40 Comments
deletedMay 19, 2023Liked by Susannah Conway
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Ooh I am going to get a cuppa and enjoy this read. Thanks Susannah xx

Expand full comment
May 19, 2023Liked by Susannah Conway

Oh my goodness. The timing of this is extraordinary. I’ve finally - after years of an ignorance is bliss approach - decided to become enlightened and knowledgeable about what’s going on, in some ways and other ways not so much, about my body. I’m seeing the Newson clinic peeps in two weeks!!!!!!!! It’s all non-existent here so I’m coming to where I can get advice. I’m SO glad you mentioned them and that I’m seeing them xx ( now I’m going back to properly read your words :).

Expand full comment
May 19, 2023Liked by Susannah Conway

Thank you for sharing. I'm 49 definitely in premenopause a couple of years now. Lots of symptoms, luckily not all of them all together all the time. Sometimes one of the symptomen stays away for a couple of months and then comes back again. (Hello migraines, deep deep bone tiredness, heavy down feeling when getting up in the morning, Hot flushes, more frequent periods, delayed periods, hyper sensitive dry itchy skin, heart palpitations, and, lately,pain in my hips and back that won t go away). Right now it is mostly the tiredness and the loss of mobility at the moment that I find hard to deal with. Definitely not sailing through it.

Expand full comment
May 19, 2023Liked by Susannah Conway

“...within that note is the primordial desire to burn everything to the ground. No longer tossed around by my fertility drives, I’m furious about pretty much everything.”

Omg, THIS. All the time. (I’m 52, and I think pretty solidly in menopause at this point.)

Expand full comment

Thanks for this, loved the crone reference. Part of me feels like my inner crone can't wait to be released!

Expand full comment

I love that you write so much about perimenopause/menopause because so many of us need to hear it all. It's only been in the last six months or so that I've begun to think that many of my issues are peri related (I'm 43 in July) but look back and can see small trends beginning in my late 30s. I'm also on the heart palpitation wagon at the moment and have an appt with a PCP soon to see if it is perimenopause related or something else we need to chase down. It's all so confusing, thank you for writing about it.

Expand full comment

I’m just so thankful you sent me a message back in 2019 and guided me towards the Newson clinic. Gone is the awful taste is my mouth, the brain fog (although that comes and goes!) and more recently I realise my ears no longer itch like they used to - god that was so annoying! Like you said HRT doesn’t turn everything back like it was but it does help manage the symptoms. I’m hoping that your symptoms subside soon - there’s a saying about fighting hardest towards the end but my current dose of brain fog is blocking it! X

Expand full comment

Sharon Blackie writes about the feelings of rage that come with menopause in her book Hagitude. I thought it was only me! I hadn’t heard or read anything prior to this about the anger that emerges. I was thrilled to know that I am part of an army of effing furious women 🔥🔥🔥

Expand full comment
May 19, 2023Liked by Susannah Conway

I'm only 34, but my mom was in menopause around 40, and I'm starting to recognize some shifts in my cycle that have really thrown me for a loop. I had my first really delayed cycle last month and my reaction was almost identical to yours. They don't prepare you for this! Such wonderful, comforting words. I'm saving this to read again and again.

Expand full comment

Oh I so needed to read this. Thank you so much for writing and sharing the excepts from before from when I probably got them but couldn’t see them. I so appreciate this. ⭕️ 🔥

Expand full comment
May 19, 2023Liked by Susannah Conway

I am so heartened to hear that you got the help you needed from the folks at Newson. Her frankness and spirit is needed. Sadly, I'm in the US. But I think I have finally found a practitioner that will work for and with me!

Expand full comment

I feel like I missed out on a or on many sisterhood “moments”... at 69 my last period came and went quietly at age 53 without fanfare or incident and then that was that. I never had flashes of hot or cold or inklings that my period was on the way out it just disappeared from my life much like the relationships I’ve had ... leaving a taste of memory and sweet nectar of youth. Now I’m old and don’t necessarily miss wearing a Tampax but realize with the loss of what symbolized virility I have settled into an a sexuality that is one dimensional and genderless.

Expand full comment

Thank you got such insightful words and reflections. The best part I think about menopause is that I love the term ‘Crone’ and I feel proud to be one. 💪💪💪

Expand full comment

This is such a brilliant piece. I'm 51 now and increasingly I'm finding that the more I talk about menopause and my journey through it, the more people seem to connect with it. It's like, as a society we've kept all this stuff under the radar for so long and now we are finally talking about it, it's like releasing the lid off a pressure cooker. Ironically the most DMs I get are from women keen to tell me that in their day "they just got on with it" and didn't make a fuss. To which I always respond with, just because you got though childbirth unscathed and without medical intervention doesn't mean that you would deny that for someone who was struggling medically. Menopause is exactly the same, just a different phase of life. Some people sail through it, some need All The Bloody Drugs 😂

Expand full comment
May 19, 2023Liked by Susannah Conway

I am so grateful to you to openly talk about this and share this!! It's so important. Thank you!!

Restless legs! Ha. I am in the very early stages of peri-menopause, but my legs have been feeling so weird recently...

Expand full comment