Confidently Navigating Menopause at Work

In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about menopause. For some women, the phases of menopause follow a reasonably predictable course. For others, however, it might start earlier than expected or lead to unexplained symptoms that can have you asking, “What’s wrong with me?” My guest this week, Susan Miele, a menopause educator and former chief people officer, shares how early perimenopause interrupted her once-thriving career. Without an understanding of what was happening to her, she began self-medicating and eventually left her job to focus on her health. Here we discuss the importance of menopause awareness in the workplace so that women can get the support and care they need to stay in their roles and continue to grow their careers. We also talk about ways in which organizations can have these conversations and normalize this experience.

About My Guest

Dr. Susan Miele is a transformational leader and workplace well-being advocate dedicated to redefining the narrative around menopause. Susan frequently speaks and writes about workforce inclusivity, gender equality, and the retention of senior women, challenging organizations to see menopause as a key factor in creating supportive, inclusive workplaces.

A former Chief People Officer at Ginkgo Bioworks, Susan led efforts to make biology easier to engineer. At Foundation Medicine Inc., she built a People Team that helped drive the company’s rapid global growth and earned it multiple Best Places to Work awards. Her career spans senior leadership roles across biotech, publishing, finance, and more.

Susan holds a PhD in Human and Organizational Systems and brings a mindset of continuous learning to her work. A dedicated yogi, she infuses her leadership with mindfulness and compassion. Susan is active on several boards, with a special focus on organizations that bring resilience and well-being to marginalized communities in her hometown of Portland, Maine.

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Connect with Susan:

Websites:

https://menopause.org/

https://www.susanmiele.com/

https://www.letstalkmenopause.org/

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Other Resources:

The Menopause Society: https://menopause.org/

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Transcript

Kim Meninger

Welcome, Susan. It is such a pleasure to have you here. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time, and I would love to start by welcoming you and inviting you to introduce yourself.

Dr. Susan Miele

Great. Thanks so much. Kim. It's great to be here. So I'm Susan Miele. I am, well, I guess I would say retired Chief People Officer, I spent almost 40 years in human resources, and I left my corporate career at the beginning of 2023 and since that time, I've been focusing on trying to educate the workplace on the impact of menopause and the workplace, and really trying to change the narrative and normalize the narrative around menopause and how I got into this work really goes back almost 20 years. At 42, I was at what arguably would have been the height of my career as a chief people officer in a financial technology company. It was a Fortune 500 company. I had gotten to that position quite young, at 38 so I had held that position for a couple of years, when all of a sudden I had these really severe psychological symptoms. I had trouble focusing. I had trouble hanging thoughts together. I was not very productive. I had gone from sort of an Uber productive, running a really large team to really not even be being often able, unable to, like, kind of hold, hold it together for a full day in the office. So my performance was suffering. My marriage was suffering because I was self-medicating with alcohol, which was a really not that was causing my physical and mental state to deteriorate further, but I felt sort of at a loss, and I saw doctor after doctor trying to figure out what was going on. And each doctor that I saw was sort of focused on depression or anxiety or burnout or stress related to my position. I had a five-year-old at the time, but as I started, as I said at the beginning, I had held this position for several years. So yes, it was a very as most chief people officer jobs are, it was very busy. It was very stressful. We always had a lot to do, but we had navigated just two years earlier. We had navigated 911 as a company. And I would say, if there was ever a stressful event, the next one being close to that would have been COVID different, but in terms of the level of stress that it put on Chief people, officers and executive teams and companies, particularly in the financial services space. So I none of those diagnosis felt true, and I I didn't have any physical symptoms to speak of. So fast forward, I was six months maybe I was suffering, and I could tell by the looks on people's face I was trying to hide it, but I could tell every time I made a poor decision or was irrational or upset about something, I could tell like people were kind of treating me differently and looking at me differently. So I started to feel more alone and isolated. And then the sort of culminating event was I was presenting in front of my executive team colleagues again, who I worked with now for several years. This was like, a pretty tight group, and my boss asked me a question. It was employee engagement results, which, you know, I pretty much knew by the back of my hand. So it wasn't anything difficult. It wasn't like, you know, we were planning a layoff or something that was like, you know, causing a great deal of stress. And I, I, I couldn't answer, like, I was like, paralyzed, and then I just broke down crying, left, went to the lady's room in this hotel, and I couldn't, like, couldn't I couldn't leave. I was, like, kind of stuck in the bathroom. And most of my colleagues were men, so there was in any way that they weren't coming to get me. So eventually I got myself together, and then that was sort of the point where I decided I had to resign, because I felt like I couldn't handle the responsibility of the position, and I felt like that a system was reinforcing that, right? So nobody ever suggested that I might be in perimenopause, which is what it turned out, that I was so I was in perimenopause. It was severe. It was rapid onset. I was really young. Only about 12% of women experienced menopause before 45 so I was 42 I left my position. I didn't have another job. I didn't have a plan. It was terrifying, but I thought the only way to save my sanity, my professional reputation, what was left of it at that point and my marriage, was just leave and figure out what was going on, pursue help, pursue more doctor's appointments and or if. Was indeed stress and that I couldn't handle the job anymore, maybe take a break and then, you know, do something different. So that's what I did. So I left, I took more than a year off before I went back to work and a much less demanding capacity, a great job with a great company, but it was a much less demanding capacity as a talent management consultant.

