Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => Personal Experiences => Topic started by: Wilks on June 11, 2018, 09:18:41 PM
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I'm 49, peri menopausal for 3 years, of which the past 10 months have been the hardest. I'm just about coping, with the help from a whole cocktail of hormonal products and antidepressants but I HATE IT passionately! I realise that I need to accept it but right now, I'm [insert expletive] furious! Virtually overnight and without warning, I've lost the person I've been all my life, both physically and mentally. I'm not ready to accept this shit for the rest of my life. I can't blame anyone else so I direct all the anger towards myself and have intrusive thoughts that I wasn't meant to live past my 40s.
In a nutshell, I have sufficient insight to know that I need to accept that my mind and body are now crap and will be for the rest of my life- but I don't know how. I'd be grateful if someone who has had a difficult experience with menopause could describe how they've come to accept it.
:'(
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We all experience meno differently but I do think the effect it has on our self esteem is one of the toughest aspects to cope with.
The symptoms can be so crushing.
Hrt can really help if you can find one that suits you but adjusting ones lifestyle is probably the most important way to adapt and move forward on a positive way.
It's taken me many years and quite drastic changes in my lifestyle to come to terms and cope with how the menopause has damaged me. I don't blame you feeling angry but the sooner you can let go of that anger the better.
I do a lot of walking, Mindfulness and I say NO to anything I really don't want to do. DG x
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We have to accept it Wilks and deal with it as best we can,it's not all bad we do get some flickers of light now and then and at these rare times that's when we try and put some enjoyment back in our lives however temporary that is.
Some days I wake up and I just feel so flat but then I think to myself your not in the black hole anymore you have progressed and I try and include some positivity into my day,I used to have a very busy happy full life and like you it crashed around me with no warning and for a good five years I was in the pits and avoided anything and everything I see the difference my regime makes to me now,it's not perfect but it's enough to get me through one day at a time and I'm grateful for that.Thats all you can do is take one day at a time,if it makes you happy forward plan if it stresses you don't.All I can say us you've got people on here you can vent to vent to me if it helps and I'll never criticise you it's good for you to have a release valve don't bottle things up,that the damaging part.take care and be kind to yourself one day at a time xx
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Hi Wilks.
I'm the same as you most days,
I absolutely hate what's happened to me, I look at myself most days in the
mirror and hate myself, looking older, getting wrinkles, how parts of my body look,
Even how my mind works now, most days I'm careful what I say in case I say the
wrong thing, I'm terrified I'm going to turn into a bitter old lady. It's so frustrating because
we have to go through it, everybody and everything has to get older, but I can't except it.
I could cry, and often do, when my son says something that reflects my age, he doesn't
know, he's just messing around, doesn't mean anything by it, it's me, my problem.
So how do we move on, we can't just sit and shrivel up, we can't let the rest of our lives just
pass us by, we've still got years n years ahead of us, although it's hard to except, we HAVE
to carry on..it's took a long time to get where we are today, look at what we've accomplished,
Look what we've gone through, we are still the same person we were in our 20s, we just get lost
somewhere in this journey.....If we don't except what's happening to us then it's only going to go
one way,...and that's down, and I for one have a loving family that needs me, I don't have to like it,
Or enjoy what's happening to me, but it is, what it is, we can't go back,.
Think of all your positives, hard I know, but they're, there somewhere, and I'm sure you'll come
to terms with all this crap.. hope so anyway...
Jd x
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Thank you very much for your thoughtful replies, DG and Daisydot, and Jillydoll.
I suppose I will have to make some lifestyle changes but goodness knows what they might be- I already eat lots of vegetables, hardly drink alcohol, get lots of fresh air and exercise. I have to work full time and be a mum and wife.
At least I’m not in the black hole that I spent my winter in!
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Morning Wilks how you feeling today,easier I hope.xx
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Hi Daisydot,
Not too bad today thanks! I'm not angry all the time about it, but I was last night, lol.
How are you?
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I totally get you !
My ovaries started packing up when I was 32, severe night sweats, itchy skin etc and dr put me on hrt. It took everything away and I was literally in my prime and enjoying every single minute of it. Long hair, size 8, mini skirts, clubbing, life was good. Well until I got to 45.5 and everything literally went tits up, I thought I was dying honestly and all the drs were missing the diagnosis. I became a hermit, scared of everything, put on weight, hair went crap, I didn't recognise my reflection, felt worthless, boring and ugly. As I was already on hrt I couldn't see how it could be menopause but since I started testosterone it's given me my life back, I'm nowhere near who I used to be but I do see my fun side emerge quite often, I also occasionally see my old sexy side surface too, none of it is the constant I used to be but anything is better than nothing. Those dark years have literally been the worst of my I've so far and probably like everyone else, pre menopause I'd had some pretty crap phases of life x
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In a word - menopause is truly and utterly crap!!! I am also livid that the Gynaecologist who did my surgery didn't tell me that taking out my ovaries would plunge me into even worse and longer lasting symptoms than natural menopause. I also rue the day that I let my other healthy ovary go - it could have prevented me experiencing such severe symptoms.
Quite a lot of the time, it feels like i've had PTSD from all this and I don't say that lightly!
