Recently, The Cut published a piece called, The MindF*ck of Midlife by Amil Niazi that asks the question, “what does middle age actually feel like?” I cannot stop thinking about this article and the array of questions it brings up for me, a now officially middle-aged woman.
As a 43 year-old feminist, I am too familiar with our society’s delusion with youth. But it’s this one sentence of Niazi’s that I can’t stop thinking about: “Our obsession with getting older is so focused on the physical, on how it looks, that we don’t end up prepared for what it feels like to truly contend with middle age in an honest and empathetic way.”
Niazi goes on to discuss how even though we have always been youth-obsessed, the toxic combination of the beauty industry, onslaught of social media, post-pandemic PTSD, and technology have completely distorted both our idea and expectations of getting older. Niazi expands on this in the following passage:
…No amount of Botox, cryo baths, or epigenetic age-reversing can stop that heartbreaking moment when you have to decide how to care for an elderly parent, racking your brain to negotiate the puzzle pieces of working, parenting your little kids, and bringing your dad to his now-frequent doctors’ appointments. Friends you haven’t seen in a while will pop up on Instagram announcing a cancer diagnosis, an occurrence that feels all of a sudden more regular than not…Your career is stalling, and it feels too soon to give up and too late to start again. It’s real, it’s hard, it’s beautiful, and it’s happening so fast you can’t even remember how you ended up here in the first place. Weren’t you just 30 a minute ago?…You can fill all the creases in your face, erase every wrinkle, and still not escape that looming mismatch. How you look can’t change what’s coming for you.
And if you’re a woman in your early 40s, apparently what’s coming for you is perimenopause. While nothing can prepare you for becoming the caretaker in the relationship with your parents, or hearing that your college friend’s child has cancer, what we can (kind of) get ourselves ready for is the transition that biology already predestined for us. The trick is that we need to start talking about it— now.
What the heck is perimenopause anyway? Perimenopause means "around menopause" and refers to the time during which a woman’s body makes the natural transition to menopause, marking the end (GASP!) of a woman’s reproductive years.
Although we hear about menopause, the transition years before this stage of a woman’s life is apparently wrought with terrifying hormonal changes, sudden weight gain, hair loss, and mood swings that lead many women to question their sanity. What’s worse is that the majority of women are suffering alone and in silence.
A recent survey by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) found that menopausal symptoms interfere with the lives of 84% of all women. According to experts, 75% of women who seek relief for their condition don’t receive it. Why?
What I find really scary is the near dearth of helpful information around the journey to menopause. It starts a lot earlier than we have been led to believe. I am increasingly becoming obsessed with not only the lack of medical research around perimenopause but also of women’s reluctance to want to talk about it. Has society made us so afraid of our post-reproductive years? Apparently.
In 2023, women are entering their 40s with only a vague idea that major changes are ahead. In the so-called Information Age, why are women experiencing perimenopause without sufficient research, accurate diagnosis, or effective treatment?
The silence, shame, isolation and mystery surrounding perimenopause must end. And I want to do just that. I want us to stop shutting our eyes to the inevitable and start talking.
As I begin working on my next book on women’s health, I want to hear from you. What do you want to know about perimenopause? Did your mother ever talk to you about her experience? How do you view menopause? Why are women so reluctant to explore this stage of our lives, and why are we still so scared to age?
Tell me in the comments what you want from a book that will help shatter the silence around this women’s health issue. I have my pen and paper ready!
No I’m not and it sounds terrifying! I think we should understand what to expect, what’s normal snd what isn’t, and if there’s anything we can do to get through it more easily.