going to stop me.
As I say on repeat “You never really know what is going on in someone else’s life”. The more we can reflect on that the more supportive an environment we can create.
