Embrace the straight
‘If you have pokerstraight hair it takes a lot of prep and product to get any other style to stay put,’ says Lisa. ‘That’s why sometimes it’s best to just let your hair do what it wants to do naturally and nothing is as stylish as naturally healthy hair. However, if you want to add some detail then a hair accessory is quick, easy and always looks amazing.’ We love Kitsch Stackable Snap Clips, £9, mykitsch.com.
Kelly Newton, 50, lives in south London with her husband Paul, 48, and their six children. She runs bp3underwear.com.
When I started experiencing symptoms of the menopause,
I had no idea what was happening to me. It was
2014, and I had just had a hysterectomy after years of painful endometriosis. ‘To stop you going through early menopause, we’ve left your ovaries,’ the surgeon reassured me. But though my pain subsided, I started experiencing palpitations, panic attacks and depression.
I’d always been fit and active, and never suffered with anxiety or depression before. It wasn’t like me.
‘What’s wrong?’ Paul, then 41, asked as I cried into my pillow one night. But I didn’t know how to explain how I was feeling, as I didn’t really know myself.
Every day I was filled with such inexplicable rage, and the slightest thing would set me off. ‘Who left this coat on the stairs?’ I’d scream at my six children, then aged seven to 14. A stay-at-home mum, I was usually patient and calm, and hated who I was becoming.
NO INTEREST
After dropping my daughters off at school, I’d hurry home and just lie on the living-room floor, staring up at the ceiling. I’d literally watch the time tick by, until I had to drag myself up and pick them up from school.
For months, I isolated myself from my friends. I lost all interest in socialising.
At my lowest point, I was taking a walk near my home and contemplated ending my life. I felt so helpless, and couldn’t see a way out of the darkness that seemed to consume me. It was only thoughts of my family that stopped me. Back at home, I knew I couldn’t carry on as I was, so I opened up to a friend, who suggested it might be the menopause.
I’d not experienced the common