Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => Personal Experiences => Topic started by: Focus on July 20, 2019, 08:53:26 AM
-
Hi guys
I don't know if this is hormonal, but I'm struggling a bit at the moment.
It could be a bit of the usual PMS stuff, just amplified. Feeling vulnerable, picked on and a bit paranoid.
But in the background is the feeling of not being ready for another major life upheaval. I already went though one three and a half years ago, when my now ex-husband left (for his much, much younger affair partner. They now have two children together. She got pregnant with their first child 9 months after he left). We had been together 18 years, married 15.
Anyway, I absolutely threw myself into my recovery and, I have to say, it went phenomenally well...better than I ever could have imagined. People were telling me I looked 20 years younger, I looked the picture of health, and some of them didn't even recognise me. My journey through my recovery was all consuming both inside and out. It had to be, it was a question of life or death really - he was an alcoholic and I reckon I had become co-dependent (as well as doing absolutely everything to run my life, his life and our life for many many years).
So I was at the point where I was coasting a bit and enjoying the fruits of all my hard work, enjoying life and enjoying being me. Then I got hit with this perimenopause stuff.
And I feel like I have no energy left to go through something like this now. I really don't. I'm exhausted from everything that's happened.
Does anyone have any words of advice?
-
It does get better, for most people anyway. I just couldn't be bothered with anything or anyone, not so much the feeling of couldn't go through something but couldn't care if I did nothing all day. Have you seen your gp? Discussing hrt options might be a good place to start. I assume you already have a good healthy lifestyle, nutrition & exercise?
-
Hi focus, whereabouts are you into perimenopause?
Have you had any months without period?
How is your diet and what is your bmi? X
-
Hi guys
Thank you for your replies. It's lovely to come back to the forum and find them...really lovely.
I'm one of these super healthy people, both in terms of exercise and food. No issues on that front, I'm small for my size. Goodness knows what it would be like if I was eating badly, overweight and not exercising. I can't begin to imagine what sort of hell this would be.
As to where I am, I don't honestly know. 49 years old and I'm on the combined pill to deal with the flooding/huge clots/constant periods I was getting from October onwards last year. Occasional flooding and clots before then, maybe since the previous spring? But not like from October onwards (which led me to become anaemic). Maybe some barely noticeable symptoms the previous year (no more sore, swollen PMS breasts).
Also now hot flushes, night sweats, brittle nails, weird dreams.
I was getting acne again after the new year, but that only lasted a few months and I'm back to having super clear skin now.
I'm feeling dehydrated all the time. Not joking, but I must drink at least 2 litres of liquid a day, and 3 litres most days. Came back from the gym last night and had one litre after I got home.
So, no idea really.
-
Hi Focus, Some women get lighter and lighter periods on the lead up to menopause and some have heavier...
How long have you been on the combined pill now? I'm guessing that is a temporary thing?
When you come off it you'll get an idea of where you're at..
-
I always felt really thirsty B4 a period. I would dip celery stalks into cold water and chew them for the liquid.
Are you dehydrated? The way to tell is to pinch your skin on the back of the hand: if it pops back the body is hydrated enough. If it peaks then it needs hydration.
So hormones may be driving this feeling of thirst: as can diabetes! Maybe your local Lloyds pharmacist could to a pin prick to check?
You may be in mourning. He upped and went. Leaving you. You had been through a lot together, plus his alcoholism. Give yourself a break, these issues can bounce back un-expectedly!
-
Thank you.
Suddenly thought of two things...I have bad memory anyway (because of PTSD) but it's been especially bad the past few months. I've missed work shifts, turned up at the wrong time and days as well.
Also, I seem to have permanent diarrhoea at the moment (two weeks and counting). Again, I didn't really notice this as I had it for so many years when I had PTSD really bad and I just got used to it.
Doctor said I can stay on the CP until I'm 50. If I come off it then and I have those awful periods again, I'm going back on it, by hook or by crook. There's no way I'm ever going through what I went through before going on it after the new year. .
-
Are you dehydrated? The way to tell is to pinch your skin on the back of the hand: if it pops back the body is hydrated enough. If it peaks then it needs hydration.
