Menopause Awareness Month October is menopause awareness month. As an older fellow, who has been through the menopause, I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of my experience of the perimenopause (the transition to the menopause, when periods reduce in frequency) and menopause and how this affected me at work. Whilst everyone's experience of the menopause will be different, I hope that by sharing my experience I will raise awareness and understanding. Working as a social worker I had always managed to hold back tears until I was in the office, or at home. This became much harder in the perimenopause. I remember listening to a mother recounting the terrible uncertainty and worry of her long wait for her asylum claim to be decided. I found myself starting to cry and it took all my self-control to hold those emotions inside, so that she didn’t have the pressure of dealing with my emotions as well as her own. Now I am out the other side of the menopause, I can still feel its effects, particularly feeling very hot. So I always wear loose clothing, to help keep cool and because I remain self-conscious about the change in my body after my periods stopped. If you would like more information for yourself, or to support friends, family or colleagues who are going through the menopause you may be interested in attending this free webinar: https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/2023/october/courageous-conversations-work-and-menopause If you have helpful resources, please share them here too. Best wishes Tessa Godfrey

Posted by tessajgodfrey at 2023-10-04 14:58:57 UTC