Kim Meninger

So all this time that you're struggling with these symptoms, and you don't know what's happening, and you're watching it affect your performance at work, and you don't know how to explain it, right? What's going on in your mind, right? Like, what are you telling yourself? What? How are you navigating the day-to-day?

Dr. Susan Miele

So, I wasn't navigating very well. I mean, I wasn't sleeping very well. I, as I said, I was self-medicating, which was a, you know, added sort of a layer of poor decision-making on top of poor decision-making. And most of the time I was just suffer, struggling to hold it together. So if you've ever been in that situation for any reason, whether it's grief or just actual stress or the balancing, you know life, you're so busy, like, just trying to keep it together every day, that you're not really thinking about anything, right? You're just like, Okay, I gotta get up and I gotta get dressed and I get my daughter to daycare, and I'm gonna work and I'm gonna do the best I can to make sure that nobody knows that I'm losing it, and I'm gonna try to get through the day. So, like, every day just felt like that for like months. It didn't feel it felt like it altered reality, really, and it was very lonely because it was really hard to explain. And seeing doctor after doctor and having them just be like, Oh, well, I don't, I don't know you're you know you perfectly healthy. You take this anti-anxiety medicine, or it must be stress. And I even did take a six week leave of absence because I thought, well, I can't hurt but I basically came back in almost the exact same form that I left in from an emotional and mental perspective, I was physically stronger and healthier because I did a six week I went to a yoga retreat for several of those weeks, and so I came back feeling much, much physically, much healthier. So yeah, I really, I had no idea I was like, on the verge of like, panic almost all the time, and I'm the first person in my family to go to college, so the thought of weaving like a C-level job, and my husband had a big corporate job too, and we were living into that lifestyle. You know, we were only and maybe married seven years at that point. So we had bought a big house, we had two cars, we had a daughter in private school. We lived in an affluent Boston suburb, so it was like leaving that job then led to a series of decisions, which was selling our house, taking our daughter out of private school. So every day just felt like I was just getting through the day. And I've I had never suffered from depression or anxiety, but I can imagine that that's how people feel like or postpartum like you feel like every day, you're just kind of getting through the day, and you're not really thinking about the next day or the day after that, and until that like break down in front of everybody that I probably could have recovered from, like, in terms of my professional reputation, but for me, that was like the break I, I couldn't I almost couldn't face them anymore, like I gotta go. I was just like and 20 years ago, people Didn't take breaks, right? They didn't take it off that mental health, even if it was a mental health issue which it wasn't. Mental health had its own stigma back then, so I wasn't then, when I even was physically well enough to think about going back to work, to go back as a CPO like, what was I going to tell people? I had a breakdown, left without a job like that was that was a long time ago when, I mean that would a break on your resume was sort of unusual, and it could have been corrending for me as far as like the C-suite went, and I knew that at the time I made the decision, but weighing all the other things in terms of my sanity and my marriage, I felt like, if I never see Chief People Officer again, and I'm never a Chief People Officer again. I mean, that's that was a decision. It was a hard decision, though, because they knew made it, that that might be it.

