when's the middle of peri-menopause

what do hot flushes feel like?

I’m 46 next month. I know some of you reading this are more than that, and a few are less. Some of you, I think, are close to this.

I want to say I’m in the ‘middle’ of peri-menopause, but that’s a dumb thing to say as there’s no determining at all when the end is. So, that means there’s no way any of us can know when the actual ‘middle’ is. So, I’m not in the middle. But I’m in the phase of. Is that right.

Three or so weeks ago I started experiencing hot flashes (why are they also sometimes called flushes, but mostly called flashes?!). I thought I’d already been experiencing them. Taking my jumper off, my shirt, my bra, and then sweating for a few minutes while my family looked at me strangely. Then putting it all back on again, trying not to shiver. And trying not to feel the need to take it all off again in two minutes.

I thought that was them. The hot flashes. But then, three weeks ago they got worse. Or real?

The hotness, the sweating, the wanting to take all my clothes off, then put them all back on again. Add in the nausea, the headaches, the foggy faintness, anxiety, tiredness and grumpiness. Irritability is what it’s politely called. There’s isn’t much polite about some of these peri-menopause symptoms, though, are there?

The anxiety is something I hadn’t expected. Have you experienced hot flashes and the associated anxiety?

What is going on with my body!

Peri-menopause is just so so fun. One good thing is that at this age I’m a little more confident in my own body. Though the weight gain does not help at all. The fact that I don’t fit into any of my clothes. Were my jeans tight last week because they’d just been washed or because my waist had grown since I’d worn them the week before…..

I wasn’t old enough when my mum died to ask her about these things. And now the people in my life who I can ask are going through it themselves. We’re all struggling along, bumbling and not having answers. At least we all understand why the other one starts crying for no obvious reason at all, and we can all share cake together without thinking that our friend is looking a little extra around the waist.

So we all sort of do it together. We see the ads in our social media feeds. Uggghhhh ‘how to lose weight in peri-menopause’ or ‘how to tone your peri-menopause middle’, or balance your peri-menopausal hormones. I mean, come on…. Strangely also I’ve been getting ads in Instagram for how to get pregnant in my forties. Yeah, that one isn’t happening!

We’re all so tired we barely have any time to meet up with each other, we’re all in this strange lack of sleep or random sleeping times that we can chat on social media messages at 2am. We’re all so brain foggy that we forget what we were saying, but at least we’re all forgetting together.

So, this middle bit. Everything I read says that no-one knows how long peri-menopause can actually last. Five years, 10 maybe. I’ve read stories where some women are experiencing it for almost 15 years. Ummm. Ok.

I’m not even sure exactly when I ‘started’ mine. It’s one of those things sort of just happens. The random periods, the tiredness - is that peri-menopause or just regular life?! The brain fog - again, peri-menopause or my brain simply falling apart on it’s own.

The thing about an unknown middle is that there’s this endless waiting, and just being with it. The not knowing when it will end. That, I think, might be the hardest part. Though, maybe the way of hearing a million different ‘things’ I should be doing.

Those Instagram ads have started telling me I need to do somatic yoga. I don’t even know what that is. It’s looks like a praying mantis rocking back and forth. I can’t even get to regular once-a-week yoga classes. I don’t want to spend that time doing something that doesn’t look like actual exercise to make it fit back into my dress (or jeans).

Talking about dresses. Do you notice that at a certain age, a lot of the dresses available for purchase are now shapeless sort of ‘sacks’ with a string of fabric to scrunch them in. I feel like there’s a laziness from the designers on this; but maybe it really is just easier for us all. When one day we’ve got bloated stomachs and the more fitted dresses are just no good. Maybe those loose things give us a little freedom to hide the parts of us we’re still getting used to. But still, a piece of string the thickness of a show strap isn’t the most flattering to give us some semblance of a waist.

I guess I’m talking about waists more than necessary. This one is hard for me. I have always always been the skinny girl. Just naturally skinny. Usually with a b-cup bra. When I had children that went up to a c or d, and never went back down again. But my waist stayed the same. At some stage I became hourglass (of sorts), now I’m what’s generously called ‘rectangle’.

I do know that using fruits, and such, is an outdated method of describing body types, and we should all be happy and confident with where we’re at. I know that. But the anxiety of those hot flashes, the fact that nothing in my wardrobe fits me, the changes in my brain and body, means that I still have to change my mindset around all of this. And that’s ok too. Not being ok.

It better be ok - to not be ok. Cause that’s where I am with this ‘messy middle’ situation.

This essay wasn’t meant to be a moan about my waist. It was meant to be me simply expressing where I am at the moment in my phase of life. In the way that teenagers don’t seem to be easier to parent - I tell this to people now, because I think we’re all under the illusion that they ‘should’ be easier. They’re not. Maybe harder. I don’t know. The (almost) 10-yr old is as hard as the (almost) 20-yr old, just in different ways. But still both hard.

Add in brain fog, financial stress, lack of energy, constant exhaustion, unexpected grumpiness, endless restlessness, those hot flashes. Here I was thinking somehow parenting should be easier while I go through this crazy hormonal situation. But it’s not.

Which makes the hormones, the effort to control my emotions and all the rest harder. Which is maybe why I focus on the waist. That’s something I can complain about, but also (potentially - but I can’t find the energy to do anything about it) something I can change.

Is that the way through this? Eat cake (I’m endlessly hungry), cry with friends, agonise over the ratio of my jean’s waist vs my body waist, take all my clothes off and then put them all back on again.

The way through life right now. Thanks for being here and letting me cry and moan. Can you please bring more cake next time.

One last thing. A reminder to myself. To you. To all of us going through changes in our life - physically, mentally, emotionally. Get in front of the camera. Put away those feelings of being ‘too old, fat, grey-haired, not pretty enough’. Because a smile is the most important, isn’t it. That’s the best of all. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, it doesn’t matter the size of your waist or the bags under your eyes. It matters about recognising those moments when you did feel just so good.

xoxo

Him & me - then (25-ish years ago) & now (December 2023). And me last weekend - the rose-coloured glasses I didn’t bring home from the vintage fair, because I’m going to try to live with rose-coloured glasses a lot of the days. (I posted this on Instagram, where there’s lots of lovely comments…)