By Sandra Amalfi
My perimenopause began around age 42. I was a fit and healthy mum of 3. But nothing prepared for what was coming. For the next eight to ten years, I spent thousands of dollars searching for answers from doctors to GPs to naturopaths to homeopaths hoping someone could tell me why my body and mind were changing so dramatically. I was diagnosed and treated for all things from anxiety, depression and even ADHD.
By the time I landed in the ER hospital, flooded with inflammation, exhaustion, and burnout, by that time, it finally had a name: perimenopause.
Because of my mother’s history of breast cancer I was repeatedly told HRT was too risky for me. But by the time I turned 50, I heard these fragile words slip out of my mouth at yet another doctors appointment: “I don’t care about the risks. Because the way I’m feeling right now — dysphoric, fatigued, aching, sleepless, lifeless I feel like I’m already dying.”
That was the turning point. My doctor handed me a book called Estrogen Matters, and for the first time I began to understand that much of what we’d been told about menopause, hormones, and risk was incomplete and misinterpreted. The research had changed.
My perception shifted. I began to see a quiet revolution taking place women speaking up, researchers revisiting old data, conversations opening.
Now, in post-menopause, I carry both gratitude but still some heavy grief. Gratitude for the knowledge and freedom women have today. But grief for the years I lost years with my teenage kids clouded by mood swings, dysphoria, exhaustion. I think of the friends I lost, the people I hurt, all because we normalised menopause and left women to struggle alone, ashamed to speak or seek help.
But the tide is turning. Organisations, communities, and conversations are emerging. Younger women millennials, Gen Z are watching, listening, and preparing.
My deepest hope is that no woman ever again has to miss out on her life, her relationships, or her joy because of menopause.
We deserve better. And we’re finally beginning to claim it.
Thanks
Sandra Amalfi
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