Kim Meninger

That is a really tough place to be. I mean, I. As I'm listening to your story, I'm feeling anxious on behalf of your, you know, self 20 years ago, because I can just imagine the feelings of doubt and fear, and you don't know what's happening to you, and you can't explain it, and you're not you know that it's not going well, but you don't know why, and there's so little that you can control in that situation, I just can't imagine how you get through that. So the fact that you, you know, I mean, you described as a breakdown, and I, you know, you're bringing some humor to it, I can imagine that was a really difficult time like, I think, just the fact that you it unfortunately took to that point, but that you said, Okay, I'm gonna figure this out and do what I need to do is a moment of strength in an otherwise really scary time.

Dr. Susan Miele

Yes, yes. And then, you know, the, the next year was challenging. You know, I had never been a stay-at-home person, right? So, like I was, I all of a sudden, was a stay-at-home-mom and like that was just an identity, like disruption, like I had put so much into my career that I always like prioritize my professional identity in a way that I didn't prioritize my personal identity to the same level. So that really led to, like, a real disconnect for me, too, during that year where we were, you know, selling the house and making these big life changes so that then I could figure out what to do from that point forward. So there was, like, a lot of impact on my identity and a lot of er interpretation once I decided to go back to work in terms of like because it took me seven years to, to get on hormone replacement therapy. So I didn't get on to hormone replacement therapy till I was almost 50 so I started that perimenopause. I left my job at 42 at 43 it was clear that I had had my last period 12 months earlier, and that even then, it was hard for me to sort of connect the dots on those two things, right. It was like I bought into the gaslighting of I had a very stressful job that I left, and I went through early menopause, so like, for, for years, like that was my own story. And if this is one of the things, I think that's one of the least little less understood, and it's becoming more understood, but perimenopause is actually much more difficult of a phase than menopause itself, because perimenopause is when your hormones are incredibly erratic, and as you can tell by my hormones are erratic, and my behavior was erratic, and I didn't have the typical physical symptoms. Perhaps, if I had hot had hot flashes, maybe a doctor would have suggested that I was perimenopausal, but I didn't, and I had trouble sleeping, but that was largely because of my poor choices and the stress that I was under. So I didn't have I didn't gain weight in the sort of visceral fat like I didn't have, like a lot of the more what people think of when they think of a sort of stereotypical menopause symptoms and the erratic fluctuations in Hormones, levels off a bit. You still it's still problematic post menopause, but once you're you have your last period, you're largely depleted of estrogen, or nearly depleted, so that there's other there's other problems with that, but that the erraticness of my behavior and my mental my, my psychological state really calmed down post menopause, but I still wasn't well, and I was still I have a I have family history of osteoporosis, so I had a very high risk of osteoporosis, and I still needed because my, my it was so fast that my hormones, like went off the rails like quickly. So someone as young as I was really needs hormone therapy, if they can take it, because the long-term health effects of going that long without estrogen on your bones and your heart are really detrimental. It took me because it was 2002 that was when the flawed data from the WHI study around hormone therapy was published two years earlier. So hormone therapy was all but unavailable to me until. Well, I could find a place which is called Women to Women here in Maine, which I we eventually moved to Maine, I but I was in Boston at the time, so I had to come to Maine to get hormone replacement therapy. And that really helped me. And it's really unless you're counter indicated when you're young, and you go through menopause that young, it's really important, because your bones and your heart will suffer later on. So I don't, I can't say that it was what gave me my confidence back. But I did return. I did return to the C suite as a chief people officer for another 12 years after I got on hormone replacement therapy. So there's some connection to how I was feeling and my confidence, that I felt so much better, that I was able to like put myself out there again to interview for that level position. After that period of time.

