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Menopause is a bloodsport—a bloodless bloodsport at this point, but gruelling nonetheless.
As my body and brain revolt against “the change,” I still have to parent—no breaks here. Most of my mom friends are empty nesters, or at the very least, parenting neurotypical kids who are older and mostly independent, so they get to be more hands-off. But for those of us raising kids with disabilities and complex medical needs, we’re on duty 24/7. My daughter just turned 18 and, while she’s made amazing strides toward independence and self-sufficinentness, (I know that’s not a word, but with this brain fog, it’s the best I can do), she’s still more like 14/7 at this point. But even that requires me to “mom” at a moment’s notice—ready with patience, energy, focus, and a plan… all of which are pretty hit-or-miss these days. Menopause is a bitch. And honestly, so am I sometimes.
I first noticed something was afoot in my mid-forties. I still considered myself to be young and virile. A spring chicken if you will. so it had to be early for perimenopause. Right?! And why didn’t anybody warn me? Or maybe they did but I tuned them out because they were just “old ladies” whinging about their messed up cycles.
Perimenopause is essentially water drip torture. You know, where water was dripped slowly onto the captive’s forehead, slowly driving them insane.
Perimenopause runs on the same principle. Just little droplets at first. Nothing you can’t handle. A restless night here, one early or late period there. Nothing unmanageable.
Drip drop drip.
Then two nights of tossing and turning. And a hot flash. Or maybe not a hot flash? It might just be an especially humid day. You’re not totally sure.
Drip drip drip drop drop drop…
And how are we THIS tired and still standing? Some nights it’s, “Go to bed two hours before the kids” tired.
Along with the inexplicable exhaustion, there are sudden spurts of anger for absolutely no reason. You’re the Incredible Hulk in guacamole stained yoga pants.
Drip drip drip drip drip drop drop drop drop…
Water trickles into your eyes, tickling your skin in a most unpleasant way. You want to punch a wall or at least scream until you hurt your own ears, but you’re too tired to bother.
You’re dropping things everywhere. Sometimes it’s a bowl of pasta with oily pesto sauce onto your white capris. *Incredible Hulk roar* I suspect it’s the “slight” bloating causing your joints to expand just enough to mess with your grip. There are certain times of the month when I don’t trust myself with glassware, pots of boiling liquids, or newborn babies.
And then there’s the lack of depth perception. This is a real thing. I’ve never been aces when it comes to parallel parking, but I could always manage to negotiate my car into a regular parking space. Now, especially after the incident where the side of my SUV got to third base with a cement post in an underground parking garage, I question my spacial judgement everywhere. Women OTOSOM (on the other side of menopause) have assured me this will improve eventually and I’ll once again be able to park at the mall without endangering lives. And paint jobs.
Drippity, drip drop…can somebody please mop my brow?
And how about that random bloating folks? I’m puffy in places I’ve never puffed before.
All of a sudden I’m forgetting common words and basic grammar rules. Stringing together a simple five word sentence becomes a Herculean effort. (At the time of writing this I couldn’t remember the word Herculan so I used ‘Zeusian effort’ until my word retrieval thingy fired back up again.) I’ve legit Googled, “Could loss of speech be a sign of a stroke?” and “What are early signs of dementia?”
Drip drop drip drop spray me full force in the face with a fire hose…
Depending on the day, peri-moms can feel sad in unpredictable waves, which keeps our families on their toes. We don’t even know why we’re feeling blue. And that makes us more sad and frustrated. And perpetually peckish. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve bribed my older child to ride his bike to the corner store to get his mama some therapeutic Pringles. And a little something for himself for his trouble of course. I’m not a monster.
Perimenopause makes moms restless. We don’t fall asleep easily and when we do, we don’t stay asleep for an entire sleep cycle. We can’t even pin this on our kids because they sleep all night and into the following afternoon, like vampires. No longer toddlers, our offspring have become snoozy teens whose zit cream we borrow because our once blemish free skin is now spotted with hormonally inflicted acne amid the wrinkles and blotches of sun damage. How is this fair? You’d think with all the drip drop water droplets on my face my skin would look pretty good.
Peris and menos don’t feel the sexiest. Which is for the best I guess because we’d rather play Scrabble on our phones in bed at night than do anything else if you catch my drift.
There are days where I barely recognize the “menstrosity” I’ve become. Expletive curse words spew out of my face for no valid reason. My computer wouldn’t load a website fast enough one morning so I raged and swore at my laptop like a filthy computer cursor.
The ride through perimenopause is a kind of slow but steady torture. There are tears and hot flashes, insomnia, and ridiculous mood swings. There are periods of periods that are heavy and long. Kind of like your boobs without a bra these days. And periods of an absence of periods that will just plain freak you out, period.
Drip drop drip times infinity…
You might be entering perimenopause if…
You buy your fem hygiene products from Costco.
Sweater on, sweater off, sweater on, sweater off…repeat.
One thick black wiry whisker keeps appearing in the same spot on your chin. Good luck focussing on your meeting if you should notice it while you’re stuck at work. All you can think is, ”tweezers, tweezers, my kingdom for my tweezers!”
Salty foods have become medically necessary.
Birth control is less about controlling birth and more about controlling the outbursts.
The early stages of perimenopause had me asking questions. Like, when will it get better? Oh god, it WILL get better, right? I understood that diet and exercise and sleep (hahahaha) and certain supplements could help. And these things do help, but for me, not enough to feel like a fully functioning human being and parent. I struggled.
And then… hello actual menopause—the one day that marks one full year sans period. I didn’t even realize my milestone day had come and gone until bloodwork confirmed I was indeed a meno mama. And I’d love to say that my symptoms vanished like a puff of smoke. I’d love to say it but I can’t. If anything, my symptoms got worse. Just around the time my parenting responsibilities ramped up.
My daughter turned 18 and with that, as a parent of a young adult with disabilities, there’s a lot to do when your child enters adulthood—from filling out paperwork, transitioning from pediatric health care to the adult medical system, to helping them navigate more complex social relationships, and planning for their future living arrangements, which suddenly doesn’t seem so far off and this keeps you up at night. Which is okay, because you’re probably awake anyway.
With careful consideration, I decided to start hormone replacement therapy. For the most part, I’m pleased with it. My sleep has improved quite a bit. The hot flashes have abated. And my rage has downgraded from an emotional hurricane to a mild tropical storm. I still can’t park for shit though. And the brain fog and memory lapses are still an issue. I need to call my doctor to see if we should adjust my HRT dose. I meant to call. But I forgot. Of course I did. “Hey Siri, add ‘call doctor’ to my to-do list.”
So here we are fellow “disability moms.” Parenting our widening butts off while also trying to dodge the deluge of droplets, dripping and distracting us from our duties. But it’ll be okay. With a carefully curated approach of “fake it til you make it” and doing the best we can—for our kids and for ourselves, we’ve got this! Wait, we DO have this, right?
Hormones are what’s in your body that makes you grow and change and feel things. We all have hormones. My mom talks about her hormones a lot.
