Shirley's story

“My sister reached menopause at age 36, 15 years younger than the North American average. Information was hard to come by then, and I watched her track down all the experts she could find. She had to — her health for the rest of her life was on the line. She showed me what it means to be your own health advocate.

Still, even with my sister’s example, I was confused when I first started noticing changes of my own, like brain fog and sleep deprivation. I was 41, a busy entrepreneur with two young kids in every sport imaginable and a mother in cognitive decline. And so, when I started to burn out, there was this big question. Is this perimenopause? My lifestyle catching up with me? Or, worse, is it all in my head?

I knew I couldn’t be the only one with questions. So I went looking for a community. I tried to find the place where smart, resourceful people in their 40s and 50s gathered to learn about menopause. It didn’t exist.

I launched Menopause Chicks in 2012 because I wanted to offer others — like my sister and me — quality answers to their health questions. At the time, there wasn’t really a public conversation about menopause. It wasn’t a topic on TV or in magazines. But as new members joined, they were so grateful and relieved. That was enough to keep me going. The conversation was cracked open!

“We’re socialized, from our first periods, to accept that there’s pain and discomfort associated with being a woman.”

Today, it’s a very different world. Menopause is all over the media now, and that’s positive, but there’s still a lot of work to do if we’re to reshape the conversation into something truly helpful. We’re socialized, from our first periods, to accept that there’s pain and discomfort associated with being a woman. That it’s ‘normal.’ I always like to remind people: ‘normal is a setting on your dryer.’ Let’s talk instead about what’s common. And if what’s common is uncomfortable, let’s talk about how we can change it. Because we’re not meant to suffer. Everyone deserves to navigate these stages of life with confidence and ease.”

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