Kim Meninger

One of the reasons why I really wanted to have this conversation with you is because, I mean, here we are in 2025, it's a lot conversations about menopause, conversations about mental health, conversations about, you know, human stuff, let's say, are less stigmatized than they used to be, but they're still sometimes, especially depending on the environment, and especially if you, you know, work with all men, it might feel uncomfortable to have these conversations, but especially when you lack information like you were talking about before. Of I can imagine there are people listening now who say, Oh my gosh, that sounds like me, but I never would have attributed it to perimenopause, right? Like I just thought I was crazy or just burning out, or, you know, so, so I would love for you to share a little bit more about why this work is so important to you, and what it is that you're trying to do now, giving our story.

Dr. Susan Miele

So how I sort of pivoted here it's I didn't leave my corporate career and then with the intention of ending up here. But when I left my corporate career, I decided to just take a pause, like a really deliberate pause, not one that was forced on me by circumstances, and just really think, what is it that I can do to give back to the world. And at the time, in the last two years of as as you've seen and your listeners have seen, menopause is really having a moment again like it did in the 90s. And there are many doctors and influences and people who are getting information out there to women about menopause, about the stages of menopause, about how crazy perimenopause is, because, like so many, women just don't know that, and they think they're, they're suffering, and they go, think they can get a test and, and tests aren't even really helpful in perimenopause, because it's the fluctuation that's causing, um, causing a lot of the symptoms. So you can't, like, test it to find it, like, maybe you got it on the right day. So, so menopause is having a moment yet, and which I'm so grateful for, because people can get the information that about some of the stuff that we've talked about, but the silence around menopause in the workplace is still deafening. People still are talking about menopause at work, and I think there's several reasons for that. One is ageism. I think women, we have enough going against us already. Kim in the workplace, that the last thing that anyone wants to add to that is, oh, by the way, I'm also going through menopause, because think about when you start perimenopause. You're often at the height of your career. I happen to be a little younger, but you're often at the height of your career, your late 40s, maybe going for the next promotion, managing your family, doing all the things that women do, and all of a sudden you're like, you're experiencing hot flashes or like crazy periods, or you can't sleep. The last thing you want to do is have a conversation about that, because in any little thing you do incorrectly at work are not up to the level of competence that you're typically known for. And be like, Oh, well, so easily dismissed, right for not taken seriously gas lit. So ageism and stigma slash taboo, I think are sort of the biggest reasons that we're still not talking about menopause at work. And I think women's like you habitually, women are, you know, suffer through lots of things, so like, get myself through this, you know, it's not going to be that bad, right? What if I'm a little crazy, or, you know, I gained weight, or my hair falling out, like I just I got two kids I got to take care of. And I gotta, you know, get them to soccer, get them to ice skating or whatever. So, like, we're, we're sort of used to suffering through reproductive our reproductive years, so this is just the end of the reproductive years. So I think so the reason that's the real reason I got into this work because I know corporate environments, and I feel like what I've learned is that if you just start normalizing it like people will talk about it, and it won't be like so weird. So having educating people is a big part of that right creating awareness like so many people don't understand what's going on with them in perimenopause, I met an HR business partner at a talk I was doing here at an HR event. She's been suffering in silence for the last couple of years, increasing her antidepressant, anti-depression medication, gaining weight from that, sweating, miserable, not productive at work, got on hormone replacement therapy. Also, a rather young woman got on hormone replacement therapy after coming to my talk and was feeling better within weeks. So a lot of it's just information. So I'm just trying to get the information out to women to advocate for themselves. I would love to help corporations make change too in their benefits, but frankly, as a former HR leader, that's not that hard. I'm not saying everybody's going to do it, but it doesn't take a rocket science to add menopause as a reason to take a leave or add menopause as a reason to adjust your work schedule. Self-insured companies can easily add menopause specialists onto coverage. They can cover hormone replacement therapy to make it accessible. There's nothing from a what companies can do to support women from a benefits perspective, that's really difficult. The difficult part is, how do you get the conversation going in the workplace, so that you know that there are women that even need support, or want support, or you, you are willing to have the conversation as a senior leader, which I'm sure you've seen this in your in your work, in your in your coaching work, in and your podcast. You know a lot of women don't want to be the face of menopause because of all the reasons that we talked about, like, I want to be known as a great, great female CEO, not the CEO who went through menopause at work. So that's the barrier that we have to break down. And I feel like, if we're talking about it outside of work, I can't tell you how many men have been, like, really interested in this topic, to support their wives. And therefore, I feel like if they're talking about it in their homes, they'll be able to talk about it at work. And if they understand that, menopause is really three distinctly different phases, it's not just that one day on a calendar, you can navigate it so much better if you understand that. And for companies, somewhat kind of all over the place, but for companies, the long-term health risks are huge. So there's like a there's a return on investment of an of investing in women to keep them in the workplace longer, because they if they have an identity crisis and they decide to leave like I did, which is not uncommon. It's like one in five women leave jobs menopause. Uncommon. That's not common, but it's, it's not unheard of that women make changes or step back or don't put themselves up for promotion, but if, if they say, and they do and they haven't gotten the proper treatment, heart disease and osteoporosis are real risks of been post menopause, you know, so 7-10, years post menopause, even if you have an uneventful menopause where you're not very symptomatic, if you don't get treatment, the right treatment, or you're not taking the right care of yourself, you can end up with long term health conditions and that are directly related. So there's, like, a there's a real business case, I think, for supporting women, and I think it starts with awareness, and that's where I feel like I can be the most help.

