Do you know day it is?
I know it seems like every day at the moment you are being asked for money to support a charity, or being asked to wear a certain colour to raise awareness and it can all get a bit of a blur. So I’m guessing that a very tiny percentage of my friends on her knew it was World Menopause Day today.
And that sums up how people feel about it really.
In the last week my timeline as been full of posts about mental health, baby loss, breast cancer and the more banal ones such as doughnut day. But no-one, not one single person is talking about menopause.
So I’m going to shout it from the proverbial rooftops and get your attention.
MENOPAUSE!!!!!!!
Now, don’t gloss over this thinking this isn’t relevant to you. Because it will affect every single one of you. Yes, correct.
Do you have any of the following…
– a wife
– a girlfriend
– a daughter
– a mother
– a female friend
– a female colleague?
Yes, thought so, you WILL be affected by it. Because menopause doesn’t just affect the person going through it, it affects everyone around them.
It also affects more people and for longer than you realise.
Menopausal symptoms stretch far wider than most people know and understand about. It is not just hot flushes and your period stopping.
No, it is feeling like you are losing you mind, crushing anxiety, reduced metabolism, problems with eye sight, headaches, aches and pains, thinning hair, changes in your skin and many, many more.
And these can start in your late 30s.
Yep, you heard me right.
And it’s bloody crap.
No one knows about it, so people don’t care. Your kids have no idea why you keep forgetting to do stuff, your husband wonders why are so irritable, your boss thinks you’ve lost the plot keep fanning yourself.
And then all of that adds to your low self esteem and you feel even worse.
The symptoms are manageable, and we can talk about that another time. But what would be more helpful is if people would educate themselves on what peri-menopause is and how it could affect you and your loved one.
Everyone.
Because there will be someone in your life right now, who is struggling with this. Or is it even you yourself?
So read the links I’ve put in the comments and sign the petition. And then talk about it, alot.
MAKE. MENOPAUSE. MATTER.
