Remember when you hit your teens, or somewhere around then. You started getting acne, maybe on your neck, your back and your….face. Your moods might have seemed out of control and your brain was scrambled. You started to grow hair under your armpits, around your genitals and maybe even on your face. Periods started, breasts developed and even body odour changed. Puberty might have been a challenging time. It’s a whirlwind while you’re trying to navigate friendships, school, relationships and fluctuating hormones.
However, chances are you had an idea it was coming. Even if your parents avoided the tough conversations with you, it’s likely that you heard about it from friends or from sex ed classes at school. Maybe you saw it on TV. You had some idea what was instore.
Perimenopause is a different beast. Nobody warns you about it. You never saw it coming. It happens gradually but all at once. You don’t realise until a few months in that you are filled with rage. Sitting in traffic and somebody cuts you off, it bubbles up and pours out of you like lava, hot and furious. You’ve been wondering why your brain doesn’t work properly anymore. You used to be quick on your feet, now it takes you 5 minutes to remember the word fridge. At work, you used to pick up new skills quickly and masterfully, now it’s a miracle if you don’t fall asleep in front of the computer. The cognitive decline feels rapid.
As if those things aren’t bad enough, the sleep demons move in. Exhaustion might be what you feel but sleep is not what you’re getting. If you do manage to sleep, you wake up an hour later. Or at 3am On. The. Dot. And you remember all of the stupid things you’ve ever said or done and none of the things you need to do tomorrow. And these sleepless nights aren’t like the ones when you were young and survived on 3 hours after a big night of drinking. No, no, no, these ones are keeping score. You’ll feel it in the morning. As though you’ve been dragged by your hair through the gravelly depths of hell. Your kid might wake you up, 30 minutes after you’ve finally fallen back asleep and you’ll wish you were hungover rather than this feeling of complete and utter fatigue.
You feel out of place in your own life and you can’t pinpoint why. And the feeling lingers. Along with your sleep, the confidence disappears. You second guess every decision and conversation, your social skills feel off and anxiety keeps knocking at your rib cage. And that’s just the psychological symptoms.
The physical symptoms are manageable but still frustrating. Your hair might feel dull and brittle. The skin that screamed youth just a year ago, looks lacklustre and droopy. Not to mention it’s now drier than the Sahara, from head to toe. There’s the headaches, the weight gain, dry mouth and the puberty pimples came back. And that’s not exhaustive. It’s also not guaranteed that you will get all of them. Some women skip through the menopausal years with minimal discomfort. Others, are hit hard and experience a number of symptoms.
Writing this, 3 years after my symptoms started, I feel like I’m exaggerating. And my intention isn’t to scare anyone, but for me, the symptoms were debilitating. I went through a break up around the time (possibly related to perimenopause) and made some questionable life choices. None that I would change but still, a choice.
It takes a while to find a word for all of the things happening to you. By the time it’s been identified, you might feel like a different person, your relationships might have changed and you could have had a complete life upheaval. On the other hand, you might be sailing through, just feeling a little bit hot and agitated every now and again. Everyone experiences perimenopause unique to them. The same way that puberty hit differently. One of my good friends is also going through it but doesn’t experience the rage like I did. Her most frustrating symptom is losing the words on the tip of her tongue and the sleep disruptions.
Although knowledge and research into the menopause transition is increasing, there is still limited information available out there and GP’s can still be misinformed. Some may be supportive, while others can write it off as stress, lifestyle factors or ageing. I’m not a medical expert, I’m just a gal who went through it, experienced the turmoil first hand and decided to write about it along with the other, more positive things in my life.
If you feel like this might be happening to you, keep a symptom log as well as tracking your menstrual cycle. These are the things that will help you to advocate for yourself with a GP or specialist. If you feel like you need help, there’s pharmaceutical options out there as well as lifestyle modifications that can be made. You don’t have to go through it alone or just get by. The word is spreading and there’s more and more advice available than I believe there was a generation ago. It’s only going to get better. The same can be applied to you.
What has been your worst symptom?
Give me a natural high