I thought menopause would hold me back. It did the opposite

I was about to turn 50 as we went into the first Covid lockdown in the spring of 2020. Like many people, after the initial panic, I went into autopilot and continued my job as before, writing reports for corporate clients and working as an editor and writer, while attempting to homeschool my younger son. I had no idea at the time that I might be going through perimenopause, although in hindsight the signs were there. Hot flushes came and went, as did weight gain and mood swings. I was lucky that I could work from home, flexibly. I did not even realise at the time that I was in perimenopause. I knew something wasn’t right, but in the early 2020s, there was little awareness of menopause and its symptoms. The lockdowns meant that speaking to a GP was also much harder, so I generally coped on my own. By the time I was offered HRT a year later, I had found coping strategies and was probably over the worst of it. And so I ploughed on. I had no choice really; deadlines had to be met and life just had to go on somehow. Six years on, I feel like I am through the worst of it, and while I do still have moments of forgetfulness and I tire slightly more quickly, at the age of 56, I also have far more mental clarity and focus than I ever remember having. Shorts We focus so much on the negatives of menopause, and forget that for many women, like me, midlife brings a lot of freedom, clarity and outright joy. My 25 years of experience mean that I come up with ideas and solutions that younger people may struggle with, and my work has my full attention. Gone are the distractions of my thirties, when the ticking of the biological clock and the panic of when, or even if, I could get pregnant, was so loud at times that I could barely concentrate on the job at hand. Gone, too, are the many worries that came in my forties with early years parenting. My eldest son is now 20 and at university, and my younger son, nearly 17, is a sixth former, and so the frenetic pace of life as a young parent has finally slowed down. No school pick-ups or drop-offs to worry about and no activities or play dates to organise. While menopause campaigners have quite rightly brought attention to the many horrendous symptoms of the menopause, and the multitude of barriers that women continue to face in obtaining the right care, there are many of us for whom midlife also brings a renewed sense of confidence and new opportunities. We are thriving, bringing decades of experience to our professional lives and finally doing the things we always wanted to do. Eleanor Mills, founder of online midlife platform Noon and former editorial director of The Sunday Times, is of the view that midlife can bring renewed clarity and focus for many women. “My way of thinking about midlife is that in the 100-year life, 50 is around the midway point. What happens is that the first circle comes to an end, maybe that was child-rearing, or a first career, but you get this immense opportunity to start again,” she says. “I see this time as being about becoming the women we always wanted to be. It’s the age of opportunity. At around 50, we finally slough off everybody else’s expectations. “The campaigning around the menopause has been incredibly important, because it was completely unspoken about, and lots of women suffered in silence. But I think talking about the menopause like it’s this terrible thing does a disservice to the 75 per cent of us who have not had severe symptoms.” According to a 2025 report published by Prowess, a UK network supporting female entrepreneurs, women now account for 36 per cent of all self-employed people, and one in four self-employed women are aged over 50. Meanwhile, a 2022 report by Noon, in partnership with Accenture, found that midlife women placed greater importance on flexibility and work-life balance than on status at work. Midlife for them is less about winding down and more about taking greater control over their working lives, whether by changing careers or starting a business. Emma McCaffrey, 49, founder of “Move with Emma”, an online fitness membership with over 200 subscribers, saw the perimenopause as an opportunity to redefine herself. After dealing with a traumatic divorce and redundancy simultaneously, while raising two daughters, she turned to fitness and movement for her mental and physical wellbeing. “Rather than slowing me down, navigating perimenopause alongside single motherhood became the defining catalyst for my success,” she says. “Perimenopause didn’t hold me back; it gave me clarity. It forced me to listen to my body, ditch outdated fitness expectations and create a business that truly serves women in midlife. It turned out to be the most empowering transition of my life,” says Emma. “Midlife and menopause aren’t the end of vitality; they are an invitation to rebuild on your own terms.” For Nina Assam, now 53, the turning point came with divorce in 2020, which gave her the impetus to establish her still-life photography business. In the six years since, her income has increased by around 300 per cent, and she has now founded a photography retreat business aimed at women in midlife, which is also thriving. “I was probably perimenopausal when I started the business, and I was getting bad brain fog and noticing that I just wasn’t as sharp any more, but I started taking HRT when I was 50, so it hasn’t really held me back,” says Assam. Being a single mum with two children, she was spurred on to create something that gave her the flexibility to be there for her children while bringing in sufficient money to support them. “I had no one else to support me after my divorce, and that really spurred me on. I think the menopause is just something you learn to work with. It didn’t hinder me physically or mentally.” For others, such as my friend, Lucy, 54, who has been a primary school teacher since her twenties, midlife meant she finally got to specialise in an area of teaching that she found more rewarding. “I battled through part-time work as a primary school teacher when my kids were younger, but it wasn’t really what I wanted to do,” she says. About 10 years ago, Lucy retrained as a specialist teacher and now assesses children and advises schools across the borough where she works. “I only landed my ideal job in my forties after getting a diploma to specialise in dyslexia training. The work I do now is incredibly interesting and rewarding, and it also gives me much-needed flexibility,” she says. “I am on the best pay I have ever been on, earning about three times as much as before.” Jenny Holliday, a career happiness coach, says: “A lot of the women go from wanting to please the boss to wanting to please themselves. I think there’s a renewal that happens in midlife. When you’re in your twenties, you’re climbing the ladder, whereas in midlife it’s less about climbing the ladder, and more about doing things on your own terms.” That certainly rings true for me. While I still have many demands on my time, and my caring responsibilities have now shifted from my children to my elderly mother, who now lives with us, there is also a renewed sense of self-assurance that comes with midlife. I am finally doing the things I always wanted to do, writing on the issues that affect women like me, and building something worth investing in, on my own terms. I have more ambition than I ever remember having. Gone is the self-doubt of my younger years, and I am excited about the possibilities ahead.