Do We Really Need a "World Menopause Day?"

 This week we apparently "celebrate" World Menopause Day. In my research, I learned that the purpose of this "holiday" is to raise awareness and reduce the stigma around menopause. But do we really need a worldwide annual designated day for this?

So let me start with a few basic facts about menopause every woman should know:

• "Menopause" means the time at which a woman has gone twelve months without a period. Someone should tell that to my doctor, who told me I needed to go a solid two years without a period before he would consider me to have reached this milestone. Which I actually reached a year ago. Hopefully they'll stop giving me pregnancy tests when I go in for surgeries and whatnots now.

• Menopause generally starts between the ages of 45 - 55. But it can start sooner. Or later. No one really knows. In fact, we often don't even know that we've entered the early stages until we're already there.

• We often say "menopause" when what we really mean is "perimenopause" - the years leading up to actual menopause. Perimenopause can last about 7 years. Or up to 14. It usually starts when you're in your 40s - 50s. But it could be sooner than that. For me, it started around the end of my 30s and it was on the very long end of about 14 - 15 years, but the really bad symptoms didn't show up until the last 4 or 5. 

• Potential symptoms include: menstrual changes (obviously); hot flashes; sleep disturbances; vaginal dryness; mood changes including anxiety, irritability, and depression; bladder issues, like incontinence and UTI; pain during sex; night sweats; palpitations; and abnormal uterine bleeding. It all sounds pretty fucking terrible, am I right? 

• Once you've made it more than 12 months without a period, you're in what's called "post-menopause." Although that doesn't mean you can't have a stray period now and then. 

This year's theme for World Menopause Day is hormone therapy. I wish I had known more about hormone therapy when I was in the throes of perimenopause and really suffering. It's used successfully to treat hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, and urinary symptoms, as well as treating issues of reaching menopause early (before the age of 45). I could really have used some kind of treatment to deal with those hot flashes and night sweats.

As a group, we women are pretty hateful about menopause, and I feel like with good reason. It brings with it the most miserable of symptoms for most of us (I've heard there are some women who have no symptoms of menopause - I like to call these women "bitches"), and it also, to many of us, signifies that we've become ladies of the older type.

Personally, I was kind of looking forward to no longer having periods. I hadn't been able to get pregnant since after I had my last daughter at 26, and it was just an annoyance to deal with every month. I never realized that when it was gone I would miss it. Or that I would have feelings of loss - the loss of my youth, the loss of the possibility of becoming a mother ever again (not that I wanted to).

Women in general tend to become somewhat invisible after we hit 50, as if we're obsolete except when our kids need a babysitter for our grandkids. Menopause is the single biggest very personal smack in the face that we've reached that milestone. And we don't want to feel invisible, like we're no longer of use to society - because the fact is, we aren't either of those things. 

Gen X women are actually still going strong in our 50s when menopause strikes its blow. We have families, careers, significant others, plans and goals that we still haven't accomplished. We're nowhere near ready to recede into the background.

And why should we? As I write, we've never even had a president in the US who was a member of our generation, and no matter who is elected next month, we still won't for at least another four years. Harris and Trump are both Boomers, although opposite ends of their generation.

All of this brings me back to my original question: do we really need a World Menopause Day? And I say yes, we do. The world needs to know that women do not need to fade into the background of society's fabric just because we can no longer produce children. We have wisdom and experience to share with those around us.

We still have much to offer and decades of life left to live. And we need to remember ourselves that menopause does not signify the end of our lives or that we've become elderly - it only signifies a new phase of life for us to live and enjoy.