Kim Meninger

I think you're absolutely right that this is an important conversation that we all want to have, but we don't want to be the face of menopause within menopause within our organizations. So I always feel like to avoid making one person the face. These collective conversations, right, are so helpful. So having a group discussion, you know, bringing in an expert such as yourself, who can talk to a lot of people, then it becomes anything that happens after that is an extension of a conversation that multiple people have been having, right? As opposed to taking one brave soul to, to approach somebody and say, Hey, can we talk about menopause benefits, or, you know, the, the challenges associated with it, right? So do you have, do you have any. Any other advice for people listening who might want to bring this conversation into their organizations, but are not sure where to begin because they don't necessarily want to be the spokesperson.

Dr. Susan Miele

Let's not forget the irony is not lost on me. I was the chief people officer, and I wasn't doing anything about middle-class benefits even up till the day I left corporate America. So it now part, part of that was a demographic of the company that I worked for. It was a, you know, the demographic was much younger, tended much younger. So it wasn't really, you know, there's, like, the realities of, what's the complexity of your company, and where does this fit in your overall wellness strategy? So that's, I think there's two ways to go, and this, this is where I've been making the most inroads in the last year or so. One is Employee Resource Groups. Women's employee resource groups, the larger, more established companies in particular that have the broader demographics and have an aging population, they're like, that's a great place to start. They are like, usually can do their own programming and well, things are a little challenging with employee resources groups at the moment, but private companies, I hope, are going to continue this work, and so women's employee resource groups, some of them are even breaking down into smaller groups at the larger companies that have a menopause affinity group and are doing things like book group around some of These many books that have come out in the last year and a half or so. So I think the Employee Resource Group is one. I also think wellness programming is another really viable route. It's not it's not necessary. It depends on the company in terms of how much education they do around their wellness. But I think wellness programming is another opportunity for companies to use that as a way to educate the workforce on, oh, hey, you know, 50% of our workforce is going to go through menopause. That's the other thing, right? The numbers are crazy. 50% of the workforce is going to go through menopause at some point. And depending on if you're if you're 5050, but depending on the company, depending on the ages. Like, if you look at your employee census, you can figure out like, well, we should be doing something for menopause. We should be thinking about this as a benefit for our employees, to keep them healthy and well, you know, and continue to keep them continuing to work, right? So there's a business return on that investment, but employer resources groups are great because then they can bring in people like me, and they don't have to be the face of menopause.

