I called out menopausal the other day.
I said “sick,” of course, because my supervisor isn’t even 30 yet, and if some of my elders look at me like I’m a freak when I try to describe what I’m going through, a kid sure ain’t gonna get it.
My favorite is when people go, “Oh, you’re too young to be going through menopause!” 🙄
To be accurate, it’s called peri-menopause, a kind of living purgatory where you ride the insane “change of life” roller coaster for 7-10 years while still needing to buy tampons. There’s no official age when it hits or boilerplate experience of the impact, although the list of possible symptoms will put hair on your che…sorry, I mean your chin.
So you can see why it’s just easier to say “sick.”
The way I have been feeling between the 18th and 26th days of every monthly cycle over the past year or so, perimenopause might as well be the bubonic plague.
There are days I feel so mentally scattered and emotionally unstable that I have no business putting myself in close proximity to other people, for fear of some “Temple of Doom” shit going down. Those people might be counted on to provide a reference for future job prospects!
Those people might also be clients, and I’m pretty sure human sacrifice is frowned upon by the licensure board, and I’ve already got enough hoops to jump through for that LPC cert., so…
Some of you may find yourselves worrying about my husband right about now; well, don’t. He and I have come to an understanding. I tell him, “I’m going to my meno-cave” — get it? Like man cave? — and he no longer feels compelled to ask, “What’s wrong?” when I’m sobbing or yelling at the TV in our bedroom, surrounded by candy wrappers and San Pellegrino cans, with the blackout curtains pulled down at 10AM on a Tuesday.
Please do me a favor and Google “symptoms of perimenopause” if you have a loved one in her 40s. Just your ability to affirm that this is a real thing and she is not “crazy” or making stuff up will go a long way toward easing her suffering; believe it or not, minimizing/invalidating someone’s experience only makes things worse for them. 🤔💡And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in general, our society seems pretty uninterested in the experiences of women who have passed childbearing age, especially if those women have chosen to live childfree…but that’s a subject for an entire other blog post.
Here, let me save you some time in your research:
Today, my birthday, nudges me over to the far side of my fourth decade. Some might consider 46 officially “over the hill” (remember when “boomers” used to stick those signs in each other’s yards for their birthdays?) but I have never put much stock in the number. I mean, I’m still pretty active and reasonably fit — or I was before my husband brought home a cheesecake sampler yesterday for our early B-Day celebration. 😬
Plus, being engaged in recovery, therapy and graduate school means my mind is far more stimulated, open to expansion, and able to absorb new ideas than it ever was in my 20s and 30s.
People often tell me I “seem young,” and while they might really mean “act immature,” I at least give off the appearance of vitality.
For half of each month, anyway.
I fully understand what older folks mean when they say your body starts to break down just as you finally get all your other shit together. Lately, in the midst of my crying fits and anxiety attacks — and jelly bean binges, thanks to my mother-in-law’s ongoing insistence that adults need Easter baskets every year — I’ve found myself thinking, I got sober for this?!?!?
Intense flare-ups of underlying issues are certainly par for the course in addiction recovery, but this is getting ridiculous! Once a month, I have a ringside seat for Wrestlemania, starring depression and anxiety, and the powerful urge to self-medicate that inner turmoil might not be driving me to the liquor store, but it doesn’t stop me from beelining to the fridge/cupboard, to bed, and/or to my phone and social media — which often leads to buying things I do not really need and cannot really afford. The cycle feels eerily familiar, and vaguely shameful, and sends me burrowing deeper into my isolated shell.
If the above is sending up red flags in your mind, emblazoned with 🚩SUBSTITUTION! 🚩, you might be an addictions counselor! It’s tough when your job is to help others work through/change the same behavior patterns that you’re grappling with yourself!
It’s tough when you find yourself in middle age, still struggling to manage, let alone overcome, the same challenges you did in your teens. Sometimes I feel like the awareness of said challenges, which I’ve spent so much time building in adulthood, only makes the struggle worse.
Good thing I’m in a position right now where I can take a “mental health day” here and there, to circle the wagons without falling behind. I’ve already logged all my required internship hours and completed all my capstone assignments with one month to go before graduation, so deciding to skip the occasional “required” school assembly or leave class early or call out from work in the interest of self-care — you might even say self-preservation, given what could happen if I let these wild mood swings sweep me away — doesn’t hurt anything.
…Unless we’re talking about my chances of being selected for graduate commencement speaker. I did the interview last week, and it went as well as could be expected — the head of the search committee didn’t flinch when I said, “No one gives a shit about my 4.0 GPA, but my message is relatable!” 🤦🏼♀️ — but I got a rejection email a few days later. I wasn’t surprised; I just couldn’t see them choosing someone so neurotic and moody. Someone who wears their issues so blatantly on their sleeve at all times and doesn’t just fail at the old “fake it til you make it” method of getting ahead in the world, but is, like, allergic to trying.
It is something to celebrate, though, on this 46th birthday, which happens to coincide with 57 full months of continuous sobriety, that I was even considered to give a speech in the first place (note: there are about 100 people in the grad school Class of 2024, and only six made the interview phase).
Heck, the fact that I’m getting a master’s degree and doing a job where I help others improve their mental health — or at least feel less alone in their struggle — while also living drug- and alcohol-free in the midst of a really hard midlife transition period and a tough time in human history is worthy of…if not praise, at least a good round of men-applause. 😂
(If you do not get that joke, go back and watch the “Simpsons” clip!)
However imperfectly I’ve shown up in this era of my life — and make no mistake: I’ve shown up a lot more than I haven’t — has been “good enough” to make some kind of positive impact. I mean, look at what my one client brought me for what he (mistakenly) thought was our last session! 🥹
I also got birthday flowers from my in-laws, and they’re too beautiful not to share…
The “relatable message” I tried to relay to the commencement speaker committee is one I could stand to relate more to in trying times. It’s that no moment in our lives is a waste of time — not 20 years of addiction, not 7-10 years of battling an alien invasion of our aging bodies perimenopause, not 46 years of figuring out how to manage our mental health so we can improve our quality of life, not however long it takes to find a decent post-graduate job, get that counseling license and pay back our student loans, and certainly not a few skipped classes or days spent in bed alternately sobbing and gobbling up sugary goo!
Every good/bad/ugly experience is “grist for the mill” that can ultimately churn out positive byproducts. Like, compassion and love. Forgiveness and hope. Patience and acceptance, toward others and ourselves. Growth and change and all the related joy and pain. And gratitude for the whole big, ongoing mess, because as they say, getting old beats the alternative!
My interviewer said, “I’m hearing a lot of perseverance in your story. Maybe that’s your message.” And maybe he’s right. Because while some of us might be better at “faking it” on our quest to “make it,” whatever that means, we all wonder from time to time, “why?” Why press on, day after monotonous day, when the road has rough spots, uphill spots, dead ends and detours, and we can’t know where it will lead — until the final destination (🪦). Why actively try to do hard things when life is hard enough on its own — I mean, our own brains and bodies seem to be conspiring against us more and more with each passing year!
Look, I don’t really have definitive answers to any of that, despite my wise old age. But sitting here today, writing this in a greenhouse full of flowers, surrounded by balloons and staring at a stack of love notes sent to honor my birthday, cheer on my sobriety, and encourage me to keep on keeping on, I have more than enough reasons why.
Jen Wielgus Journalism 