My Job Is Great but I Still Have Monday Blues Every Week
Menopause fatigue is making it so hard to enjoy what you love doing
I used to look forward to Mondays. I have a great job, and I enjoy it. But it’s also a job that requires a lot of mental energy. When you work in tech, you have to be able to keep up with new information and learn new stuff all the time.
This was never an issue for me until I went through menopause. Suddenly I had no energy. I felt overwhelmed by the constant flood of information. Product changes, trends and features. Something new every day.
I tried and failed to push through the tiredness and the lack of focus. But it felt like I was suffocating under a wave of demands I couldn’t meet. And at one point, no longer wanted to meet. So, I quit my job and went on a four-month sabbatical.
One of the best-kept secrets about the menopause transition is how many women drop out of the workforce due to their symptoms.
In April, the BBC reported that:
In a late 2023 survey, UK workplace-healthcare provider SimplyHealth surveyed more than 2,000 working women aged 40 to 60. Twenty-three percent considered resigning due to the impact of the menopause, and 14% are said they are planning to hand in their notice.
Having debilitating symptoms isn’t an isolated occurrence. It’s not just me. 85% of women experience symptoms of varying severity.
And many of them quit their jobs because they can’t find support.
Companies make no accommodations for menopausal women. They offer no additional days off, flexible workspaces, extra ventilation or a colder room for us. We’re just expected to make it work somehow while our body is going through one of the biggest transitions in our lives.
Only 26% of 8,000 women surveyed by the consultancy firm Korn Ferry said they got help through workplace programs. In a 2023 survey of 11,000 female union members by the UK trade union Unite, 80% of the women said their employer provides no support at work for those with menopause symptoms.
Here in Austria, we have strong unions and good worker protection. But, I have yet to see one lobby for support for women going through menopause.
So, commonly if you need to take more time off or want to rest more, you have to dip into your vacation days or, as I did, quit your job.
Because it’s just women getting old, not a big thing, right?
But it really is a big thing. If the symptoms are serious, as they are for a large number of women, it can be considered a disability.
According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), employers should be forced to make adjustments for women who are going through menopause.
New guidance issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission says menopause symptoms with a long term and substantial impact on women’s day-to-day activities may be considered a disability …
Employers could be sued for disability discrimination if they fail to make “reasonable adjustments” for women going through menopause under new guidance issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on Thursday, amid concern over the number of women leaving their jobs due to symptoms.
I started experiencing symptoms like anxiety, depression and fatigue in the middle of 2020. At the height of the pandemic and the lockdowns. I remember sitting at my desk in my home office, fighting the urge to crawl under that desk and remain there for the rest of the week.
No one ever told me that anxiety and depression can be caused by the change in estrogen levels during perimenopause. I thought I was depressed because I was so worried about my elderly parents and my husband, who has a pre-existing condition. I felt like the fear of accidentally infecting him if I wasn’t careful was crushing me. And I was exhausted all the time.
That feeling of carrying a heavy weight on my body never left me, even after the situation improved. So, in 2022, I spontaneously quit my job. I handed in my resignation even though I didn’t have a plan for what to do next. I just knew I needed a break, or I would implode.
Fatigue increases when women go through the menopause transition. “Only” 19.7% of women who weren’t yet in perimenopause suffered from fatigue. However, 46.5% of women in perimenopause and 85.3% of postmenopausal women experience fatigue as one of their symptoms.
So obviously we’d need some accommodation to continue working. Instead, even the women who don’t quit their jobs experience a financial toll. Sick days, unpaid leaves and missed promotion opportunities due to menopause add up to a lot of money. Money that will be missing in our retirement coffers.
Based on research done by the Mayo Clinic, the workdays missed due to menopause symptoms are estimated to cause an annual loss of $1.8 billion in the United States.
For me, everything worked out fine. A great company reached out to me and offered me a step up the ladder. After four months of doing very little of what I had planned for my time off, I started working again. And I was still tired.
I still am. I love my new job, but I am still struggling with fatigue, which doesn’t want to let me go. I'm in the privileged position of being able to openly talk about the fact that I'm experiencing menopause symptoms. Even with my boss. His wife is in the same situation, and he is familiar with the problems we face.
To get throught this period I use HRT, all kinds of supplements like DHEA, Ashrawanga, and St. John’s Wort, and Vitamin D and B. And it helps. But quite frequently, I barely make it to the end of the week.
Have you considered taking a break from your job due to (peri)menopause symptoms?
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