NOTE:
There is no recent information regarding Menopause specific to Black women living in the UK. None. Not one article. So I’m doing currently collating some research myself. I’m not a doctor or an expert on menopause but I do know that our stories need to be out there so that we can better navigate this transition powerfully and with confidence.
I need your help. If you are a black woman currently experiencing Peri-menopausal or menopausal symptoms AND you’re based in the UK I would LOVE for you to fill in THIS. It’s anonymous and it takes about 10/15 minutes. Feel free to share it with any black woman who meets the criteria.
Thank you in advance.
K x
First posted on my Instagram account on 8th June 2020. Transcript below:
“Hiya.
Have you ever googled ‘menopause’ and clicked images? After I’ve finished speaking go and do it.
I didn’t think I’d be here so quickly. Like everyone I know certainly I’ve been processing a lot of things. But then something happened where my daughter received a message from someone who had shown her a video of me talking about Wear Your Happy® and menopause and just talking as a 58 year old black woman. She’d shown it to her mother and it had made her feel not so alone. So I suppose I’m talking to the people who are watching this. Black women who are processing trauma in lock-down and still having to carry on with menopause symptoms that leave their brains foggy,
…that leave their, you know, legs tingling
… that give them hot flushes
…that give them headaches
… that make us tired.
All of those things on top of the trauma of what’s been happening over the past week. On top of the trauma that’s been going on for as long as I can remember.
01:56 My name is Karen and I’m a 58 year old black woman. And I like to say that I’m thriving through menopause. And by that I mean that I’m…it’s not that I LOVE it. But that I have been able to look at my symptoms, have been able to find things that alleviate them. But also I’ve found that hitting menopause has actually liberated me of caring a lot of thinking about what people think…about what I wear…what I do. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care. It means that I care less. And I know myself better than I did before I started menopause.
02:43 But I’m particularly talking to black women right now.
Because this is a LOT.
It’s a lot for anyone. Anybody who feels. Anybody who has any kind of… compassion. But particularly for our race. For our people. And our symptoms didn’t just decide to step to one side because we have to grieve, or because we’re mourning. We still have to get up every day. We still have to deal with whatever it is we’re dealing with. But I suppose that message that my daughter got really made me think.
So I did the google. I googled ‘menopause’ and I clicked images and I scrolled and I scrolled and all I saw was white haired, white women. That’s what I saw.
03:53 I was in a group of about 15000 women on Facebook. A group about menopause. I can’t remember what it was called. And when George Floyd was murdered and it was all over the news and then brands started to sit up and then Blackout Tuesday happened, whatever you think of that, it happened. I was struck by the silence. It felt like a slap in the face. I’d felt a bit niggly about it before. I’d posted a few comments. I’d been it for about a year now. I just felt like i wasn’t seen. So I quietly left.
And then I was in another group…if you belong to Next Door app… I was on that group and someone posted a Black Lives Matter post and it turned into a big argument. Somebody wanted it removed. They decided that race was politics. I don’t particularly believe that. And so they wanted the whole thing removed. And it caused a massive conversation - I suppose it’s a welcome conversation but still, a conversation about everything that’s going on now. Lots of supporters. But some very angry ‘Let’s not talk about that here’. But if you can’t talk about it there where can you? If you don’t feel safe in your own neighbourhood, where can you feel safe?
05:41 …and I’m here because…I’m here because I’m here for my black women who are menopausal and feel like they have to carry on and feel like this feeling of layers of trauma upon trauma is adding to their symptoms, adding to our symptoms, and feel like you can’t say anything and feel like it’s just you.
It’s not just you. You’re not broken. You’re not unwell. You’re whole.
I have a yoga teacher - Dorothea Antigone - she said in something she posted yesterday about our reaction and our response to this whole situation is proportionate. And I want to tell you that your menopause is just as valid as everybody else’s.
I am so…I’m tired. I’m tired of logging on to menopause ‘lives’ or looking at panels about menopause and seeing no one, NO ONE, who looks like me. You know what? I’m so tired.
07:08 You could be forgiven for thinking that menopause is only something that happens to white women. I feel really strongly about this. It’s one of the reasons I speak. It’s one of the reasons I show up as a vibrant, colourful woman who’s nearing sixty…who doesn’t dye her hair… and I wear what I like and someone who doesn’t necessarily conform in the way that you might expect me as a mother of two and a grandmother. I’m not here for it.
I certainly didn’t intend to do this or talk to anybody.
07:56 I’ve felt watched recently. I’ve felt that I’m in a goldfish bowl. Like many of my (fellow) black Instagrammers I woke up and we’re finding that there are lots and lots of new people here. And I’m here for the follower count, don’t get me wrong. But I’m the kind of person that that would make me retreat. So I’ve been quite quiet. And as I said I didn’t intend to be doing any intros (not that I’m doing an intro) or to really be showing my face. But this morning I felt like I needed to show up for my sisters. And I needed to show up for my fellow black menopausal women. So this is for you. This is just for you:
We are processing our trauma. And we are not alone. We’ve been here. We’ve been here before. We’ve seen these things happening.
But you’re ok.
You’re OK.
09:10 My DM’s are open for women who want to talk about what’s going on or how they feel. But really and truly I’m literally just saying it’s ok. You’re not alone. This isn’t just you. You’re allowed to talk about your menopause. And you’re also allowed to grieve. And you’re also allowed to mourn. And you’re allowed to talk about race and anything else you want to do.
Don’t diminish yourself just because you happen to be menopausal.
Black women have menopause too.
I don’t know whether I’ll post this but I just thought I’d come on and say.
If you’re watchIng this and you don’t know about you…me - laughs - if you don’t know anything about me! Everything I want you to know about me is on my website or in my (instagram) bio. So no intros here.
Yeah. That’s it.
Look after yourselves, won’t you?
Take care”.
X