Kim Meninger

That’s gonna be it exactly, exactly. I think those are great pathways forward. And, you know, I was thinking about it in the context of allyship too, where maybe it is something that younger women do on behalf of older women, because it's not their issue yet, right? It's easier, perhaps, for them to bring it up to the employee resource group, and you know, because it is something that will strike all of us at some point. So the sooner you have that information, the more prepared you are for whatever eventuality you face.

Dr. Susan Miele

Yes, and I mean perimenopause can start in your late 30s. I mean some this is i You could be postpartum and perimenopausal, and if I thought I was a mess like that, combination could be really awful from a psychological perspective, but then the physical symptoms can be quite debilitating as well. So younger women, that's, I think that's the other reason we don't talk about it at work, and it's sort of related to ageism, but it's like this myth that menopause is an older person's condition, it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, it's you're at least 50, you know. And if you're 35-50 seems like it's a long way away, you know. But you can start being symptomatic as early as your late 30s. I had a personal trainer that I worked with years ago. She's 40, and she's just started having debilitating perimenopausal symptoms, and she went sort of the traditional route, and her doctor said, No, you're too young. Oh, let's do this test. Oh, no, the test says I'm not, you know, I'm not in menopause. And I was like, I don't care what the doctor tells you, like, you have to go by your symptoms, like, go by your symptoms, not by what the doctor tells you, and like if you can't. And the great news is more doctors are becoming aware and educated, but if you don't have a doctor who's a menopause specialist or is open to having a conversation, there's great telemedicine options now for women that are at least, will bridge the gap, you know, to give to listen and say you're not crazy, because there's a 34 at least, identifiable symptoms of perimenopause, starting perimenopause, and can go right through post menopause. And you know, you can be having any combination, like one of the very strange symptoms I had was really. Itchy skin. Like, really itchy, itchy. Like, I was itchy, like, so, you know, I really did feel like I was having a breakdown, right? So I'm like, couldn't hold a thought together. I was like, not, you know, as someone who is generally known for her composure, it wasn't great. So I think for a lot of women that they face that, and if they don't get the right help, that could, like, I was lucky enough to get the right help, be able to advocate for myself, get my career back on track. But I don't know how many women can do that. Like, think about accessibility. Think about like, I might, I have two nephews that are grown, and they're firefighters, and I think, what about female firefighters? [Oh, my goodness, yeah.] Or police officers, or even in the, the medical field, like nurses and like the kinds of jobs that require you to be physically able, you know, I was physically able to show up, but that was about it like, how do you think about how debilitating this could be for some careers, not an office, white collar job like I had. So I think in, in that, in how do you make this accessible for people? First, it starts with awareness. So that's really, like I said, that's really where I'm focused, is on the awareness, and it as much in the community as I can, but mostly in the workplace, because I'm super passionate about keeping women in the workplace and helping them get to the next level. If we want to have a pipeline of women executives, we have to keep them in the workplace. There's already enough reasons that women leave. You know, there's enough barriers to women leaving that menopause doesn't have to be one of them.

