Menopause - The Big Halftime Show
Eventually, every woman faces it: menopause. Author Karina Lübke on her cold hormone withdrawal. The attempt to regain balance in life despite heart palpitations and sleep disturbances.
By Karina Lübke
I expected a lot from menopause – mainly good things. I had enough children, and usually more than enough stomach aches and mood swings. So I looked forward to the multimedia-promised freedom from the dictates of hormones. There are plenty of stylish role models for the modern Golden Girls era on Instagram: ageless elves with silky, white manes of hair, jumping for joy by the sea and then snacking on avocados with green soybeans. When two years ago J. Lo (53) and Shakira (44), both super sexy, performed more athletically during the US Super Bowl halftime than the football players did, it confirmed all the great hopes. The halftime of life will also be a mega showtime!
According to my disciplined life plan, the fertile days would gently fade away, and one or two years after menopause, body, mind, and soul would simply belong to me again. Finally detoxified from the defensively mood-altering estrogen, which Mother Nature manipulatively uses due to constant concerns about offspring to promote pair bonding and avoid conflicts! I would save a fortune on tampons and live free, happy, and content until the end of my days; my life-creating powers would spiritualize into fertile creativity. Moreover, I could finally have uninhibited sex without fear of unwanted pregnancy! Eternal youth? Absolutely doable nowadays.
What can I say: As a lifestyle event, menopause seriously disappointed me. And its appearance lasts much longer than expected. I hadn't ordered the annoying opening act called perimenopause either: before my periods slowly disappeared, they first appeared every two weeks – and for nine days straight. Despite avocados, tofu, edamame, and over-the-counter drugs from the pharmacy, I didn't look like an ageless elf but like a puffy vampire. Frustrated, I threw homeopathic pellets, black cohosh, chasteberry, and red clover extract into the trash, switched to steaks and red wine, and was ashamed of my lack of discipline. Hardly had this phase finally ended after countless unwanted encores, when the main act jumped onto the stage: falling and staying asleep problems, thin skin, and heart rhythm issues. No, this was no request concert!
What additionally depressed me was my naive assumption that the cold hormone withdrawal would be completely symptom-free with the right nutrition and a positive attitude. And that in two ways: First, you must not have any symptoms, they would all be just noncebo imagined. Secondly, if you still suffer because menopause does nothing for you except weaken, annoy, and dry you out, fold you in and round you off – then you must absolutely not complain about these symptoms. Because as a typical member of the self-optimization generation, I had considered "menopausal symptoms" extinct like tuberculosis and scurvy. Unnecessary. Avoidable. Personal failure. The ones who reinforced this belief in me and thus further weakened me were precisely other women: namely the menopause overachievers who "feel better today than ever!" and really have to tell EVERYONE this unsolicited. Good for them! But then they should just count themselves lucky without smugly admonishing others that you "just have to" drink enough water, meditate, sleep a lot, and of course avoid milk, bread, sugar, and alcohol. After all, this is not an illness but completely natural, and you shouldn't make such a fuss about it. I understand that to some extent; after all, women have been fighting endlessly to be perceived as at least as capable as men at work – and maybe in a few centuries even paid equally. There are still many guys who derive an excessive claim to dominance from the idea that their male labor is more stable than the hormonally "hysterical" female colleagues. With "Are you on your period or what?" probably every woman has been silenced in a conference at least once. And now you don't just have your days, but your years. Maybe for life!
"People, if men had these problems, there would already be plenty of support and relief options available"
Even the word Meno "Pause" is completely wrong: First, a pause sounds like a break, and second, it would mean the ovaries would only take a short winter break like "Mon Chérie" before they eagerly return to the market in new splendor. Haha, at the earliest in the next life! This is not just the short hormonal storm before the calm. For some, it might be drama, for others the longest discomfort in the world. And it's not enough to "just change your mindset." Despite all discipline, you can be creeped out by your own body, which was a safe home and suddenly is haunted: The lights sometimes turn on and off unexpectedly at night, the heating thermostat seems broken, the support beams creak and groan. It's not all a matter of attitude—at least not mental, but definitely hormonal. That's why every woman should be free to try all available aids without being accused of doping.
Guys, if men had these problems, there would already be plenty of support offers and relief: free therapeutic chat platforms for insomniacs between three and five in the morning and the big "Los Annos" Meno-menu with soybeans and red clover burger at McDonald's. Men would get paid recovery leave at work and amnesty for emotional outbursts. Women, on the other hand, are supposed to cry quietly. So as long as I don’t get a disability parking permit for menopause and a free Meno-railcard for first class, I don’t want to discuss my hormone status anymore or receive any more "helpful" advice.
Luckily, I have now reached the after-show party stage. In a transitional coat pocket, I found a tampon and actually had to briefly think about what it was again. My iron levels are good again and my weekend plans are free from "Damn, I’ll probably get my period." And the sex – it’s actually fantastic and uninhibited, without fear of unwanted pregnancy. By the way, it might also be because many women in menopause also change the man by their side. Yes, there is a good life after the death of the eggs! But no one should believe that 50 is the new 30, especially if they are as bad at math as I am.
Karina first studied design, earned a diploma in fashion, and then completed the Hamburg journalism school with Wolf Schneider. She then became an editor and columnist at TEMPO and later wrote freelance for several magazines. Her monthly column "Please Be Quite Hostile" in the magazine BARBARA has a large fan base and has been published as a book. In between, she got married and raised a daughter and a son. You can learn more here.
Your new book "Please Be Quite Hostile" is now available in bookstores. It's about guys and kids and childish guys, about politics, society, money, and good words. And about love – despite everything. This book compiles her best columns from the magazine BARBARA and includes new, previously unpublished texts.