10 Things You Should Never Say to Someone Going Through Menopause, According to Me and My Menopausal Friends

Menopause is trending: This once-taboo subject has now become a matter-of-fact discussion topic among celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow who told People magazine, “I'm just glad everybody's talking about it because it used to be so full of shame and it's just another chapter for us.” Angelina Jolie published a New York Times op-ed detailing her hormone replacement therapy as a result of surgically-induced menopause. Actors Naomi Watts and Judy Greer started companies selling menopause-related products. And we’re meeting menopausal women on TV: Maybe the cutest way to handle a hot flash might be the way the Jen Aniston and Adam Sandler responded live on camera to Drew Barrymore having her first hot flash. (Except for the Sandman mansplaining the mood swings to Barrymore, but he gets points for trying.)

Sex toy companies are talking about it, and TV has caught up, sort of: Back in the early aughts, Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones was bemoaning her (false) onset of menopause, whereas 2016’s Fleabag scripted Oscar-winning actor Kristin Scott Thomas extolling menopause as a time of freedom that’s “something to look forward to.” So…menopause, we’re all caught up as a culture, then?

Not so fast. While Big Media and DTC Consumerism may be all out loud and proud about menopause, as individuals we are still a bit…sheepish? I’m saying this as a woman who has gone through menopause and has a dozen friends and family that are in perimenopause or full menopause. When I speak to them about related issues, I’m sensitive to how internalized ageism and outdated medical knowledge are keeping them suffering with easy-to-hide symptoms including low energy, brain fog and low libido, as well as hard-to-disguise symptoms like hot flashes, weight gain and mood swings. Stats—from the smattering number of ones done compared to the mountain of ED research—back me up. A recent survey of 4,000 perimenopausal and menopausal women in Great Britain, for instance, found that 45 percent of women had never talked with their doctor about their menopause-related symptoms, and 31 percent had to go to their doctors multiple times before they were properly diagnosed with their menopausal symptoms.

Overnight, I became Karen, and understood that Karen’s reactions are somewhat out of her immediate control unless she’s aware that her anxiety and depression are skyrocketing because of estrogen loss.

a pal explains her menopause

Possibly, this conspiracy of silence is because, well, who wants to deal with an agitated woman? As one friend of mine explained, “Overnight, I became Karen, and understood Karen in a very real way, and that Karen’s behavior and reaction to the world around her is somewhat out of her immediate control unless she’s aware that her anxiety and depression are skyrocketing because of estrogen loss. Like this idea that *middle-aged women* are bitches is a stereotype that has teeth because, yeah we f*cking are… Bone loss, sleep disturbance, panic attacks, heightened anxiety… We are definitely entering into a new normal, and men don’t experience the same thing, and I do think I wish women knew that there were behavior and attitude changes that are attributable to lowered estrogen, rather than being blamed for being histrionic or simply mad that society isn’t paying them attention anymore.”

So, in the interest of public service, and including some humor from me (a veteran of the sweaty front lines), here’s a primer from my menopausal cohort on what not to say to a woman in menopause. For any further guidance, watch the Instagram above and think of Jen Aniston supporting a sweaty, flustered and probably hot flashing Drew Barrymore—and hold your own drenched friend or family member’s coat for them, too.

The question here should be why aren’t you crying? During perimenopause and menopause, falling estrogen and progesterone levels can trigger mood swings that make you less able to cope with things you’d not be bothered by. So playing 20 questions with a woman crying over literal spilled milk at breakfast isn’t going to explain a whole lot. Best to just follow her lead about verbalizing or staying mum.

Hot flashes (also known as hot flushes) come on suddenly, are uncomfortable and often aren’t soothed by room conditions, because these are reactions prompted in a perimenopausal and menopausal woman’s brain (aka, the call is coming from inside the house). Again, wait to be prompted to hold a jacket or otherwise help.

We collectively need much a better grasp on reproductive health.

Oh wow, have you tried being silent?

I’m pretty sure this is the menopause talking, and you’d better be happy you’re not hearing the full extent of what it’s saying to me, or you’d be a little afraid right now.

As one friend explained to me: “That’s pretty triggering, only because you’d have to be living under a fu*cking rock for nearly half a century not to have heard it before. Even my oncologist said it to me like I’m a mental deficient.”

No I have a rare condition where having a normal conversation makes my entire body sweat, thanks for asking.

I’m afraid you’ll need to buy me dinner before we get that personal.

Make that drinks and dinner. [Note: This is likely a reference to vaginal atrophy, one of the possible side effects of menopause-induced estrogen loss; and yes, it's treatable.]

One friend was actually told this by an associate who was probably referring to a 1991 Women's Health Initiative study that "gave birth to the now widely believed—but false—belief that all hormone replacement therapy raises the risk of cardiovascular events and breast cancer" as menopause expert Dr. Mary Claire Haver writes. If someone comes at you with this, feel free to say what my friend did: “If a woman has opted for hormone replacement therapy as part of her medical care, she has chosen hormones/slight health risks instead of a dry vagina, raisin skin, all-over grey hair and homicidal tendencies.”