I'm scared menopause will end my career…

Are you?

Today is World Menopause Day. As a woman who is entering peri-menopause with a vengeance, I am beginning to read and follow more people who are voices in the menopause space.

As a writer, I have been interviewing women who are menopause experts, and I am so excited by the narrative I’m beginning to hear and be part of.

But I’m also scared.

I read of women leaving their jobs in their 40s and 50s because of the pressures of working as well as being menopausal.

I hear about women having to take employers to tribunals because of the language used around menopause.

I hear of women saying they didn’t know how to balance work and their symptoms.

And I know I’m just at the beginning of it all. What if it derails me? What if I totally lose my mind and can’t do my work anymore? What if I become a victim of all the symptoms I read about and can’t do my job, get ‘caught out’ for being a menopausal woman trying to work and thrive?

There are a lot of ‘What ifs’ there… exhausting in itself, especially when you add it to the constant juggle of brain fog and changes to my body and mental health.

I didn’t realise, until it began for me in earnest, that there is ‘menopause’ and ‘peri-menopause’.

That there are years leading up to the main event.

For a while, hearing friends talk about their experiences, I felt like I was the last girl at school to get her period (yet again).

I heard about hot flushes and insomnia, neither of which rang true for me - all the while wondering why my skin itched like hell and I had anxiety and walked into rooms but couldn’t remember what I was meant to be doing there.

Ditto opening apps on my phone.

Realising that symptoms are different for everyone was quite a pivotal moment for me - that we don’t all get the ones you might see in the films/sitcoms or read about in news stories.

When I say I’m scared it’ll end my career, it’s partly about being judged, and partly about being a woman who ‘always talks about the menopause’. If I talk about it too much will it become all I’m known for? Will I put off potential coaching clients if I post on instagram about brain fog (after all, who wants to work with a coach who is peri-menopausal?)

Well, I hope people will want to follow, engage and work with me, because I am sure of one thing, and that’s being silent doesn’t help. I’m even planning a podcast about menopause - watch this space!

The thing I’ve realised is the more we do speak about it, the more we share, the more normal it becomes. Then it’s less something to be afraid of in a bad way, and more ‘watch out for those menopausal women - they’re changing the world!’

P.S Here’s a piece I wrote with lots of advice from people who know a lot more about menopause than me!