Voices

You Are Not the Only One

Six women. Six different journeys. The details differ but the feeling of not being believed, of not recognising yourself, of carrying it alone, is something many of us share.

These are composite stories drawn from the experiences women share about perimenopause. Names and details are fictional. The feelings are not.

01
Meera · Pune · 39

The Doctor Said It Was Stress

Three doctors in fourteen months. That is my number. The first one said it was work stress. The second said anxiety. Neither ordered a single hormone test.

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02
Divya · Hyderabad · 38

Nobody Told Me It Could Happen at 38

I found out I was in perimenopause the same week my daughter turned seven. She was blowing out her candles and I was standing behind her thinking: something is very wrong with me.

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03
Ananya · Mumbai · 41

My Husband Thought I Was Becoming Someone Else

He said it on a Sunday morning, quietly, while I was making chai. You have not been yourself lately. He was not wrong. That was the part I could not argue with.

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04
Kavitha · Bangalore · 43

I Thought I Was Losing My Mind at Work

I am the person teams come to when they need clarity. That particular sharpness was not something I thought about. It was just who I was. And then, at 42, it started leaving.

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05
Sunita · Jaipur · 37

Everyone Said I Was Too Young. I Believed Them.

Thirty-seven. That is how old I was when it started. The number that made every doctor do a small double-take. Too young, they said. I went home and tried to rest more.

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06
Priya · Chennai · 40

I Was Ashamed of the Word Menopause

In my family, menopause was not a word we said. So when I found out what was happening, I did not tell anyone for four months. Not my husband. Not my closest friend. Nobody.

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07
Lakshmi · Kochi · 44

Two of Us Were Going Through It at Once

My daughter turned fifteen the year my body stopped making sense. She was rising into her hormones. I was coming down out of mine. And we had met, by accident of timing, in the middle.

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08
Rehana · Lucknow · 46

There Was Nowhere in the House to Fall Apart

In our house there are eleven people and no doors that truly close. A hot flash would rise in me at the stove, sweat running down my back, and I would simply keep stirring. Everyone was waiting to eat.

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09
Deepa · Coimbatore · 41

I Went Through It With No One to Turn To

I never married, and I made my peace with that long ago. What I did not plan for was going through this with no one on the other side of the bed to say, are you alright, you do not seem yourself.

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10
Anjali · Delhi · 45

I Did Not Recognise the Woman in the Mirror

Clothes that had fit for years suddenly pulling in the wrong places. I stood in front of my wardrobe some mornings and felt genuine grief, as though my body had quietly been replaced with one I did not know.

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11
Ritu · Kolkata · 43

We Drifted, and I Thought It Was Us

For over a year we drifted apart in the one area we had never had trouble. I let him believe I had stopped wanting him. The truth was my body was in pain, and I could not find the words to say it.

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12
Shabnam · Ahmedabad · 47

A Friend Said the Word Before Any Doctor Did

It was not a doctor who first told me what was happening. It was Farida, my friend of thirty years, watching me fan myself with the menu. She said, I think you are in perimenopause. Nobody tells you.

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