When heat waves invaded Marthe’s nights (some witnesses requested anonymity), five years ago, no one had warned her of the little hell she was about to experience: fatigue, pain in her wrists. and ankles, weight gain would follow. “The doctor prescribed me estrogen gel and progesterone capsules. It’s daily and painful, you have to constantly calculate when to take what. If we forget, the evils come back with full force. I have the feeling of being old and ugly before my time”describes this 51-year-old executive in the field of culture, in Paris.
It is estimated, according to 2023 data from INSEE, that more than 14 million women are affected by menopause in France. Every year, some 500,000 people begin to experience it without being entirely sure they can identify it. “I first believed, shame and irony, that I was pregnant”, slips Naïla, 53 years old, teacher in Poitiers. Nearly one in two French women consider that they are not sufficiently informed on the subject, according to a 2023 Essity study, and learns on the job that menopause, a natural process which marks the cessation of ovarian function, therefore the end of fertility, is definitively established when menstruation has stopped for twelve months.
“I thought I knew what to expect – hot flashes, intimate dryness, low libido – but I didn’t expect to be affected at the age of 44, confides Marie, who is now 45, teacher in Lorraine. I, who have always been dynamic, feel like my battery has been taken away. My brain is dragging, it’s incredibly difficult to put two ideas together, my muscles are like cotton and my bones are like lead. I feel like our old cassette players whose batteries were at the end of their life, with the music slowing down. »
How to deal with this “second wife” – which Gena Rowlands’ character talks about in Opening Night (1977), by John Cassavetes – when, a few days earlier, we feel at the zenith of our life, freed from the series of existential problems that had cluttered our thirties? “It’s like coming face to face with eternity”formulas Louise, 44 years old, architect in the Grand Est, who recently discovered the existence of the term “premenopause” (or perimenopause): this pivotal period, which lasts on average two to four years before menopause, can be accompanied warning signs of aging, called “climacteric”.
“A Pressure Cooker at maximum temperature”
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