Menopause gaslighting: yes it's a thing

Or how work can make you feel crazier than you were to start with

I have written a fair bit about work in the past and in fact wrote an entire freaking book about it (there you go- blowing my own trumpet again). I wrote this book when I was going through one of the crossroads moments mentioned before, and I wasn’t sure where I was headed work wise, but knew I had learnt about things I didn’t want to do, but there was room to hone in on the things I did. What I hadn’t reckoned on was the pretty old dirty bastard menopause to come into play just when I was trying to make my power move into the new world of startups.

More correctly perimenopause which is the bit that leads up to menopause but from what I’ve learnt thus far is as dreadful. In fact I am hoping that the actual menopause, when my periods cease will be a walk in the park compared to the perimenopause which has been…insert any negative descriptor here that comes to mind.

Some of the symptoms I’ve experienced have been forgetfulness, paranoia (this is a nice one when it comes to working alone a lot as it makes you feel like you have a permanent enemy sitting on your shoulder and pointing out what’s about to go wrong), and physically a kind of bone-tired dead feeling like I’ve run a marathon in the desert and now have heart palpitations because I am about to do a few rounds with an aggressive looking camel.

The term ‘gaslighting’ is one that I didn’t grow up with, but it was certainly something I experienced. But what about when you’re going through menopause and perimenopause and are experiencing gaslighting at work? And how does it manifest itself?

I have found the combination of entering new work environments, with new technology, new teams, new tasks, new communication platforms whilst going through perimenopause to be….insert any negative descriptor here that comes to mind.

I have also found it to be incredibly educational. I have learnt a lot of things, things I considered myself to be too old to be learning, and I’ve proven to myself that I can work in challenging environments and survive. I have sworn a lot and struggled with emojis on slack and possibly overshared (when you understand that you’re over half way through your life you want to cut to the chase a lot).

What I’ve also experienced is a total lack of awareness of how menopause and its ugly sister perimenopause can play out at work. Or more accurately how co-workers or managers should support women who are going through it. This kind of suprised me because you can’t scroll through LinkedIn without seeing a seminar, or course, or coach, who is helping employers understand midlife women in some shape or form. I suppose it will take a while for menopause to move from a trend to an actual real life thing perhaps.

So what kind of gaslighting did I experience and what did I learn? Well I encountered some of these phrases fairly regularly:

‘You’re easily confused.’

‘You seem overwhelmed.’

‘I don’t understand why you’re struggling with this right now.’

‘I think you forgot our meeting.’

‘You didn’t remember that right.’

These things were said, when I was navigating a particularly acute bout of symptoms and was arguably performing pretty well (let’s say I was keeping a lot of balls in the air whilst simultaneously riding a unicycle which is what any working parent will tell you their life experience tends to feel like).

What was interesting was that when I pushed back or tried to create a boundary (to someone slacking me at four in the morning), I was told I was confused, overwhelmed and incorrect.

Here is the thing.

Many women going through menopause are struggling. They are often doing so in silence because they don’t know whether they’re going mad, or whether what they are feeling is legitimate and deserving of attention. From an early age and certainly when pregnant, and then giving birth to children, women are told that their physical experiences are not a priority. Their focus should always be on others you see. At work this can be a bit of a drag as it means the gender programming to PLEASE EVERYONE ELSE AND NOT MYSELF comes into play. It may be that there is some confusion but the reality (for me anyway) was that I was doubling down to ensure that I would work so hard that confusion would only manifest itself away from the workplace (so almost trying to switch off my menopausal symptoms at work) .

Most women I speak to, friends, experts, ex-colleagues, do their best to jolly well ride it out and be an ideal employee because they are well aware that confusion is not a good look at work. So if these words are used at work, and are used to poke holes in performance, well the impact is pretty tough.

It means the metophorical snag in the tights is poking out from under the skirt.

This can unleash a level of menopausal anxiety which causes women to do one of two things: a) they blow their job up and resign (satisfying but ultimately weary-making) or b) they stick with it but their menopausal symptoms are amplified further and get in the way of them doing great work and things go from bad to worse. It’s the cycle of menopausal gaslighting fuckery and it’s toxic to say the least.

So what can companies do for women going through the change?

• I’d argue that it’s great to have menopause policies in place and to allow women to work flexibly (and this should be true for other health and wellbeing issues that impact employees at all levels), but most importantly is that employers understand the red flags, the conversations non-starters, the things that are NOT USEFUL to say to menopausal women

• Don’t amplify symptoms by accusing people of being confused. Don’t make overwhelm worse by flagging the overwhelm. Be human. Be supportive. Look at solutions and encourage women to talk if they want to - let them know that you’ve got their back and will see this through with them. Be an ally not an aggressor.

• Consider how you want the conversation to net out. If your aim is to make your menopausal employee feel worse, for them to question their ability to work, then continue gaslighting them by making them question whether they are actually a good fit to work at all. This route leads to a no-win scenario though. Best case is that they leave and talk shit about you behind your back, and the worst case is that they stay and might even have you up for nice tribunal if they feel they have a good case for it.

• At the end of the perimenopausal/menopausal day employers and managers need to put themselves in the shoes of a woman going through menopause. And once in those shoes think about the things that will bring out the best in her. It’s not actual rocket science. Constructive yet kind.

It actually isn’t that hard. It’s about being a good egg.