Perimenopausal crap.

 I am here to whinge, and am taking a break from my regularly scheduled family history posts to do so. Let's go for some old school feminism, hey?

I have been perimenopausal now for at least three years, however when the clock turned over on 2025, so too did my advancement in this process. I feel like I am going crazy - a couple of years ago, I labelled this entire process "reverse teenagehood", yet had no idea just how accurate this would be the closer I came to my 47th birthday. The thing is though, despite this going on for a few years already, I feel completely unprepared, and I totally believe this shouldn't be the case.

The feeds of my social media accounts are jammed with teas and supplements that apparently alleviate the symptoms of "the change". Yet the only symptom they actually talk about alleviating is hot flushes (flashes, whatever - I will be calling them flushes as I have seen them refer to both). Same sort of thing happened in a work meeting the other day - hand-held fans were suggested as a merch item to highlight reproductive leave. Thing is, I am yet to have a hot flush. I am pretty convinced at this point that they will not feature amongst my symptoms, and though I am deeply curious as to what it might be like to have one related to perimenopause, the only time I have experienced something approximating this was when I was taking Tramadol for my back pain. 

I have noticed too that when we see this process portrayed on screen, hot flushes again end up being the only symptom highlighted. Borgen, for example, had the main character leave a meeting to run her wrists under cold water and change her shirt. There was one scene featuring a "surprise period", but certainly, this didn't disrupt her anywhere near as much. If I were to think about other portrayals over the years, this has been the only constant.

I cannot help but think that the reason why hot flushes are the only thing we ever see addressed in the public sphere is because they are the most sanitised symptom you can portray. It is the symptom that has utterly nothing to do with our "bits". Yes, it is a symptom that does impact about 75% of women going through this reproductive life transition, but 100% of those who menstruate experience menstrual disturbances. Things are a bit more complicated than us simply feeling a bit too hot on occasion.

Why am I writing this now? Well, since the beginning of the year, I have experienced the following:

1. A cycle that lasted 51 days. 
2. Two weeks' worth of spotting.
3. Flooding, and pain that could not be abated by panadeine forte. The flooding actually came on the same day I had my regular check-up with a repro health practitioner so that was rather inconvenient. Every day, I leave the house with a full suite of menstrual products "just in case"
4. Phantom PMT. One of my surefire signs of an incoming period has long been that I will eat everything in the house, then order DoorDash because I am "hungry". This has meant that I am two or three days off starting a cycle. I have still had this symptom in all its glory, but with a "no show" event.
5. Two mini migraines - until late last year, I had not experienced a migraine since my early 40s.
6. Some serious "downs". I find myself pushing away the world, in general, at times. My mood has not been stable, and though there are many factors contributing to that, it is also being exacerbated by the hormonal.
7. Sexual dysfunction. Who knew the body not maintaining that regular series of events could impact that side of things? Well, probably all of us, but again, I cannot think of a portrayal of a woman in her late 40s on-screen that reflects that scenario, even if I have heard women jokingly referring to it all as "men-on-pause".
8. Sleep disturbances. To be fair, I have always struggled with insomnia, but lately, it has reared its head more regularly.
9. Severe inflammatory symptoms, and neuropathy. Some days I wake up, and everything just aches. My body also randomly feels exhausted. The neuropathy in my feet has been a constant for about a year, and though that may have other causes, the timing is deeply suspicious. 
10. Iron deficiency and possibly also Vitamin B deficiency.
11. A feeling of deep excitement and appreciation when I discovered that one of the toilets in at work had a bidet installed in it, and therefore my stress of potentially experiencing a "flood event" at work was alleviated a little.

It's only March.

In some aspects, I have privilege here. I acknowledge, for example, my friends who are parents and have teenage daughters adjusting to their developing bodies at the same time that they are adjusting to theirs. That must actually be hell. I also have the privilege of having a reproductive life that has had clockwork precision, so I therefore can identify these shifts easier than those who have been plagued by irregular periods, PCOS, and so forth. 

But I have NFI what is going on. And nor, it seems, do most other women my age going through this. We're all navigating a series of symptoms that may have all, or nothing, to do with our changing bodies, and even doctor Google is not being much assistance. And to top it off, capitalism has decided I need ads for symptom-relieving tea in my social media feed. Medically, there appears to be not much available except for HRT. Given I never responded well to synthetic hormones such as the Pill, I am unlikely to be gravitating towards that any time soon. There needs to be more out there, but given the male default has greatly framed medical science, and time and time again we are hit with evidence that women's pain is not taken seriously by the profession, I doubt any alternatives will be on the market by the time I am through all this.

On the plus side though, I am at least finding that your average Generation X woman is significantly more likely to whinge openly about all this. The generations before us seemed to suffer more in silence, or if they didn't, they were more likely to be ignored. I am also thankful that reproductive leave is hitting workplace agreements at the same time I am going through this. It does highlight the importance of us to talk openly about the impacts perimenopause has on our working lives to create working conditions that take this into account. 

We also need to change the dialogue, because it is rare that I actually see the word "perimenopause" used. Everything seems to be labelled as "menopause", and this is erasive. A couple of months ago, I wrote as much with the argument that they want us to believe, as women, that the real problem is our loss of fertility and how sad this apparently is. The processes leading up to this, however, are complicated, variable, distressing, and can go on for years, so why is it shelved as far as its importance goes?

Anyway, writing to rant. Hoping this resonates with others. In solidarity.