Tag: MENOPAUSE

Hidden Health Crisis: Navigating Early Menopause, Chronic Illness, and Precarious Academia by Dr. Aikaterini (Katrina) Tavoulari

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Chronic health conditions, fertility struggles, and the precarity of academic life shape the lives of countless academics, yet these truths often remain unspoken in professional spaces. I was preparing to defend my PhD when my body quietly, irrevocably, rewrote the script of my future without consent or asking permission.

The floral dress I chose for that appointment, a cheerful yellow dotted with tiny daisies, hung perfectly as I sat across from doctor. They delivered news that forced me to rethink every assumption I had carried for over thirty years, back when I was still in my thirties, long before I crossed into my forties. Premature ovarian failure syndrome. The clinical terms couldn’t soften the reality: my body was moving into menopause decades ahead of schedule, taking with it the easy assumption that I had time to figure out motherhood later, after I finished my viva, after I started my postdoc, after I finally found a permanent position.

What followed wasn’t just a health crisis; it was a collision between the relentless demands of academic life and the sudden fragility of my own body. This is the story of how I learned that survival in academia isn’t just about publishing papers and securing funding; sometimes it’s about learning to live authentically in a world that rewards high performance above all else.

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Uncovering ADHD During Perimenopause and the Insidious Impacts on Academic Work by Kaylene Ascough

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Undertaking a PhD is an arduous task for anyone and has unique challenges for different demographics. For a mature-aged woman going through perimenopause and menopause, though, a whole range of additional challenges can enter the mix. In my case, the associated hormonal changes exacerbated lifelong conditions that went undiagnosed in the past. 

Most people think and talk about the physical symptoms of perimenopause and menopause; hot flushes, difficulty sleeping, aching joints, etc.  What is less often discussed are the mental symptoms; and when they are, it’s usually quite vague and nonspecific such as ‘mood changes’ and ‘brain fog’.  There are many, many symptoms associated with menopause. In fact, I wrote to my friends once about how every symptom that was occurring in my life at the time was attributable to menopause.  What I was not prepared for was just how insidious perimenopause would be. I have since learned that the period where these changes start, and the length of time it can carry on for, is highly variable. Even when you have “officially” reached menopause (i.e., when you have stopped having a period for over 12 months), this does not always mean the end of symptoms.

This means that, particularly with the mental symptoms, you don’t always realise that what is happening to you is a part of the menopause and you can really start to doubt your sanity. Going through this change of life and not knowing, while trying to participate in academic pursuits like a PhD, can leave you feeling truly inadequate, irrelevant and incapable of contributing to your academic field. 

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