Menopause! There, I said it: Menopause, menopause, menopause. Right, that’s set the tone for this article and given those of you with a squeamish disposition the chance to click randomly at the back icon to return to a place of safety; for those of you still here, welcome.
Being middle-aged as a female PhD student is full of challenges. Before I started my PhD, I did my research. I remember scouring social media blogs for any information I could find on the current PhD cohort at my chosen university. Would they all be young, social, exciting doctoral researchers, or would they be more like me, grey-haired, glasses perched on the end of my nose so that I could see at a distance and read at the same time? Imagine my horror at finding a Twitter post of current PhD students replete with an image of said bright young things. They were celebrating the successful viva of one of their peers. They joyfully sat around a table in what looked like a noisy, crowded bar, raising their fizz-filled glasses. Their faces were young, excited and full of life, filling me with midlife dread.
So, my first day on campus at Cardiff Met arrived. I remember fidgeting nervously. My fellow doctoral researchers sat around me. Of course, there were the obligatory introductions: name and a brief description of our research projects. As far as I was concerned, everyone else delivered this information so eloquently and intelligently. Still, when it came to my turn, I could feel the panic setting in, the heat rising from my toes like an inferno, burning through my chest and combusting between my eyes. This hot flush flamed through the cotton wool in my brain, leaving a singed smoking ball of fibre. As I muddled through some bumbling, incoherent sentences and babbled vaguely about what I might research, I could feel my cheeks flush red hot like a poker. Excellent, good start, I scolded myself. Being in my mid-fifties and menopausal (yes, I said it again) for a few years, I am pretty used to this experience. Want to be as cool as a cucumber? Then don’t be a menopausal mid-life woman. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg (get it?).
For a start, supervision meetings can be like a stroll through Dante’s Inferno. Don’t get me wrong; I know supervisions are fun for all doctoral students. But try taking a head filled with midlife spaghetti. Then, wait for your supervisor to ask you a question, and your body fires like a leaky Bunsen burner, incinerating the spaghetti and anything else in its cognitive path. However, it’s not just the stress-induced hot flushes. If I can provide an analogy, your menopausal brain becomes like a blackboard chalked up with notes (you can tell my age here, blackboard? Not interactive whiteboard?). You take the blackboard with you wherever you go. Yet when your supervisor asks you a question, those feisty menopausal neurons scrub all the chalk out. Empty. Vacant. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Great. I read an article yesterday that was useful for my research. Can I remember it today? No.
On top of this, plummeting levels of estrogen encourage weight gain as muscle mass and strength decreases. No longer can you celebrate the “small wins” of your PhD progress with a nice cup of tea and a digestive biscuit. Low estrogen levels impact the heart, and a common menopausal symptom is heart palpitations. These can be felt as rapid, irregular heartbeats, which can be exacerbated by stress. So, while supervisory meetings and vivas are stressful for all PhD students, reconsider their impact on a menopausal woman. Stressful situations can feel like a burning freight train pounding across your chest and up to your temples, circling round and round until the fire goes out. Oh yes, and let’s not forget those hormonal mood swings. One minute, you are on top of the world. The next minute, imposter syndrome kicks in. How can you possibly pull this PhD off? You are too old, too stupid, too tired, too emotional.
There are several metaphors used to describe menopausal experiences, such as “brain fog” and “hot flush”. All I can say is that whoever called the entangled treacle mess of menopausal cognition “fog” and the rip-roaring fire that burns through your organs and across your skin “flush” is slightly deranged (mad as a box of frogs).
Those pesky menopausal neurons enjoy a bit of “high jinks” when messing with your memory. I often walk into rooms and forget why I am there. I frequently lose my pen/laptop/phone, which I swear I put down right now, just there! I look for my glasses, which are always on the top of my head, yet despite knowing this, I still look for them across the house/campus/library/car. I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t return to sleep because those pesky neurons are at it again, doing a jig, scribbling randomly all over that blackboard that they rubbed out before with stuff like, did you buy milk? Do you need milk? What do dairy cows look like? Are they happy? Is it time to get up yet? It would be helpful if my menopausal neurons could address essential topics like world peace rather than how many spots a dairy cow has, but there we are.
For many women, being middle-aged and menopausal also comes with other baggage. Midlife is a pivotal time in everyone’s life, whether male or female, menopausal or not. It is typically a time for juggling the caring responsibilities of children with those of ageing parents alongside the additional logistical stress it brings. Midlife is also generally considered a time to take stock, a period of consolidation rather than growth. So, I might be middle-aged, and I might be menopausal. When you ask me a question, I might become like a burning inferno or an empty blackboard. I might lose my glasses, pens, or the plot daily. I might not have slept for very long last night. But what I have is the great privilege of undertaking a PhD. I have the opportunity to be academically challenged. I interact with and meet many intelligent researchers and academics exploring fascinating topics. So, my menopausal neurons might be pesky little critters, but they often celebrate with me how lucky I feel to be on this PhD journey. I am almost at the end of my first year. So, I want you to imagine my menopausal neurons dressed like John Travolta singing the Bee Gees classic “Staying Alive” because rather than slowing down, I’m speeding up and looking forward to dragging my menopausal neurons with me for the ride.