Lives in Dalston (London)
Age 49
Market stall holder at Ridley Road Market selling fresh orange and ginger juice
On the stall selling juice
At Ridley Road Market
I am going through the menopause now. I've been going through it for the last four years. I found it quite difficult in the beginning because I didn't know what was happening to me until I went to the doctor and she explained.
After that I became really emotional. I was consciously aware that I wasn't going to be able to have any more children, that I was getting older and that my body was changing. It upset me a lot but I've now become quite used to the idea that I'm not going to have any more children.
I’m a grown, grown, grown up woman now and I need to embrace that fact and stop acting like a 16 year old all the time. So literally, it has been difficult for me. I’ve had the aches and the pains, the cold shoulder, the hot sweats, not being able to brush my hair because my arms are aching. It was really bad. I've gone past that point now.
Now I'm just watching all the young ladies with their children walking past now thinking to myself, “They don't know what they've got to come.”
It's really good that this project is out now because it will open the eyes up of many women and young girls to let them know exactly what they're going through rather than them just living through something that they don't know about. Basically, they don't know why they’re sweating. They don't know why they're getting so upset and emotional. They don't know why their hair is falling out, or their skin is getting spotty or dry.
I'm not really impressed with the fact that I'm going through the menopause. I would have preferred not to be, but I know that is a positive thing in another way because I have got 8 children. If I wasn’t going through the menopause I would have probably had another child, so for that reason it’s probably a really good thing.