Clima…What?
When I was 12, my mum bought me a book about the teenage years (or was it my brother’s?). I can’t recall the name but it gave a brief introduction to the changes experienced throughout puberty, relationships between girls and boys, and even included a chapter on sexual intercourse with drawings… I devoured it. Even took the book to school to share it (to fits of giggles) with my friends. Apparently, I was the only one within my group with access to this type of information. It was enough for me to not freak out when my menstruation started on a summer’s day when I was 13. But the book was not very comprehensive: it didn’t mention homosexuality, female orgasms, gender identity or masturbation…it was the early 80’s after all. Then my aunt lent me the Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and that completed my theoretical self-education in female sexuality and feminism. From then on, my sexual education was completely practical by trial and error… some trials… many errors.
35 years later, well in my 40’s, I went to the doctor feeling exhausted, constipated, bloated, with a foggy brain and the worst memory ever. My dad had just been diagnosed with dementia- could this be an early onset of the disease? Bloating/constipation a sign of an obstruction? Inflammation? The doctor candidly asked about my working hours, responsibilities, sleeping patterns… Surely it was stress, clearly lack of water, and obviously absence of fibre. What about the memory…? Sleeping better and less stress would improve this as well.
Yet it didn’t, so I started reading, googling, researching and that’s when I came across the word climacteric…
Now the frustration… that more than half of the world population will go through (or has been through) the climacteric years and yet I was unaware of the word. Now the anger… that after 3 years of worrying about my health, eating tons of fibre, litres of water, reading all about Alzheimer’s, and the benefits of Sudokus, no medical professional mentioned the M-word.
Menopause is in my daughter’s curriculum- she just started her teenager years- when her first period arrived, she felt quite confident to put on a tampon and go straight to her swimming lesson. She has her parents for support but she started early in primary school, to get information regarding the stages of puberty, female wellbeing, sexuality, relationships and healthy lifestyles. And let’s not forget about the internet…
And that is the aim of this blog… To document the findings of my personal research about the climacteric years- which have already started for me. As well as to give some support to many women who (like myself 3 years ago) did not have a clue or anyone to ask. This is my first blog and my first day on my Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) journey.