I've been lurking on and off for months and I think I finally have something worth posting about, so here goes. Last night I slept from about half ten until six in the morning. No waking up at 3am convinced I was dying. No lying there with my heart going too fast for no reason. No throwing the duvet off and then pulling it back on four times. Just. Sleep. I know that probably sounds like nothing to anyone who hasn't been through the last year and a half of this. But I was genuinely frightened for a while. I didn't recognise myself. The hot flushes I could sort of cope with, embarrassing as they were. But the sleep thing broke me in a way I didn't expect. I was crying in the Tesco car park in October over nothing. I was snapping at my kids constantly and then feeling awful about it. I thought something was seriously wrong with me beyond the perimenopause stuff. I went back to my GP in January and was really firm this time about how much it was affecting my daily life. I'd written things down, which helped. She adjusted things and I've been giving it time. I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone what to do, I really mean that. What's worked for me might be completely different for someone else and I'm not a doctor. But I wanted to come back and say: if you're in the frightened phase right now, the phase where you genuinely can't imagine feeling normal again, please hold on. It can shift. It shifted for me. I've also been doing a bit more walking in the evenings and trying to eat something proper at dinner rather than just picking at whatever the kids leave. Small things. I'm noting what feels different week to week. Thank you for being here, this room has helped more than I can say. x