Sophie Wessex opened up about her experience with menopause in a call earlier this year. Prince Edward’s wife was joined by Wellbeing of Women’s Chair, Professor Dame Lesley Regan, to mark her new royal patronage of the organisation, as the pair discussed menstruation and pregnancy, as well as menopause.
The Countess of Wessex detailed how, at 56, the menopause had affected her, and particularly her memory.
“You suddenly can’t remember what on earth it was you were talking about,” she quipped. “Try being on an engagement when that happens. Your words just go. And you’re standing there going, ‘Hang on, I thought I was a reasonably intelligent person. What has just happened to me?”
She added: “It’s like someone has just gone and taken your brain out for however long before they pop it back in again, and you try and pick up the pieces and carry on.
The Countess, who is married to Prince Edward, and mother to Lady Louise Windsor and James Viscount Severn, also suggested the menopause shouldn’t be such a taboo.
“Really, we should be celebrating the fact that we don’t have to have periods anymore,” she said. “It should be a liberation. But it feels like it’s a shackle. Because it’s been described as something that’s incredibly negative.
“And, one, yes it’s an admittance of the fact that we’re getting a bit older; we’re not as young as we were before. We’re not being, to use the word ‘productive’. We’re past that stage, which is quite a moment isn’t it?”
She went on to discuss how young women should be taught about menopause during school.
“I go back to education,” she explained. “How much are young girls actually told at the beginning? When we’re told that we’re going to begin our periods, are we told that they’re going to end as well? We don’t want to have those conversations whilst we are in the zone of being young and having children and everything and then all of a sudden you’re going, ‘Oh my god, what’s going on, how did this happen?’”
Menopause is, indeed, something that affects all of us, so it makes sense that we should be as informed on the topic as we can.
