Key points:
- Menopause not only affects women, but it can also affect their families.
- Listening and supporting are great tools to make menopause more bearable.
- Physical and emotional changes are frequent during menopause and climacteric.
Almost every woman between the ages of 47 and 56 will begin to experience physical and emotional changes triggered by menopause, says Dr. Consuelo Manero Soto, psychotherapy and mental health specialist at ABC Medical Center During this stage, it is normal for you to experience hot flashes, lack of concentration, a drop in libido, memory loss, depression, anxiety, irritability, and other physical and mood changes.
That is why this situation can affect the family, as they do not know how to deal with the changes that you experience as a woman, and that sometimes can result in a friendly and smiling mother, but sometimes in a sad and crying mother.
Although all these situations can scare us, they should also be considered normal because every woman will experience them.
“The symptoms experienced during and after the menopausal transition vary greatly from person to person. While some women experience few or no symptoms, others may experience severe symptoms that affect their daily activities and reduce their quality of life. In some cases, symptoms can last for several years.”1
What can I do as a family?
Every member of the family can support you so that this new situation that you are experiencing as a woman is more bearable, this includes listening. We must remember that sometimes silence can help more than thousands of words, but it must be a silence that accompanies, that shows affection, that embraces, on many occasions this is more than enough to feel supported and heard.
Another kind of support is to provide the necessary confidence so that they can express their feelings, says Dr. Manero. Including not making fun if they lose an object, it is better to help her find it and as the day goes by, both can even laugh at the event, sometimes laughing at ourselves can bring us peace, but you have to know how to distinguish when it is appropriate and when it is not.
Something really important is not trying to fix her life, no woman wants everything in life to be fixed, this can make them feel like a burden or helpless. But, they do seek to feel support from their family members, to have a family that listens and supports them, that laughs with them and not at them, all of this will help them get ahead with a better quality of life.
Also, we must always keep in mind that we should not take the emotions they can express personally. We must remember that in many moments of life, there are real situations that can frustrate everyone and it has nothing to do with the climacteric. You can always support them by indicating that what they are feeling at the moment is normal and, eventually, that feeling will pass. These small actions will help negative feelings not multiply.
For Dr. Manero, dialogue is the most important tool in family support for a person who is experiencing menopause or climacteric. That she can have the confidence to go with her partner, with her children, or with any other relative, and be able to talk about how she feels and receive positive feedback, will help to open a harmonious communication channel with the whole family.
Remember that women, like everyone else, seek to feel cared for, knowing that their children and family listen, support, and understand them.
At ABC Medical Center Women’s Center, we can provide you with specialized care. Contact us!
Fuente:
Dra. Consuelo Manero Soto – psychotherapy and mental health specialist at ABC Medical Center
https://youtu.be/fHpAaerZMG0
1https://www.who.int/es/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/menopause
