I had two glasses of wine earlier and tipsy-texted a friend to bitch about work-related people things, so I'm in an oversharing mood. The buzz is gone, but I read an article in The Washington Post about the changes that one's brain undergoes during the years before, during, and after menopause and felt a need to write about all the hormonal nonsense that I've been undergoing for the past....hmmmm....six years.
While I wouldn't say perimenopause is too much trouble, it is just enough trouble to have me wondering the following:
Could I be dying of colon cancer? (due to bowel changes that started around age 44, which were followed soon after by a colonoscopy which found my colon to be a perfect specimen.)
Could I be dying of colon cancer? (because I can no longer drink coffee because it brings on full-blown um....unhappy bowels. Started two years ago--age 48. It is the only food/drink that I have an issue with.)
I don't worry about these too much because most women around their periods have bowel changes, so whenever my GAD starts to fly straight off the handle, I remind myself that it probably isn't a terminal diagnosis.
Could I be in the early stages of dementia? (because I cannot remember anything, cannot remember the names of things, cannot remember why I walked upstairs/downstairs/into a room, call things by the wrong name even when my brain tells me I'm saying the correct word.)
The only reason the aforementioned one doesn't worry me too much is because of what happened to my brain when I was pregnant, age 30. I told a classroom of 6th grade students that if one particular boy didn't do well on the spelling test I was going to kick his butt, except I DIDN'T SAY BUTT. When they looked at me stunned, I said it AGAIN, EXCEPT I DIDN'T SAY BUTT.
It was then that I realized I had not once, but twice, told a room full of kids that I was gonna kick a kid's ass. While this might be par for the course in 2024, it was not the usual in 2003.
This anecdote is my personal experience with hormones fucking with my brain at a young age, and therefore, anything is possible now.
Do I have a fever? (because I get hot for no apparent reason or for exerting myself in only the slightest possible way that would not make anyone under normal circumstances hot.)
Did I tinkle a little in the bed? (because I wake up and am lightly damp. I don't have full-blown hot flashes that douse me in wetness but dampness that wakes me up. Sticking one foot outside the bed cools me down.)
Why the hell do I want to have sex so much? (I'm confused; my husband is WAY confused. This hasn't occurred since 2006 when I desperately wanted to have a second child and D complained we were having sex too much. What dude complains about this? I have yet to let him live this down 17 years later.)
Why am I completely wide-the-fuck awake right now? (I walked 18,000 steps today, didn't have any caffeine, and took a Unisom, but I'm wide awake and have read 9 chapters in my Kindle at 3:00 am.)
How many days has it been since I took my antidepressant? (Oh, wait. I did take it. Today and everyday. Right on time. I'm just on the verge of running away to the woods so I only have to deal with my own shit...not everyone else's. It's hormones....right.)
So all this....no big deal really....but I think I thought it would start later, like around age 50. Six years or so in and I'm sort of ready to be done. Turn the spigot off now.
I feel like everyone talks nonstop about periods and pregnancy, and then that's it. Radio silence. So maybe that's why I'm writing this, to let someone know what this perimenopausal stuff is like for me. Maybe they won't feel like they are constantly, maybe on the verge of cancer or dementia or fever or generally falling apart.