Kim Meninger

You’re right. I think that's absolutely true. And I love your point about advocacy, too, because sometimes I mean, we're afraid to push back on our doctors, and we want to feel like this is, you know, oh, good, thank God, I don't have anything wrong with me. It must just be in my head, right? Whereas you know yourself, you know if things feel different, right? Like, you know if this is out of character for you. And really listening to your body, listening to your instincts and being willing to, to say, No, I'm gonna find someone who's willing to listen to me.

Dr. Susan Miele

I think that's a really important point, and this is because one of the things I try to do is give women, like, simple things they can do. Because the last thing you want to hear from me is, oh, you know, start eating more protein and go to the gym and like, really, you hear that enough from everybody, but keeping track of your symptoms is something that you is easy enough to do. It's free. It doesn't take that much time. But if you start and it's as simple as what you just said, if you start not feeling like yourself, start paying attention to your symptoms, because chasing different diagnosis is also one thing that happens. You go to three different doctors, your periods out of whack. So you go see your gynecologist, but they say, Oh, you're too young, or, you know, they do the test that isn't very reliable. You're starting to have heart palpitations. So you go see your PCP, and they say, Oh no, no, your heart's fine, or you're having the psychological symptoms. And you go see a therapist, and they put you on something, and you're like, No, this isn't quite it either. You know, my sister my mom, both had depression and anxiety. So I was like, It's not that. Like, I knew it wasn't that, but I was like, okay, sure.

Kim Meninger

I'll try anything at this point, right?

Dr. Susan Miele

I can't hurt so you chase these different diagnoses, and nobody's putting a puzzle together for you. So if there's like a one easy thing to do is simply, if you start, like, even my, the trainer that I mentioned, she started feeling like, really rageful, like in the afternoons, and she thought it was her blood sugar, and she thought it was this, and, you know, it turns out she was in perimenopause. And moodiness and mood swings is part of that. Irritability is one of those symptoms, and she's, she's doing much better. Is also quite young, at 40, so I think that's a simple, easy thing to do. And a lot of the other things seem overwhelming when you're in the middle of your career and raising your family, and you're like, if I could go to the gym and eat more protein, believe me, I would, but I can't, so please don't tell me that. So just start not feeling like yourself. Is a good enough reason to be like, Okay, let me pay attention to this. Let me pay attention to my cycle. Let me pay attention to what's happening around my cycle. Is it shorter? Is it longer? Is it wacky? And then you can take that to your doctor. And if you're again, if your doctor is like, yeah, yeah, you're too young, or you're this, or that, the menopause society has a list of menopause specialists. So I highly recommend people look at the Menopause Society website as a resource. And as I said, the telehealth, there's a whole slew of them now in the women's health space. I don't have any that I know of personally that I can recommend, but I know that they're making hormone therapy and care much more accessible for women who need it. So that's good news.

Kim Meninger

That's great news. And I'll put that link in the show notes as well. I mean, I think you've given us so many great things to think about, Susan, because I'm sure there are people listening who are feeling like it never occurred to me that it might be perimenopause, right? That there's some mystery thing going on that's affecting us mentally, physically, and to just have this kind of awareness is so critical, and then to be able to follow up and get the support that we need and so It you know, I really appreciate your willingness to share your story too. You, your story is inspirational, and I also think probably resonate with a lot of people who are listening. And so I'm just so, so grateful that you're here, and for people who want more of you, right, who maybe want to bring you in as a speaker, or who want, who want to stay connected to you? Where can they find you?

Dr. Susan Miele

I have a website. It's just my name. It's Susan mealy.com my LinkedIn profile now reflects all of the work I'm doing as well, and I have a sub stack that I write, usually monthly, and I've been tying my I'm not only writing about menopause, I'm writing about identity, because menopause is one identity disruptor, but identity disruptors happen along a longer journey. So I've been writing a lot about that. So my website is probably the best one resource to find me.

Kim Meninger

Excellent, and that will be in the show notes as well, along with the other links and thanks again, Susan, thank you for what you're doing, and thank you for being here.

Dr. Susan Miele

Well, thank you and thank you for having me. It's great.