41 and I don't even know how to start this post properly. I've been sitting here trying to work out if I'm perimenopausal or just... completely ground down by life. Two kids under ten, full-time job, husband who tries but doesn't get it, and I am so tired I cried in the Tesco car park last week because they'd run out of the pasta we needed. But here's the thing. The last few months my cycles have been all over the place. Used to be 28 days like clockwork. Now I'm getting 23, then 31, then 26. And the week before my period I am not myself. Like genuinely not myself. Snapping at everyone, lying awake at 3am with this low hum of dread I can't name, forgetting words mid-sentence at work. I mentioned it to my GP and she sort of nodded and said stress can do a lot of things. Which, fine, yes. But something feels different to just stress. I know what stressed feels like. I've been stressed for years. This is something else underneath it. I've started writing down when I drink coffee (cutting off at 1pm now and it's helping a tiny bit with the 3am stuff, or maybe I'm imagining it), and I've been noting down when the bad weeks happen relative to my cycle. Trying to build a picture before I go back and ask properly. For the GP I want to be able to say: here's what's changed since last year. Not just "I feel terrible" because that sounds like depression and gets routed a certain way. Actual specifics. Cycle lengths. Sleep. The brain fog that makes me re-read the same email four times. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I feel too young to be in menopause spaces and too old to be on an app that sends me "fertile window!" notifications like that's my main concern right now 😩