Today, October 18, is World Menopause Day and thankfully, it’s a topic that’s no longer completely taboo (yes, there’s a ‘completely’ in there, because, well, yep, there’s still work to be done!). Here at Capsule we’re doing our darnedest to not shy away from the topic (although, yes, at times we would like to put our heads in the sand, like we’re back being 10 years old saying “NO, I DON’T WANT TO GO THROUGH PUBERTY!”).
In the last five years we’ve talked to so loads of wonderful people – experts, doctors, psychologists, professors, regular folks, celebrities, people who’ve had a hell of a run with menopause and perimenopause, people who’ve swanned on through it, people who’ve gone through it in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.
Here, we’re taking a look back at what we’ve learned and what’s helpful to know.
If you’re not really up to hearing all the sharp, pointy uncomfortable facts of it all today, that’s totally okay. This first section is a good news only zone – have a read of those and then perhaps bookmark this story to come back to when you’re ready to go a bit deeper.
But yes, while there’s no sugar coating the fact that menopause can be a hell of a time – many women also breeze through it, and, no matter what kind of a ride you have with it, there’s loads of good news about what’s on the other side of menopause.
Here goes!
Just Give Me the Good News, Please, Only the Positive Stuff!
Three-minute Orgasms?! A 92-year-old having orgasms? Robyn Malcolm talks about menopause and sex – and why, we don’t have to suffer in silence (or, perhaps suffer at all, when it comes to menopause and our sex lives?)
We’ve all heard that old adage of ‘move it or lose it’ – but, have you ever heard it said with regards to our sex lives? Because apparently, our ability to orgasm can lessen over time and it really does become a move it or lose it situation.
We had a BRILLIANT chat to Robyn Malcolm where we learned about GSM – if you don’t know what that is (apparently only 30% of women aged above 50 do – even though it affects somewhere between 50% and 84% of postmenopausal women), honestly, you must read this story right now.
Read it!
Yes, perimenopause can be a hell scape, buuuut, on the other side of it, you might just discover the ‘postmenopausal calm’.
Writer Sarah Catherall (the brains behind our Midlife Musings series) is on the other side of menopause – and actually, she has some great news to share.
“I remember interviewing a woman in her late sixties when I was perimenopausal years ago,” writes Sarah Catherall. “She raved about a “post-menopausal calm’’. She seemed chilled, and she was right. When you’re in the thick of the emotional rollercoaster that is perimenopause, it’s hard to imagine you’ll ever feel normal again.
“Well, good news: one day you’ll feel a lot better. And let’s celebrate the (hopefully) 30 years we have from when our last periods stop as our time.”
Read it!
55 has changed – this isn’t your mother’s menopause
“When we talk about women in their 50s, we’re not talking about little old ladies. We’re talking about women in our prime,” says journalist and author Niki Bezzant.
Thanks to the media diet many of us grew up on during the 80s and 90s, when we think about someone aged around 55, we might find ourselves thinking of Betty White in The Golden Girls. But now? Fifty-five is the age of Jennifer Aniston (well, actually, she’s 56 now), starring in The Morning Show, where she’s a woman (mostly) in control – she has the money, the power, the career and the sex life. It’s a far different story to Betty White and the retirement crew.
Turns out, there’s lots of shifts in thinking we need to make when it comes to menopause. Here, Niki Bezzant holds our hand, and takes us through it, whilst serving up some cutting home truths…
Read it!
Sex and the City‘s Cynthia Nixon says menopause is actually “an incredible time”
When we talked to Cynthia Nixon ahead of Just Like That coming out in 2021, she explained where the characters of SATC were at now, and the link with menopause (and look, what it’s not all bad news!)
“In the new series, the characters are like 55. And so, they’re in menopause. And menopause is the punchline of a lot of jokes and certainly has its unpleasant aspects. But it’s an incredible time. And oxymoronically, it’s a very fruitful time.
I think of it as a second adolescence. When you’re an adolescent, you’re breaking away from your parents and your family and you’re becoming your own person. It’s a very narcissistic time because you’re thinking about: who am I? What do I want? What do I need? Who am I going to be, and what could I be?
And menopause is like that too! If you’ve been a working person, you’ve maybe reached a level in your career of stability or achievement. Maybe you’re like Miranda and you have gotten somewhere but you want to go somewhere else. And certainly if you’ve been involved in child rearing, that is probably nearing the end. And so, you’ve had decades perhaps, of thinking about everybody else and taking care of everybody else and putting your needs last.
And it’s a moment when things quieten down a little bit and you can, in a narcissistic way but actually in a very important way, begin to focus on yourself again. And say: who am I? And what do I want to be? And what can I be? Just because you’re a grown up, it doesn’t mean you’re finished, and life is just going to remain along this flat plain.
It’s a very rich time…”
Read it!
Menopause Over Martinis* – the fun dinner group you’ll be eligible to join!
Sarah Connor is a freelance content writer who has become an advocate, an educator, and a campaigner for awareness about menopause. She’s also the founder of Menopause Over Martinis*, which sees people host dinners to discuss menopause.
Making menopause fun? Yes please, sign us up!
Read it!
Here’s ONE THING that can help make the rollercoaster of menopause a bit easier! (And sorry, for some, this might be pretty awful news)
Niki Bezzant, a journalist and award-winning editor, has written two best-selling books on the topic of menopause and perimenopause: This Changes Everything, and The Everything Guide. In her work, Niki doesn’t beat around the bush when telling you that if you want to have a smoother journey through perimenopause, there’s one thing that can make a big difference.
