The menopausal body: a ‘meno’-morphosis?

We received a wide range of responses regarding how affected women are by the menopause and how they think and feel about it.  Most participants experienced weight gain (especially in bellies and breasts) and many experienced joint pain, tiredness, vaginal dryness, hot flushes, skin changes and hair loss.  Mood changes also figured centrally in the interviews.  Brain fog was a prominent theme, along with irritability, rage and increased anxiety.  Several participants shared a version of feeling like they were ‘going a bit mad’, or that menopause had made them feel ‘not like themselves’.   A lot of participants also reported that these changes came as a shock, as one participant put it: ‘for a lot of people, we crash into (the menopause).’ For many there was also uncertainty over whether a given symptom was in fact due to the menopause, or to other factors such as simply being older, having more life stress, or a separate health issue, for example. The menopause can affect already existing health concerns for many women.

As a rule, participants weren’t particularly happy about these changes.  As one woman shared, she had experienced herself as moving from being a pregnant body to a breastfeeding body to a perimenopausal body, to: ‘a bit of a crappy body that doesn’t work very well’.   As another put it: ‘I look in the mirror and I feel old’.  However, several women noted the benefits of not having periods anymore.  A couple expressed interest and even admiration in their menopausal bodies, such as the participant who told us she ‘found it fascinating my body could do that’, referring to her hot flushes.  Some also noted an increased interest in sex and/or in different kinds of sex than they had been having previously.  For others though, sexual intimacy caused some upsetting and challenging issues.

While many participants felt the menopause was a change from which there was ‘no going back’ to earlier bodies or selves, others reported that they were hopeful of ‘coming out of this’, or took heart from post-menopausal friends who assured them things would get better, and for some it was the start of a new phase to explore, referred to by some as a time for women to take time for themselves, a time when women are meant-to-pause, and think about what they want in the years ahead.