Many women feel a sense of liberation as they face the cessation of periods. Women experiencing induced or premature menopause may go through a difficult adjustment. Physical changes can also go along with changes in family, work and other relationships. Many women in their menopausal years are still caring for teens and older children, for aging parents or other family members.
Many women live alone or are socially isolated.
The menopausal years can also be a time to reassess one's life and what the future may hold. Women with histories of abuse may wrestle with the demons from the past. This should be the time in life when women have the space to deal with these feelings so they can lay them to rest. Easy to say, but often hard to do. Menopause can be a time of enormously increased self-knowledge, of a breakthrough to the kind of person you always wanted to be.