On menopause, marathons & mental health
A four part series on finding a new life in the slow lane
I’ve been thinking a lot about marathons vs sprints lately and how I’ve lived much of my life as though it’s a short sharp competition I have to speed through at pace, in order to get to the other ten races I have lined up.
Sound familiar?
Over the past few years however I hit a major stumbling block, in the form of an emergency operation resulting in surgical menopause, which sent me into the longer, slower lane. And I am so grateful to be part of the marathon class now, but it has been a journey to find my stride and establish my own pace.
I wanted to share my story because if my experience can help others, I’d like to open up the conversation around it and offer reassurance that things can get better. Not everyone who goes through menopause has a difficult journey and relatively few have to go through surgical menopause, but around 75% of people experience some menopausal symptoms and approximately 25% of those have severe symptoms so it’s worth learning about this important phase of life to be prepared.
I felt there was very little information or education that was helpful to me while I was going through this life changing experience, but I muddled through and found a range of tools and support, including coaching, meditation and making space, that has helped me adjust to the new pace I’ve had to set myself so I’m keen to share what I discovered with as many people as possible.
(Side note, over the past few years the menopause conversation has exploded and there are now so many more resources available than there were even two years ago when I was a freshly minted member of the menopause club. The world is finally cottoning onto the fact that 50% of people will go through this experience 🤷♀️).
TW; surgery, medical trauma, suicidal ideation… it gets a bit dark before it gets better but I want to go there as it really doesn’t have to get this bad. There were many signs and pitfalls that I was unaware of to my detriment, that others could avoid if more stories like mine are shared.
In 2021, I ended up in the Emergency Department at Auckland Hospital after being violently ill for 36 hours thinking that I had a particularly bad bout of food poisoning. Unfortunately it actually turned out to be a torsioned ovary and finally after 18 excruciating hours, I had emergency surgery that resulted in instant menopause and I was thrown headfirst into a new phase of life.
My body literally had enough of me sprinting, sprinting, sprinting, so it stopped me in my tracks and slowed me right down in the most forceful way. I’d already been down this road before (I’d had my other ovary removed for exactly the same reason when I was a frantically busy child) but frustratingly I’d ignored my body’s wisdom and jacked up the internal pressure once again to do ALL THE THINGS.
If you consider that menopause is normally a journey that starts with peri-menopause, takes anywhere from 1 - 10 years and over that time production of hormones like Estrogen start to slow down, the body readies itself for a new phase of life and big mental shifts occur, I went through that entire process within the space of a few hours during an operation (as does anyone else who goes through surgically induced menopause).
I won’t dwell too much on the nitty gritty of this traumatic event, but the aftermath was brutal. The vital energy that all the helpful hormones and endocrine systems supply that we never give any thought to, suddenly becomes top of mind when vanishes from our system.
If we stick with the running metaphor, it was like both my hamstrings were cut mid sprint. I was still on the track, still in the race, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t get out of the way, couldn’t cross the finish line and was frozen in place. And yet, I keep trying to keep up the pace.
I had no idea about menopause and all that it entails, aside from some (now discredited) scaremongering about HRT giving people cancer, so being shunted into it in this way was incredible daunting. I wish I’d had more information and knowledge around it so I could mentally prepare and understand what was happening to my body and my mind.
My diaries from the time paint a picture of suicidal ideation, innumerable hot flushes (or hot blooms as they were so euphemistically called back in the day), severe memory loss and complete disconnection with my body alongside a huge range of other symptoms, but I really didn’t understand what was going on so I pushed through all of this and was propped up in bed, back at work two days after I left hospital. I was so used to sprinting, I didn’t know how to stop.
I was too scared to take any hormone replacement for the first four months so I didn’t and just white knuckled it through the horrible side effects of not having the right ingredients in my endocrine system, which I now look back on with real sadness. I could have helped myself much quicker if I had more knowledge around HRT and other proven methods of balancing the vital hormones that my body needed.
After what felt like a lifetime of hormone depletion, specialist appointments, pushing through incredibly stressful work situations that were exacerbated by numerous COVID lockdowns, the sudden onset of tinnitus (which FYI can be a *fun* menopause side effect), trialling various HRT/ progesterone blends, having real difficulty with retaining any information whatsoever, 2am doom scrolling various terrifying menopausal health outcomes, insomnia, bouts of intense sadness and rage and a near collapse in a public park, I completely burned out.
It has been a two year (and counting) journey to get to the other side and life will never go back to the way it was, nor will it never be the same again.
During this time I have developed a strong set of practices that support my mental and physical health and have benefited my life immeasurably. Without going through the trauma, I may have never got to experience the bliss that I can access now.
BUT… I wish I had listened to my body more closely, slowed down and not put so much pressure on myself to achieve at the same level that I had before this huge metamorphosis, because I might have saved myself from a lot of unnecessary mental and physical anguish.
World Menopause Day is coming up on the 18th October so I wanted to share a number of tools that have helped me during this transformation from sprint to slow lane. I’ll be going into detail in the next few posts (linked below) to outline what I have found most beneficial, in case it might be useful to anyone going through a similar journey.
Intro - My personal instant journey into menopause
Part 1 - How coaching, sabbaticals, therapy and meditation help me navigate the menopausal journey
Part 2 - A reflection on the benefits that I found in HRT, activity and community
Part 3 - The importance of creativity, sobriety, space and service to help get me through
To start with I thought I would recommend a few books that I turned to in the immediate aftermath of finding myself in the menopausal marathon class… recommended reading for anyone over 30 to get yourself prepared for the changes ahead!
✴️ VESSEL RECOMMENDS ✴️
The Menopause Manifesto - Dr Jen Gunter
An excellent technical and medical overview of the menopause journey, from peri to post. I learned a lot from this and was able to use the information in the book to figure out what questions I should be asking my specialists, so that I could be more informed about my personal situation because it can be confusing as hell.
This Changes Everything - Niki Bezzant
A great all round book that covers everything from hot flushes to HRT, alongside real life feedback from women who are going through the journey which made me feel a little less alone. Niki is a health writer so there is plenty of helpful information around diet and exercise which becomes even more important during menopause.
Hagitude - Dr Sharon Blackie
There’s a lot of doom and gloom around menopause, but it’s actually an incredible vehicle for transformation and growth. Hagitude comes from the mind of a writer, psychologist and mythologist who takes a very exciting view of menopause as an invitation to step into a more authentic life that’s aligned with our true nature and full of new possibilities. Yes please!