Articles

THE STRESS RISKS INVOLVED IN MENOPAUSE

Even the most skeptical of physicians and mates usually view menopausal depression as "real." That is, they assume physiological changes within the woman can explain mood and behavior changes. She is more likely to receive sympathy and understanding at this time than when she is premenstrual or going through a postpartum depression.

Who can argue with the reality of the hot flashes that the majority of menopausal women experience? Who can argue with the reality of the permanent cessation of menstruation that results from the end of ovarian activity? These symptoms are neither imaginary nor psychosomatic in origin, all agree; therefore, menopause must be real.

The sympathy doesn't stop here. Physicians and husbands understand that menopause represents a landmark along the road to aging. Who can argue with the assumption that a woman will be depressed at the notion of aging? Who can argue with the idea that the loss of fertility makes a woman naturally defensive and irritable? Who can argue with the belief that when a woman feels older her sex drive decreases? Researchers can—and do.

It is ironic that much of this sympathy is unnecessary and may even be unhealthy: unnecessary because the most recent research points out that most women do not experience increased depression or any other type of mental illness during menopause (S. McKinlay and M. Jeffreys, 1974, for example); unhealthy because such sympathy may encourage women to feel defensive and devalued by assuming that they should feel that way during and after menopause.

The happy truth is that many women find the freedom from fear of pregnancy liberating, both sexually and practically. With menopause comes a rite of passage into a period of personal choice and self-defined life-styles—free from premenstrual tension and postpartum blues, free from preparental anxiety, and filled with postparental relaxation.

According to Lena, now sixty-two years old, the fun has just begun. At thirty-eight she started to plan for her retirement from mothering. She enrolled in a counseling program that had evening classes. By the time Lena reached menopause, she had completed her master's degree in social work, completed her full-time mothering responsibilities, and completed her ten-year plan to prepare for her second career. It has been five years since she began private practice, and she is pleased that she sorted her interests sequentially, rather than juggling them simultaneously.

Of course, this is not to say that menopause is always a time free from sadness and stress. Even in women who look forward to their life changes, there may be nostalgia for earlier times, a sense of loss of their ability to have children, and an anxiety associated with entering a later stage of life. Furthermore, menopause is a time of major physical change. Life change and physical change interact, once again. Female stress symptoms can appear, once again.

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