We knew she was committed. When she was faced with the first signs of menopause, Elsa Wolinski didn’t understand what was happening to her. If she found herself in a form of medical and personal wandering, the 50-year-old journalist and writer, who is also the daughter of Maryse and George Wolinski, is today keen to free speech on this subject. On his social networks, where she approaches menopause with frankness and freedombut also through his podcast Come on, I dare!in which it collects the words of various personalities who have come to share their experience. From Azucena Pagny to Michèle Bernier, via Sophie Fontanel, these testimonies, the last of which was broadcast this Friday, February 9 on listening platforms, also allow us to understand that each woman experiences this period differently. On the occasion of this news, Elsa Wolinski confides in Gala.fr. Meeting with a spontaneous and free woman, who is no less touching.
Gala.fr: On social networks, you speak with frankness and transparency about menopause. Why did you decide to make it a podcast?
Elsa Wolinski : I hadn’t been doing very well for two years, I was a little lost, I had cognitive fog, I felt unhappy… And then Nathalie Cottet, the producer of Beautiful & Good, show I work for, told me: ‘No one ever talks about menopause, you talk about it on your networks, maybe we could do something together.’ When I talked about it to those around me, I realized that no one wanted to broach the subject, even my closest friends. So I told myself I had to talk about it!
Gala.fr: Was it important to you that women talk about menopause among themselves?
Elsa Wolinski : I myself was in a medical wandering and I didn’t want other people to be in the same situation. And then, I didn’t want to talk about it alone, I wanted to share experiences. The idea was to go and see inspiring women, who would dare to tell themselves about their way of understanding menopause, of experiencing it, of overcoming it and then of transmitting it to as many people as possible.
Gala.fr: You interact in particular with Sophie Fontanel, Azucena Pagny and Michèle Bernier. How are your guests chosen?
Elsa Wolinski : Things happened gradually. Sophie Fontanel, I read her books a lot and I went to listen to her during a reading in a bookstore. Listening to her, I said to myself: ‘She must have had menopause too! ‘I also thought of Sophia Aram because she talked about menopause in her radio columns. Sometimes we tend to forget that these women we admire are people like any other.
Gala.fr: If this subject remains taboo in France, the women you meet talk about it very freely…
Elsa Wolinski : I was very surprised. I went there with my heart and I was surprised with how truthfully they spoke. Azucena Pagny, who is a very discreet, very shy woman, talks to us about incredible things. She confides in her vaginal dryness!
Gala.fr: We also understand that not all women have the same symptoms during menopause…
Elsa Wolinksi : No one has the same symptoms. When I spoke with Florence Pernel, she told me things that no one had told me. She said: ‘Wow, I immediately felt everything coming and within a week it was resolved. I saw the gynecologist, I asked for hormonal treatment and we didn’t talk about it anymore!’ It’s not at all like me who had a medical wandering. For her part, Sophie Fontanel was cooler in accepting it. Everyone experienced this period differently.
Gala.fr: You say that you have reached menopause “like a wall, with no one to talk to.” Can you tell us?
Elsa Wolinski : I didn’t handle it at all. I thought I was depressed, but I didn’t want to take antidepressants until I came off them, I cried all the time, I saw everything dark. I also had quite spectacular water retention, that’s really what alarmed me, I wondered what was happening to me. I had my periods a little less, then no longer at all, repeated cystitis, conjunctivitis, I couldn’t sleep anymore… All the symptoms!
Gala.fr: Has this caused you any harm in the context of your job?
Elsa Wolinski : It didn’t harm me, but I had a loss of self-confidence. I couldn’t remember well, I was more tired, I was more nervous. When I felt all this, I had not yet read the study by Doctor Louise Newsom, who interviewed 3,800 women in England. Of these 3,800 women, 99% say they suffer from menopausal symptoms, 59% say they have taken days off because they were so unwell and 12% have resigned. When this happened to me, I felt like I was losing my bearings. I can’t say that I often felt confident in myself, but this was even worse.
Gala.fr: And in your personal life?
Elsa Wolinski : It was more complicated in my personal life, because I had a fight with my best friends. I was very nervous and angry around my children, which is not my case at all, I am rather a kind, attentive and tender person. So I had a complicated year.
Gala.fr: In your podcast, you say that your daughters have a “terrible” image of menopause because of you. What happened ?
Elsa Wolinski : I regret. At Christmas, my daughters told me that I had become a sad mother and that it hurt them. It was difficult to realize this. It’s true that during this year, it was very complicated, I had lost my joy. I didn’t understand at all what was happening to me. I saw everything black, I felt ugly, everything was gaining momentum.
Gala.fr: What is the situation today?
Elsa Wolinski : We laugh about it now. For example, Bianca, my 14 year old daughter, is hot all the time. She said: ‘No mom, I’m not already in menopause!’ In fact, we really talked about it. At first, they didn’t really understand. When we are that old, it seems so far away…
Gala.fr: To what extent is it important to awaken the younger generation to this phenomenon?
Elsa Wolinski : First of all, I find that the generation of girls between 25 and 30 years old is incredible. In recent years, on social networks, there has been a revolution in periods, postpartum, and feminism. I wanted to talk to these girls and give them answers to the discomfort they may be feeling. Menopause is not a small transition, it’s a real earthquake, it’s a fairly difficult moment in life. And the more we talk about menopause, the more we change society’s view of these 50-year-old women that we are. There is this idea of giving strength to young women and allowing them to be whoever they want.
Gala.fr: Alongside menopause, how do you experience the passage of time?
Elsa Wolinski : Time passed so quickly that I didn’t see myself getting old or menopausal. If I had paid more attention, if I had listened more to my body, perhaps I would have reacted less violently. The passage of time doesn’t scare me. I like how old I am. I have rarely been so fulfilled.
Gala.fr: What advice do you want to give to women who are also going through this period?
Elsa Wolinski : This is a stage where you really have to take care of yourself, listen to yourself. This moment in life requires real introspection, you have to stop a little and agree to be gentle with yourself.
Gala.fr: To summarize, even though we are 50 years old, we are in menopause, it is not the end! Is that the message you want to send?
Elsa Wolinski : Society gives us the image that a menopausal woman is the end of something, as if there was a deadline. That’s no! It is not the end, but the beginning of a creation. When anthropologist Maragret Mead said: ‘There is nothing more powerful in the world than the energy of a woman in menopause.’ It’s true. All of a sudden, we transform this force differently. There is an open-mindedness where everything is possible.
Photo credits: DR WOLINSKI