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Pausitivity #KnowYourMenopause campaigns at Westminster! Find out more HERE

Pausitivity #KnowYourMenopause poster features on BBC Breakfast. Find out more HERE

Why do we do what we do?

Pausitivity: How it began by Elizabeth Carr-Ellis

I always say Pausitivity started in my GP’s waiting room but in truth, it started in several GP waiting rooms.

It started because we’d all had a similar experience: going to see our doctor for help only to be ignored or have them print out several pages of information about the menopause and what we would go through.

However, by that point in our menopause journeys, after months and even years of suffering symptoms without a satisfactory diagnosis, we’d sought help elsewhere or been on Google and knew what we were going through. The four or five pages my GP printed out were in the recycling within hours.

It became a common refrain in our Twitter chats: why wasn’t there any information available for us before we started going through the menopause? Why had we had to wait until life became almost unbearable to get a diagnosis?

Why was menopause so taboo that even the GPs’ waiting room wouldn’t acknowledge it?

These questions were going through my mind as I sat in my GP’s waiting room until it hit me: “Why don’t we do our own poster and share it so every woman will know menopause symptoms before they start going through them?”

Pausitivity began in a direct message that night, with a group of amazing women brainstorming ideas and support.

Two weeks later, we had our poster, the wonderful Allyson Shields of Shields Design offering her time and creativity for nothing more than an email filled with thanks and heart emojis.

A little over a month after that GP’s appointment, we launched the #KnowYourMenopause poster campaign and the response has been more than our wildest dreams.

Neither of us in has campaigned before and we juggle campaigning with jobs, partners, families and sleep. We have met three times.

But we all believe that when you see something wrong, you should take action and put it right.

And we won’t stop Pausitivity until we do.

Thank you for being part of our journey…

Clare Shepherd “I was a complete and utter mess. Lost all contact with the person I used to be, and I was frightened! I’d considered over those years that I’d had bowel cancer, a brain tumour, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, ME and probably more”

Elizabeth Carr-Ellis “My GP had to print off information during the consultation and even then, one of the website links was no longer in use. None of us was prepared for how the menopause would hit us because nobody knew the symptoms.