Lately it feels like everyone is talking about menopause. Maybe it’s the algorithm showing me more because of my age, maybe it’s the circles I’m in. Either way, it’s everywhere.
Recently, I was chatting with a woman I’d never met before – and right at the beginning of our conversation she quipped about her “perimenopausal brain”, and from there menopause became a big part of the conversation. She told me she’s 47, started peri-menopause in her 30’s and is still struggling with it, and I was quite surprised (and honoured) at how open she was with me.
All this talk about perimenopause makes me look back on my own story. When I was deep in burnout, it wasn’t this prominent in everyday conversation – I hadn’t even heard of peri-menopause until I was about 50 – and the connection (or overlap) between menopause and burnout wasn’t something people really talked about.
But now, with the benefit of hindsight and everything I have since learned about both menopause and burnout, I find myself wondering:
How much of what I went through was burnout, and how much might have been related to menopause?
Both were very real for me, but at the time I didn’t understand menopause the way I do now.
And with everything I’m seeing on social media and hearing in conversations, I have a couple of concerns.
Concern 1 – The Stigma Risk for Midlife Women at Work
Awareness is valuable – it gives us language, connection, and options. At the same time, if menopause is mostly shown through jokes about perimenopause brain fog or endless symptom lists, it can create a narrow and unhelpful picture. I worry that some employers may take in that picture and quietly question capability. That helps no one.
A more helpful approach could sound like: “I’m in perimenopause and I manage it with sleep, nutrition, my GP, and a few adjustments to how I work.” It’s concrete and calm. It signals responsibility and agency without apology. It also leaves room for the truth that midlife is one of the most powerful stages in a woman’s life – a time when judgement, influence, creativity, and leadership often peak because of experience, clarity, emotional maturity, and lived wisdom – and these are factors that should absolutely be shouted from the rooftops!
If you lead a team or own a business, treat menopause as one piece of midlife mental health and wellbeing, not as a verdict on someone’s value. No matter your life stage, male or female – there are ALWAYS factors that contribute negatively or positively to your ability to perform. Let’s remember that, and encourage clarity over fear and support over assumptions.
Concern 2 – If Everything Is Blamed on Menopause, We Can Miss Other Causes
Another pattern I’m seeing online is that almost any symptom between 40 and 55 is now attributed to menopause. I understand why – we want an answer that explains what we feel.
But for some women, what looks or feels like menopause might actually be burnout, or a mix of both. And if everything gets attributed to hormones, we risk missing the deeper causes – like chronic stress, emotional load, or the nervous system running on empty.
A simple way to keep a balanced view is to cross-check:
- Medical Basics: Check in with your GP about thyroid function, iron levels, B12, vitamin D, sleep apnea, blood pressure, and any medications that might mimic similar symptoms. Sometimes the simplest medical checks can make the biggest difference.
- Life Load: Take stock of your overall load: work demands, caregiving, grief, finances, relationship strain, and your mental health. Lifestyle habits like sleep, movement, nutrition, alcohol, and caffeine also play a role – they all add up and affect how you feel.
- Stress and Regulation: Notice your patterns. Chronic stress, burnout cycles, anxiety, trauma history, and a lack of real recovery time can all leave your nervous system stuck in overdrive. Over time, that constant “on” state can drain both your energy and mood.
- Hormones: Perimenopause is real. If HRT is appropriate for you, it can help a lot – but it has limits. It doesn’t replace good sleep, a nourishing diet, healthy boundaries, therapy, or a kinder schedule. Think of it as one piece of your overall wellbeing puzzle.
None of this removes menopause from the story. It just keeps it in proportion so you can get the right support in the right places for the right things.
A Useful Parallel – ADHD Awareness Without Dilution or Stigma
Disclaimer: I’m not comparing menopause and ADHD here. I am aware they’re completely different experiences. I’m mentioning it here because these conversations – menopause, burnout and ADHD – have followed a similar path online: more awareness, more connection, but also more risk of oversimplification.
