Alone

Five years after I had my daughter, I was pretty sure I was pregnant again.  I could check off each of the early first trimester symptoms.  Since my body now knew what it felt like to be pregnant, I was also having dreams about being pregnant.  It felt so familiar…so real…but it wasn’t.  A year after I had my daughter, I had a procedure to have E-Sure implanted in my fallopian tubes.  I cannot have more children, however, my body seemed to have forgotten this fact.  Not understanding how I could feel pregnant but not be pregnant, I visited my OBGYN.  Within a few minutes we realized that both family history and medications had made me perimenopausal…at 38. 

Emotions hit me like a tidal wave.  I was embarrassed and felt like my body was a freak.  I was sad mourning children I couldn’t have.  I was angry that other circumstances in my life had accelerated this change.  I felt like I lost those miraculous qualities that made me a woman and was now just a body.  I was alone.  These emotions stayed with me for a few more weeks, along with headaches, hot flashes, extremely tender breasts and intermittent bursts of anger and tears.  In short, I was a “hot mess.”  I shared with my husband my feelings and apologized for losing my temper with both him and our daughter several times a week.  I also spoke with my best friend, a physician, about my physical symptoms.  They both listened and comforted me, but didn’t understand.  I was alone. 

Like Pavlov’s dogs, I learned to hide my symptoms, which now seemed to be cyclical.  Everyone wanted to hear about my pregnancy and the miracle I had growing in side of me.  No one wanted to hear about my bareness and how shitty perimenopause feels.  The mere mention of having a “hot flash” seemed elicit the same response to someone bringing up death at a cocktail party.  I felt shame.  I didn’t want pity, I didn’t want attention, I didn’t want sympathy.  I just wanted to find someone else who knew what I was going through. 

By the end of the first year, I had gotten pretty good with hiding everything.  When I woke up at night with a headache or hot flash, I learned to go into the guest room so not to bother my husband.  When I was feeling especially short-tempered, I would go into the guest room so not to hurt anyone.  Life is too busy being a business owner and a mom to experiment with ways to mitigate symptoms, so I take whatever energy I have left and apply it to hiding symptoms. Alone was working.

And then…I was not alone….  I was having lunch with a dear friend.  We were catching up about summer activities and she said something.  She was brave, she was vulnerable, she mentioned a hot flash and I instantly felt free.  Timidly, I asked if I heard my friend correctly, that she had started menopause early.  She confirmed.  I shared that I had as well.  We didn’t embark on a litany of grievances or sorrows.  We traded some stories, but naturally moved onto other topics.  She knew what I was going through, she understood, that is all that I wanted.  I needed to know that I was not alone. 

Now I’m three years in and my friend is still the only person I know who started perimenopause early.  We chat about it, like we chat about our families, like we chat about our businesses.  It is no different than any other thing we are going through, but the fact that I am able to chat about it with someone, that is liberating.  It is hard to believe that among the dozens of females that I know, both as acquaintances and friends, only one is going through the same thing as me.  I know there have to be others out there.  If we could find each other, support each other, I know it would make perimenopause so much easier.  Maybe someone has a great trick to deal with hot flashes.  Maybe someone could help me manage the “less than a woman” stigma that I feel.  Maybe someone could cry with me about how shitty this feels.  I’m done with being alone.