Menopause, mental health and me

I think now that I hit perimenopause in 2015 at the age of 42. After happily living a busy chaotic life with two young children in northwest London for many years, I suddenly found myself anxious - about everything and nothing at all.  A year earlier, I would have happily driven right across London without satnav, feeling my way to a friend’s house in Battersea. Now, if I had to go somewhere unfamiliar, like taking my daughter to her singing exam two suburbs over, I would start worrying on about Wednesday before the Saturday exam. I traced the route out on Google maps on the big computer screen at home, memorising every turn. And on the day itself, I was a jumble of nerves. The anxiety arrived one day out of nowhere and stayed on and off until about 2021, when we moved from New Zealand to Hong Kong in the middle of COVID. In my early days in Hong Kong, I was beyond anxious about simple things like getting through the barriers on the MTR.  After a few months, I found a writing ...

 Hi,  I’m Rachel, a 52-year-old kiwi chick living in Hong Kong. I’m a writer, a mother of two teenagers and the partner of a wonderful 52-year old man who I’ve been with for (gulp) 33 years now.  I’m also bipolar and right in the middle of menopause. The last few years with COVID and menopause hitting at the same time have not been easy. I’ve experienced both anxiety and depression, as well as full-blown mania like I haven’t had experienced since before my children were born.  For Christmas 2024, my husband bought me a Masterclass subscription. I think he imagined I would teach myself to become a gourmet Indian chef. Instead, I started my Masterclass journey with ‘The Magic of Menopause with Halle Betty’ and I was hooked. There is help out there, and if we learn everything that menopause experts and campaigners have to teach us, this journey into old age can be fun, inspiring and empowering.  Ageing is a gift. Not everyone gets to do it.  So here I am, tell...