More often than not, the menopause “bursts” into women’s lives as an unexpected hurricane that rips through and overwhelms everything or arrives as an announced, unwanted and feared guest. In both cases what is lacking is real and informed awareness.
In fact, when people talk about menopause, they think of hormones, osteoporosis, mood swings, irritability, exhaustion, hot flashes, and forgetfulness that make every awakening for many women like the beginning of a new battle. One thinks of the end of youth, an age of decline and old age. In the absence of a more comprehensive approach, it is also difficult to see menopause as a real evolutionary process, of deconstruction and restructuring of personality within the family, social, and cultural context.
Menopause is a time of change, and CHANGE MEANS LOSING SOMETHING AND GAINING SOMETHING ELSE. It is an opportunity to make – pause= + time for you.
Every woman who talks about her menopause says something new that differs according to her culture of belonging, her way of feeling and being in the world.
There are many areas for change:
- The couple relationship and the need to redefine the relationship in changing affective and environmental scenarios.
- Sexuality and its change.
- For the homemaker woman, the desire for new spaces outside the home.
- For the working woman, the comparison with younger generations and the prospect of retirement.
- Partner’s retirement and its new “home” dimension.
- The estrangement of children, the “empty nest” syndrome.
- Supporting children in their parenting role, becoming grandparents.
- Caring for aging parents or grieving their loss.
- Attention to self-care and taking care of one’s body.
Menopause comes when one is mature and the major tasks of life (study, work, relationship, children) have been if not fulfilled at least set and before the problems of old age both physically, socially and emotionally arise. It is therefore a good time to start, a good chance to turn the passing time into an opportunity. The opportunity to integrate changes at the body, emotional and cognitive levels to build a new self-image with increased self-acceptance.
Every transitional stage in a woman’s life (teenager to woman, woman to mother, and mother to grandmother) needs a space for discussion, free expression, and support.
This kind of awareness has resulted in some counseling organizations activating groups for menopausal women alongside the better-known childbirth preparation groups or adolescent groups.
