5 women talk about what it’s really like to be menopausal before the age of 40

Evian, whose friends were also unable to connect, encountered a different kind of friction. Because her menopause was the result of cancer surgery, many of her loved ones thought she should be thankful she didn’t have cancer anymore, she says. “A lot of people didn’t understand that two things could be true: I could be grateful for my life and also very upset about what was happening in my life, where I no longer had a uterus.”

It can be especially difficult to deal with sexual side effects at a young age.

The way your vagina can change during medical menopause from “waterfalls to exotic Sahara desert,” Evian says, can really change. Throw your sex life for a loop. May cause a decrease in estrogen Vulvovaginal tissue to shriveland It becomes dry and prone to tearing– Which can make sex, especially penetration, very painful. “For the first time in my life, when I was 30, I had to look at my husband and say, ‘Okay, we’ve got to go get lube,'” says Evian. “It took a toll on my marriage, and it was also heartbreaking to not feel sexy or sensual or any of those things that make being a woman fun.”

Pettit had been dating her current husband for less than a year at the time of her cancer treatment, when she began experiencing vaginal dryness. “We would sometimes try to be intimate, but I would often cut it short because it was too painful,” says Petit, who stopped taking menopause medications after finishing chemotherapy. At a certain point during treatment, when she became anxious about the pain, and her partner became afraid of hurting her, she began to feel futile in trying, “even with lube,” she says, “and we had to be open and honest about it.” She has been a mother ever since.