Here's what I wasn't ready for when menopause arrived…

1. The emotional detachment

I was 39 when it began.

It wasn't dramatic or obvious. It was a quiet, almost imperceptible shift in who I was. In fact, other people noticed it before I did, and that was perhaps the most unsettling part of all.

People who knew me well would gently say, "You don't seem yourself." At first, I dismissed it. I was busy. Stressed. Tired. Surely that was all it was.

But as more people reflected the same thing back to me, I began to question myself. They no longer recognised me, and, if I was honest, neither did I.

It felt as though I'd become disconnected from myself, as if I was living slightly outside my own body. Something had quietly hijacked my nervous system, changing the way I thought, felt and responded, so gradually that I couldn't see it happening.

At 39, menopause never crossed my mind. I believed I was far too young.

The softness I had always recognised in myself seemed to disappear. In its place were sharp edges—impatience, irritability, a short temper that felt completely alien to me. I seemed to hurt the people I loved most without meaning to. Yet I couldn't fully see it, and I certainly couldn't understand why it was happening.

Looking back now, what I was grieving wasn't just the symptoms. It was the subtle loss of myself.

And I know now that I'm far from alone. So many women describe this same quiet disconnection...that feeling of no longer recognising the person staring back at them in the mirror, while trying desperately to carry on as though everything is fine.

If this is your experience too, I want you to know this: you're not imagining it, you're not "going mad," and you're certainly not alone.

2. The loss of energy

If there is one symptom that has stayed with me, even ten years later, it's the loss of energy.

It isn't simply feeling tired. It's grieving the loss of waking after a good night's sleep feeling refreshed, motivated and ready for the day ahead. That effortless energy I once took for granted disappeared, and I still miss it.

When my menopause began, I had a two-year-old child. Looking back, the timing felt incredibly cruel. Like so many mothers, I was already running on empty, giving everything I had to my family. Menopause added another invisible layer of exhaustion that few people could see and even fewer understood.

There are still days when I feel a sense of resentment for what was taken from me. The energy to play without thinking about it. To make plans without calculating whether I'd have enough left in the tank. To simply get through the day without feeling depleted.

Over the years, I've learned that fighting against my body only left me feeling more exhausted. Instead, I've had to learn a different way of living.... one that balances exercise, nourishing food, rest and, perhaps most importantly, self-compassion.

Exercise has become one of the greatest gifts I've given myself. Not because I'm chasing fitness or trying to "fix" menopause, but because it reminds me that I still have agency. Every walk, every workout, every moment I choose to move my body is a quiet act of choosing myself.

And perhaps that's the unexpected lesson menopause has taught me.

It has stripped away so much that I thought defined me, but in doing so, it has invited me to rediscover who I am beneath the expectations, the busyness and the constant giving to others.

The woman I've found isn't the same one I was before menopause.

She's quieter. More intentional. More accepting of her limits. More authentic.

I still miss the energy I once had. I probably always will. But I've also discovered a deeper relationship with myself, and it's one built not on what I can achieve in a day, but on how gently I can care for the person living it.

3. The ageing effects

This was one of the hardest parts of menopause for me to come to terms with.

Like many women, I grew up absorbing the message that my value was somehow connected to how I looked. It wasn't something anyone sat me down and taught me, it was simply woven into the world around me. As a young girl and later as a woman, I learned that being attractive, youthful and "put together" was something to strive for.

Then menopause arrived.

The changes didn't happen overnight. They crept in quietly.

My clothes felt a little tighter. My skin changed. My eyes looked more tired. The face looking back at me in the mirror slowly began to tell the story of the life I had lived. The laughter, the heartache, the sleepless nights, the years of uncertainty... all of it became visible.

At first, I found that incredibly difficult.

I caught myself mourning not just the changes in my body, but the version of myself I believed I was supposed to hold on to forever.

As a psychotherapist, I know where those beliefs had come from. They were old messages I'd carried for years. Messages that whispered that acceptance, love and worth came from looking my best.

Menopause gave me a choice.

I could spend my energy trying to fight the ageing process, or I could begin the much harder work of accepting it.

For me, medical interventions to preserve a younger appearance didn't feel like the right path. Instead, menopause invited me into something I never expected: acceptance.

Not resignation. Acceptance.

Acceptance that ageing isn't something to fear…it's evidence that I've had the privilege of living.

Acceptance that every line on my face tells a story.

Acceptance that my worth has never been measured by the smoothness of my skin or the size of my jeans.

Today, I see ageing differently. It's not always easy, and I still have moments of self-doubt. But those moments no longer hold me captive.

I've come to understand that I am so much more than the reflection looking back at me in the mirror.

The older I become, the less interested I am in looking younger, and the more interested I am in living authentically, loving deeply and being fully myself.

For me, that has been one of menopause's greatest, and most unexpected, gifts.