Menopause at 16

I remember it like it was yesterday. A group of friends and I were happy, 16-year-old teenagers in Greece, free to be on our own. The four of us were on an adventure, with dreams of partying and swimming in the gorgeous Aegean Sea.

My period had been consistent since I was 12 years old. So, that first sunny morning in Greece, I went to the bathroom, expecting that my period had arrived overnight. Despite forgetting to cover my panties with a pad, there weren’t any red stains on my underwear. I was bloated and constipated, but I wasn’t bleeding.

My friends told me that it was completely normal. They said this happens all the time and that I just had to relax and enjoy my period-free vacation days. But my period did not come in the following 10 days of my vacation, and it never returned naturally on its own.

How I found out

It took two years for doctors to diagnose me with menopause; I was 16. Despite the head rushes and mood swings, my doctors and I were both shocked that my teenage body was going through something like this. I felt confused, and I was generally experiencing disbelief waiting for the results to say that everything was fine, that this was just a phase. I was sent to a hospital in the capital of Serbia, Belgrade, which meant that this was something serious. Whenever you’re sent to the capital hospital, they are sending you to the best doctors and specialists in the whole country. This was frightening because this meant that the doctors I was seeing had run out of options, and they were hoping that a specialist could do something for me that they couldn’t: treat me.

I was in the best hospital in the country, getting treated by a fantastic doctor who was always there to answer my questions and comfort me. The day I was released from the hospital, I had the reading of my final results. Instead of being met with the kind face of my doctor who had been treating me, I saw an unknown lady who read me my results.

I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I remember thinking I was dying. She was saying something about medicine and that if I didn’t take it, my body would just continue behaving as if I was an old woman and that my body was at risk of the illnesses that typically strike more senior people. Suddenly, I imagined myself as an elderly lady with gray hair, unable to stand straight. She added that I could not have kids, of course. She prescribed medication and finished with a promise that medicine was developing really fast and that, in 10 years tops, things would change and I will most certainly be able to have a baby. Assuming that, as a woman, I most definitely did want one.

I left the doctor’s office, unsure of what was going on. The information was overwhelming, and eventually, my brain stopped trying to process it all. Today, I understand that I was going through a very traumatic moment, where my body separated from my mind. It felt as if I had left my menopaused body and observed everything as an outsider. The doctor was saying words that eighteen-year-old me could not quite comprehend. Maybe it was because of her lack of empathy or perhaps because I felt like a lab rat. My situation was a grand discovery for the hospital that amazed doctors. Yet, they could not even handle telling me the news in a professional, human way.

I was released from the hospital, but I had more questions now than before I was admitted. I felt like I was in a nightmare waiting for someone to wake me up. I needed someone to simply explain things to me repeatedly so that I could grasp the situation and make a connection between me and my old lady body. My mom was as confused as I was and could not offer the support and comfort that I needed. She was going through the same kind of disbelief and general confusion.

What was the reason for early menopause? We still do not know for sure. They said it might have been stress, something abrupt, and very traumatic. I couldn’t recall anything immediately. Maybe it was the bombing in Serbia when I was 11 and the consequence of the gasses or the harmful toxins that stayed in the soil. Maybe. Nobody knows, and I will probably never know either.

I still have a lot of questions.

It has been 18 years since I have been menopaused and 16 since my diagnosis. I am 34 now, meaning that I have spent more than half of my life under medications and with many questions and fears that come and go. But most of the time, I am just confused. Should I feel grateful because I am never in pain? Should I be happy that there is medication for my condition? I’m not cured, but at least I’m being treated, right?

Another question that haunts me is Why? Why did it happen? And why me? I obsess over the possibility that I had done it to myself. When I was a teenager, I was furious at my parents. I was surrounded by women that were not happy with their personal or professional lives. So, I decided that I did not want kids and wanted to focus only on my career. I often wonder if I somehow blocked my ovaries with my own thoughts. I could also place the blame on OTAN for throwing bombs all over Serbia. I crave having something or someone to blame.

Sometimes I feel angry. Other times I feel relieved that I never had to worry about an unwanted pregnancy. But admittedly, sometimes I hope I magically get pregnant, even if it was with a one-night stand. Sometimes I imagine a period that will never come and what I would say to the father that I don’t even know. I try to hold on to the chance of that kind of miracle.

Now that I do want a kid, and since it has been 16 years since the promise that medicine would progress in the following 10 years, my ovaries are still silent. The cure that was irresponsibly promised is still not here. As a feminist, I cannot help but think that this problem would have been treated if men had ovaries, and we would have a cure today. For now, I can only look for different options for childbearing. But in the meantime, I continue to bleed every month, feel bloated, and experience pain and diarrhea, just like many other people who have periods. I menstruate without being able to give life. Still, I understand that blood keeps me young and fit and helps me prevent osteoporosis and other diseases. What happened to my body that caused a 16-year-old to have menopause will probably stay a question forever without an answer.