It has been 18 months since I sat on my couch feeling my heart racing AGAIN and wondering if I was dying??? This was on top of the other symptoms I had been feeling for months with my head squarely in the sand.

What I am about to share is not unique to Black and coloured women, that said, I am looking at it with that lens because there is a major challenge for us in the west. 

So many women especially women of colour go through the transition in the same way and most end up with a mini case full of drugs to tackle various symptoms including mental health challenges and a frazzled nervous system.

I hated the way my body looked at 5ft 2′  and 80kgs, I was self conscious so I resorted to baggy clothes to hide my “spare tyres” and bulges in all the wrong places. It was worse in front of my husband of 25 years. I didn’t want the lights on… heck I had rolls in the sides, on my back…So from a pure vanity place and wanting to feel sexier, I felt like I needed to change, but how?

Well, last year, I finally sought the help I desperately needed and that’s when the pin dropped. I was a woman in Post-Menopause 🥹 But how…..?

Clearly, I had gotten here by ignoring the symptoms hoping they would go away…Trust me I had a ton of them. I was surprised the red flags didn’t scream out loud! They did, I simply had my head firmly in the sand, call it denial, but enough was enough…

Today I feel amazing, I have dropped 4 dress sizes and I know… Women Don’t have to go through a Miserable Menopause season. 

Find a community, talk about it, we need to normalise this conversation. Don’t let your daughter, friend, grandchild, auntie, work mate, suffer because Menopause is a natural process. We deserve to find our power and enjoy this season in our lives.

Why Talk about Menopause? 

Because It Is a Natural Transition for all women who are lucky enough to live to it. Because over half the global population go through this natural phenomenon seemingly with stigma attached, a sense of shame…a sense of — my life is over, thoughts! This needs to change. For many women, Menopause can cause lots of distress, confusion and physical disease which effects impact on health, relationships, career, business and social life. And we need to normalise this conversation. 

It seems to be worse for black and brown women globally, who face an intersection of other challenges top of which is the feeling that they are not “heard” by their employers, peers, health providers and thus they feel that their symptoms are ignored.

In the west, there is also a misguided notion that Black people have a higher pain threshold, which we too tend to allow to happen. Esp. as our symptoms may present differently thus leading long suffering that can lead to long term health challenges… Its called ostrich syndrome. And most symptoms are being treated in silo because that’s how we present them to the GPs too!

My menopause journey is not unique, it started in my late 30s i.e. pre-menopausal. By my early 40s I was in full peri-menopause. You too might be facing the same. 

The symptoms I presented varied: from painful heavy and long periods – like a tap had been turned on and someone hid the stop function, to sporadic ones, painful knees and shoulder joints – I thought it was “frozen shoulder”; to excessive weight gain that wouldn’t budge (I was exercising daily), constipation – honestly I was shitting bricks, headaches, ringing ears, sleeplessness for months on end, excessive sweating, hot flushes, excessive fatigue, brain fog – I literally forgot what I was on about most days, adult acne, heart palpitations, elevated blood pressure. I also lost libido because all of a sudden I was very dry in my female area and sex was painful. 

I had full blood work, and the tests results among other things showed elevated cholesterol and low immunity. I started catastrophising everything, my thoughts seemed to always be on the negative side, nasty moods that lasted for days, the list goes on.

Can you relate? 

Understand that your symptoms may be different: in your gut, joints, mental health, periods slow or stop, etc and some women don’t present any symptoms at all. In the UK, the NHS does not pay for “Menopause Checks for women” You must schedule an appointment with your GP with each and every Symptom you present separately!!! And you could end up with a mini suitcase of Drugs to treat each one separately and in many cases it simply gets worse because the “ROOT CAUSE” is not being diagnosed and thus given a holistic treatment. 

I encourage you to tune in to ALL the episodes to understand what other symptoms you might be facing too.

This resource is an expose of my menopause experience and journey. It is a GIFT to all women especially Black migrant women in Merseyside, UK, and the West in general. Check the bottom of this page for some of the mentioned resources to help you cope better. 

I am so thankful to Liverpool Local Solutions for enabling me personally, to share this journey to support black migrant women in Merseyside.