A little off topic

Happy New Year…

Can I still say that when we are more than half way through the month? Anyway, I hope you had a lovely Christmas and it wasn’t too difficult to navigate. Only a few weeks in but lots going on in my head at the moment, not exactly related to my anxiety, yet, but something I have had in my mind for sometime to be cautious of. Lots of thought has gone into if I should write this one as it feels very personal in a different way to when I talk about my anxiety issues but the same principle applies in that it is something that is just not talked about enough so isn’t understood and therefore can make you feel ashamed, so I thought what the hell in for a penny in for a pound, I either want to try and help or I don’t.

Perimenopause…

There we go, said it now! So I have of course heard people talk about the menopause, hot flushes mainly, but in the past also some mention of how during that time people who had never had anxiety really struggled with it, so its not a time in my life I am particularly looking forward to reaching. What I didn’t know about was perimenopause. I suspect like many women, I watched the Davina McCall documentaries and I was like oh that’s a thing! Fast forward and yep I reckon that’s now me, I get to be part of that 13million women in the population of the UK currently in the ‘gang’.

The signs…

I would say thinking back there have been a few clues over the past 6-12 months but there are so many other things you can attribute them too, being tired, anxiety to name but two, and they would come and go. There is also I’m only 43, isn’t it a thing when you are in your 50’s? Since Christmas there seems to have been more frequency of the symptoms, the key one is forgetting words mid sentence and I just don’t quite feel myself, so I decided to order a couple of books to read up. Preparing for the Perimenopause and Menopause by Louise Newson is just great, I read it all in one afternoon. So much information on symptoms, what they are but also why they happen, it really is great to understand it, and actually its not unusual at my age at all! Looking at the symptom checker in the book I would say there are a fair few I haven’t experienced yet, the hot flushes for one, but I could relate to brain fog, generally feeling low and not sure why, tired, night sweats, difficulty concentrating, palpitations. The second book is Davina McCall’s Menopausing, I have started that one and again really informative and honest and lots of stories from other women.

Shh…

What seems to come through really strong in what I have read so far is its like a taboo subject that women just don’t talk about and that resonates so much with anxiety and mental health in general. One of the biggest impacts on women going through perimenopause is on their mental health, the feeling they can’t do their job, that they are failing as a parent, unable to concentrate and articulate clearly things they have been able to in the past and know inside out. It also seems the lack of knowledge and awareness is present in the medical profession, with many stories of women going back to the GP on many occasions and being misdiagnosed (especially if under 45) and just not getting the help they need (due in the most part to a lack in training for GP’s on the subject), I can’t imagine how difficult that must be.

An uprising…

The very first line of her book Davina says ‘Menopausing is more than just a book, it’s a movement. An UPRISING’ so this is my small contribution to that uprising, sharing my story, raising some awareness. For me personally, I feel like just the extra understanding I have is enough for now, it feels very early in this stage of my life, symptoms come and go and aren’t extreme enough yet to cause me too much worry. I do feel confident that when things are getting too much I could go to see my GP and be happy to ask for support, the developments in HRT are comforting to read about and sound like they have many benefits not only for perimenopause and menopause symptoms directly but to maintain needed hormone levels to lessen the chances of developing other serious conditions in the future. That of course is very much an individual decision but good to know options.

As always I hope this has been of help to someone out there, until next time, take care and keep talking!

• Posted in: Anxiety ♦ Mental Health ♦ Perimenopause
• Tagged: Anxiety, mental health, Perimenopause, Wellbeing, Womenshealth