Kate - Littleborough

in Littleborough (Greater Manchester)

Age 51

Advice worker and menopause peer support worker

By the canal

By the lake

For me it’s been quite a long peri-menopause, and there are positives in that. I’ve had over a decade to get used to what that means for me. Probably the most positive thing about the peri-menopause is that it’s forced me to make connections with lots of people and keep them going. I started off in work feeling quite isolated, not understanding all the changes I was going through. I’d always been in a helping role and was very much a ‘go to’coordinator and problem solver. Suddenly I couldn’t do those things.Anxiety and migraines really affected my day and being able to do the job I loved. So I left that job at the end of my contract.

Being out of work was a really negative experience. I tried hard to make it a positive one. I did a lot of volunteering and re-training. I’m now back in part-time work. It’s been a long old journey to get back into the workplace after having a forced break.

I went muddling around on my own for quite a few years before I eventually started to support other women. I became more healthy and got on the right treatment. HRThas helped with depression and anxiety. I’ve gone through being on anti-depressants, which was the more negative side. They do work for some issues, but they really don’t work for reproductive depression.

The beginning of being peri -menopausal and finding out I was neuro -diverse collided when I was 39. Although I had dyslexic traits which were connected to my concentration and working memory, when I went for the assessment they realised it was dyspraxia.Although I only left school with two O’Levels it really didn’t affect me as an adult, because I went straight from college into work with no real bother. My memory was super- sharp so I relied quite heavily on that to carry me through. The oestrogen inside the body is like a scaffolding that holds things together. When that dropped I may have seemed together outwardly, but inwardly I felt very chaotic, like my head was a messy ball of wool. I was also very tired, not just physically, but mentally. When I look back 10 years later it was the collision of the dyspraxic brain and the menopausal brain.

I would probably fall under being involuntarily childless. I should’ve really thought about my own fertility in my early 30’s rather than reflecting on it now at 51. I don’t feel it’s a miserable existence, but I do think it’s important to talk about it. It’s a hope and a loss that I and other women have had, and it matters. Childless people and those who aren’t childless should just support us and listen. That’s all we need, we don’t need you to put silver lining on it for us. I think it’s about light and shade isn’t it? We really will have shifted when society can say “not being a parent is an option” We’re not there yet.