8 Jun
Fifty next month and I genuinely cannot tell if I am falling apart or just... tired. Like properly, structurally tired in a way sleep doesn't fix. I've been a project manager for fifteen years. I used to hold six workstreams in my head simultaneously and now I stood in front of my team last Tuesday and completely lost the word for "dependencies". Just gone. I said "the things that rely on other things" and moved on and hoped nobody clocked it but they definitely clocked it. The question I keep going round on is whether this is perimenopause or whether I've just hit a wall after years of doing too much. Or both. Can it be both? I suspect it's both and that's somehow worse because I don't know which bit to address first. I've started bringing a proper lunch to work, actual protein, eggs or chicken or whatever, because someone here mentioned the afternoon crash and I thought yes, that's me, 3pm and my brain just quietly leaves the building. It's helped a bit with the energy but the fog is still there in the mornings, especially before I've had a chance to settle. I've also been trying to get off my phone by ten and in bed by eleven but I'm not consistent with it yet. Some nights I manage it. Some nights I'm doom-scrolling at midnight wondering why I feel dreadful. I've got a GP appointment coming up and I want to go in with something concrete rather than just "I feel woolly and less like myself". So I've been writing things down. Specific things. Forgot the word in the Tuesday meeting. Sent an email to the wrong Sarah. Read a paragraph four times and retained nothing. Lost my thread halfway through presenting to the director. That kind of thing. Work stuff, because I feel like that might land differently than saying "I'm a bit forgetful". Has anyone else had to do this? Build a case for yourself? It feels strange, like I'm preparing evidence against my own brain. x