Just feels normal when I do this.
I've been reading Chump Lady (there was a lot of cheating on his part with different women). She's hilarious and has kept me sane.
-
Hi Focus, Some women get lighter and lighter periods on the lead up to menopause and some have heavier...
I honestly didn't know this. I thought everyone's periods eventually for lighter and further apart.
-
Hi Focus, just a bit about peri...
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/perimenopause/symptoms-causes/syc-20354666
-
Ps, if you've had diarrhoea for more than two weeks, likely why you feel so thirsty.
Could be IBS or chrones disease or maybe stress or something. Did you tell this to your doctor? X
-
Thank you.
I honestly thought it was a more linear progression. It just seems like everything is jumbled up. I noticed that I started getting night sweats back in November (they were really bad ones) when I was bleeding really heavily all the time, constantly, for weeks on end. Now I have night sweats and hot flushes, but they're obviously lessened because I'm on the CP.
I thought my periods would get lighter and further apart and only then would I get night sweats and hot flushes.
-
Yeah, I have IBS that started at the time my PTSD started.
It wasn't diagnosed by the doctor but by a specialist counsellor. I tend to steer away from doctors and keep clear of them as I really don't get on well with most of them.
I started exercising as a way of coping with my (at times) crippling anxiety. I try and exercise most days as it really helps.
At the moment I'm struggling. I'm exercising as usual, but I feel quite down and overwhelmed. I know that if I stopped exercising I would fall off the cliff edge. And I know that it's a long, long, long way down, and just how many jagged rocks you hit off on the way down.
I feel very lonely as well. All my friends are younger and have no idea how this feels. I'm the only one of all of us who is divorced. So none of them really know what that is like either. One of my closest friends sort of intimated that her split up with her live in boyfriend of 6 years was like my divorce. I said nothing to her, but I really don't feel they're the same thing at all.
Anyway, I'm sorry to be on such a downer.
I've worked really hard to be very very positive, and that's how people would describe me. But this is knocking the stuffing out of me.
-
Anxiety/stress + the runs = dehydration!
-
Realised when I'd got home that I had forgotten to take my pill in the morning.
After about half an hour of taking it I started feeling a little calmer.
Anxious again this morning. Feeling like my life is shrinking to trying to get through the immediate moment.
Terrified for what the future might hold. Terrified that I'm somehow 'not enough' for my partner, not feminine enough, not womanly enough, that I had my chance and failed at being a woman - when some women find it so easy. That he'll turn round and tell me, out of the blue, when we've really knitted our lives together and that I will be devastated. I won't have seen it coming.
Going to struggle through the day with the things I need to do (work), then I'm going to the gym again. That'll be three days in a row.
I'm not getting the high I usually get from it. I still feel down and worried after it. Even though I run for 45 minutes and am absolutely drenched in sweat afterwards.
When does this nightmare end?
-
Eventually!
You have a lot going on and you are surmising. Why not sit down and talk to your partner who may be feeling as confused as you are. DO NOT assume anything - it can be dangerous anyway. DH told me years ago that he isn't a Mind Reader!
I used to wake deeply afraid ....... medication has eased that over the years as does eating properly ::) but it's hard sometimes to determine hunger from illness :'(. I try to eat B4 my body needs energy input.
Have that TALK!
-
Yup, I've been chatting with my partner. He jokes that he now knows more about menopause than any other band he knows.
I started talking to him in October, when I was getting the heavy, heavy flow, big clots and first took the Tranexamic Acid.
-
Hello Focus. Your reference to your partner and last October reminded me that we corresponded then about how long this would go on for and about your plans. I recall you had recently got engaged and were getting married “next†year. That must be this year - yes? Did you go for the sleek 1930's dress you had in mind then? Here's hoping you might be able to re-focus on the nice things coming your way, rather than this shit show of a menopause. It can be all consuming. Wishing you well, Focus xx
-
All this peri stuff sends our minds into a spin Focus...I think you will find that its not just one thing we are anxious about its everything however irrational. I am the most rational person you could imagine but I literally lost my marbles for about 2 years. I couldn't leave the house nor did I want any of my loved ones to leave it either in case "something" happened to them!!!! I had all sorts of irrational thoughts that wouldn't have been "like me" in the slightest. All my problems really kicked in at 50. I was afraid of everything...my own shadow and I do mean everything!!
