Emma's Dilemmas: Emma Skeates solves your problems

But first, let's meet Emma, in her own words:

Hello hello!

"My name is Emma Skeates, and for the past 8 years I have been better known as the Menopausal Mayhem Mothers. There were two of us, but I think my partner in crime got rather unnerved by my ability to set fire to myself daily or fall over in public places was a bit much, so she has ran for her life in a gesture of self preservation!

"I felt like a utter failure in every department of life"

So, I started writing my blog that has now accumulated 500k followers on social media. It’s hard to find ONE reason, but if I were to try, I think it would be that I found platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to be a bit nauseating. They were essentially the sales and marketing department of people’s supposed perfect lives. Photos of happy families on expensive holidays, kids in designer clothes at their expensive birthday parties with Mummy and Daddy looking on proudly.

Meanwhile... I was a single mum with a 3 month old baby and a 2 year old. Having been traded in for a younger model by their father, I was broke, frightened and feeling like an utter failure in every department of life.

 "I started writing about my daily misdemeanours and hourly catastrophes"

I did try and compete with my peers who had it all – for a day, but I knew I was lying, and so did they – as I invariably turned up on the school run without my children on numerous occasions or actually had the kids with me then drove them home forgetting to drop them off.

So, I started writing about my daily misdemeanours and my hourly catastrophes and suddenly people started to like the posts, laugh at them and tell me that I made them feel better about their own lives and so the blog was born.

"Women don't actually want to compete with each other"

That was about 8 years ago and what I have witnessed in terms of reaction has been extraordinary. Women don’t actually want to compete with each other, they want to relate to each other. I have discovered categorically that absolutely NO-ONE’S life is perfect, no matter how hard they try and show you on social media.

In one way or another, we are ALL struggling. And that’s ok. In fact, it’s more than ok and it becomes even MORE ok when you share your imperfections, your flaws, your hopes, your fears and your shortfalls with like minded women – it is unbelievably empowering.

"The ladies came flocking!"

The more confident I became, the more I felt comfortable taking things a bit further. I started addressing issues such as sex in the menopause, blind dating in your 40’s, bladder incontinence, vaginal atrophy but all with a huge dose of humour.

They were all absolutely true anecdotes so I found I had a lot of material to work with. And with this raw honesty and putting myself and my already gilded reputation out there, the ladies came flocking! They loved it and wanted to share THEIR stories of their mortal embarrassments too. We had become a wonderful club of REAL women who were self confessed walking disaster areas and it was fabulous.

I learnt more about menopause to support my followers

I then started to get asked questions by some of my followers, about the menopause, about the incontinence, about the balance problems, the anxiety, the brain fog and the mood swings and so I started to do my research.

I teamed up with the most amazing set of menopause specialists headed up by the phenomenal Dr Tina Peers who has dedicated her life’s work to menopausal women and I started learning. I worked with them for two years and I learned so much about why the menopause is such a complicated and individual journey, and also how misunderstood it is.

Menopause isn't an 'old woman's disease'

I was told that the menopause was so far away from being an “old woman’s disease” - it was in fact the harvest of our lives! All the debilitating symptoms that came with it, that crept up on women in their early 40’s, were manageable.

As we enter the peri-menopause, we can still be bleeding regularly but suddenly have uncontrollable anxiety from nowhere. With this comes the joys of insomnia, which creates the mood swings. Then comes the weight gain which leads to low self esteem and lack of libido and then you have essentially the perfect storm for a near miss nervous breakdown in so many women! Indeed, back in the day, many women were put into sanatoriums as they were deemed insane – they were simply menopausal.

I noticed other women experience leaks too from the comments on my blog

I now celebrate my insanity and share it with the world and they seem to love it. I then went one to write two books about my journey, both became best sellers which blew me away.

One of the things I notice in the comments section of the blogs and indeed in nearly all the reviews of the books, was that women had to race to the loo whilst reading about my mad escapades from walking the dog with no trousers on to being barred from village pub (well the dog anyway) because he ate a live rabbit in front of all the diners and then threw it up in my handbag.Women were literally wetting themselves with laughter!

Although we all had a good laugh about it, it stopped being funny when I went to a children’s birthday party post hysterectomy and after a couple of glasses of wine thought it would be a grand idea to get on the trampoline with the birthday girl. Before I knew it, I had had a huge accident and EVERYONE saw. I was mortified!

So, I started researching bladder health and stress incontinence and found Jude. I got straight in touch with the team and Peony and I became firm friends.

"I started Jude a year ago and my life has changed dramatically"

I started on Jude a year or so ago and my life has changed dramatically. I have spread the word to all my followers that if they are truly having problems with their bladder control, they must give Jude Bladder Control Supplements a try and the response has been mind-blowing. I can now happily make them laugh in the knowledge that they will not have a whole load of washing to do after reading about some of my antics.

Emma's Dilemma's is here - write to me!

So, here I am. A new contributor to Jude's Blog, and I am SO looking forward to getting to know you all. I will be your regular agony aunt with a column called “Emma’s Dilemmas”.

Please write in with ANY problem you have about ANYTHING! There is not much I haven’t been through, and at 56 years of age, I am a wise old bird who can dish out pretty good advice, just not carry it out myself!

I so look forward to hearing from any of you who would like to talk bodily functions, menopause, relationships, love and laughter, parenting or sex! Let’s thrash out everything and get you sorted.

Can’t wait to hear from you!"

To send Emma a dilemma, email hello@wearejude.com