Em Rusciano

And the mass exodus of highly skilled, highly trained women from corporate jobs, they just fall off a cliff.

Because this is a huge thing that's happening to half the population, yet there is very few studies done on it.

The drugs available, the hormone patches are horrible, they're scratchy and itchy and they fall off in the shower.

There's just not a lot around women.

For half the population going through this thing, that starts in your 30s for a lot of us.

And the thing with it is whenever anyone mentions menopause or premenopause, there's a lot of like, oh, that's old lady.

It's an old lady thing.

That's when you're a witch with a beard.

You know, and on one final day, your vagina gives an exhausted cough and you have your last period.

Oh, I'm in menopause.

Like, that's what we all thought it was.

It's true.

If someone had said to me at your age the word perimenopause or menopause, I would have been like, get away from me with your ageing stick.

I'm young and vital and supple and amazing and moist.

Ew.

But now I've found out I was 100% in perimenopause in my mid-30s.

I've gone through it earlier, which does happen to neurodivergent women, anecdotally, no studies, shock horror.

But yeah, you go in and I said to Jamie, I'm just, I've had the ADHD diagnosis, but I still don't know what's wrong.

I'm really struggling.

So when you went into the doctors, did you say, I think I have perimenopause or did you just say what's wrong?