Although I give off the impression of having a grand life frolicking amongst gum trees picking mushrooms, going surfing, enjoying road trips and other delightful pasttimes, my life is sometimes a struggle. I seem to be a statistic - the woman that's the one in four that suffer debilitating menopausal symptoms. Yep. This post is all about the M-word, so if you'd like to avoid reading about what it's like for a woman who could be your mother, your colleague, wife, or best friend, by all means feel free to ignore me.

Firstly, if you're over 40 and you're experiencing anxiety, please consider whether you're in peri-menopause. If I had just one person tell me that ten years ago, I think my forties might have been a little better. Instead, I believed I just wasn't handling life very well. My anxiety got so bad I had a stress breakdown, which took years to recover from. Granted, I was in a high stress job with little support, and this likely heightened my symptoms, but had one doctor suggested I was beginning the transition to menopause, I could have taken steps to address it. Instead, I fought off offers of anti-depressants, narrowly avoided an addiction to valium, and believed there was something terribly wrong with my brain. Doctors are simply not trained to recognise or support menopause, yet woman make up a huge amount of the workforce and many have to leave their jobs because their symptoms make work almost impossible, as it did me.

I didn't expect to semi retire at 48. I was a fantastic teacher and loved my job. But I just stopped being able to cope. Eventually, I went on HRT. It took me a long time because I didn't trust the doctors who seemed to offer me three things: counselling with a professional, anti-depressants, and HRT. I had to do my own research before I came to the concluson that this was the better option for my health. I honestly thought I was going to die, my symptoms were so bad.

Whilst hot flushes and sleepless nights are well known, lesser known symptoms are body aches and pains, migraines, anxiety, panic attacks, feeling overwhelmed, social anxiety, phobias, confusion, helplessness, depression and more. Again, it utterly boggles me that not one of the doctors I went to saw these red flags as a hormonal issue and not a psychological one. I'd almost cry at them that I was perfectly happy, apart from these symptoms. I had - have - a happy marriage, my parents are alive and well, I haven't suffered anything apart from this. Some days it felt like my cells were vibrating and if I didn't do something to stop it, I was going to get cancer and die.

'Have you tried meditation and yoga', they'd say helpfully. I'd grit my teeth. I'd been doing that all my life. In fact, I'd been doing everything to try to get to the bottom of it. I walked every day. Surfed. Meditated. Breathed. Ate well. Took vitamins. I didn't need a psychologist, and in fact, the one I did see asked if I'd ever done hard drugs and started asking me about my childhood, and I got through one session and left in disgust. I knew myself. Something was wrong, but it wasn't down to any trauma except for the trauma I was experiencing now.

Remember that even a few years ago, no one was advertising thigs that helped peri and peri menopausal symptoms on social media. Now my socials are flooded with algorithmic picks based on my searches, and I am manipulated to sign up for expensive herbs that are touted as cure alls, which I don't, because it's quackery and dark consumerism. But at least it's kinda in our faces now, so we can start educating ourselves a bit more about it. That's a good thing.

Talking to others also helps. However, my social anxiety meant I lost a few friends, that simply stopped calling because I'd never accept their invites or make plans and cancel last minute. It didn't matter that I told them why - in fact one person said she 'didn't drop by as she didn't want to make me anxious', totally getting me all wrong. I'm still sad over it, because I needed these friendships more than ever. But being with people made my nerves fizz. Even now, being more on top of things, I have to monitor my hypersensitivity carefully as it can take me days to settle my nervous system. I feel as if I'm in flight or flight, like all the tigers in the room are staring at me, ready to pounce. That's hard when you like people. Thing is, it's not all the time, and sometimes it's worth the risk - a few hours with friends can be worth the rise in cortisol and working to manage it afterwards. This was all so hard to explain to people though, so eventually I just let people go. If they truly loved me, they'd figure it out.

In all honesty, being on HIVE has been a life saver when my real life friends disappeared. Being here meant I could communicate and express myself at a distance, but still feel as if I was part of a social landscape. I could switch off the screen at any point - how I wished I could do this in real life! I could reveal all the various parts of my identity that weren't 'menopausal woman struggling with life'. Because of course, those bits of me are very much real too, very much so.

Last fortnight I had a meltdown with my best friend. I'd had a hard day at work (I do emergency teaching - two or three days a week are as much as I can handle) and my cortisol levels were so high I hadn't slept at all and my cells were fizzing. I felt so upset that life seemed all about managing these physical symptoms, and it was fucking exhausting. She was sympathetic, and listened, and then we went surfing - the ocean is valium. Still, my nervous system was so frayed I couldn't even stand the waves, so came in and sat and watched her.

It was then that a beautiful big red kelpie plonked itself down on the grass beside me and snuggled in, looking out to sea with me. It stayed for about fifteen minutes, left, and came back. I felt things soften and my heart ease. Looking around for it's owner, I saw her sitting on the steps talking to a friend. She looked over at me and asked if I was okay. I laughed and pointed at her dog: 'I think I needed a dog cuddle!'. She must have seen the sad desperation in my face as she smiled and said: keep him as long as you need!

If we weren't going travelling again next year, I would have gone straight to the rescue centre and bought myself another dog. They've got a good way of knowing when they're needed, and are good listeners. Doggy sedatives. Certainly the kelpie's presence reminded me that I needed help.

After this, I returned to my naturopath, Clare. She's a yoga teacher and a surfer and I really relate to her. I go when I'm cashed up or desperate or both - when I get to the point where none of my strategies are working at all. This time I've vowed to go more regularly and she's so amazing that she'll call me after a few weeks to make sure the medicines are working well.

This time it's about supporting my adrenals so they work properly to process hormones (I've always struggled with adrenal health, which makes me think I should have seen this coming), and magnesium twice a day, and definitely quitting coffee, which I did about a month ago. She's also suggested kava morning and night, and lunch too if I anticipate a tricky day.

I'm already sleeping better and feel a bit calmer - but I'm still tired of the whole game - the endless vigilance, the feelings of being useless, the exhaustion, the constant monitoring of what I eat and drink, the exercise that must be taken like a pill, sucking the pleasure out of it.

But what else can I do? I'm not the only one suffering, and by all accounts, there's many worse than me. We talk about it amongst ourselves, but we can't believe that in 2023, we're having to fight to have our voices heard, so that finally people might take us seriously, and legitimise how we're feeling and help us with our physical symptoms rather than dismiss us.

Personally, I just keep going bravely, using the tools I have. I have good days and bad days. I'd like to say I lean into this gracefully and wisely, but it's more just an unwilling balancing act.

With Love,

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