Less than four months after the #KnowYourMenopause campaign began and we were popping champagne corks in the Pausitivity HQ (okay, we were sending happy emojis in WhatsApp).
On World Menopause Day, we received this amazing tweet:
#Happyworldmenopauseday To celebrate @DarrenMDavies @NWSSP will ensure #KnowYourMenopause @Pausitivity2 posters are displayed in all GP Surgeries across ?ᅠチᄃ?ᅠチᄋ?ᅠチᄈ? Wales by the end of October if not sooner! Fantastic day for menopause awareness. Thank You Darren pic.twitter.com/PW5x57mkFt
— Karen Wright (@Karenawright67) October 18, 2019
That’s right – every GP surgery in Wales will display a #KnowYourMenopause poster.
I’m still shaking writing this now! Please tell me you can read that, too, and it’s not a dream!!
What’s more, we have translated the poster into Urdu to help a much-neglected group of women. We were inspired by the work of our supporter Dr Nighat Arif, who wrote a fascinating article about how BAME women view the menopause. Our poster is going up in her office and surgery today. I love it: it looks like a piece of art and I’d definitely have it on my wall. Click on the poster to download a copy and share a selfie with us.
We began Pausitivity do do just this – you can read about how we started the KnowYourMenopause campaign here – so to have achieved this in such a short time is incredible.
So I’d like to thank our amazing team, Twitter, Facebook, my mam, the woman who passed me in the shop today, the dog I patted…
Seriously, it feels like we’ve won an Oscar, we’re so thrilled.
Nor is it only Wales, as well as backing from Holyrood and the Scottish government, we’ve had some wonderful successes in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland and getting more support by the day.
It means such a lot when we hear about our posters sparking conversations and giving women the strength to discuss menopause with their doctors.
I think I’m keeping the hankie industry going, the amount of blubbing I do!
We’ve had some incredible celebrity selfies, too, including some real heroes of mine from my youth, such as Wendy Smith from Prefab Sprout and Tony Hadley.
After she appeared in 50Sense to talk about Comedy Women in Print, the lovely Helen Lederer gave us a selfie (“Slightly creased but important,” she wrote. Aren’t we all?), as well as the likes of Jenny Eclair, Jeremy Vine, Ross King, Hazell Dean, Marian Keyes, Rebecca Callard, Tracy Cox, MPs including Dr Rosena Khan and Carolyn Harris, bestselling authors Rosie Nixon and Lorraine Mace, NHS trusts, GPs…
We also told our story on the fantastic The Happy Menopause podcast with Jackie Lynch. That was great fun – us on phone lines to Jackie, unable to see each other and either talking at once or being polite and waiting! But most of all, laughing. Who says discussing menopause has to be doom and gloom?
(The Happy Menopause is an excellent podcast for midlife women. I really recommend you subscribe and have a listen. And if you like it, leave a little comment on iTunes so others know how good it is.)
We’ve been on TV, on the news, in newspapers, chatted to radio stations all over the country, discussed menopausal swearing with LBC’s Shelagh Fogarty, been asked to talks, meetings…
It’s been amazing.
Who are Pausitivity?
Pausitivity are just Clare Shepherd in Yorkshire and me in Kent. That’s it.
We have never met, have no backing, no contacts and no funding – we talk longingly of sponsored mailshots and banners and posters on posh paper and getting cleaners because we have no time to tidy up or hoover!
But we know we’re not alone and that we have a whole army of Pausitivity Pals cheering us on and helping us each step of the way and that spurs us on every day.
And I wish I could hug each every one of them because without their selfies, this would never have happened.
Thank you.
How you can get involved
We want you to download and print the poster from Pausitivity and pin it up wherever it can be seen. We want this poster to be seen anywhere and everywhere by anyone and everyone.
Where you could share the poster:
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Community centres
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Health centres
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Work noticeboards
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Slack groups
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Gyms
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Church halls
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Slimming groups
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Playgroups
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Supermarket noticeboards
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Union meetings
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Pub toilets
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That trendy café down the road
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A window
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Your desk at work
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ANYWHERE (so long as it’s legal!)
And then share the message on social media under the hashtag #KnowYourMenopause. Come and join our Pausitivity Pals!
Why is this important?
Around a third of the UK’s female population are either peri or post-menopausal and it’s estimated that one in four of them will suffer debilitating symptoms that can last more than a decade.
Yet we know little about menopause symptoms before we are hit. Yes, everyone knows about hot flushes, but few know how bad they could be.
Few know about other symptoms, such as disturbed sleep, aches and pains, heart palpitations, mood swings, vaginal dryness, depression, forgetfulness, loss of libido… And because of this, we go through needless anxiety and worry. Relationships also suffer because we don’t know how to explain why we’ve changed overnight.
How will the poster help women?
By downloading this poster, you are:
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empowering women to understand what is happening to their bodies;
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showing menopausal women they’re not alone;
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supporting women going through an early menopause;
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breaking down the taboo around menopause;
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helping GPs diagnose menopause quicker, meaning women get help quicker,
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and saving the NHS money in wasted prescriptions, GP appointments and tests.
Seeing the KnowYourMenopause poster will not only help women understand what they’re going through, but it will also make them feel less alone and help break the taboo that surrounds menopause.
It’s not just helping the women going through the menopause now. By downloading and sharing our poster, you’ll be helping daughters, nieces, granddaughters, goddaughters, the woman in the office, the woman in the shop – every woman now and in the future (and all those they know).
Spread the word!
If you can think of a healthcare or women’s group that would like to get involved with #KnowYourMenopause, spread the word.
Like and share posts with the hashtag #KnowYourMenopause and follow:
Clare Shepherd – Menopause Coach
our amazing designer @shieldsdesign20,
and, of course, me! I’m on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
You can also follow Pausitivity on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or read more at Pausitivity.co.uk.
Help us to help others #KnowYourMenopause.