In the past couple of years, I’ve begun to notice an increase in the mentions of menopause and perimenopause in my social feeds. It makes sense - I am a woman of a certain age. But the thing that bugs me most about all these articles and posts is just how little I actually know about menopause - even after reading them.
Growing up, all the things associated with womanly hormones were pretty much off the table as discussion topics. My guy friends complained whenever a commercial for period products played on the TV (back when we still had commercials and didn’t just stream everything). And my mom told me little to nothing about what to expect when it came to getting my period. I learned most of what I needed to know from Seventeen magazine and Judy Blume’s book “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” So I guess it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that, while talking about periods has become more commonplace, we haven’t quite caught up when talking about menopause.
It was only just a few years ago that I learned perimenopause was even a thing - let alone something I might be experiencing soon. After talking to a friend about some of the issues I’ve been having with my ADHD lately and how I’d learned low estrogen can impact it, she mentioned that she had recently started using an estrogen patch. I had a doctor’s appointment coming up, so I figured I could talk to my doctor about it then.
When I mentioned to my doctor that I wondered if I might be in the beginning stages of perimenopause, she informed me that I was too young to be worried about that yet. When I had a follow up appointment three months later, she asked me if I was experiencing any perimenopause symptoms since I was about the right age for it. Even my doctor doesn’t seem to have a solid handle on all of this. And while we can easily dismiss the ignorance/poor practice of one doctor, I find that conversations like these are far more the norm when I talk with my friends than they are the exception.
This is one of the main reasons I so appreciate the new perimenopause/menopause resource Mental Health America has created. Not only does it have some great basic facts, but it also has information about how menopause impacts mood disorders and hormones. And this resource isn’t just for those of us whose birth sex and gender identity are female/woman, but for anyone who may experience menopause - which we know is a broader population.
One of the other reasons I appreciate that MHA has put this resource out is that it’s time we start learning and talking more about menopause. It affects 2 million people in the U.S. each year. We need to stop being ashamed and afraid of the bodily changes of people with ovaries and instead make sure they have the information they need to go through those changes in as healthy a way as possible.
Kristen Abell is director of website and digital projects, writer, and advocate for mental health and neurodivergence.