I thought I would make mistakes at work and lose my business, my husband would leave me, my children would die, we would be bankrupt, you name it I thought it..... :-\ We lose our sense of identity, we lose our confidence, we question everything...there are loads of ladies here who know how this feels so you are no alone. I wish I could say when the nightmare will end for you...its different for everybody. Mine was when I got on the right hrt and it wasn't quick 3 years to get it right...and it doesn't work for everyone. Although your pill may be working for the periods maybe its not the right balance of the hormones for all the peri symptoms which seem to be ramping up combined with your ptsd???
-
Thank you ladies. It's such a huge comfort knowing that you get it.
I feel very alone at the moment. None of my friends are going through this, and none have even been divorced.
One of my closest friends (the one who told me she doesn't want to know about perimenopause) said, when I told her I was engaged, the very first thing she said to me was 'you'll have been married twice and I haven't even been married once'.
I didn't say anything as a reply. But I did want to say to her that I am 10 years older than her and when she was just leaving school I was planning my first wedding at 28.
She did apologise a few days afterwards.
She does genuinely forget that I'm a good bit older than her. Most people don't realise. I really look like I'm in my mid 30s, and I do get patronised occasionally by people who I know are my own age. It came up quite naturally in conversation the other day she we were working together, and she asked how old I was (she knows how old I am) and I said 49 and she was shocked.
Anyway, I've got my mum's amazing genes to thank for a lot of it, and my super healthy lifestyle.
But yeah, your comments also made me laugh. Seriously, the stuff that has gone though my head in the past 24 hours: I'd end up homeless, my fiancé would turn out to prefer men, I'd end up hugely overweight.
I mean, they're obviously some sort of super deep seated worries on my part (we were homeless for a year when I was 10 years old, I was never the 'woman' enough for my xh who had affairs with much, much younger women, one of whom he has had two children with, and I'm terrified of putting on weight).
I sound like such a gas, don't I? Everyone would just love to have a super highly strung pal that can't cope with normal life, wouldn't they?
I'm going to the gym again tonight. Another 45 minute run. Hopefully this horrible feeling will bottom out at some point.
-
Hello Focus. Your reference to your partner and last October reminded me that we corresponded then about how long this would go on for and about your plans. I recall you had recently got engaged and were getting married “next†year. That must be this year - yes? Did you go for the sleek 1930's dress you had in mind then? Here's hoping you might be able to re-focus on the nice things coming your way, rather than this shit show of a menopause. It can be all consuming. Wishing you well, Focus xx
I have a dress hanging up.
We were thinking 2020.
My darling finance said he would be happy to wait, if I wanted to wait until the worst of this blew over. But who know what the heck is going to happen on this nightmare menopause ride. I might feel worse? It's a long way down to rock bottom, I know that from dealing with PTSD (I spent the first two weeks of it curled up in the middle of my bed unable to speak and throwing up constantly).
God, what a total catch I am.
-
Yep and he loves you just the same ;D
Focus more on what he tells you perhaps? Believe!!
-
Focus
Sorry you are feeling like this. But as lots of women have said you are certainly not alone & I know it really sucks to wonder who you are anymore.
I do know exercise helps but do you do anything for stress relief like meditation or yoga? Also when I had Post Natal Depression I found counselling really helped me. Xx
-
God, I tried to talk to my friend about the anxiety and said I was relieved to find out that it was actually a part of perimenopause and that I wasn't going insane.
Her reply? She thinks I should stop reading about it.
I said reading about it and finding out stuff actually helped. Like when I had the flooding and clotting. I was terrified before I knew what was going on. And I only found out because the doctor I saw at the out of hours prescribed the Norethisterone to stop the bleeding and mentioned perimenopause.
I said I thought a big part of the problem was that nobody had ever said anything to me about any of this and people don't talk about it either. So you're basically thrown in at the deep end.
I feel really angry now.
I'm going to the gym.
