Menopause deserves a cool nickname too

A guest post by Nadine Abou Zahr from her book Menopostal

Aunt Flo, that time of the month, shark week, lady business, on the rag, my bloody valentine, the crimson tide, Carrie, the red wedding… In my lifetime, I have heard more nicknames for menstruation than I can remember. From the poetic ‘Pink Lady’ to the plain gory ‘blood massacre’, the monthly period has been a metaphor playground for almost every single woman I’ve known.

The list of ways to describe this notorious monthly shedding of a woman’s uterine walls is as wide-ranging as it is original, and ever growing.

So naturally, I went online and typed in menopause nicknames.

I got an ominous, solemn hammer blow: ‘The Change’ – which sounded more like The Conjuring or The Exorcist than The Sound of Music, if you want my opinion.

I looked a little deeper and found a selection of related terms like ‘mental pause’ and ‘menopleasing’, among other menoboring expressions that in my ten years of menopause I have never ever heard anyone use.

What I realised was that women going through menopause do …