What My 16-Year-Old Self Can Teach Me About Menopause, Masking, and Energy

Prefer to listen? Click on the video below. If you enjoy reading, keep scrolling. You can support my work by signing up to my newsletter. Remember to follow, like, and share on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Please note that this may contain affiliate links. Thank you – your support means so much!

A while ago I listened to a podcast that invited a deceptively simple reflection.

How did you feel when you were 16?

What were your hopes and dreams?
What did you enjoy?
What did you spend your time doing?
How strong were your friendships?
How was your energy?
What did you eat and drink?
What did “being tired” even mean back then?

And then came the harder part of the invitation.

How does that compare with how you feel now?

As a woman in my 50s, that question landed with more weight than I expected.

Not because life now is bad — far from it — but because the contrast is interesting. And perhaps revealing.

The hidden cost of masking menopausal symptoms

Later in the day, I read an article about the exhaustion of masking menopausal symptoms.

Not just the symptoms themselves — the disrupted sleep, the brain fog, the emotional lability, the creeping fatigue — but the effort it takes to hide them.

To carry on as though nothing has changed.
To stay productive.
To stay pleasant.
To stay “capable”.

And it struck me how strange this still is.

There remains a stigma around menopause that feels wildly out of step with reality. Roughly half the population will go through it, and most women will do so at a broadly similar stage of life — yet many feel uncomfortable even naming it.

Some don’t want to admit they’re menopausal at all.

Which feels… odd.

We don’t hide adolescence, despite its emotional swings, awkward bodies and shifting identities. We accept it as a developmental phase. Expected. Temporary. Normal.

Yet menopause — another profound biological transition — is so often treated as something to manage quietly, privately, or stoically.

As though acknowledging it is a weakness.

Another reason to be tired

What really stayed with me was the idea that menopause becomes another reason to feel tired.

Not just physically tired, but tired of holding things together.
Tired of compensating.
Tired of pretending energy hasn’t changed.
Tired of explaining — or not explaining — what’s going on inside your own body.

And when I hold that up next to my memories of being 16, the contrast sharpens.

At 16, tiredness existed — of course it did — but it didn’t define life in the same way. There was more emphasis on fun, on friendships, on doing things because I wanted to rather than because I had to.

Or is that just hindsight?

Am I remembering through rose-tinted glasses, smoothing over the insecurities and uncertainties of adolescence?

Possibly.

I genuinely don’t know.

What if awareness is enough?

What I do know is that the act of noticing matters.

Simply asking:

What has changed?
What feels harder now?
What feels quieter, or more distant, than it used to?

Often, awareness alone is enough to shift something.

Not to “fix” it.
Not to optimise it.
But to soften our relationship with it.

Menopause doesn’t have to be framed as loss — of energy, of youth, of identity — although it can feel that way at times. It can also be a period of recalibration. A chance to question long-held patterns of over-functioning, people-pleasing, or relentless pushing.

Especially if we stop masking.

Looking forward, not backwards

I’m clinging — quite happily — to research that shows that overall, people report greater happiness after 50.

Not necessarily because life is easier, but because perspective shifts. Priorities clarify. There is often less tolerance for things that drain us and more appreciation for what genuinely nourishes us.

I’m also holding onto research showing that the quality of our friendships at 50 has a significant impact on our quality of life at 80.

That feels important.

At 16, friendships were central. Time-consuming. Emotionally rich. Sometimes dramatic, often joyful, usually prioritised.

Somewhere along the way, many of us relegated them to the margins — squeezed in around work, responsibility, caring, and coping.

Perhaps menopause, for all its challenges, is also an invitation to revisit that.

What would I bring with me?

So today, I’m not asking how to “get back” to being 16.

That wouldn’t make sense.

Instead, I’m asking:

What would I like to bring with me into this phase of life?
A little more play?
A little more permission to rest?
A stronger commitment to connection?
More doing things because I want to, not because I should?

I don’t have the answers.

But I do believe that asking the questions — without judgement, without urgency — is a powerful place to start.

And perhaps that’s one small way to unmask menopause: by letting ourselves be curious rather than critical, honest rather than heroic, and kinder to the bodies and minds that have carried us this far.

Sue Palmer MCSP is an award-winning Chartered Physiotherapist, educator, and author. Known for her compassionate, evidence-informed approach, Sue specialises in human health and equine well-being, with a focus on the links between pain and behaviour in horses. She is registered with the RAMP, ACPAT, IHA, CSP, and the HCPC.