Petra Bagust is touring New Zealand with her Hot Mess midlife and menopause speaking tour. Photo / Stephanie Soh Lavemaau
THE FACTS
It was a stranger on the internet who “outed” my menopause.
It was five years ago. I was on my Instagram account regaling the unsuspecting public with a tale of being rage-filled about something or other and a comment popped up: “going through the change, are we?”
Even though I was alone at home, my face went red, my heart rate rose and I started feeling sweaty (it wasn’t a hot flush). How dare this person see me! How dare they call it! And what the heck is going on? Is this true?
And if this is true, I cannot get out. I can’t run for cover.
I started doing a bit of investigation. I was feeling confronted by the idea – because I’d only heard negative things about menopause – but also intrigued. I let curiosity get the better of me. I remembered hearing a doctor present in Nelson years earlier and saying, “there is nothing good about menopause”. And I thought, this simply cannot be true. It doesn’t make sense for it to only be bad for all women; we are not, surely, just going to shrivel up and cognitively and physically die.
I went to see my GP and asked her if she could support me on my menopausal journey. It was an amusing session. She recommended a documentary movie to watch and to visit the “daily pool of essence”. I suspect she was suggesting I learn to meditate and work out what I needed by paying attention to my own body and brain, which was benign if vague advice.
It was neither alarmist nor super helpful, (perhaps because I didn’t “visit the pool” enough), so in 2019 I started making reels about being perimenopausal, leaning-in to the hilarity, frivolity and reality of it because leaning away wasn’t my style, and recognising my own social media moment of being “outed” had activated significant feelings of shame. The shame motivated me to want other women’s responses to be different and more positive. Why was perimenopause something to hide and be embarrassed about? The way women, men and society in general thought and talked about this important hormonal transition needed to change.
It has been a very joyful journey. I started talking about it within my family. My husband didn’t have to keep thinking I was losing my mind because I couldn’t finish my sentences. If I blew up at the children, I could say, “Look guys, I honestly think that was a hormonal moment”. I found I carried a lot less guilt and shame personally (even though they sometimes questioned whether it was just an excuse for bad behaviour). Menopause is like the reverse of puberty, but it’s different in the sense that it’s far less visible. There’s no growth spurt, attractive body changes, voice drops or pimples; those obvious physical signals are not there. I think this has added to the mystery and the hidden nature of perimenopause and makes talking about it now so essential.
As my journey went on, I started reading and getting my hands on books (at that time the only homegrown one I could find was Dr Bev Lawton’s no-frills Menopause, so I imported a few others). I started talking about menopause on my Grey Areas podcast with experts and with well-known women who were also going through it and were willing to talk about it. It felt like diving into the pool that we were all supposed to stay away from.
Importantly, I’ve learned we don’t have to pathologise menopause. It is the end of reproduction. You’re allowed to grieve and process that reality. And you’re allowed to move on from it; it’s a doorway to the rest of our lives as women.
I love the descriptions of menopause as a second spring. I enjoy the freedom of not having to be objectified sexually; not having to focus so much time, energy and resource on looking young; of not having to squish myself into a mould of how I perceive I “should” behave and speak. There’s so much freedom in being a more mature, wise woman.
Maybe that’s partly why menopause has been framed as “bad” in the past. Women in this season are more likely to stand up for what’s important to them and to disagree with authority, which has been traditionally male-led. They’re likely to want to do things outside of the domestic sphere. Perhaps women’s arrival at this new freedom and profound agency is disruptive for traditional patriarchal society, so it made sense that menopause has been positioned as negative. It’s helpful to the status quo if the narrative around “the change” is dismissive or produces suspicion and doubt because then women will want to avoid showing they are going through it and men won’t have to deal with them speaking up and acting out.
My co-host Niki Bezzant and I are determined to bust that narrative open. So we’re on the road with the Hot Mess Tour because it makes a significant difference to be in a room full of human beings who are in the same season of life as you. There is a beautiful, unknown element of communal comradery.
We know that we can’t raise children on our own, we are designed to do life in community. So the sense of being in community – even for a night – is impactful. When women show up with their partners or their mates, and laugh and learn and experience that sense of not being alone or broken, not being wrong, not being discarded, not being used up – but being free from the need to reproduce and to behave – it’s wonderful.
The days of menopause being shrouded in silence are over.
The Hot Mess Tour is on now around New Zealand. For more information and tickets see hotmesstour.nz