If I ever see light at the end of this tunnel girls, then I am going on the longest world cruise ever! I've promised myself and Hubby that! And if I could afford it, i'd take you all with me. :)
Right little ray of sunshine, aren't I? xxxx
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Oooh, and btw Wilks - yup, I've had the thoughts about not supposed to live past 40! I also find myself reminiscing far, far too much.
I spoke to my very dear nearly 80 year old MIL the other day about this and she says it is a phase and does get easier. Honestly, if you could see how she cuts about, does all her own gardening and travels to New Zealand and Canada to see family, you'd believe it (she didn't do HRT, but did have the odd 'wee half' as we say in Scotland to get her through)! ;) xxxx
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I think the best way to avoid both the long term and short term effects of the menopause is to find an HRT regime that eradicates the vast majority of the symptoms. I haven't made any lifestyle changes and don't find the menopause affects me in terms of how much alcohol I can tolerate or what I eat.
I'm now 57 and over 10 years post menopause and the only physical changes were the daytime sweating and inability to control my body temperature but that is completed cured with high doses of oestrogen. Not so easy and my biggest drawback are silent migraines caused by low oestrogen in conjunction with all types of progesterone used in HRT preparations and contraception. That is my greatest challenge and I have to be very careful to make sure I keep up my oestrogel levels and seriously restrict my progesterone intake.
Overall I don't feel any different to be honest but that is because I am on HRT, God knows how I would feel without it. The sweating and the migraines are what prompted me to get tested and sure enough, I was menopausal. It came as a shock because I had never even thought about the menopause before and because I have never had children, it was my first medical event so it took some getting used to.
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Ohhh thank you Tempest.
Can I have the outside cabin then , as your paying. ;D
I know exactly how you feel, and I'm post meno, 3years, nearly 4 , now.
It has got better, and the ptsd has subsided a lot, but still, some days I really struggle.
I'll just day dream now about that cruise, my OH, would love one, maybe one day,
But for now we'll have to settle for Cyprus, or good old lanzarote.. ;D
Jd x
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All aboard, Jillydoll! ;) :)
For now, I'm settling for my winter log cabin holidays right here at home in Scotland. Until I can get on top of these blinkin' flushes, anywhere freezing sounds good to me and i'm too knackered to travel!
Our day will come, my friend.......and then it will be the Captain's table for us! ;) xxxx
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I definitely think a wee dram isn't such a bad idea!
When I became extremely ill a couple of years ago with all this, I didn't touch a drop of alcohol for 4 months and I've never felt so ill in my life. Once I got things under control an occasional glass of wine has got me through some tricky moments and it's even relieved my migraine. White wine is actually very good to help digest food too, compared to water that dilutes your gastric acid.
I don't have a glass every day but I think it's validity in its usefullness in perimenopause is vastly underrated!
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Tempest, I'm not surprised that you're angry. I feel alarmed that I wasn't warned that things would turn permanently shit overnight, so you must have been even more shocked with a surgically induced menopause.
Get on that cruise :)
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It's The Change. Does what it says on the tin!
In the 1980s I took ages to accept that I have to take an anti-depressant tablet twice a day: for Life. Otherwise I wouldn't get out of bed :'(. Once I had accepted this I realised that DH and I have a Life together again. I think that having been on AD medication regularly when menopause arrived, that possibility was taken care of already. Anxiety has plagued me since age 3 so I have to take appropriate medication daily.
I was fortunate in not having too many flushes; mine were after my bath from the back of my neck to my waist: every night I would 'glow' ::). Also the itching :bang: :bang: :bang: across my back, belly, back of my legs ...........
Maybe make a list of which symptom you would like to ease first? Surely you noticed some changes Wilks? Irregular periods, odd feelings, mood changes ...........
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Yes, I did notice irregular periods, but I had been led to believe that the menopause was simply a cessation of periods, loss of fertility and hot flushes for a few years. I'm angry because I didn't realise that I would be suddenly plunged into hell.
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I think that's what we were told, in general .......... but as with periods, ladies didn't talk about such issues and I think that there is such an age difference between teens and Mums going through The Change that maybe it gets swept away with daily living?
Menopause is 'cessation of periods'. The Change however is what comes with it >:( and some ladies suffer more than others. Don't know how much genetics comes into all this?
As an aside: I had cold flushes when I took Tamoxifen :-\ so definitely hormonal and no one warned me about that either. I thought I had a bout of 'flu!
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I try not to think so much about and to continue with my life. After all with hrt we are not exactly at meno, are we? 😂
We cannot deny it but we can our best to handle it. I have a very clean diet, a hard training and good sleep. I don't see a lot of differences but I think it is because of hrt. I cannot imagine my life physically and mentally without it.
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As long as my anxiety is under control I cope. I try not to anticipate events but the anxiety still occurs ............ anything out of routine can floor me :-\.
I don't look any further forwards than half a day at a time .......... and if we have to plan ahead, I know that I have my emergency pill. I do wake in the night because my biggest dread is my husband dying :'(. Having been treated for depression, anxiety and cancer and being the type of person that would worry that the cancer might return, I'm surprised that I don't think about that all the while ::).