-
I was gonna have a stretch session at the gym,but with the amount of adrenaline I had coursing round my body I just leathered it on the treadmill again.
Past three days I've gone for length of run (45 minutes) but today I just went for sweat. 25 minutes of hard work and dripping sweat.
Honestly, I've never ever been in such good shape as I am now. Shame that mentally I'm a total mess.
-
Lol...watching Menopause Taylor on 'What Happens Socially at Menopause'. I flipping love how direct she is. I feel like that's helping save my sanity today (along with the gym).
-
So guys, I'm now on the up side of the emotional rollercoaster.
And I had a pretty cool feeling last night.
In spite of some pretty tough times in my life, I've always known there is a core of unbreakable steeliness deep inside me. People have said that I'm one of the strongest people they've met, that I'm incredibly resilient...
But I've been 99% a people pleaser. Even to my own detriment to a massive degree, and resulting in stuff that's taken me a lifetime to deal with.
Well last night I had a feeling of not giving an absolute monkey's about other people's opinions of me any more and any of their thoughts about how I should behave and what I should do.
I had the most amazing feeling of freedom, of being free in myself and of being perfectly content in myself. I feel really happy just doing my own thing and being in my own company. I felt self contained.
Not that I wasn't feeling that a little before, but this feeling seemed to be very all pervasive, I could almost feel it in every single cell in my body.
One thing I'm really understanding now is that none of this is a linear process. And it's not smooth. It's like a really bumpy ride with your foot on the accelerator pedal.
Anyway, that's where I am today. I hope you ladies are good and managing to take care of yourselves.
-
That 'friend' would be off my C.mas card list :o
-
Thanks CLKD.
It just seems really strange to me, not to find out what's going on with your body. Would you give that advice to a teenage girl who is about to start/has just started her periods? Would you say that to a pregnant woman?
And it's what the last doctor I saw suggested: finding stuff out and coming on this forum to connect with other women.
I feel really ambivalent towards our friendship at the moment.
Things seemed fine when xh had just left and I was starting to find my feet. She was the one who suggested I started dating and introduced me to online dating. She also altered my online profile at one point (lowering the age range of men...I had been thinking of men my own age or maybe 5 or so years older. She lowered it to men 10 years younger than me. And trust me, there's a heck of a difference between a guy who is 36 and one who is 46).
Although she also ended up not approving of who I was going out on dates with. But, you know, I had my lessons to learn obviously. And I learnt them - very fast.
There's probably an element of co-dependency going on (on both sides). Her mother has some serious mental health issues form what I understand and she was in a relationship for 6 years with a serial cheater. My father has an antisocial personality disorder and I was married to an alcoholic for 15 years who cheated a fair bit in the 6 years of our marriage. So, possibly some issues on both our sides to do with helping people in need, being the one to sort everything out and being in the one that's in control.
It's a bit tricky, as she has been a very close friend and we do a lot of (really fantastic) work together. But I think I've found a way round the work situation for my next couple of projects...
So at the end of all of this, I'm not going to 'do' anything here. I'm not going to initiate contact, apologise, suggest meeting up for coffee, anything like that. I have plenty to keep me busy over the next few months, with work and plenty to plan for next year as well.
-
Look after you. To survive one has to be selfish; think of a baby that cries as it's being born - feed me and feed me now ;)
-
think of a baby that cries as it's being born - feed me and feed me now ;)
What a joy. It's so much worse when there's silence and doctors huddled over said baby in the corner... Cleft palate, tongue stuck up the hole so couldn't breathe. Glad I couldn't see her turning blue. Made up for it since, never shuts up.
Glad you're feeling a bit better Focus. Seems totally logical to me to want to find out what's going on. And I think many people find support on here that their own friends and family can't offer for whatever reason.
-
:o ....... did she require surgical intervention?
That silence must have been sooooo long :-\
-
It felt like an age but probably wasn't so long. Not long enough for brain damage anyway... I think... ::) I wasn't very with it at the time.
-
I was a prem baby so not always sharp enough ::).
So I struggle with adding up, taking away but it no longer throws me into a spiral - I simply explain that I am dylesix with money ::)