A new take on menopause: Oh how beautiful midlife pain is

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Talking about the menopause?

This is the least helpful for those affected (symbol image)

Photo: Natalie Board/Getty Images/iStockphoto

I recently read that scientists are calling for a radically new attitude towards menopause.

No more stigmatization and silence - a new narrative is needed.

After all, such a menopause also has advantages: women no longer have to deal with menstruation or use contraception, they can completely reinvent themselves.

Oh, I thought, here's an academic one.

And it got even better: According to the British Medical Journal, women should also work on their basic attitude towards menopause: Those who have negative expectations are demonstrably more likely to develop symptoms.

That struck me as a particularly insidious realization.

Such a menopause lasts five to ten years.

As long as a degree or a childhood.

The number of women who have complaints during this time is estimated at 30 to 50 percent.

This also means that about half of them get through the menopause relatively relaxed.

In my experience, however, the other half has enough to do with getting on with everyday life and rather little time to hone their positive attitude.

»Bleeding so badly that I almost faint in between«

I know a woman who works as a cleaner.

She is a single mother with three children, has a daughter with disabilities and a son who is prone to violence.

We're about the same age.

When we meet in front of the bakery, we usually talk about their problems because mine are ridiculous in comparison.

"I don't know either," she says then.

"I'm always totally exhausted, I can hardly manage it with work."

I nod and spout generalities because I feel the same way, but I still don't want to admit it.

"Yeah, we're not 25 anymore, are we?" I say.

We talk about hot flashes, annoying hormone and mood swings, our cycle.

"I'm bleeding so badly from a fall that I almost faint in between," she says.

It's stressful, especially when she's cleaning the bank and doesn't have a change of clothes with her.

And the sweat!

But she doesn't have much time for such problems, she has other worries.

The insanely expensive gas she needs to drive from one village to another in her 25-year-old Ford Fiesta, for example.

And since she has a new boyfriend, her daughter has become more and more aggressive, maybe out of jealousy, maybe because of the change.

But how to deal with it?

That's how it can go, I think, shocked.

And now what?

Should I tell my friend how great the menopause is, that she should relax and enjoy the time more?

Finally stopped using contraception, finally stopped buying tampons?

Here's a woman who's scared of losing her job because she's unable to perform due to menopausal symptoms.

Who already works several hours a week almost for free because she is not as fast as she used to be.

more on the subject

• Experts call for rethinking: "It's time we talk about menopause and its benefits"

• Menopause: Typical symptoms - and what helps against them

• Menopause: Why the menopause affects not only women, but all people A guest article by Miriam Stein

According to a survey by the British women's rights organization Fawcett Society, one in ten women quit their job because of menopausal symptoms.

Especially those who give birth late are particularly challenged at this time - their children are entering puberty, the parents need care or die, the estate has to be sorted.

So it's about empowering and supporting these women.

Asking them to change the narrative about menopause while they're in the midst of it is at least ambitious.

That could be the task of the women and men who have it behind or ahead of them.

However, those affected should defend ourselves loudly and actively - against age discrimination and excessive demands at work, but also against contempt, trivialization or trivialization in the private sphere.

In many places, there is already a discussion about extra sick days for menstrual problems - while in my environment hardly any woman going through the menopause dares to take sick leave because of pain, fatigue or depression.

Because showing weakness and admitting dysfunction are the biggest taboos.

Employers have a duty here: They should sharpen their senses of how to make use of the professional experience of older people under decelerated conditions.

And keep women who have something to offer.

So much deficit, so much non-sufficiency in a single phase of life

In my past as a »boomer« the obsession with beauty and self-optimization ensured that women in the menopause hardly featured in social discourse.

Unless as a chilling example of failed plastic surgery.

As a target group, however, they have always been of interest to pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies that focus on the physical deficits of the Middle Ages.

There's a lot of talk about dysfunction, slacking and shrinking, estrogen deficiency, loss of libido or vaginal atrophy.

In short: from deviating from a norm that is oriented towards youth.

So many minuses, so many deficits, so many insufficiencies in a single phase of life!

No wonder women become depressed during the menopause.

As if the realization and the physical experience of impermanence weren't enough, the outside tries really hard to top it off.

What is shocking is that even those affected, general practitioners and gynecologists do not talk about menopausal symptoms.

Forty-five percent of those surveyed by the Fawcett Society said they had never spoken to their GP about it.

Almost a third needed several visits to the doctor to even get a diagnosis.

I know that pretty well myself.

For me it was above all the diffuseness of the complaints, the mixture of symptoms that made it difficult to deal with them.

From today to tomorrow - everything gone

When I was 50, I developed shoulder pain after a particularly intense yoga class.

"Ah, the 50's shoulder," said my gynecologist friend.

"It'll go away." I waited two years, and then the pain actually disappeared overnight.

I could sleep on both sides again if I slept.

Sleep disorders, the classic symptom of hormonal changes.

Sounds unspectacular, but has serious consequences for the job.

A few years later, I started having pain all over my body, starting at its weak points: the busted knee, the triple fractured elbow, the arthritic cervical spine, the lower back.

I remembered that my mother suffered from fibromyalgia.

"Oh, fibromyalgia, that's just depression," my GP said.

Okay, I thought, at least a diagnosis.

I know better now, but when the pain came back the other day, I just accepted it anyway.

Because I had to function on many fronts of my life right now.

If you want to make life easier for women in the menopause, you certainly have to talk about the competence of doctors and ensure further training.

That being said, menopause is a time when you involuntarily learn to endure and wait.

A test of patience that doesn't get any better with a trendy #fancymenopause-type label on it.

And in fact, this phase of life is over at some point.

After that it goes uphill again.

For a manageable time.