“It’s just one of those messages that we don’t want to hear – I don’t want to hear it either! – but I’ve spent too long researching this topic and you can’t ‘un-know’ it,” Niki tells Capsule.
So what is it?
Read it!
Ok, I’m Prepared for the Not So Good Now (But Can We Have Some Positives in Here a Bit Too, Please?)
Look, this is neither good news nor bad news, but… maybe it’s not actually perimenopause that’s making you feel rubbish?
Perimenopause has got a lot of air time lately – and that’s truly wonderful after it being something kept so quiet, that the majority of us hadn’t even heard the word until a few years ago.
Yes, agrees Dr Libby Weaver, it’s so wonderful that perimenopause has gone from being a word that only health professionals used to something that everyone has an awareness of. But… while that knowledge and awareness has benefits, it also has its drawbacks.
“There are definitely many benefits – there’s way more awareness about perimenopause now,” says Dr Libby. “Women get the help that they need and deserve. There’s far more understanding about the wide variety of ways that perimenopause can present.”
But, there’s another side to that coin – and it’s not all positive news.
“The worry for me,” says Dr Libby, “Is that if you’re aged between about 38 and 55 and you experience something new – maybe it’s sore feet, aching calves, headaches, anything new, really – I’ve seen there is this tendency right now to attribute anything new you experience to being perimenopause. Essentially, all these women are attributing the thing they’re experiencing to being a change in hormones. And, it might be that – but it also might not be that.”
Read it
Fighting the urge to blow up your life? Millennials are hitting perimenopause – and yes, blowing up their lives…
People love to write think pieces about millennials – how we are stunted, but ageing well. How we are burning out, but quiet quitting. How we lost out on the housing market due to brunch, or whatever. But now that millennials are hitting midlife, we are no longer synonymous with young people – heck, we’re not even the second to youngest generation.
Millennials are now old enough to have mortgages (if they’re lucky) AND mid-life crises; they’re just less well-funded than their older counterparts. And now, millennials have entered the perimenopause conversation as well, following the rage breadcrumbs left by our Gen X sisters.
Read it!
Skin changes? Dry Patches? Dullness?! How perimenopause can cause skin changes and what you can do to get your glow back!
The culprit? Oestrogen. Well, more specifically, the lack, or fluctuation, of it. During perimenopause, progesterone and oestrogen levels start to drop – and these and other hormones begin to go haywire. They don’t gently decline, they fluctuate like mad, and the hormonal instability shows up everywhere – especially on your skin.
But here’s the good news: you don’t have to just suffer through this. With a few tweaks to your routine, trusting the experts and a little grace for yourself, you can absolutely get that glow back.
Read it!
One in Ten Women resign from their jobs due to menopause symptoms: Why we need to create menopause policies!
Mary Breckon O’Sullivan is a leading New Zealand employment lawyer who is sounding the alarm on a “quiet crisis”.
A startling one in ten women are resigning from their jobs due to menopause symptoms – and many more are suffering in silence, reducing their hours or taking extended periods of unpaid leave.
Sixty-four percent of women say that menopause affects their lives, but, what policies do we currently have to help and protect these women? Mary says it’s time workplaces caught up.
Currently in NZ we have some legal protections, with menopause technically falling under the Health & Safety and Human Rights Acts.
Read it!
“You go mad! You actually go mad. I’m sure that back in ye old days, they would have called us witches and burnt us at the stake.” Says Anika Moa
One of our all time faves, Anika Moa told us that she is currently going through perimenopause (even though her doctor says she’s not) and is having a funny old time with it. She talks about the juggle of going through peri while you’re somehow supposed to be a parent and work and all the bloody rest of it.
Read it!
“I started to feel next-level insane!” What it’s like to be a health coach… struggling with perimenopause!
We hear from health coach Paulette Crowley on her experience when the wheels started to fall off her physical and mental health in her early 40s. Even with her health and wellness knowledge, it was still hard to get her GP to take her suspicions of perimenopause seriously. She talks to Capsule about the ‘puberty hell but in reverse’ of perimenopause symptoms, and how her ‘Precious Patch of Sanity’ helped improve her own experience.
Read it!
The 1 in 100 women who go through menopause before turning 40 and the 5 in 100 going through it before 45…
‘Premature menopause’ (sometimes called Premature Ovarian Insufficiency, or Premature Ovarian Failure) is when menopause occurs before the age of 40. It happens to 1% of women. That might not sound like a lot, but put 100 women aged under 40 in a room and one woman will experience it; she could well be a friend of yours. Meanwhile, ‘early menopause’ (menopause before the age of 45) occurs in about 5% of women.That’s five women in that room, so odds are that you’ll know one – and may even be one.
Read it!
What it’s like to go through menopause at 29, after emergency ovarian surgery
Last year, journalist and 2023 NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year Becki Moss (they/she) underwent a third emergency ovarian surgery – a surgery that was almost entirely preventable with a planned procedure last year that was cancelled without any explanation. Becki knows she’s not alone in this – an estimated 80% of referrals at Christchurch Women’s Hospital have been declined due to lack of resources. Becki writes for Capsule about what it’s like to have your ‘optional’ procedure cancelled and the impact of having to live with an agonising condition that can strike without warning – a condition that has now led to early menopause at 29.
Read it
“I was 30, newly married, thinking about kids when I missed two periods – turned out I wasn’t pregnant, I was going through menopause“
Nicole Evans was deeply shocked when she got her diagnosis. So shocked, and sure she must be misdiagnosed, she got a second and third opinion – only to be told again and again, she was going through menopause at such a young age.
Here, Nicole beautifully and bravely speaks about that rollercoaster journey and what she has learned about grief and acceptance to build a truly beautiful life.
Read it!
