7 Jun
Right so I downloaded a period tracker last month and it kept showing me little flower emojis and asking if I wanted to log my "fertile window" and I nearly threw my phone across the room. I am 41. My cycle has gone from 28 days to anywhere between 19 and 35 in the space of a year. I cannot sleep. I am anxious in a way that feels chemical, not situational, like the feeling lands before there is even a reason for it. And yet every menopause forum I peek at seems to be full of women talking about their post-menopausal skin or comparing hot flush remedies and I feel like I have wandered into the wrong waiting room. I am not sure I belong here either, to be honest. But I found this room and it felt closer. I have started writing things down, mostly because I could not figure out what to tell the GP without sounding like I was catastrophising. So now I have a little notes page on my phone, just the date, how the day felt, whether my period showed up when expected, how I slept. Nothing fancy. But when I looked back over two months of it I could actually see something, a pattern I would not have noticed otherwise. The anxious weeks tend to cluster. The exhausted weeks too. I am going to show it to my GP next week and I am genuinely rehearsing how to say "I think something has shifted hormonally" without her just telling me I am busy and stressed. Which I am. But I do not think that is the whole story. Anyone else navigating this bit? The too-young-for-menopause, too-old-for-Flo bit? x