Rachel, Noward, and Dee at ‘Marginalised and Menopausal’
October is menopause awareness month and – as one of FTWW’s key campaign areas – we have been very busy attending and hosting events and shining a spotlight on life with menopause.
We were delighted to spend World Menopause Day with our friends from Cysters at their fantastic ‘Marginalised and Menopausal’ event in Cardiff. We also hosted a webinar for FTWW members, ‘Managing Menopause Symptoms with CBT’, led by FTWW Volunteer Menopause Champion and Principal Clinical Psychologist, Dr Dawn Owen DClinPsy. Fellow FTWW Volunteer Menopause Champion, Lisa Nicholls, was also interviewed by BBC Radio Wales’ Jason Mohammed…
Marginalised and Menopausal
Our huge thanks to our friends at Cysters for inviting us to be involved with their fabulous – and much-needed – event, Marginalised and Menopausal, which took place on Saturday 18 October, World Menopause Day.
We enjoyed an inclusive day exploring menopause and health in all communities, listening to speakers’ experiences, catching up with our friends from other stalls including Muslim Doctors Cymru and Endometriosis UK, discussing solutions, and enjoying the most delicious samosas!
With this year’s theme being ‘Lifestyle Medicine’, it was great to hear more from the speakers about the different tools patients can use to feel as well as possible during the menopause, from HRT to exercise, diet, mental wellbeing, and everything in between!
If you’d like to find out more about World Menopause Day, visit the International Menopause Society’s website.
Managing Menopause Symptoms with CBT
We all know that menopause symptoms aren’t ‘all in our heads’ and can have a real impact on our physical and mental wellbeing.
While menopause itself is not an illness, we know it can impact on all the systems of the body, so we need to have access to all the tools available to ensure we are equipped to navigate this transitional phase of life, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is just one of those tools.
Our huge thanks FTWW Volunteer Menopause Champion and Principal Clinical Psychologist, Dr Dawn Owen DClinPsy, for delivering a fantastic webinar for FTWW members covering CBT and how it can help us take control of how we react and approach the different ways in which we experience the impact of the different stages of menopause.
Following her own adverse experience of peri-menopause/surgical menopause, Dawn has worked with FTWW as a volunteer championing the need for better menopause care so that women and people registered female at birth can avoid unnecessary distress. We are so grateful to her for everything she does – thank you, Dawn!
If you’re not yet an FTWW member and would like to be, please join our Facebook group here – please make sure you answer all of the joining questions so as we can admit you.
BBC Radio Wales ‘The Phone In’
“If I had known what the menopause was all about, and been better prepared to deal with the signs and symptoms, I could have had more of an open and honest conversation with my employer” – FTWW Volunteer Menopause Champion, Lisa, talks to BBC Radio Wales
As well as joining us at Marginalised and Menopausal, FTWW Volunteer Menopause Champion, Lisa Nicholls, also took time to speak to Jason Mohammed on BBC Radio Wales ‘The Phone In’ on 20 October. The conversation followed the launch of comedy-drama, ‘Riot Women’ which follows 5 middle-aged women both forming a punk band and busting menopause myths!
Lisa spoke about her experience with lack of sleep, brain fog, anxiety, and loss of self-esteem as she struggled to maintain her career during the menopause transition. She told listeners, “If I had known what the menopause was all about, and been better prepared to deal with the signs and symptoms, I could have had more of an open and honest conversation with my employer…When I found FTWW, that was the first time that I spoke to people who could identify with the experiences I was going through”.
Lisa has been an FTWW volunteer for over six years, and has contributed to vital work in the menopause space. Our huge thanks to her for everything she does to raise awareness of menopause and FTWW, and to help change things for the better!
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