I am a twice-widowed 51-year-old geography and history teacher in an elementary school. I’m a mother of two adult children and I’ll be a grandmother in about three months. I’m not the particularly lucky kind. I lost both of my husbands to heart attacks. I thought that that was what was going to happen to me too, I learned only accidentally that it was something completely different.

I like to spend most of my time both during and outside of work at school. I love being around kids, the way they see the world fills me with peace and awe. Because of them I, too, can feel young. Or maybe it’s only that they keep me in the present moment so much that I don’t have time or a chance to notice the passing of time. After my regular classes I hold afternoon classes twice a week, geography on Tuesdays and history on Thursdays. I have a pupil who attends both, which is true recognition for me. Kids are honest, if they don’t feel like doing something, they simply don’t do it. Engaging young adolescents’ attention is quite an achievement.

My sense of achievement at work is not part of my private life despite the fact that I have two amazing adult children. I’ve had two great loves in my life, but through a strange twist of fate I lost both of them to heart attacks. The first loss wasn’t easy to recover from, but the second one was even harder on me. Matthew was a strong, seemingly stable, lean man, ambitious and full of love for life; he wasn’t aware of his heart failure. He died suddenly at work. Not a day goes by without me thinking of him. He left a void in every sense of the word. We were planning to grow old together and spend our years of retirement in Southeast Asia.

After his death I fell into depression, I couldn’t get out of bed for weeks. It was only thanks to my willpower and my family’s urging that I managed to. Depression was followed by panic attacks and anxiety. This wasn’t any better or easier, I would often wake up in the middle of the night to my heart pounding. It was probably a serious flutter, but the really scary part was what happened during the day: because of the panic attacks, I had to stop teaching for a while. Five weeks was the longest I was on sick leave; the unexpected attacks scared and paralyzed me at the same time. I remember well the first time I experienced a panic attack and heart palpitations. We were in a museum with my afternoon class pupils. It felt so bad that they had to call an ambulance. I thought I was having a heart attack like my husbands.

The series of panic attacks were followed by a thorough medical checkup, which showed that my symptoms had no organic cause. The specialist leading the checkup sent me to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed me with anxiety and depression and suggested that I start taking a medication. I didn’t feel that the tests run until then had been thorough enough, so I turned to private healthcare to ask for more. Because of the unfortunate death of my husbands, I’d developed a strong phobia: I feared that the reason behind the heart palpitations was actually cardiac arrhythmia or heart failure. It was one of the laboratory tests that revealed the female hormone level fluctuations. All signs pointed to my having entered the period of menopause. This also explained why my anxiety and depression had become stronger.

I was on good terms with the specialist who diagnosed me with menopause and I trusted her. She recommended a clinical support group meeting every week that outsiders could visit as well. My doctor was aware not only of my condition, but also my circumstances. She knew about the emotional burden of losing my two husbands, the absence of my adult children living far away, and the pain of losing my parents. She reminded me that being alone wasn’t good for me because I had to deal not only with the changes in my body and the ensuing physical and emotional difficulties, but also with the grief at my second husband’s death.

I’d never felt the need to go to therapy of any kind before, and I didn’t use to talk much about my feelings. But I took my doctor’s advice, gathered all my courage and stepped out of my comfort zone to join the support group, where everyone I met was nice and helpful. My initial worrying proved unnecessary because from the very first moment they accepted me and turned towards me with nothing but empathy. Even I was surprised at the realization that the group was really helping me a lot to survive the hardest period, and it was indeed necessary to get to know, understand and accept the processes going on inside my head.

After menopause I received hormone replacement therapy. I tried several different kinds, but it was the last one that worked for me. This helped me to get my life back on track and find balance both inside and in the outside world.