If you’re born a woman and live long enough, menopause is inevitable.
This part – I knew. What I didn’t know is how early you’d need to start having a conversation about it.
I thought this was a discussion far in the distance for me. Say… maybe age 60? Surely not mid to late 40s.
Why hadn’t anyone told me? I asked this question to my mother. Her answer put it into perspective.
Mom was done having her children by age 28. She had a hysterectomy at age 30. And while having both your uterus and ovaries removed surgically puts you into menopause - it was something my mother looked forward to because it seemed easier to deal with than the uterine fibroids, pain, and heavy bleeding during her periods she had endured since she started her cycle.
---> Surviving ‘Second Puberty’: Empowering women through menopause education
Simply put, my mother didn’t have ‘the talk’ with me because she had nothing to talk about. It was a completely different mindset in the 80s. Mom is 67. She’s been in menopause more than half her life. For her, it is a way of life. Nothing she felt necessary to discuss with either of her daughters.
My story is just one of many reasons we don’t talk enough or at all about menopause. But times are changing. Social media is helping start the discussion.
I hope my series of reports will also help bring awareness that there are options. Women don’t have to keep quiet and suffer in silence.