Maya

Jun 19 · Replied

Community post

Just popping back to say thank you, especially Steph. I read all of these with a cup of tea and had a little cry, in a good way. This community is such a relief sometimes.

Jun 19 · Posted

52, perimenopause confirmed last year, been in a demanding job for twenty years and I genuinely cannot work out if what's happening to my brain is hormonal or if I've just finally hit a wall. The thing is, the fog started around the same time the sleep went properly wrong. Not insomnia exactly, more like I wake at 3am completely wired and then drag myself through the day on fumes. By 2pm I'm almost useless. I've started keeping biscuits in my desk which is not ideal but I was getting so desperate I'd have eaten the stapler. I've got a GP appointment next week and I want to actually come prepared for once rather than sitting there going blank (ironic). I want to ask specifically about whether oestrogen affects cognitive function because I've read things but I don't know what's credible and what isn't. And I want to describe what this actually looks like day to day, not just "I feel tired and foggy" which sounds like nothing. So I've been writing it down. Lost a word mid-sentence in a meeting on Monday. Sent an email to the wrong person on Wednesday. Sat in a Teams call and genuinely could not hold the thread of what was being discussed for more than about ninety seconds. That's what I want to hand over. Has anyone managed to have a useful conversation with their GP about this specifically? Not just being told to rest more. An actual conversation about whether hormones could be driving the cognitive stuff? x

Jun 11 · Posted

52 and I genuinely cannot work out if I'm exhausted from the job or if something else is going on with my brain. I've been in this role fifteen years. I know this work. And yet last Tuesday I sat in a meeting with my director and completely lost the word for a process I run every single quarter. Just... gone. I said "the, you know, the thing where we consolidate the" and then sort of gestured vaguely. She was kind about it. I wanted to crawl under the table. I keep going back and forth between peri and burnout because honestly the overlap seems enormous? The tiredness, the not-quite-thinking-straight feeling, the way afternoons have become this grey slog where I'm basically just watching the clock and eating biscuits to stay upright. I've started trying to sort my sleep out a bit more seriously because I read that fragmented sleep makes cognitive stuff worse and I was definitely lying awake at 2am replaying every slightly awkward thing I'd ever said professionally. So I've been stricter about when I stop looking at my phone and I'm going to bed at an actual consistent time instead of collapsing whenever. Jury's still out on whether it's helping but I feel marginally less like a zombie. Also experimenting with not having a sad little desk sandwich at lunch and actually eating something with protein in it, because the 3pm wall has been brutal and someone here mentioned it might help with the afternoon crash. Haven't cracked it yet but I'm paying attention. Main thing is I want to go to my GP with something more concrete than "I feel fuzzy". Has anyone managed to have a useful conversation with their doctor about brain fog specifically? Like, did you track examples beforehand, or ask about hormones and cognition directly? I don't want to get fobbed off with "have you tried mindfulness" again. x