15 Jun
ok so I nearly didn't post this because every time I say something is working it immediately stops working, classic, but here we go. Background for anyone who hasn't seen me in this room before: I'm 40, cycles have been all over the place for about eight months now, and I've been in this weird limbo of not knowing if I'm early peri or just completely burnt out from life. Two kids (11 and 14, both apparently in competition for who can need the most from me at 10pm), full time job, the usual. The thing I've been struggling with most is the mornings. I wake up already anxious, already behind, already foggy. Like my brain boots up in a panic. I've been googling this at stupid o'clock more times than I want to admit and going down rabbit holes that leave me more worried than when I started. So this week I tried one thing. Just one. I made myself eat actual breakfast before I looked at my phone. Not a biscuit, not coffee first, actual food. Eggs two days, porridge with some peanut butter the other days. And I wrote down in my little notes app how the morning felt compared to the week before. And genuinely? Three out of five mornings were noticeably less horrible. Like the anxiety was still there a bit but it wasn't the first thing that hit me. I got through the school run without that horrible shaky feeling twice. I'm not saying this is the answer to anything. I'm 40 and I still don't know what's actually happening in my body and I'm saving all of this for when I eventually get a GP appointment where someone takes me seriously. But I wanted to write it down somewhere because I usually only log the bad stuff and then I look back and think everything is terrible all the time, which isn't quite true. If you're in the same boat of not knowing whether this is peri or burnout or just being a mum in her 40s, hi. You're not dramatic. I've been lurking here for a while and this room made me feel less like I was making it up. x