Greater ADHD awareness has helped many people who were missed as children finally understand their brains and get care. That’s a huge win. But there are two risks here, and they apply just as much to menopause and burnout as they do to ADHD:
- Dilution – when a label is used too broadly, its meaning gets fuzzy. If “ADHD” becomes shorthand for any moment of distraction, or if “menopause” is blamed for every ache or lapse in concentration, or if “burnout” is used to describe everyday stress or tiredness, it becomes harder for people with significant symptoms to be taken seriously – or to recognise when something else might be affecting them.
- Stigma – when awareness focuses only on struggles or gets reduced to one-dimensional stereotypes (“scatter-brained midlife woman”, “can’t focus because of ADHD”), it can unintentionally fuel bias. Employers, colleagues, or friends may form limiting assumptions about capability, even if they never say them out loud.
The sweet spot is awareness that’s both accurate and stigma-free: clear enough to be meaningful, and framed in a way that validates experience without boxing people in.
The Deeper Layer – It’s Rarely One Thing
I believe that how we think, feel, and function on any given day rarely comes down to a single cause. It’s a complex web of all sorts of things, like:
- Upbringing and early attachment
- Trauma, big and small
- Natural temperament
- Brain wiring and genetics
- Physical health and nutrition
- Society and culture
- Work design and workload
- Support systems and stress cycles
Labels can point us toward help, but they don’t capture the whole human. Sometimes a label brings relief and opens a door. Sometimes it explains part of the picture and leaves other parts untouched. It’s still useful – just not the whole story.
A Kind Way Forward
I’m not a menopause expert by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not a medical professional of any kind either. So I’m not going to give you that kind of advice, but what I do want to try and do here is suggest that you consider the whole picture so you can get the right care for you.
- Let labels help, without letting them have the final word. Relief in a name is real. Curiosity about what else might be present is just as important.
- Pay attention to how you’re feeling and what was happening around you that day. Note things like sleep, stress, food, your cycle, workload, and connection. Not to prove anything, just to see if you notice any patterns.
- Choose language that leaves you room. “I’m noticing…”, “I’m managing…”, “I’m exploring whether…”, “I’m getting support with…” These phrases keep doors open instead of boxing you in.
- Build a small circle. One or two trusted people who can listen without fixing – a friend, a partner, a colleague, a community. If you want professional support, bring your notes and your questions.
- Give yourself permission. To rest. To ask for small adjustments. To change your mind as you learn more about what helps.
- Remember two things can be true at once. Menopause can be real and other stresses can be real. Burnout can be present and hormones can be shifting.
Final Thoughts
Your experience is real even when it doesn’t sit neatly in one category. Most of us move through midlife with a mix of physical shifts, emotional strain, stress patterns, and habits that were formed long before our hormones changed. So it makes sense that how we feel rarely comes down to one cause.
This is why it helps to keep the full picture in mind. When menopause becomes the automatic explanation for everything between 40 and 55, it becomes easy to miss things like chronic stress, overwork, grief, early trauma, or simple medical issues that need care. And when menopause gets reduced to jokes about brain fog or a long list of symptoms, it can unintentionally shape assumptions about capability, especially in workplaces. Neither extreme supports women in a meaningful way.
A grounded view sits somewhere in the middle. Menopause matters. Burnout matters. The nervous system matters. Workload and support matter. Medical basics matter. Each factor plays a part, and understanding how they intersect helps you make clearer decisions about your wellbeing and the kind of support that will actually help.
Midlife is also a time when many women are at the height of their judgement, influence, creativity, and leadership. Keeping the conversation broad protects that. It leaves room for capability, clarity, and confidence without feeding stigma or reduction.
How we feel is rarely just one thing. And when we take a wider view with curiosity and care, we give ourselves the best chance of getting support that fits the real story of what we’re carrying.
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