The two menopause symptoms that really wreaked havoc with me were brain fog and meno middle weight gain.

Brain fog because the typos were real. Not good, not good, not good, good. Had to check, check, check my work multiple times.

And then just the extra 10 pounds of weight gain just really zapped my confidence. I didn’t feel like a boss.

Julie Gordon White – Founder and CEO of Bossa Bars →

It was just incredibly embarrassing

Similar to many women, I had no idea what I was experiencing in terms of symptoms were related to menopause or perimenopause. One of my biggest symptoms was heavy periods, like incredibly heavy periods.

And I had one really bad incident at work in the office – I will spare you the gory details. But I was very ill prepared, had to leave the office for the day and it was just incredibly embarrassing. So I will never forget that day.

And I just think there needs to be overall, just a higher level of of awareness that these are very common symptoms, that women experience going through perimenopause and that everyone needs to be much better prepared.

Sally Mueller – Founder and CEO of Womaness→

I was worried about losing my job

My professional perimenopausal mishap was neglecting to schedule patients in a doctor’s office where one of my most important duties was to schedule patients.

It was awful. It was scary because not only was there a disconnect between my brain and the duties I was tasked with and paid to perform, but I was worried about losing my job. It was a really scary time. And it was very telling in terms of sort of looking at how this season of life can impact our livelihood.

Rachel Hughes – Founder of The Meno Memos→

I really struggle with being overwhelmed

Brain fog and fatigue are the things that really dog me. Sometimes I’ll have two or three days where I just feel so terrible and I won’t be able to work, and luckily I’m a freelancer so I can rest sometimes even work laying down. Then I have to to work on the weekend. And I always feel like a failure when that happens.

The only thing I really struggle with is being overwhelmed and I am sometimes really upset about it.

And the last thing is just getting organized. I was such an organized person when I had a full time job and now I have multiple email, all boxes and I don’t know where to do to my to do list and I don’t know what to do first.

And this is all new for me, so I know I just try to be gentle with myself and realize that when I’m stressed, it just makes it harder.

AnnMarie McQueen – Founder of HotFlash Inc→

Perimenopause can feel like an out-of-body experience

I’ve never been happier with my life or more comfortable in my own skin than I am right now —  there’s a calmness that is freeing and powerful, something I firmly and gratefully attribute to my age. But on the other hand, there’s sometimes this background noise of increased anxiety, and sometimes depression, that doesn’t seem like it should coexist with how I feel otherwise. Perimenopause can feel like such an out-of-body experience, and it’s easy to see how it could become debilitating if my professional life were different.

Fortunately, I’m surrounded by a team of deeply compassionate, fundamentally aware human beings who are committed to building a corporate culture guided by empathy and awareness. It helps, of course, that our mission as a brand is to destigmatize aging for women.

But when I think back to my career before starting Attn: Grace — as a lawyer at big firms — I know that menopause there would have been a profoundly different experience. I suspect it would be much like my experiences around fertility, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and ultimately parenthood — rather alienating.

Traditional corporate cultures don’t create space for us to navigate these physical and psychological challenges. Normalizing women’s health and wellness in the workplace is so important, and really integral to addressing larger systemic issues, including the gender pay gap and ageism in the workplace

Alexandra Fennell – Co-Founder Attn:Grace→

Sometimes the best sleep I got was in the early morning hours

When I went through menopause, there were some days I felt so tired because I had been up so many times during the night.

Sometimes the best sleep I ever got was in the early morning hours. So having more flexibility around working hours would have made it to deal with menopause so much easier.

Sonsoles Gonzales – Founder of Better Not Younger→

Perimenopause has impacted my job as a mom

Menopause has impacted me at work, not in my job as a nutritionist, but in my job as a mum. And one specific time that really kind of springs to mind is when I was kind of in the thick of perimenopause – way before I’d really realized what was happening to me, and I completely forgot to go and collect my daughter from school. And I only realized when the school called me. It was about 40 minutes late and the school wasn’t very happy. My daughter was incandescent. She was really upset, and it obviously really upset me too, because it just something that I do day in, day out that had just completely gone from my mind.

And I think that was the catalyst, actually, it was coupled with all the other kind of brain fog, anxiety, palpitations, shortness of breath, insomnia and this real kind of feeling of lack of confidence, all of those things considered pushed me then to get to start talking to my doctor about what was happening with my hormones.

Emma Bardwell – Author of The Perimenopause Solution →